One page memorandum to self

live with integrity; what you nurture grows; be courageous; actions before plans; remember and keep promises; associate with people you admire and can learn from; it is who knows you and what they think of you that counts; true change can only happen in the now; when results are good look through the window, when results are poorly look in the mirror; inability to see yourself as you truly are makes seeing other things as they truly are impossible; do it, fix it, try it; think of what your work will make out of you rather than what it will give you; lead with your ears; identify what you are passionate about and aim to do more of it; dream big; if nobody will pay you to do what you love, you have a hobby not a career; character and values trump personality and looks; you will never achieve more than you think you can; you do not have the big picture beyond your own experience; life has a simple formula: challenge and response; nothing good happens by accident; give your students the exam ahead of time; what you neglect declines; when you see a problem you have a moment of truth: you have a choice how to respond; to lead you must believe a vision that is beyond your proven ability to realize; the path toward your vision becomes clearer with each step; accept everything that happens and your choice of response; spontaneity is not random, it takes hours of practice; more information makes decisions harder not easier; make sure you generate a reasonable number of mistakes; stick to what you can be best at; trust your gut; truth lurks in the metaphor; your values and purpose are defined by your actions; complexity causes lethargy and inertia; let freedom and responsibility coexist; seek simple crystalline concepts; results first – planning second; maintain a stop doing list; experiment; you control your choice of action, universal laws and principles control the consequences; direction is more important than speed; the way you see, your values, leads to what you do and what you do leads to the results you are getting; from the state of your heart proceeds the conditions of your life; thoughts blossom into deeds; disobedience to conscience make conscience blind; you reap what you sow; look after the goose and the golden eggs will follow; begin with the end in mind; between stimulus and response is our ability to choose; do what you say; satisfied needs do not motivate; diagnose before you prescribe; accurate paradigms explain, then guide; balance courage with consideration; good teams accommodate and capitalize on differences; model character and competence; the range of what you think and do is limited by what you fail to notice; put the problem before the answer; separate people from the problem; speak for a purpose; look through the eyes of different experts; insist on using objective criteria; all sunshine makes the desert; don’t defend your ideas, invite criticism and advice; there is plenty for everyone; trust, but verify; value differences; be proactive; stand for something; be open; know what’s expected; use right materials and equipment; do what you do best; recognize contributions; create a caring environment; human see, human do; opinions count; connect with purpose; find the right fit; focus on strengths; respect the individual; define the right outcomes; select for talent; focus on the future; keep track of own performance and learnings; value world class performance; study the best; a compass in every pocket is better than a chicken in every pot; transparency; disclosure; accountability; you build strong teams by treating people differently; to influence others allow yourself to be influenced; insist on realism; know yourself; informality is critical to candor; how you meet your commitments is at least as important as whether you meet them; strategy must be constructed by those who must execute it; divided responsibility means that nobody is responsible; link your long term intent to your next immediate action; you accomplish what you measure, therefore measure the right things; acknowledge the truth about the results that have been created, accept ownership of the choices that drove the results, declare a path forward; at the end of the day, we either have reasons or results, reasons don’t count; you can have anything you want, you just can’t have everything; if you have 60 minutes to make a point take 40 minutes to plan it and 20 minutes saying it; you are perfectly aligned to get the results you’ve been getting; with people slow is fast and fast is slow; seek first to understand, then to be understood; to know and not to use is not yet to know; you don’t keep digging up a plant to see how its growing; whoever owns the gold makes the rules; the longer you project that you have a consistent set of standards from which you’ll never deviate, the more people will learn to trust you; what you are speaks far more loudly than anything you say or do; things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least; manage from the left brain, lead from the right; rather than things and time, focus on preserving and enhancing relationships and accomplishing results; organize around priorities; 80 percent of the results flow out of 20 percent of the activities; focus on interests not positions; invent options for mutual gain; insist on objective criteria; a problem well stated is a problem half solved; there is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come; you can’t see past a choice you don’t understand; know why you want something; never ask the barber if you need a haircut; when you pick up one end of the stick you pick up the other; victimism gives your future away; creativity thinks up new things, innovation does new things; a place for everything and everything in its place; we all leave a legacy be intentional about yours; remember yourself – you are alive; be aware of your environment, it takes part in forming your thoughts.