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Excellence is not an aspiration. Excellence is what you do in the next five minutes.

Tom Peters

Passion. The life of an entrepreneur is occasionally exhilarating, and almost always exhausting. Only unbridled passion for the concept is likely to see you through the 17-hour days (month after month) and the painful mistakes that are part and parcel of the start-up process.
TOM PETERS

Concept Exhilarating Mistake Occasionally Passion Peace
To meet the demands of the fast-changing competitive scene, we must simply learn to love change as much as we have hated it in the past.
TOM PETERS

Change Demand Past
Bold botches are to be cherished.
TOM PETERS

Botches Cherished Country People
Oh Lord, there it is again. The question;” What kind of business should I start?” Incidentially, it has a twin that also sets me off: “What should I specialize in during the second year of my MBA studies?”
TOM PETERS

Business Incidentally Sorry Specialization Years
Lists simplify, clarify, edify.
TOM PETERS

Edify Lists Simplify
Dot the i’s, cross the t’s, answer the phones promptly, send out errorless invoices, and in general never forget that the devil is in the details.
TOM PETERS

Devil Entrepreneur Phones
I find digital content much easier and more rewarding to interact with on screen than printed on paper.
TOM PETERS

Digital Easier Paper
The delivery and presentation media are important, and each format has its advantages and disadvantages, but ultimately I just want to read what I want to read, when and where I want.
TOM PETERS

Important Media Ultimately Want
I believe in the age of the Internet, Facebook and Twitter, that relationships are everything.
TOM PETERS

Age Believe Internet
Excellence is not an aspiration. Excellence is what you do in the next five minutes.
TOM PETERS

Excellence Minutes Next
Business ceases to be work when you’re chasing a dream that has engorged you. (“Work should be more fun than fun” – Noel Coward.) And if the passion isn’t there. then biotech and plumbing will be equal drags.
TOM PETERS

Biotech Business Cease Dream Engorged
What gets measured gets done.
TOM PETERS

Done Inspirational Customer Service Measurement
The number one premise of business is that it need not be boring or dull. It ought to be fun. If it’s not fun, you’re wasting your life.
TOM PETERS

Business Creativity Fun
The good news – and it is largely good news – is that everyone has a chance to stand out. Everyone has a chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills. Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark
TOM PETERS

Builds Chance Everyone News Skills
If future competitiveness depends on treating people as an important part of the institution, the least respectful thing I can imagine doing to a human being is asking him to urinate in a cup.
TOM PETERS

Asking Important People
Winners must learn to relish change with the same enthusiasm and energy that we have resisted it in the past.
TOM PETERS

Change Learning Past
Momentum is a fragile force. Its worst enemy: procrastination. Its best friend: a deadline (think Election Day). Implication no. 1 (and there is no no. 2): Get to work! NOW!
TOM PETERS

Enemy Procrastination Thinking Worst
Don’t ‘tolerate’ mistakes. Embrace them!
TOM PETERS

Business Mistake Training
Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.
TOM PETERS

Inspirational Inspiring Life
I think economics is about passion. Economic progress, whether it is a two-person coffee shop or whether it is Netscape, is about people with brave ideas. Because it is brave to mortgage the house, when you’ve got two kids, to start a coffee shop.
TOM PETERS

Coffee Kids Passion
Formula for success: under promise and over deliver.
TOM PETERS

Educational Inspirational Success
The race will go to the curious, the slightly mad, and those with an un-satiated passion for learning and dare-deviltry.
TOM PETERS

Deviltry Mad Passion Race
Authority never matches responsibility. That’s one of the great myths and delusions of all times. Winning managers and individual performers at all levels know that effectiveness means building your own network and creating your own authority.
TOM PETERS

Individual Levels Mean Military War
A completely free library is as rare as a truly free lunch.
TOM PETERS

Free Library Lunch Rare
If there is a single tragic flaw that mars our biggest enterprises, it is conservatism – the failure to fail, and fail big, in an era of unprecedented volatility and ambiguity.
TOM PETERS

Ambiguity Era Flaws Mars Unprecedented Volatility
All white-collar work is project work. The single salient fact that touches all of our lives is that work is being reinvented.
TOM PETERS

Facts Life Reinvented White
With most competitors moving ever faster, the race will go to those who listen (and respond) most intently.
TOM PETERS

Faster Moving Race

Excellence is not an aspiration. Excellence is what you do in the next five minutes.

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Excellence is not an aspiration. Excellence is what you do in the next five minutes.

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