Dave Trott Quotes

As Churchill said, “Never let the truth spoil a good story.

Einstein said, ‘Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

People who are good want to grow. They want to get off this rung and onto the next rung. They want to get all the way up the ladder. So they’re not looking for praise, they’re looking for criticism.

Winners don’t pay attention to other people’s opinions. They pay attention to results.

As the economist J.M. Keynes said: “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas, as in escaping from the old ones.

But what I liked best was the matter-of-fact way we talked about it. Nowadays, of course, if anything is controversial we don’t talk about it. We sweep it under the carpet. Just in case, God forbid, it should make us uncomfortable. So we avoid talking about things. And that can’t be good. Stopping talking about things is the first stage in stopping thinking about things.

What gets action is what gets attention. What gets attention is what gets seen. So being visible, being impactful, is the most important part of any communication designed to change behaviour.

Welding a JCB to a Ferrari doesn’t make a machine that can dig roads at 200 mph. It makes something that can’t do either job properly.

The more varied the input, the more unexpected the combinations, the more creative the ideas.

No TV, no radio, no press ads, no posters. We found one thing that the banks are full of, that could be changed into media. Paper money. We got small printing kits from Ryman and printed: ‘STOP BANKS KILLING CHILDREN. CANCEL THE THIRD WORLD DEBT’ on every bank note we could get hold of.

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, had a similar view. He didn’t believe in research. He said, ‘It’s not the public’s job to know what they’re going to want. It’s my job to know what they’re going to want.

What works is being different. Don’t try to be liked. Find out how you’re different. Then be that. That’s where the power is. That’s what’s new. That’s what’s wanted.

She said, ‘Standard El Al procedure. If you check the passengers’ luggage, you have to fly on the plane.’ How about that? The person who inspects the passengers’ luggage for bombs has to bet their life on how well they do their job.

People love to believe wine is esoteric, so the more inscrutable he could make it, the better.

Don’t try to force or nag people into doing what you want. Accept that they are free to choose. But you help them choose what you want.