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25 Life-Changing Lessons From Super-Successful Men

Some of the world's most brilliant men hand you the keys to their success.

Steve Jobs

"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life." — Steve Jobs

Russell Simmons

"I won't make a deal that's only favorable to me." — Russell Simmons

Jeff Bezos

"If you're not stubborn, you'll give up on experiments too soon. And if you're not flexible, you'll pound your head against the wall and you won't see a different solution to a problem you're trying to solve." — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

Mark Cuban

"Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don't find one, it's you." — Mark Cuban, AXS TV chairman and entrepreneur

Drew Houson

"Don't worry about failure; you only have to be right once." — Drew Houston, Dropbox founder

Tony Hsieh

"Chase the vision, not the money. The money will end up following you." — Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO

Richard Branson

"You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over." — Richard Branson, Virgin Group founder

Barack Obama

"Be useful, and be kind" — President Barack Obama

David Brinkley

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him." — David Brinkley

Warren Buffet

"Success is having what you want and wanting what you have, and having the people whom you love love you." — Warren Buffett

Robert Kyosaki

"It's not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for." — Rich Dad Company founder Robert Kiyosaki

Matthew Weiner

"If I wasn't able to recover from 'We don't like what you did,' I would have a different job or I would be living in my parent's basement." — Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men

Jack Dorsey

"Make every detail perfect and limit the number of details to perfect." — Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder

Bruce Lee

"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus." — Bruce Lee

Larry Ellison

"See things in the present, even if they are in the future." — Larry Ellison, Oracle co-founder

Denzel Washington

"Success? I don't know what that word means. I'm happy. But success, that goes back to what in somebody's eyes success means. For me, success is inner peace. That's a good day for me." — Denzel Washington

Dale Carnegie

"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing." — Dale Carnegie

Billy Mills

"The ultimate is not to win, but to reach within the depths of your capabilities and to compete against yourself to the greatest extent possible. When you do that, you have dignity. You have the pride. You can walk about with character and pride no matter in what place you happen to finish." — Billy Mills

Winston Churchill

"Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." — Winston Churchill

Howard Schultz

"Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical." — Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO

Biz Stone

"Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success." — Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder

Reid Hoffman

"The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be." — Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder

James Cameron

"If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success." — James Cameron

 

[President Obama photo: Frederic Legrand — COMEO/Shutterstock.com]

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