Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you're just sitting still?
Interpretation
This quote highlights the importance of being proactive in one's career rather than passively going along with a large organization's momentum.
J. Paul Getty's quote emphasizes the necessity of personal initiative and active engagement in one's work life, particularly when working in large companies. It suggests that employees should not merely rely on the pace and success of the company but instead should evaluate their own contributions and growth within the corporate framework to ensure they are not just passively 'sitting still' as the company moves forward.
In practice
In a motivational speech at a corporate event to encourage employees to take ownership of their projects.
Today's dissenters mainly focus their attention and expend their energies on the most inconsequential of trivia. ...Allegedly serious intellectuals quibble endlessly over such ridiculous trivialities...In the meantime, the public is lulled into a perilous somnolence, spoon-fed pap, and palpable untruths, many of which are turned out by special-interest and pressure groups and well organized propaganda machines.
You must not only learn to live with tension, you must seek it out. You must learn to thrive on stress.
In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.
The #1 guideline to success is you must be in business for yourself. When you work for someone else, you sell your time at wholesale to your employer, who then re-sells it at retail to the customer.
Patience; this is the greatest business asset. Wait for the right time to make your moves.
There is only one way to make a great deal of money; and that is in a business of your own.
The game is my wife. It demands loyalty and responsibility, and it gives me back fulfillment and peace.
It is, after all, the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster's shell that makes the pearl, not pearl-making seminars with other oysters.
To win Best Director at Sundance was beyond anything I could have imagined for myself. It's still an incredible feeling to know I won. But as happy as I am about winning, I also know many other women of color have directed amazing films over the years that were equally deserving and didn't win.
Yes, winning the gold medal was undoubtedly the biggest day of my career - mostly because I won the way I had prepared to run it. It was a totally satisfying experience.
It is not sufficient that I succeed - all others must fail.
It's only lonely at the top if you forget all the people you met along the way and fail to acknowledge their contributions to your success.
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