It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership

by Colin Powell

try to be an optimist, but I try not to be stupid.

“hope is a bad supper, but makes a good breakfast.

“Whenever you place the cause of one of your actions outside yourself, it’s an excuse and not a reason.”

Standards must be achievable (though achieving them will always require extra effort), and the leaders

I am paying them for the quality of their work, not for the hours they work.

If your desk is clean and no one is bringing you problems, you should be very worried. It means that people don’t think you can solve them or don’t want to hear about them. Or, far worse, it means they don’t think you care. Either way it means your followers have lost confidence in you and you are no longer their leader, no

What a country . . . still the same country that gave my immigrant parents that open door and welcome ninety years ago. We must never forget that has been our past; it is certainly our present and future.

America’s Promise Alliance to mobilize the country to give all our kids the