Powerful Quotes on Change

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This quote came across my Facebook News Feed today…it’s power stopped me in my tracks:

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

— Barack Obama, speech, Feb. 5, 2008

WOW!  The power of that statement is awesome and stunning.  I am so grateful to have this man leading our country!

After a I recovered from my stunned stupor, I was immediately reminded of this: the first concert I ever attended was R.E.M.’s Green Tour in 1987, and I bought a t-shirt that said:

Understand that change begins with the individual.

Again, a powerful message in the same vein.

I was relaying these thoughts in the office today to Martin who said these quotes reminded him of one by Ghandi:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

which finally led to this memory: I used to work at a place that had a horrible CEO who was a tyrant and a bully and was ultimately asked to resign by the Board of Directors.  The company was in disarray and chaos and a new CEO arrived sometime thereafter and was hailed the savior of all things.

Of course, nobody is the savior of all things in the workplace.  One day we were having an leadership team meeting that exemplified the disarray and chaos when our new CEO had enough and said this:

Gang, there are no adults in the room next door who are going to tell us what to do.  We need to solve this on our own.

Again, the same thought said another way.

Ultimately, I think the point of these quotes is that to reach our true potential, we have to claim responsibility for our own success.


Written by scottporad

April 20th, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Posted in Personal

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3 Responses to 'Powerful Quotes on Change'

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  1. I came here because I was wondering what the ‘hottest bloggers’ and saw, Oh! a lot of the same stuff only conversationally. cool. glad I visited! cindy

    Cindy Hanson

    23 Apr 09 at 3:07 pm

  2. The right thing, at the right time. It’s rather important that they coincide. You made it happen! It’s ALWAYS the right time for the necessary change. Great stuff Scott.

    Karen Lawrence

    1 May 09 at 1:17 am

  3. I still have that t-shirt. I still smile when I wear it.

    Kent Corbell

    2 Sep 11 at 10:49 pm

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