Jim Collins

It’s not about finding what you can do better than others, but about finding what you can do exceptionally well relative to other ways you could expend yourself.

Most of all, I’ve come to see the power of changing the question from ‘What do you want your legacy to be after you are gone?’ to ‘What responsibilities will you choose right here, right now, with the limited time you have left on this earth?’”

Fog is not a defect. Fog is not a character flaw. Fog is not rare. Fog is normal, natural, common, and highly prevalent. … Even the most successful, capable, energetic, ambitious, and otherwise clearheaded and self-directed people can find themselves in a major fog funk.

I don’t think of the people in this study as inspirational; I think of them as inspired. I don’t aim to inspire you to be exactly like any of the specific people in this study. I hope, rather, that you’re able to find yourself clicked into frame, inspired by what fits your encodings and ignites your inner fire, and that you commit to pursue it with excellence.

I kept thinking about a line from the writer James A. Michener: ‘Critics are invaluable in advising me how to spend my money. They are not qualified to tell me how to spend my talent.

Not all time in life is equal. Some moments count more than other moments, when what you do in that moment has an outsized impact on the trajectory of a life. Luck events can serve up NATILIE [Not All Time In Life Is Equal] moments. The question is not whether you will get NATILIE moments in life, but whether you meet those moments with unequal intensity, summoning the best you have to give when the moment comes.

Your encodings are your encodings, regardless of what your parents or anyone else thinks they should be. And the task, first and foremost, is to trust your own encodings.

To review: To find a hedgehog means that you’ve found an arena of activity that meets three tests: You’re encoded for it, you flip the arrow of money in doing it, and it focuses the inner fire. To be in hedgehog mode means you’ve made a full commitment to organize your life and channel a huge chunk of your energy toward the pursuit of this One Big Thing.

There is a big difference between being in love with the idea of one’s work and being in love with doing the work itself. It means not just the love in the 0.001% highlight moments; it means love in the other 99.999%.

When you find something you are deeply encoded for and that ignites a raging fire within, the greatest reward for doing your work is the opportunity to continue doing it.

It’s not about finding what you can do better than others, but about finding what you can do exceptionally well relative to other ways you could expend yourself.

The question is not whether a person has encodings. Everyone has encodings. The question is this: Which encodings will the journey of life lead you to discover, and will you trust them enough to align your life around them?

Good is the enemy of great.

Life is way too long to give up early and way too short to be derailed from what we’re passionate about and made to do.

Level 5 leaders are incredibly ambitious, but they channel their ambition into building a great team or organization and accomplishing a shared mission that’s ultimately not about them.

The essence of Level 5 leadership is a paradoxical combination of personal humility and indomitable will.

The function of leadership—THE number-one responsibility of a leader—is to catalyze a clear and shared vision for the company and to secure commitment to and vigorous pursuit of that vision. This is a universal requirement of leadership, and no matter what your style, you must perform this function.

Bad luck can kill you, but good luck cannot make you great. As long as you don’t get a catastrophic stroke of bad luck that flat-out ends the game, what really matters is how well you play each hand over the long haul. How will you play this hand and the next—and every hand you’re dealt?

Profitability is a necessary condition for existence and a means to more important ends, but it is not the end in itself for many of the visionary companies. Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body; they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life.

The essence of Level 5 leadership is a paradoxical combination of personal humility and indomitable will. The humility expressed at Level 5 isn’t a false humbleness; it’s a subjugation of personal ego in service to a cause beyond oneself. This humility combined with the fierce resolve to do whatever it takes (no matter how difficult) to best serve that cause. Level 5 leaders are incredibly ambitious, but they channel their ambition into building a great team or organization and accomplishing a shared mission that’s ultimately not about them.”