EI Thought for the Day

"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.
Tao Te Ching

Embracing the Creative Process--at Work, In Life

“If you already knew it, it would not be creation but
dictation.”
Gertrude Stein

Are we Leveraging our Time Well?

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask. For once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

—Albert Einstein

Quote that Reminds--There are no Quick Fixes

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.
Heraclitus

Time for a Challenging Reminder from Thomas Merton

Why are we always so busy? Too busy for friends. Too busy to relax or have a moment to reflect on our lives. Does our busyness protect us from loneliness? Does it make us feel important?

I've shared this provocative quote before but it seems worth repeating. Written in the 1950's and ever more pertinent as life accelerates every year.

"There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence…overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form of innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone and everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy...destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
Thomas Merton

Perception: Always subjective

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are. - Anais Niin

Quote for the Day

Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change."
-- Stephen R. Covey© 2009

Quote for the Day

Always raise the bar. Hire people who are smarter and more capable than you, and make sure all your employees do the same. As your company grows, early employees should find themselves thinking "Wow, if I interviewed today, I would never get a job here!"

DFJ Frontier Management Company