We like to think that once we “make it” we can finally be ourselves, but based on who the companies selected, it was clear that the longer people stay at a company, the higher odds that they would become what the company wanted. I realized I didn’t want that to happen to me.

when we decide who we want to become — our definition of greatness, our Meaningful Mission — then that becomes our identity. And when our identity is clear, then our behaviors are easier to establish.

If we decide to think, feel, and act as the kind of person we want to be, we will become that person. We won’t just be behaving “like” that person; we will be that person.

People tend to become what the most important people in their lives think they will become.

You become what you envision yourself being.

one thing i have seen since becoming self-employed: there is a certain sort of serendipity which occurs for many - they follow their interests for years, become skilled at something, keep going, and then a company identities that value and is willing to pay a lot for it

Why else do any of this if not to become who we want to be?

Decide who you want to be, and then do that work.

When things go well, the reasons to stay at a company are many: Your career path is wide open because as the company grows lots of interesting jobs naturally open up. Your friends and family think you are a genius for choosing to work at the “it” company before anyone else knew it was “it.” Your résumé gets stronger by working at a blue-chip company in its heyday. Oh, and you are getting rich. When things go poorly, all those reasons become reasons to leave. In fact, the only thing that keeps an employee at a company when things go horribly wrong — other than needing a job — is that she likes her job.

We are not the person other people wish we were. We are who we decide to be.

When you take a job take a long look at the people you’re going to be working with — because the odds are you’re going to become like them; they are not going to become like you. You can’t change them. If it doesn’t fit who you are, it’s not going to work.

The moment when you really experience that you have created yourself being whatever way you are, at that same moment you will never have to be that way again.

There's a trick to being whatever you want to be in life. It starts with the simple belief that you are what or who you say you are.