Quotes from the book:

Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, ‘I didn’t quit’

Life is struggle. I believe that within that quote lies the most important lesson in entrepreneurship: Embrace the struggle.

What is the difference between a hero and a coward? What is the difference between being yellow and being brave? No difference. Only what you do. They both feel the same. they both fear dying and getting hurt. The man who is yellow refuses to face up to what he’s got to face. The hero is more disciplined and he fights those feelings off and he does what he has to do. But they both feel the same, the hero and the coward. People who watch you judge you on what you do, not how you feel.

we take care of the people, the products, and the profits-in that order.

It’s the moments where you feel most like hiding or dying that you can make the biggest difference as CEO.

The Law of Crappy People states: For any title lever in a large organization, the talent on that level will eventually converge to the crappiest person with the title.

All the mental energy you use to elaborate your misery would be far better used trying to find the one seemingly impossible way out of your current mess. Spend zero time on what you could have done, and devote all of your time on what you might do.

If you don’t know what you want, the chances that you’ll get it are extremely low.

Wartime CEO (as opposed to Peacetime CEO) is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.

‘Unrelenting confidence was necessary’.

Ironically, the key to an emotional discussion is to take the emotion out of it.

Nothing motivates a great employee more than a mission that’s so important that it supersedes everyone’s personal ambition.

Nothing happens unless you make it happen.

Stand up to the pressure, face your fear, and tell it like it is.

I guess I did it because I knew what desperation felt like.

Indeed, the energy of competence is sometimes confidence. A CEO should never be so confident that she stops improving her skills.