As a business owner, I understand the importance of prioritizing your bottom line, but it's equally as important to consider how you can succeed while also thinking about the long-term impact on the community.

It's all about competitiveness: are you making the products that people really do want and value, and are you making it more efficiently and using less resources and less time than the competition?

"...piling up zeros in your bank account, or cars in your driveway, won't in and of itself make you successful. Rather, true success is based on a constant flow of giving and recieving. In fact, if you look up affluence in the dictionary, you'll see its root is a Latin phrase meaning "to flow with abundance". So in order to be truly affluent, you must always let what you have recieved flow back into the world."

Achievement must be made against the possibility of failure, against the risk of defeat. It is no achievement to walk a tightrope laid flat on the floor. Where there is no risk, there can be no pride in achievement and, consequently, no happiness. The only way we can advance is by going forward, individually and collectively, in the spirit of the pioneer. We must take the risks involved in our free enterprise system. This is the only way in the world to economic freedom. There is no other way.

The most successful people in this world recognize that taking chances to get what they want is much more productive than sitting around being too scared to take a shot.

Excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over again. You can hit a half-court shot once. That's just the luck of the draw. If you consistently do it... that's excellence.