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 want people to remember that greatness is not a sports term. It's a life term.
You know, I never looked down the road and said, 'Hey look, one day, the Hall of Fame.' It's always about playing each and every game 100 percent and I thank my teammates for getting me into the Hall because football is a team sport, not an individual sport.
Vision gets the dreams started. Dreaming employs your God-given imagination to reinforce the vision. Both are part of something I believe is absolutely necessary to building the life of a champion, a winner, a person of high character who is consistently at the top of whatever game he or she is in.
This is an extraordinary achievement, nearly nine years in the making.
The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity.
Success and failure are equally disastrous.
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