“Being relevant to your customers only when you’re trying to sell something means choosing to be irrelevant to them for the rest of the time.”

“When you’re a manager, you work for your company. When you’re a leader, your company works for you.”

“When you’re not on your own agenda, you’re prey to the agenda of others.”

“The myth of management is that your personal values are irrelevant or inappropriate at work.”

“Profitability. Growth. Quality. Exceeding customer expectations. These are not examples of values. These are examples of corporate strategies being sold to you as values.”

“You can’t sell it outside if you can’t sell it inside.”

“Unfortunately, there’s no law against being smart and living stupid, no matter how harmful it may be to you. You can unknowingly ricochet away from your deepest values because you’ve mistakenly come to believe you don’t deserve to live them—and spend much of your life sabotaging what you want most by aiming for just the opposite. This doesn’t mean your values haven’t always been your values. They’re driving you still and they’re waiting for you still. Toss them away as forcefully as you want, then duck: boomerang.”