My Current Top 100 Leadership and Business Quotes

No matter who we are, there are days when everything seems to be going absolutely perfect, and days when nothing seems to be going right. On those days that seem like we are in the midst of a valley, how do we push through to the next mountaintop?

One aspect of goal-setting we preach at LMI is the idea of visualization. For me, I decided that I needed to visualize positive, goal-oriented, success-driven quotes on a day-to-day basis to keep me going. I put together a simple Word Document that contains my current top 100 leadership and business quotes to keep me going.

I thought that I would share them with you. I hope they inspire you like they inspire me every day.

1. "Life is a struggle and the potential for failure is ever present, but those who live in fear of failure, or hardship, or embarrassment will never achieve their potential." - Admiral William H. McRaven
2. "Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power." - Seth Berkley
3. "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." - Harry S. Truman
4. "Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith." - Steve Jobs
5. "Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon, must inevitably come to pass!" - Paul J. Meyer
6. "The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today." - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
7. "Self-Motivation is the power that raises you to any level you seek." - Paul J. Meyer
8. "Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings." - Salvador Dali
9. "The role of a leader is not to come up with all the great ideas. The role of a leader is to create an environment in which great ideas can happen." - Simon Sinek
10. "Please think about your legacy, because you're writing it every day." - Gary Vaynerchuk
11. "A boss has the title. A leader has the people." - Simon Sinek
12. "You don't lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case." - Ken Kesey
13. "I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance." - Steve Jobs
14. "With goal setting, you are able to focus all your strengths on the primary purpose you choose for your life." - Paul J. Meyer
15. "It doesn't matter whether you are pursuing success in business, sports, the arts, or life in general: the bridge between wishing and accomplishing is discipline." - Harvey Mackay
16. "Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too." - William Hutchison Murray
17. "There is a powerful driving force inside every human being that, once unleashed, can make any vision, dream, or desire a reality." - Anthony Robbins
18. "It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, the ability to triumph begins with you always." - Oprah Winfrey
19. "Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing." - Peter Drucker
20. "Don't let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning." - Robert Kiyosaki
21. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Lao Tzu
22. "Leadership is not wielding authority - it's empowering people." - Becky Brodin
23. "When you discipline yourself to do the things you need to do when you need to do them, the day will come when you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them." - Zig Ziglar
24. "Live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else." - Dave Ramsey
25. "The greatest motivator of all is belief." - Paul J. Meyer
26. "The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to, every evening, think what can be done better tomorrow." - Ingvar Kamprad
27. "Good is the enemy of great." - Jim Collins
28. "Somebody somewhere is waiting on you to become what you were destined to be. Keep growing forward!" - Chris Hogan
29. "You have to have a big vision and take very small steps to get there. You have to be humble as you execute but visionary and gigantic in terms of your aspiration." - Jason Calacanis
30. "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou
31. "Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay." - Simone de Beauvoir
32. "Someone sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago." - Warren Buffett
33. "As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others." - Bill Gates
34. "Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline." - Jim Collins
35. "Fear is the disease. Hustle is the antidote." - Travis Kalanick
36. "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems." - Mohandas Gandhi
37. "How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be?" - Epictetus
38. "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." - Anais Nin
39. "We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained." - Marie Curie
40. "Work like there is someone working 24 hours a day to take it away from you." - Mark Cuban
41. "Personal leadership must come from the inside out. You cannot wait for someone else to push you; you must motivate yourself through goal setting." - Paul J. Meyer
42. "See things in the present, even if they are in the future." - Larry Ellison
43. "Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence." - Sheryl Sanberg
44. "Don't find the fault, find the remedy." - Henry Ford
45. "Change before you have to." - Jack Welch
46. "A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit." - Arnold H. Glasgow
47. "Visualizing the rewards of success is a concrete step toward achievement." - Paul J. Meyer
48. "There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away." - Winston Churchill
49. "Earn your leadership every day." - Michael Jordan
50. "The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership." - Harvey S. Firestone
51. "You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you." - Barbara Sher
52. "Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish." - Sam Walton
53. "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." - Thomas Edison
54. "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve." - Napoleon Hill
55. "The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new." - Socrates
56. "Success begins as an attitude before it becomes an actuality." - Paul J. Meyer
57. "Accept the challenges so you can feel the exhilaration of victory." - George S. Patton
58. “It’s so easy to be great nowadays, because everyone else is weak. If you have any mental toughness, if you have any fraction of self-discipline; The ability to not want to do it, but still do it; If you can get through to doing things that you hate to do: on the other side is GREATNESS.” - David Goggins
59. "We all have the ability to come from nothing to something." - David Goggins
60. "Don't wait on perfect conditions for success to happen; Just go ahead and do something." - Dan Miller
61. "Business leaders must become what we call infinite learners - those who not only enjoy learning but feel a constant need to acquire new skills." - Reid Hoffman
62. "True leadership lies in guiding others to success - in ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well." - Bill Owens
63. "Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm." - Publilius Syrus
64. "Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others." - Jack Welch
65. "To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work." - Sister Mary Lauretta
66. "Friday is a day to finish your goals for the week. It is a day to celebrate that which you set out to accomplish at the beginning of the week." - Byron Pulsifer
67. "Whatever you are, be a good one." - Abraham Lincoln
68. "People should learn less more, and not more less." - Ken Blanchard
69. "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." - Eleanor Roosevelt
70. "Friday can be a hard day especially if you have not followed through on your commitments." - Byron Pulsifer
71. "Success means different things to different people, but this definition applies to everyone: success is the progressive realization of worthwhile, predetermined, personal goals." - Paul J. Meyer
72. "A leader is not an administrator who loves to run others, but someone who carries water for his people so that they can get on with their jobs." - Robert Townsend
73. "Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality." - Warren G. Bennis
74. "If it is to be, it is up to me." - William H. Johnsen
75. "Winners never quit, and quitters never win." - Vince Lombardi
76. "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." - William Arthur Ward
77. "Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle." - Napoleon Hill
78. "You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety." - Abraham Maslow
79. "I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down." - Abraham Lincoln
80. "The last 10 percent it takes to launch something takes as much energy as the first 90 percent." - Rob Kalin
81. "People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives." - Theodore Roosevelt
82. "Your life is your message to the world. Make it inspiring." - Lorrin L. Lee
83. "Mediocrity with a dose of doubt can keep you from excellence." - Dave Ramsey
84. "Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions." - Harold S. Geneen
85. "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." - Henry Adams
86. "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." - Helen Keller
87. "The best metaskill you can learn is how to learn." - Shane Parrish
88. "Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don't wish it were easier; wish you were better." - Jim Rohn
89. "If you do not consciously decide ahead of time where you are going, you may very easily end up somewhere else." - Paul J. Meyer
90. "Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best." - Theodore Isaac Rubin
91. "To move the world, we must first move ourselves." - Socrates
92. "We are equipped with a vital reserve - an untapped potential that equals our needs. As goals, aims, and ambitions grow, our reserves grow." - Paul J. Meyer
93. "Goals are dreams with work boots on." - Dave Ramsey
94. "Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value." - Albert Einstein
95. "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit." - Aristotle
96. "Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning and focused effort." - Paul J. Meyer
97. "Most people simply never ask." - Steve Jobs
98. "Whether you think you can or you can't, either way, you are right." - Henry Ford
99. "The best way out is always through." - Robert Frost
100. "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I hope that these 100 quotes inspire you, and that you can draw from them consistently when you need something to pick you up and keep you moving forward. Please feel free to share this with others as well that may need some encouragement.

What is your favorite quote that keeps you moving forward?