The Power of Starting Something Stupid Quotes

“Normal is where innovation goes to die.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“A principle is not merely a fundamental truth, but principles must serve as the very first source of every decision we make along the road to success.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Sadly, retirement planning, in many circumstances, has become nothing more than planned procrastination.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“The key ingredient in engaging the power available from service is motive.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Dreams don’t get done until they are due.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“My own behavior baffles me. For I find myself doing what I really loathe but not doing what I really want to do.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“High goals require equally high purpose. High purpose is your why. Your why helps you choose to act in the face of fear.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“People successfully overcome fear when the “why” behind what they’re afraid of is bigger than the fear itself.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Defining the reasons you’re working toward your high aspirations is the first and greatest way to work toward overcoming debilitating fears.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Live to start. Start to live.

Don’t Wait. Start Stuff.
People are innately passionate about certain unique aspects of life. You are innately passionate about certain unique aspects of life. And people are blessed with bouts of clear and concise intuition that drive them toward distinct goals and aspirations within their jobs and their lives as a whole.(You are not excluded from this group.)

But people disregard these inspired thoughts, these high-potential opportunities, as “just another stupid idea.”

Why?

Perhaps they are concerned about a lack of support (perceived or otherwise) from others, or maybe they are afraid of what others will think of them if they fail. Whatever the reason, they convince themselves:

“This would be a great idea for someone who has more free time.”

“This would be a great idea for someone with a higher level of education.”

“This would be a great idea for someone who has more money.”

“Everybody thinks this idea is crazy. They must be right.”

No matter the justification, the response is the same. These inspired thoughts, these high-potential ideas, are stuffed deep into the drawer labeled “stupid,” and they’re never heard from again . . . or the waiting game begins.

People wait.
They wait for that elusive day when they’ll finally have enough time (guess what? — you never will), enough education (there is always more to know), enough money (no matter how much you make, someone will always have more). They wait until the children are grown (news flash: just because they’re grown, it doesn’t mean you’re rid of them) or until things settle down at work (they never will).

People wait until . . . until . . . until . . . They wait, and they wait, and they wait, until that fateful day when they wake up and realize that while they were sitting around, paying dues, earning their keep, waiting for that elusive “perfect time,” their entire life has passed them by.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“The smartest people in the world know that in order to be smart they sometimes have to act on ideas that others might initially perceive as stupid.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Procrastination is like going to a fancy restaurant and filling up on bread and not leaving enough room for dinner.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“decision: I refuse to achieve “success” at the expense of my life. The two—life success and genuine fulfillment—will have to go hand in hand, because I will not keep my head down for the next forty years only to look up at the end and say, “Now I can finally start living!”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Creativity is at the heart of every stupid idea . . . creativity and stupid are interchangeable . . . because everything inherent to that kind of creativity requires breaking away from the norm, going against the grain, and leaning into risk and fear.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“The pursuit of prosperity shouldn't stop you from the pursuit of happiness.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Don't wait. Start stuff.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Live to start your stupid ideas, and start to live a life without regret--a life filled with meaning, freedom, happiness, fun, authenticity, and influence.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“If high aspirations = high fear, overcoming high fear = achieving high aspirations.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“On the individual level, the problem is that many people aren’t into the idea of continuous improvement. So they’re working in a company—maybe they’ve been there for ten or fifteen years—but instead of having fifteen years of experience, they really have only one year of experience repeated fifteen times . . . As a result, they don’t develop the credibility that would inspire greater trust and opportunity.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Grief is a tunnel, not a cave.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“We feel what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but that ocean would be less without that drop.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Procrastination is the counterproductive act of choosing to postpone doing something important until a later time.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Incrementally achieve one small win atop the other along the performance line to compensate for fear and reach your goal.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Learning how to effectively manage and work through fear is a high-performance skill that leads to achieving goals.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“If high aspirations are equal to high fear, then the flip side to that truth is that overcoming high fear is equal to achieving high aspirations.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“If you choose not to manage your fear, in whatever form it takes for you individually, eventually your choice will equate to zero goal achievement.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“If you choose not to manage your fear, in whatever form it takes for you individually, eventually your choice will equate”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret

“Live to start your stupid ideas, and start to live a life without regret—a life filled with meaning, freedom, happiness, fun, authenticity, and influence.”
― Richie Norton, The Power of Starting Something Stupid: How to Crush Fear, Make Dreams Happen, and Live without Regret