Edwin H. Friedman Quotes
A leader must separate his or her own emotional being from that of his or her followers while still remaining connected. Vision is basically an emotional rather than a cerebral phenomenon, depending more on a leader’s capacity to deal with anxiety than his or her professional training or degree. A leader needs the capacity not only to accept the solitariness that comes with the territory, but also to come to love it. These criteria are based on the recognition that “no good deed goes unpunished”; chronic criticism is, if anything, often a sign that the leader is functioning better! Vision is not enough.
Quotes to Explore
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My idols are Janis Joplin and Annie Lennox, who are neither of them from the typical pop culture.
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Architects create spaces that accommodate human activity. As opposed to many of its contemporary counterparts, Dune'is not so much focused on the styling of that activity, as on the supporting of it.
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Generally I can sleep any time, anywhere, any place, unless I'm anxious about work. I can get performance anxiety, so when I'm on tour it can be hard to sleep.
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Time is the ultimate long tail. Even with a big wad of money up front, if something sells forever, the back end is what ultimately counts.
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Fiction is optimistic or unrealistic enough to demand that there should be a meaningful narrative.
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I'm the Jerry Lewis of crime fiction.
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Maybe it's a little depressing to think that my vision of a perfect world is actually so messed up, but I think it means that I don't really understand what 'perfect' is.
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What I don't like to hear in music is something has not been thought through: that a sound is just there randomly. I want to make sure that every single little noise that's in my song is there because it's supposed to be there.
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The focus of Congress is on keeping the nation secure - and it doesn't see that food security is an essential part of that responsibility. Instead of putting more food on the tables of America, they are busy finding ways to take it away.
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Even Colin Powell who was everywhere before he became secretary of state, just stopped going out. I think part of it was he didn't want to be viewed suspiciously by the other people in the White House who rarely go anywhere.
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In a small space, you want to keep the bedding as simple as possible so it looks clean, calm and collected.
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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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I started out in a professional choir at 13 years old. We traveled to different places, and I had a close relationship with the leaders of our choir. We were recording when I was 15, so it wasn't like I had to wait until 25 to find out certain things.
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Every character I approach, from 'Forrest Gump' all the way up to 'The Spoils Before Dying,' has a different set of requirements and always fascinates me.
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I've always seen the world through the eyes of a scientist. I love the predictable outcomes that science gives us, the control over the world that that can render.
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I've never been in an acting class in my life.
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Do I think Vince McMahon was looking at my matches in Japan going, 'We need him?' No. He wasn't. He's too busy. There's no way. But somebody may have been looking and going, 'All right, I like this guy. Let's give him a shot.'
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The terrorists that we are up against today do not rely upon cell phones and SAT phones and emails. They rely on couriers. You cannot intercept what a courier is telling somebody.
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I just think a lot of people don't give credit to EDM producers or DJs. People think they're just button pushers and just get on stage and don't really perform.
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Nothing drew me to the film business. I was propelled by the fear and anxiety of Vietnam. I had been drafted into the Marines. My brother was already serving in Vietnam. I bought, if you will, a stay of execution - both literally and figuratively - and went on to graduate school of business from the law school that I was attending.
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Some good leaders are rough around the edges and some leaders are difficult. Some have difficult personalities and some are really nice to be around, but those are not the qualifications. The qualifications are their desire to see us achieve more, their desire to push us to be the best we can be. Not for their selfish gain, but because they believe that we have something to offer.
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I recognized in them what I had never had and, I now knew, would always lack. What was it? I wasn't able to say precisely: the training, perhaps, to feel that the questions of the world were deeply connected to me; the capacity to feel them as crucial and not purely as information to display at an exam; a mental conformation that didn't reduce everything to my own individual battle, to the effort to be successful.
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A leader must separate his or her own emotional being from that of his or her followers while still remaining connected. Vision is basically an emotional rather than a cerebral phenomenon, depending more on a leader’s capacity to deal with anxiety than his or her professional training or degree. A leader needs the capacity not only to accept the solitariness that comes with the territory, but also to come to love it. These criteria are based on the recognition that “no good deed goes unpunished”; chronic criticism is, if anything, often a sign that the leader is functioning better! Vision is not enough.
