5 Pieces of Inspiration Archive

For the 5 Pieces of Inspiration for earlier dates, select the menu item on the left that matches the date you are looking for.

Presentation Date: July 18, 2017

1. “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.” – Jim Rohn
2. “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – Christopher Robin, Winnie the Pooh
3. “Sometimes, you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” – Dr. Suess
4. “Experience is a good teacher, but she send in terrific bills.” – Minna Thomas Antrim
5. “There is no stigma attached to recognizing a bad decision in time to install a better one.” – Laurence J. Peter

Presentation Date: July 11, 2017

1. “For gosh sakes, it’s not a horse race as to how many business cards you can fling out there! What a turnoff.” – Beth Ramsey
2. “Networking is people looking for people looking for people.” – Unknown
3. “Be yourself: everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde
4. “It is better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” – Marilyn Monroe
5. “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” – Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter)

Presentation Date: June 27, 2017

1. “The nice thing about teamwork is that you always have others on your side.” – Margaret Carty
2. “None of us is as smart as all of us.” – Ken Blanchard
3. “The success of your job-hunt depends on you — with a little help from your friends. You must be in charge of it. You must plan it. You must direct it. You must know what works and what doesn’t work. Your job-hunt is by its very nature a ‘self-directed search.’” – Richard N. Bolles
4. “In order to create your future, you have to reconcile your past.” – John Tarnoff, Boomer Reinvention: How to Create Your Dream Career Over 50
5. “Earn your confidence, nurture it, then help to build it in others.” – Alex Malley

Presentation Date: June 20, 2017

1. “A reporter discovers, in the course of many years of interviewing celebrities, that most actors are more attractive behind a spotlight than over a spot of tea.” – Phyllis Battelle
2. “I was fortunate that I was at newspapers for eight years, where I wrote at least five or six stories every week. You get used to interviewing lots of different people about a lot of different things. And they aren’t things you know about until you do the story.” – Chuck Klosterman
3. “When you are interviewing someone, never let your camera person turn off the camera. The second you turn off the camera, they’ll say the magic thing that you’d been looking for the whole interview. People want to relax after the performance is done. Don’t be afraid of awkward silence. That is your friend.” – Marshall Curry
4. “I love conversation and the sharing of different thoughts and philosophies. That kind of stuff always makes me happy. I don’t mind interviews, either – I like doing them.” – John Lydon
5. “I sometimes find that in interviews you learn more about yourself than the person learned about you.” – William Shatner

Presentation Date: June 13, 2017

1. “Interviewing someone is a very proactive process and requires taking a lot of agency into your own hands to get past people’s general normal self-preservation mode.” – Brandon Stanton
2. “In most job interviews, people say they are looking for people skills and emotional intelligence. That’s reasonable, but the question is, how do you define what that looks like?” – Susan Cain
3. “I try to see interviewing as performance art, and just take it as it comes.” – Liz Phair
4. “My interviewing style and my approach to things is that, yes, it’s okay to be sincere; it’s okay to be yourself; it’s okay to be real.” – Eddie Trunk
5. “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.” – Ed Sheeran

Presentation Date: June 6, 2013

1. “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein
2. “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France
3. “I never really marketed myself, so each job I was given was a new marketing tool, and that would be the way I marketed myself.” – Jane Curtin
4. “I have become a marketing tool and I feel very uncomfortable with that. There’s no space for me to express myself.” – Janet McTeer
5. “Write when drunk. Edit when sober. Marketing is the hangover.” – Ashwin Sanghi

Presentation Date: May 30, 2017

1. “It occurs to me that our survival may depend upon our talking to one another.” – Dan Simmons, Hyperion
2. “I know I seem really friendly, but I’m a closet introvert.” – Lauren Myracle
3. “My Golden Rule of Networking is simple: Don’t keep score.” – Harvey Mackay
4. “There was a point when I was 15 or 16 that I realized that my father wanted me to be a loner. I decided, ‘It’s okay to be an introvert, but I don’t want to be a loner. I want a few other people in my life.'” – Mark Vonnegut
5. “For those of us who aren’t great with people, we figure that silence is always the safest bet. If you’re an introvert, you spend so much of your time wishing that other people would just shut the hell up that you figure you’re doing everyone a favor.” – David Wong

Presentation Date: May 16, 2017

1. “I feel therefore I am.” – Amit Abraham
2. “The key to achieving desired results and gaining freedom from unwanted feelings lies within you.” – Maddy Malhotra
3. “The brain is your emotional cockpit. Lots of buttons and levers. Best to learn how to steer responsibly.” – Lisa Cypers Kamen
4. “The rational mind usually doesn’t decide what emotions we ‘should’ have!” – Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
5. “If you’re going to be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.” -Marilyn Monroe

Presentation Date: May 9, 2017

1. “What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
2. “The human body is the best picture of the human soul.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein
3. “I speak two languages, Body and English.” – Mae West
4. “The body never lies.” – Martha Graham
5. “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw

Presentation Date: May 2, 2017

1. “Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.” – David Lloyd George
2. “I think everyone should experience defeat at least once during their career. You learn a lot from it.” – Lou Holtz
3. “Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. “I love the idea of renaissance. If my career is like painting a canvas, I want to have as many different colors in there as I can.” – Nolan Gerard Funk
5. “Death is very often referred to as a good career move.” – Buddy Holly

Presentation Date: April 25, 2017

1. “Financial illiteracy is like being in a rain storm and trying to jump in between the raindrops… eventually it all catches you at the same time.” – Johnnie Dent Jr.
2. “Saving is a great habit but without investing and tracking, it just sleeps” – Manoj Arora, From the Rat Race to Financial Freedom
3. “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.” – Henry Ford
4. “Truth will not make us rich, but it will make us free.” – Will Durant, the intro to The Story of Philosophy
5. “It’s not what you’ve lost that counts.  It’s what you do with what’s left.” – Charlie McGonegal

Presentation Date: April 18, 2017

1. “Before anything else, getting ready is the secret of success.” – Henry Ford
2. “Solving the problem means helping the customer to understand why you’re the best person for the job.” – Chris Murray, Selling with EASE: The Four Step Sales Cycle Found in Every Successful Business Transaction
3. “When the final result is expected to be a compromise, it is often prudent to start from an extreme position.” – John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace
4. “Don’t just write a “To Do” list. Write a “To Be” list.” – Karen Salmansohn
5. “The trick to negotiation was to hold all the cards going in and, even if you didn’t, to try to look as though you did.” – Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

Presentation Date: April 11, 2017

1. “A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.” – Henrik Ibsen
2. “If people support independently owned small businesses in their community, they can make a difference.” – Kenneth Chenault
3. “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” – Winston Churchill
4. “Decent work is at the heart of the search for dignity for the individual, stability for the family and peace in the community.” – Unknown
5. “When all is said and done, the real citadel of strength of any community is in the hearts and minds and desires of those who dwell there.” – Everett Dirksen

Presentation Date: April 4, 2017

1. “Do not get upset with people or situations, both are powerless without your reaction.” – Unknown
2. “The better organized you are in the simple things, the more spontaneous and free you can be in the more important things.” – Brian Tracy
3. “The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.” – James Baldwin
4. “Goals are a preview of future events and experiences in your life.” – Mark Victor Hansen
5. “In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.” – Paul Harvey

Presentation Date: March 28, 2017

1. “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” – Unknown
2. “Stop thinking about what could go wrong and think of what could go right.” – Unknown
3. “Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.” – Oprah Winfrey
4. “The man on the top of the mountain didn’t fall there.” – Vince Lombardi
5. “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” – Henry Ford

Presentation Date: March 21, 2017

1. “If you find what you do each day seems to have no link to any higher purpose, you probably want to rethink what you’re doing.” – Ronald A. Heifetz, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World
2. “I’d rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate.” – George Burns
3. “Don’t downgrade your dream just to fit your reality. Upgrade your conviction to match your destiny.” – Unknown
4. “The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.” – William Gibson
5. “I’m OLD not OBSOLETE!”- Arnold Schwarzenegger – Terminator: Genesis 2015

Presentation Date: March 14, 2017

1. “The number one things you don’t want is for people to be indifferent about your brand.” – John Morgan, Brand Against the Machine
2. “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” – David Ogilvy
3. “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at” – Leo Burnett
4. “When you photograph a face … you photograph the soul behind it.” – Jean-Luc Godard
5. “Once the amateur’s naive approach and humble willingness to learn fades away, the creative spirit of good photography dies with it. Every professional should remain always in his heart an amateur.” – Alfred Eisenstaedt

Presentation Date: March 7, 2017

1. “People are in such a hurry to launch their product or business that they seldom look at marketing from a bird’s eye view and they don’t create a systematic plan. ” -Dave Ramsey
2. “In marketing I’ve seen only one strategy that can’t miss – and that is to market to your best customers first, your best prospects second and the rest of the world last.” – John Romero
3. “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker
4. “We need, first of all, for there to be accountability, for there to be somebody who is responsible for enforcing standards and holding people’s feet to the fire.” – Jennifer Granholm
5. “It’s not the days in your life, but the life in your days that counts.” – Brian White

Presentation Date: February 28, 2017

1. “Like all those possessing a library, Aurelian was aware that he was guilty of not knowing his in its entirety.” – Jorge Luis Borges
2. “The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history.” – Carl T. Rowan
3. “A personal library is a reflection of who you are and who you want to be, of what you value and what you desire, of how much you know and how much more you’d like to know.” – Michael Dirda
4. “Everything you need for better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library.” – Henri Frederic Amiel
5. “Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” – Zora Neale Hurston

Presentation Date: February 21, 2017

1. “Finding WHY is a process of discovery, not invention.” – Simon Sinek
2. “Success comes when we wake up every day in that never-ending pursuit of why we do what we do.” – Simon Sinek
3. “Every day I spend in Hollywood, I start to realize how many films are made with no heart and no love. They just do it for the paycheck, and I cannot imagine making a film that way.” – Fede Alvarez
4. “People don’t buy ‘what’ you do, they buy ‘why” you do it.” – Simon Sinek
5. “Perhaps that is the secret. It is not what we do, so much as why we do it.” – Tyrion Lannister (Game of Thrones)

Presentation Date: February 14, 2017

1. “To me, no one has fully cracked the code on social recruiting yet.” – Eric Lefkofsky
2. “Recruiting talent is no different than any other challenge a startup faces. It’s all about selling.” – Vivek Wadhwa
3. “A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people.” – Jim Collins
4. “Active participation on LinkedIn is the best way to say, ‘Look at me!’ without saying ‘Look at me!” – Bobby Darnell
5. “If you can hire people whose passion intersects with the job, they won’t require any supervision at all. They will manage themselves better than anyone could ever manage them. Their fire comes from within, not from without. Their motivation is internal, not external.” – Stephen Covey

Presentation Date: February 7, 2017

1. “Some introverts are perfectly comfortable with public speaking; I’m not one of them.” – Susan Cain
2. “Too many people spend too much time trying to perfect something before they actually do it. Instead of waiting for perfection, run with what you go, and fix it along the way…” – Paul Arden
3. “Honestly, if everyone likes what you say something is wrong with your message.” – Ashley Ormon
4. “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.” – Winston S. Churchill
5. “There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.” – Jean de la Bruyere

Presentation Date: January 31, 2017

1. “The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.” – Tom Peters
2. “How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” – Wayne Dyer
3. “I’m a true believer in karma. You get what you give, whether it’s bad or good.” – Sandra Bullock
4. “You can’t get there alone. People have to help you, and I do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth, by being earnest.” – Randy Pausch
5. “Figure out what you’re good at and start helping other people with it; give it away. Pay it forward. Karma sort of works because people are very consistent. On a long enough timescale, you will attract what you project.” – Naval Ravikant

Presentation Date: Jan 24, 2017

1. “I’m a big believer that life changes as much as you want it to.” – Martin Freeman
2. “The only reason I look back is to check if I’ve been doing something wrong. I look at things from even three years ago and think, ‘I wouldn’t do that now.’ Your life changes.” – Stewart Lee
3. “Many people come to reinvention when life changes around them, but people come in all different stripes. I’m oriented to change.” – Jane Pauley
4. “What happens is not as important as how you react to it.” – Unknown
5. “You’ve got to jump off cliffs, all the time, and build your wings on the way down.” – Ray Bradbury

Presentation Date: Jan 17, 2017

1. “If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” – Booker T. Washington
2. “From my early school days, I was brought up with the belief that we have a duty to use our talents, to volunteer and to make a contribution.” – Michael Hintze
3. “The heart of a volunteer is not measured in size, but by the depth of the commitment to make a difference in the lives of others.” – DeAnn Hollis
4. “Volunteering creates a national character in which the community and the nation take on a spirit of compassion, comradeship and confidence.” – Brian O’Connell
5. “Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in.” – Unknown

Presentation Date: Jan 10, 2017

1. “Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” – Lou Holtz
2. “Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
3. “For me, motivation is a person who has the capability to recruit the resources he needs to achieve a goal.” – Arsene Wenger
4. “Hope is the motivation that empowers the unemployed, enabling them to get out of bed every single morning with unbounded enthusiasm as they look for work.” – Emanuel Cleaver
5. “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar

Presentation Date: Jan 3, 2017

1. “Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” – Jim Rohn
2. “You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.” – Georgia O’Keeffe
3. “What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.” – Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
4. “Accomplishment is socially judged by ill defined criteria so that one has to rely on others to find out how one is doing.” – Albert Bandura
5. “I look upon another’s insistence on the merits of his or her life – duties, intellect, accomplishment – and see that most of it is nonsense.” – Harold Brodkey