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While we are still deep in the woods of a government shutdown, I thought it would be interesting to sum up some of our former Defense Secretary’s words of wisdom.
Rumsfeld may not have done everything right, but some of his quotes are priceless. What’s more they appeal to Startups quite nicely…
1 If you are working from your inbox, you are working on other people’s priorities.
2 Men count up the faults of those who keep them waiting.
3 In unanimity, there may well be either cowardice or uncritical thinking.
4 Test ideas in the marketplace. You learn from hearing a range of perspectives.
5. You can’t recover a fumble unless you’re on the field. Get out there.
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6. First law of holes. If you get in one, stop digging.
7. Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.
8. You pay the same price for doing something halfway as for doing it completely so you might as well do it completely.
9. It is difficulties that show what men are.
10. What you measure, improves.
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11. If you are lost, “climb, conserve and confess”
12. It is not the strongest species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
13. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
14. People don’t spend money earned by others with the same care that they spend their own.
15. Disagreement is not disloyalty.
Related: Why a CTO must never do this
16. A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth gets its shoes on.
17. It is easier to convince someone they’re right, than to convince them they’re wrong.
18. Your best question is often why.
19. Simply because a problem is shown to exist, it doesn’t necessarily follow that there is a solution.
20. The world is run by those who show up.
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21. Don’t panic. Things may be going better than they seem from the inside.
22. Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate closely to the amount of publicity you get.
23. Sunshine is a weather report, a flood is news.
24. If you expect people to be in on the landing, include them in the takeoff.
25. If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it.
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