If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
Paul NewmanRead
I wasn't running toward the theater but running away from the sporting goods store. Of course now that I'm selling spaghetti sauce (with Newman's Own), I begin to understand the romance of business.. the allure of being the biggest fish in the pond and the juice you get from beating out your competitors.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the transition from a conventional career path to finding passion in entrepreneurship.
Paul Newman reflects on his unexpected journey from the sporting goods industry to selling spaghetti sauce, illustrating how business can be both a romantic venture and a competitor-driven landscape. He acknowledges the excitement and thrill that comes from competition in the business world, likening it to being the 'biggest fish in the pond' while recognizing the allure that drives entrepreneurs.
In practice
This quote could be used in a business seminar to inspire entrepreneurs.
If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you.
Twenty-five years ago I couldn`t walk down the street without being recognized. Now I can put a cap on, walk anywhere and no one pays me any attention. They don`t ask me about my movies and they don`t ask me about my salad dressing because they don`t know who I am. Am I happy about this? You bet.
A dollar won is twice as sweet as a dollar earned.
I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking.
Dreams without movement are delusions, escapes, kid’s play. You have to put your feet into your dreams if they’re ever going to be reality. The dreamers we know and love today are the ones who worked the hardest
I respect generosity in people, and I respect it in companies too, I don't look at it as philanthropy; I see it as an investment in the community.
Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.
If your goal is anything but profitability - if it's to be big, or to grow fast, or to become a technology leader - you'll hit problems.
I think that the direct conversation is exactly what companies need to earn trust of customers. Admit an error. Fix a problem. Commit to doing better. That is only human.
A company shouldn't get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn't last.
When you improve your product so it does the customer's job better, then you gain market share.
The companies that survive longest are the one's that work out what they uniquely can give to the world not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.
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