Mark Goulston

“Without the ambition to raise oneself to life's challenges, growth and innovation would never happen.”

“If, during childhood, you were fortunate to have a parent who drilled into you, 'You can be anything you want to be if you try hard enough at it,' and then supported you in actions, that is something you take with you all your life.”

“When you are continuing to be in debt or are going deeper into it, every time a creditor calls, it rubs your face not only in how vulnerable you are, but that people are out to get something from you that you don't have to give.”

“The crux is this: you can't be sincerely empathic towards and angry at someone at the same moment. In other words, you can't walk in someone else's shoes and step on their toes at the same time.”

“When winning is everything and everyone does whatever they need to win and to not lose, including lying, you have a world in which 'basic trust' is lost.”

“Speak the truth. People will forgive an honest mistake; they won't forgive you if you lie.”

“I know CEOs, and they get sick when they have to lay people off, especially around Christmas.”

“There will always be people who think that money and benefits and even just having a job should be thanks enough. There are also those that think they do a great job without anyone having to thank them. But study after study has shown that no one is immune from the motivating effects of acknowledgement and thanks.”

“People who can't take advantage of opportunity take advantage of people.”

“Something I had learned from 30 years as a psychotherapist turned Fortune 500 executive coach when helping people to calm down is that it is much less important what you tell others than what you enable them to tell you and, in the process, tell themselves that results in them calming themselves down.”

“In my life, I think I have had more than two hundred significant breakthroughs that exponentially accelerated my life forward. However, each and every one of them was preceded by a breakdown that was not pretty, was often scary, and often felt like something I would not get past.”

“People really don't like to be inconvenienced. If you don't agree with that, ask yourself how you like it when it happens to you.”

“Be comfortable in your own skin. Comfort and discomfort are contagious.”

“Men such as President Bill Clinton don't have trouble showing a warmth which works for him, but women in power seem hesitant to use their feminine charm in a man's world out of concern for appearing lightweight, manipulative, or needing to use it to make up for something that is lacking.”

“If instead of completely focusing on what you are doing, you are racing ahead to something shinier or to the next best thing, you will not develop excellence.”

“Self-esteem is crucial to how much or how little contentment you feel at the end of your life.”

“Too often, founders make decisions before determining whether they are the right thing to do. These decisions often create chaos in their companies where people are having to jump from the last 'great idea' to yet another unproven-and-about-to-be-poorly-executed one.”

“MIA stands for 'missing in action,' which is the way others can experience you when you're too busy multi-tasking, being pulled at by the world and by everything that's going on in your head, and, essentially, when you're too busy being busy.”

“One of the most important keys to getting through to anyone and then influencing them is to realize that inside everyone's mind, they listen to someone or something.”

“Show people a positive path that enables them to make progress on their own terms. Give them options and alternatives that empower them.”