“The ability to concentrate singlemindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life. This key insight is the heart and soul of this book.

“People who take a long view of their lives and careers always seem to make much better decisions about their time and activities than people who give very little thought to the future.”

“Know What You Believe What are your values today with regard to your work and your career? Do you believe in the values of integrity, hard work, dependability, creativity, cooperation, initiative, ambition, and getting along well with people? People who live these values in their work are vastly more successful and more highly esteemed than people who do not. What are your values with regard to your family? Do you believe in the importance of unconditional love, continuous encouragement and reinforcement, patience, forgiveness, generosity, warmth, and attentiveness? People who practice these values consistently with the important people in their lives are much happier than people who do not. What are your values with regard to money and financial success? Do you believe in the importance of honesty, industry, thrift, frugality, education, excellent performance, quality, and persistence? People who practice these values are far more successful in their financial lives than those who do not, and they achieve their financial goals far faster as well. What about your health? Do you believe in the importance of self-discipline, self-mastery, and self-control with regard to diet, exercise, and rest? Do you set high standards for health and fitness and then work every day to live up to those standards? People who practice these values live longer, healthier lives than people who do not.”

“All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.”

“What one skill, if I developed and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on my career?”

“You have within you,right now,everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you.”

“The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you seem to be naturally motivated to continue.”

“The comfort zone is the greatest enemy of human potential.”

“Anytime you stop striving to get better, you're bound to get worse.

“The fact is that your productivity begins to decline after eight or nine hours of work. For this reason, working long hours into the night, although it is sometimes necessary, means that you are usually producing less and less in more and more time. The more tired you become, the worse the quality of your work will be and the more mistakes you will make. At a certain point, you can reach “the wall” and simply be unable to continue, like a battery that is run down.”

“Based on your current results, what changes are you going to have to make to ensure that your products and services of tomorrow are exactly what the customers will be wanting at that time?”

“your ability to select your most important task at each moment, and then to get started on that task and to get it done both quickly and well, will probably have more of an impact on your success than any other quality or skill you can develop

“Refuse to complain about your problems. Keep them to yourself. As speaker-humorist Ed Foreman says, "You should never share your problems with others because 80 percent of people don't care about them anyway, and the other 20 percent are kind of glad that you've got them in the first place.”

“Commit yourself to lifelong learning. The most valuable asset you'll ever have is your mind and what you put into it.”

“Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement”