Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train. Are you going sixty miles an hour or is the train going sixty miles an hour and you're just sitting still?
Interpretation
This quote highlights the importance of being proactive in one's career rather than passively going along with a large organization's momentum.
J. Paul Getty's quote emphasizes the necessity of personal initiative and active engagement in one's work life, particularly when working in large companies. It suggests that employees should not merely rely on the pace and success of the company but instead should evaluate their own contributions and growth within the corporate framework to ensure they are not just passively 'sitting still' as the company moves forward.
In practice
In a motivational speech at a corporate event to encourage employees to take ownership of their projects.
Today's dissenters mainly focus their attention and expend their energies on the most inconsequential of trivia. ...Allegedly serious intellectuals quibble endlessly over such ridiculous trivialities...In the meantime, the public is lulled into a perilous somnolence, spoon-fed pap, and palpable untruths, many of which are turned out by special-interest and pressure groups and well organized propaganda machines.
You must not only learn to live with tension, you must seek it out. You must learn to thrive on stress.
In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.
The #1 guideline to success is you must be in business for yourself. When you work for someone else, you sell your time at wholesale to your employer, who then re-sells it at retail to the customer.
Patience; this is the greatest business asset. Wait for the right time to make your moves.
There is only one way to make a great deal of money; and that is in a business of your own.
I think money is a wonderful thing because it enables you to do things. It enables you to invest in ideas that don't have a short-term payback.
...treasure what it means to do a day's work. It's our one and only chance to do something productive today, and it's certainly not available to someone merely because he is the high bidder. A day's work is your chance to do art, to create a gift, to do something that matters. As your work gets better and your art becomes more important, competition for your gifts will increase and you'll discover that you can be choosier about whom you give them to.
My advice for an entrepreneur just starting out is to differentiate yourself. Why are you different? What’s important about you? Why does the customer need you?
The key to India's success is its diversity. Our diversity is the core that makes us so unique. In this land we find a mix of states and regions, religions, languages, cultures, lifestyles and much more. We are so different and yet so similar and united.
Luck is the residue of design.
It's what you practice in private that you will be rewarded for in public.
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