Disrupt You! (2015)

Disrupt You! Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation (2015); page numbers refer to the 2015 Flatiron Books 288 page edition, ISBN 1250059372.

• All disruption starts with introspection.
  • p. 5
• You have a choice: pursue your dreams or be hired by someone else to help them fulfill their dreams.
  • p. 7
• Lifelong learning is no longer a luxury but a necessity for employment.
  • p.64
• All businesses — no matter if they make dog food or software — don't sell products, they sell solutions.
  • p. 4
• There is a difference between failing and failure. Failing is trying something that you learn doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the towel and giving up.
  • p. 12
• Disruption causes vast sums of money to flow from existing businesses and business models to new entrants.
  • p. 17
• There are riches to be found simply by capturing the value released through others' disruptive breakthroughs.
  • p. 22
• The majority of people are not willing to risk what they have built for the opportunity to have something better.
  • p. 24
• Would you rather work forty hours a week at a job you hate or eighty hours a week doing work you love?
  • p. 24
• Security doesn't rob ambition; the illusion of security robs ambition.
  • p. 25
• Disruption isn't about what happens to you, it's about how you respond to what happens to you.
  • p. 27
• Self-disruption is akin to undergoing major surgery, but you are the one holding the scalpel.
  • p. 30
• In life, you get what you believe you deserve.
  • p. 35
• A negative mind will never find success. I have never heard a positive idea come from a person in a negative state.
  • p. 39
• The most successful people have the same twenty-four hours in a day that you do.
  • p. 42
• A dream with a deadline is a goal.
  • p. 42
• Your energy is a valuable resource, distribute it wisely.
  • p. 42
• Accepting that the odds are against you is the same as accepting defeat before you begin.
  • p. 46
• If you don't know where you want to be in five years, how do you ever expect to get there?
  • p. 47
• Starting each day with a positive mindset is the most important step of your journey to discovering opportunity.
  • p. 49
• You can truly have it all, just not all at the same time.
  • p. 50
• Plan for ways to get more enjoyment into your life and you will get more joy out of it.
  • p. 51
• A career is just a longer trip with a whole lot more baggage.
  • p. 51
• You will have more regrets for the things you didn't try than the ones you tried and didn't succeed at.
  • p. 53
• Building a career or a company is about living a few years of your life like most people won't so that you can spend the rest of your life living at a level most people can't.
  • p. 55
• The difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that successful ones know that the most unprofitable thing ever manufactured is an excuse.
  • p. 56
• Be the best at what you do or the only one doing it.
  • p. 61
• The most important tool you have on a resume is language.
  • p. 65
• Whether driven by ambition or circumstance, every career gets disrupted.
  • p. 75
• The business world is littered with the fossils of companies that failed to evolve. Disrupt or be disrupted. There is no middle ground.
  • p. 82
• Corporate planning cycles are a classic example of generals fighting the last ware over again instead of preparing for what might lie ahead.
  • p.84
• An average idea enthusiastically embraced will go further than a genius idea no one gets.
  • p.93
• "Speed to Fail" should be every entrepreneur's motto. When you finally find the one idea that can't be killed, go with it.
  • p.101
• If you can imagine a solution, you can make it happen.
  • p.104
• A disruptor finds opportunity and profit from his misfortunes.
  • p.107
• Problems are just businesses waiting for the right entrepreneur to unlock the value.
  • p.109
• Insight and drive are all you need. Everything else can be hired.
  • p.109
• The trouble with most entrepreneurs is that they would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.
  • p.115
• Data has no ego and makes an excellent copilot.
  • p.119
• Success doesn't teach as many lessons as failure does.
  • p.122
• Data is the most rational and productive member of any startup team. Data may disappoint, but it never lies.
  • p.124
• Most startup failures result from entrepreneurs who are better at making excuses than products.
  • p.128
• Every threat to the status quo is an opportunity in disguise.
  • p.132
• Billions of dollars in research knowledge lie dormant at universities waiting for the right disruptor to come along and create a business.
  • p.140
• The harder I work, the luckier I get.
  • p.151
• Those who recognize the inevitability of changes stand to benefit the most.
  • p.168
• What's at the heart of all sales and marketing: creating demand even in the absence of logic.
  • p.169
• The customer is always right. Even when they're wrong.
  • p.177
• Solve for others to solve for you.
  • p.198
• You'll never know how close you are to victory if you give up.
  • p.201
• Crowdsourcing is the ultimate disruptor, because in a most Zenlike fashion, the content is controlled by all and none at the sme time.
  • p.206
• Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves.
  • p.219
• A free and open Internet is a despot's worst enemy.
  • p.235
• Your future -our world's future- is far more malleable and controllable than most people realize.
  • p.240
• No obstacle is so big that one person with determination can't make a difference.
  • p.241
• No leader got there by following another's path. Better to walk alone than follow a crowd going in the wrong direction.
  • p.241