Quotations

The Upside of Failure

By in Learning, Living Well, Quotations Tags: ,

Failure_at_Work

I’m not a good cook. But last night, I attempted to make Chicken Tikka Masala because I think it’s delicious, and I loved the idea of being able to make it at home. Unfortunately, things did not go well. It turned out so terribly, in fact, that I’m not even going to eat the leftovers. (And I almost never throw away leftovers!) It was a definite, unqualified failure.

So yeah, I’m kind of unhappy about it. But as one of my coworkers informed me, “That’s how you learn.” And he’s right. When you’re trying to cook something new, you learn from making mistakes. The same is true in the workplace.

Author Jeff Stibel has written about the importance of failure in the workplace. He believes that it’s more instructive than success. He argues that when we succeed, we’re often not even sure why. We’re happy about it, but we don’t really take the time to analyze exactly why things went right. In contrast, when we fail, we tend to spend a lot of time thinking about it. We carefully identify the missteps that were made, and we learn from them.

Stibel believes that people have to be free to fail. People who are afraid of failing (or are afraid of being punished for their mistakes) never take chances or try anything new. In order for a company to be innovative and successful, employees need to be free to take risks and occasionally fail. And they have to be encouraged to talk about those failures rather than trying to gloss over them or hide them. We all experience failures from time to time. As Thomas Edison allegedly said about his attempts to design a light blub, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” Failure is nothing to fear. It’s critical to success.

 

Stibel, J. (2016, March 25). How bringing failure into your workplace can maximize success. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffstibel/2016/03/25/how-bringing-failure-into-your-workplace-can-maximize-success/#392870ae5628

 

Beating the Post-Holiday Blues

By in Living Well, Quotations Tags: ,

SadAtWork

After a vacation, it can sometimes be a little challenging to return to work. I know I had a great time eating turkey and stuffing, hanging out with my family, and cuddling my parents’ dog. (He’s such a cutie!) But it can feel like a bit of a let-down when it’s all over.

So just in case you’re suffering from post-holiday malaise, here are some famous, work-related quotes that will hopefully make you feel a little better. Welcome back!

 

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
— Theodore Roosevelt

The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
— Helen Keller

Employment is nature’s physician, and is essential to human happiness.
— Galen

He who labors diligently need never despair, for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.
— Menander

If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work
— William Shakespeare

Honest labor bears a lovely face.
— Thomas Dekker

When I die, my epitaph should read: She Paid the Bills.
— Gloria Swanson

 

Plain English? What Are You Talking About?

By in Language, Quotations Tags: , , ,

Reading_Book

“Plain English refers to the writing and setting out of essential information in a way that gives a co-operative, motivated person a good chance of understanding it at first reading, and in the same sense that the writer meant it to be understood.”

Cutts, M. (2013). Oxford Guide to Plain English. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

 

Inspiration From the Only U.S. President With a PhD

By in Leadership, Quotations Tags: , ,

Wilson

Many people who work here at Johns Hopkins know the answer to the common trivia question, “Who was the only U.S. president with a doctorate?”

The answer is, of course, Woodrow Wilson.

Woodrow Wilson received his doctorate in 1886 from The Johns Hopkins University (where else?), and his dissertation was entitled Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics.

Woodrow Wilson was also the first of only three American presidents to receive a Nobel Prize. (The others were Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.) He received his prize in 1920 for his efforts in ending World War I and for forming the League of Nations.

Today’s quotation from Woodrow Wilson should resonate with everyone who works at the university, and should inspire everyone to help to make the world a better place:

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

 

OMG! Did Lord Fisher Really Say That?

By in Communication, Humor, Language, Quotations Tags: ,

Lord_Fisher

Did the expression, OMG, originate with Twitter? Or were people using it before that? AOL Instant Messenger perhaps?

Actually, it all began about a hundred years ago!

Lord John Fisher is known in history as a British naval strategist. He was the First Sea Lord from 1910-1915.

His contribution to the English language was on September 9th, 1917. Talking about a new knighthood, Lord Fisher wrote to Winston Churchill:

“I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis — O.M.G. (Oh! My God!)— Shower it on the Admiralty!!”

That, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was the first recorded use of OMG. So take that to your next trivia night and score a few points!

 

I Have a Dream

By in Quotations Tags: , , ,

MLK2

Today is a national holiday. The country is celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. (His actual birthday was January 15, 1929.) I thought of doing some research and writing a little piece about him. In the end, I could think of nothing better than to reflect a little on what we think about freedom, and no words seemed better than the words of MLK himself. So today, I am presenting the end of his famous speech, I have a dream.

Although I am very familiar with his speech and his words, slowly reading them was moving and inspiring, and I hope you find the same is true for you.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.’

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its Governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places plains, and the crooked places will be made straight, and before the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the mount with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the genuine discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, pray together; to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom forever, knowing that we will be free one day.

And I say to you today my friends, let freedom ring. From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the mighty Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snow capped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only there; let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain in Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill in Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we’re free at last!”

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