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

“The word attitude doesn’t mean you should be committed and loyal to your supervisor. Attitude means dedicated, committed and more clinical to the work you do and the company you’re doing the work for.”

“Your company really has to work for you before you’ll really work for your company.”

“Because you’re such a good salesman, and if you go work for a company, they’re going to use you as a salesman. If you’re going to be a salesman, you might as well be selling something worthwhile, like education”

“Give serious thought to why your company should care about your strategy. Specifically, find problems that the board wants to be solved. What are senior managers scared of? Part of becoming a credible strategic thinker is learning effective approaches to selling ideas for your situation. You’ll know that you’re getting better at selling (or pitching) strategy when managers start coming to you when there is strategic thinking to be done.”

“If you’re creative, if you can think independently, if you can articulate passion, if you can override the fear of being wrong, then your company needs you more than it ever did. And now your company can no longer afford to pretend that isn’t the case. So dust off your horn and start tooting.”