I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. (Thomas Jefferson, founding father of the United States) Some people seem to think that achieving success depends on luck. And that circumstances have to be just right for you to accomplish much of value....
You only get one chance to make a first impression. Everything about Lexus was new and unknown to the American consumer. Lexus would be an all-new product with new dealers, new facilities, and new sales and service people. Lexus sales in the first months...
Opportunities don’t happen, you create them. (Chris Grosser, entrepreneurial businessman) Most of us have been told time and time again that opportunity knocks only once, so we’d better grab it when we can. Grosser, however, implies that we shouldn’t wait for the...
You cannot be anything you want to be—but you can be a lot more of what you already are. (Tom Rath, management consultant and author) Rath’s comment is a correction on the common idea that if you try hard enough you can be anything you want to be. Americans like to...
When you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done. (Often attributed to Thomas Jefferson) A variation of this statement suggests “You must be willing . . .” Repeatedly doing what you’ve always done will almost certainly produce the...
No prison is as endless as the prison of perfection. (Max Lucado, preacher and author) Andrew Murray wrote, “You are confined only by the walls you build yourself.” Self-imposed imprisonments may be more difficult to live with than incarceration. And the worst may be...
Now that we had a name, the emphasis was going to shift to organizing the sales effort that was to begin in just six months. Lexus would be expected to sell 16,000 cars from September through December of 1989, plus 40,000 LS400s and 20,000 ES250s in the...
Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone. (Charles Schultz, late creator of the comic strip “Peanuts”) Christmas is just three weeks away, and already many are planning their gift-giving. Schultz suggests doing a little extra this year, and Peg Bracken,...
To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. (Fred Shero, professional hockey player and coach) That’s not a very comforting thought, is it? But, it’s probably true. The only people who aren’t criticized are those whose existence is hardly noticed. If you...
When you forgive someone, you are canceling their debt. (Mike Lee, American pastor) Do you find it hard to forgive someone who has deeply offended you? Or, have you said, “I forgive you, but I can’t forget the offense.” That’s not really forgiving, is it? As Lee...
We were expected to pick a new name by March 3 if the Second Circuit Court of Appeals had not yet ruled in our favor. There were three new names: Luxus, Lucidia, and Celsior (the name Chairman E. Toyoda had picked for the car in Japan). We wanted to use a name...
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it. (George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, English novelist) You might think that truth is a foundational principal that remains solid and unchanging. However, relativism has...