It isn't enough to think outside the box. Thinking is passive. Get used to acting outside the box.
Tim FerrissRead
People are fond of using the its not what you know, its who you know adage as an excuse for inaction, as if all successful people are born with powerful friends. Nonsense.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Connections can help, but success also depends on individual effort and skill.
Tim Ferriss highlights the common belief that success is solely dependent on knowing influential people, arguing against this notion. He asserts that while having a network can be beneficial, it does not replace the importance of personal effort and capability in achieving success, thus encouraging individuals to take initiative rather than rely solely on connections.
Themes
SuccessConnectionsActionEffortSkill
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about entrepreneurship to emphasize the importance of hard work.
More from Tim Ferriss
All quotes →The way we measure productivity is flawed. People checking their BlackBerry over dinner is not the measure of productivity.
Tim FerrissRead
It's just astonishing to me, but not surprising in some respects, how dependent we are on the somewhat meaningless and certainly ephemeral feedback that we get from strangers on the Internet. I think that's a dangerous dependence to develop.
Tim FerrissRead
I always point people to the article '1,000 True Fans' by Kevin Kelly. If you choose your thousand ideal customers or readers properly and find the single author blog that targets that audience, you never have to do any more marketing. You're done. That is a lesson that very few product developers and marketers have learned, and it's unfortunate.
Tim FerrissRead
By using money as the scapegoat and work as our all-consuming routine, we are able to conveniently disallow ourselves to do otherwise: 'John, I'd love to talk about the gaping void I feel in my life, the hopelessness that hits me like a punch in the eye every time I start my computer in the morning, but I have so much work to do! I've got at least three hours of unimportant email to reply to before calling prospects who said 'no' yesterday. Gotta run!
Tim FerrissRead
Being busy is a form of laziness - lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.
Tim FerrissRead
Similar quotes
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.
Earl NightingaleRead
Why don't you think we should dream of an African team winning the World Cup for the first time? People never allow this thought to cross their minds, and it is shameful. When you try to even say it, people look at you as if you're joking, but they forget that dreaming is the first step to success.
Samuel Eto'ORead
I don't feel like a wealthy person. Other people think of me as a wealthy person, but I don't. I feel the same as when I was a fifth-year associate trying to make partner at Lehman Brothers. I haven't changed.
Stephen A. SchwarzmanRead
Clearly, when you win everything, it's fun. That doesn't necessarily mean you love the game more.
Roger FedererRead
I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people's efforts than 100% of my own efforts.
John D. RockefellerRead
I think success is being exactly who God called us to be and fighting to your death to live that out.
LecraeRead