Jason Fried

Obscurity is a good thing. You can fail in obscurity. It removes the fear of failure.

Don't make up problems you don't have yet. It's not a problem until it's a real problem. Most of the things you worry about never happen anyway.The decisions you make today don't need to last forever. If circumstances change, your decisions CAN change. Decisions are temporary.Pay attention to today and worry about later when it gets here. Otherwise, you'll waste energy, time and money fixating on problems that may never materialize."~ An excerpt from the awesome book, "Rework

There's nothing wrong with staying small. You can do big things with a small team.

What you do is what matters, not what you think or say or plan.

It's like when you're on hold and a recorded voice comes on telling you how much the company values you as a customer. Really? Then maybe you should hire some more support people so I don't have to wait thirty minutes to get help.

A lot of people relate leadership to formalities. They believe that leadership is about being professional and strong and always right and being a booming voice. I just don't buy that. I think that leadership is a soft skill it's a people skill.

Bottom line: If you can't spare some time to give your employees the chance to wow you, you'll never get the best from them.

If yesterday was a good day's work, chances are you'll stay on a roll. And if you can stay on a roll, everything else will probably take care of itself - including not working from the moment you get up in the morning until you nod off to sleep.

If you ask people where they go when they really need to get work done, very few will respond 'the office.' If they do say the office, they'll include a qualifier such as 'super-early in the morning before anyone gets in,' or 'I stay late at night after everyone's left,' or 'I sneak in on the weekend.'

When you're short on sleep, you're short on patience. You're ruder to people, less tolerant, less understanding. It's harder to relate and to pay attention for sustained periods of time.

It's easy to forget, as a leader, that when employees don't get the wide view, not only does the point of their work escape them, but it can also lead to real frustration. It's hard to feel pride and ownership when you don't understand where things are going.

We think of computers as smart and powerful machines. But your goldfish is smarter.

If you are trying to decide among a few people to fill a position hire the best writer. it doesn't matter if the person is marketer, salesperson, designer, programmer, or whatever, their writing skills will pay off. That's because being a good writer is about more than writing clear writing. Clear writing is a sign of clear thinking. great writers know how to communicate. they make things easy to understand. they can put themselves in someone else's shoes. they know what to omit. And those are qualities you want in any candidate. Writing is making a comeback all over our society... Writing is today's currency for good ideas.

Don__ be insecure about aiming to be a small business. Anyone who runs a business that__ sustainable and profitable, whether it__ big or small, should be

Think about it this way: If you had to launch your business in two weeks, what would you cut out?

What do you gain if you ban employees from, say, visiting a social-networking site or watching YouTube while at work? You gain nothing. That time doesn__ magically convert to work. They__l just find some other diversion.

The problem with abstractions (like reports and documents) is that they create illusions of agreement. A hundred people can read the same words, but in their heads, they__e imagining a hundred different things.

It__ a beautiful way to put it: Leave the poetry in what you make. When something becomes too polished, it loses its soul. It seems robotic.