Quotes from “The 100 Simple Secrets of Successful People" by David Niven

• Knowledge isn’t going to track you down and force itself upon you.
• You can spend incredible effort inefficiently and gain nothing. Or, you can spend modest efforts efficiently and be rewarded.
• While you ultimately seek the final outcome, you still have to work piece by piece.
• According to research, life satisfaction is 22 percent more likely for those with a steady stream of minor accomplishments than those who express interest only in major accomplishments.
• Positive change in your life will not be finished today, but it can start today.
• Write down the directions: If you were taking a complicated route out of town, you would write down the directions. But if you were considering the future path of you life, your goals, and what you needed to achieve them, you probably wouldn’t write any of it down.
• Get experience any way you can.
• Your success is far more dependant on your behavior now than it is based upon where you grew up, where you went to school, or whether your path so far has been easy or difficult.
• Inadequate sleep reduces innovative thinking by 60 percent and flexibility in decision making by 39 percent.
• BOREDOM IS THE ENEMY. When evaluating a job opportunity, don’t just worry about the salary and workload; investigate how much variety there is in the tasks you’ll perform.
• People who are prone to use stereotypes in assessing themselves and others are 39 percent more likely to believe that opportunities are limited for others and themselves.
• If you seek to lead, your ability will ultimately be measured in the successes of those around you.
• When the top goes bad, then the rest of the organization goes bad.
• Over eight in ten people will support their friends moving up beyond them, even support the advancement of peers who they are not friendly with, if they feel the promotion was based on achievements and ability.
• Success in life is not a matter of getting everything. Success is a matter of getting what you need.
• People who care do a better job in everything they do.
• When asked to describe significant regrets in their lives, more than eight out of ten people focused on actions they did not take rather than actions they did. In other words, they focused on things they failed to do rather than things they failed at doing.
• People who find their lives fulfilling care about those around them.
• We need some stability in our lives to be able to function.
• You can’t just change jobs to make yourself into a new person.
• It’s easier to put off doing something difficult, and it’s comforting to tell ourselves that we’ll get around to it later. It makes today easier, but it makes tomorrow much more difficult.
• Customers were 70 percent more likely to continue to do business in the store if they found the employees satisfied with their jobs.
• Low levels of career interest are associated with low enjoyment of life overall and even greater dissatisfaction with family life.