Quotes about Choice

treasure what it means to do a day's work. It's our one and only chance to do something productive today, and it's certainly not available to someone merely because he is the high bidder. A day's work is your chance to do art, to create a gift, to do something that matters. As your work gets better and your art becomes more important, competition for your gifts will increase and you'll discover that you can be choosier about whom you give them to.

Learning is not done to you, it is something you choose to do.

You get to keep making art as long as you are willing to make the choices that let you make your art.

The only choice we have is to begin. And the only place to begin is where we are. Simply begin. But begin.

The next time you catch yourself being average when you feel like quitting, realize that you have only two good choices: Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.

Pick me, pick me" acknowledges the power of the system and passes responsibility to someone else to initiate. Even better, "pick me, pick me" moves the blame from you to them. If you don't get picked, it's their fault, not yours. If you do get picked, well, they said you were good, right? Not your fault anymore. Reject the tyranny of picked. Pick yourself.

Let's define dumb as being different from stupid. Dumb means you don't know what you're supposed to know. Stupid means you know it but make bad choices. […] Dumb used to be a by-product of lack of access, bad teachers, or poor parenting. Today, dumb is a choice, one that's made by individuals who choose not to learn. If you don't know what you need to know, that's fixable. But first you have to want to fix it.

Choose your customers, choose your future.

Emotional labor is the hard work of making art, producing generosity, and exposing creativity. Working without a map involves both vision and the willingness to do something about what you see. Emotional labor is what you get paid to do, and one of the most difficult types of emotional labor is staring into the abyss of choice and picking a path.

You weren't born to be a cog in the giant industrial machine. You were trained to become a cog. There's an alternative available to you.

While it's calming to be reassured, it never lasts. As soon as we hear the words, the feeling begins to fade away. There's never enough reassurance to make up for a lack of commitment to the practice. We have no choice other than to trust ourselves enough to lead the way.

The difference between backing off and doing nothing may appear subtle, but it's not. A leader who backs off is making a commitment to the power of the tribe, and is alert to the right moment to step back in. Someone who is doing nothing is merely hiding. Leadership is a choice. It's the choice to not do nothing. Lean in, back off, but don't do nothing.