Ziad K. Abdelnour Quotes
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The illusion of choice is the greatest magic trick ever performed.
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Most people quit because they look how far they have to go, not how far they have come.
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Revenge is always the weak pleasure of a little and narrow mind.
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I personally believe mavericks are people who write their own rulebook. They are the ones who act first and talk later. They are fiercely independent thinkers who know how to fight the lizard brain (to use Seth Godin’s term). I don’t believe many are born, rather they are products of an environment, or their experiences. They are usually the people that find the accepted norm does not meet their requirements and have the self-confidence, appetite, independence, degree of self reliance and sufficient desire to carve out their own niche in life. I believe a maverick thinker can take a new idea, champion it, and push it beyond the ability of a normal person to do so. I also believe the best mavericks can build a team, can motivate with their vision, their passion, and can pull together others to accomplish great things. A wise maverick knows that they need others to give full form to their views and can gather these necessary contributors around them. Mavericks, in my experience, fall into various categories – a/ the totally off-the-wall, uncontrollable genius who won’t listen to anyone; b/ the person who thinks that they have the ONLY solution to a challenge but prepared to consider others’ views on how to conquer the world &, finally, the person who thinks laterally to overcome problems considered to be irresolvable. I like in particular the third category. The upside is that mavericks, because of their different outlook on life, often sees opportunities and solutions that others cannot. But the downside is that often, because in life there is always some degree of luck in success (i.e. being in the right place at the right time), mavericks that fail are often ridiculed for their unorthodox approach. However when they succeed they are acclaimed for their inspiration. It is indeed a fine line they walk in life.
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We always look for operators with a combination of guts, passion and genius.
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Fake people talk about other people being fake. Real people worry about their business, and no one else's.
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We live in an era of smart phones and stupid people.... Go figure.
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If you can’t fire your best friend or your brother, don’t hire them.
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Any deal that recognizes Iran "right" to enrich is a prelude to fiasco and tragedy.
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If you are filled with pride, then you have no room for wisdom.
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Until the Fed lets us have a real recession, as painful as that may be, we are never gonna have a recovery.
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Age is just reality we create for ourselves.
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You want something real bad? Go after it with ferocity like if your life depended on it and never ever surrender. Only a question of time.
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Always remember .... The people who usually hide their feelings care the most.
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Bankruptcy cleans out the system. What’s wrong with that? South Korea went through this in the late 1990s. They didn’t have anyone to bail them out, and they had to go through the pain. Sweden did it in the early 1990s. Mexico did it. Russia did it. The list goes on and on. Competent people take over the assets from incompetent people and rebuild from a solid base. Business has always been survival of the fittest and Darwinism at its best. After all, this is what capitalism is all about.
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I am not interested in power for power's sake. Only interested in power that will allow people to liberate themselves from Big Brother.
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The Lebanese banking system helps Iran, Syria & Hezbollah evade sanctions.
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There is nothing inherently evil in the process of making money, and the notion is illogical, but that is one of the underlying tenets in our present education system. We are taught from an early age that making money is hard and that those who make lots of money are morally suspect. American culture studies programs at some of the nation’s leading universities have even gone so far as to teach the absurd and illogical notion that the rich became rich because they enjoy privilege earned on the backs of African slaves. Minority millionaires like entrepreneur Herman Cain, Earl Graves, Sr., and Reginald F. Lewis prove the utter nonsense of this notion, yet this is the illogical Progressive philosophy that has permeated our education system.
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Most leadership writing today advises us on how to prosper within the system. I believe real leadership is about transforming the system.
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A good bank is the one that does good to its community and a bad bank is the one that feeds the avarice of corrupt individuals. Very simple.
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People are only loyal until it becomes convenient not to be.
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Well behaved people and dreamers seldom make history. In fact, history has no place for such people.
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I believe the only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.
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Start-ups fail for a lot of different reasons, but one I see repeatedly is ego. It presents as a dangerous sense of self-importance. Or the entrepreneur thinks they are the smartest person in the room who knows better than anyone else and either doesn’t seek out advice or doesn’t want to listen when it’s offered. Such know-it-alls delude themselves into thinking they have everything figured out, even though they don’t. For as hard as it is to elbow your way into the marketplace in ideal circumstances, it’s made exponentially harder when you don’t check your ego at the door.