“As a leader, it is up to you to explain the bigger picture to him—and to all your front line leaders. That is a critical component of leadership”

But, in fact, discipline is the pathway to freedom.

For this reason, they must believe in the cause for which they are fighting.

And the more you build your will by doing hard things, the stronger your will becomes.

The goal of leadership seems simple: to get people to do what they need to do to support the mission and the team.

Remember: the enemy gets a vote.

Trust is not blindly given. It must be built over time.

The leader must own everything in his or her world.

Good leaders are rare; bad leaders are common.

A leader must care about the troops, but at the same time the leader must complete the mission, and in doing so there will be risk and sometimes unavoidable consequences to the troops.

Waiting for the 100 percent right and certain solution leads to delay, indecision, and an inability to execute.

Decisively engaged?

Even the most competent of leaders can be overwhelmed if they try to tackle multiple problems or a number of tasks simultaneously.

Relax. Look around. Make a call.

Don’t fight stress. Embrace it. Turn it on itself. Use it to make yourself sharper and more alert. Use it to make you think and learn and get better and smarter and more effective. Use the stress to make you a better you.

For leaders, the humility to admit and own mistakes and develop a plan to overcome them is essential to success. The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focused on the mission and how best to accomplish it.

In the business world, and in life, there are inherent complexities. It is critical to keep plans and communication simple.

Art, if it is successful, needs no explanation.

Never explain – your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

A foreign correspondent, after talking to me for a while, once said: “You don’t seem smart enough to be so good at what you’re doing. Do you have an explanation?”

Can you worship a God who isn’t obligated to explain His actions to you? Could it be your arrogance that makes you think God owes you an explanation?

I live my life as I deem appropriate and fitting; I offer no apologies, no explanations.

One cannot explain words without making incursions into the sciences themselves, as is evident from dictionaries; and, conversely, one cannot present a science without at the same time defining its terms.

Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment.

Not all things needs an explanation. Sometimes, all it needs is emotion.