• Columnists

Lisa Earle McLeod, Author, Sales, and Leadership Expert, McLeod & More, Inc.

COLUMN = SALES

Business strategist Lisa Earle McLeod is an expert in sales force and leadership development. An author, consultant, syndicated columnist, media commentator, and keynote speaker, she is recognized as a thought-leader whose latest book, “The Triangle of Truth,” was named a Washington Post Top 5 Business Book for Leaders.

A bottom-line oriented business advisor whose firm, McLeod & More, Inc. was featured in Fortune Magazine, she is also a problem-solving expert whose conflict resolution handbook was delivered to every member of the House and Senate. And she’s a leadership contributor for Forbes.com and the author of more than 500 articles.

This high-energy keynote speaker who has rocked the house everywhere from Apple to Pfizer to The United Way, is a repeat guest on “Good Morning America” who has appeared on hundreds of radio and TV shows.

Lisa’s clients range from pharmaceutical to financial services, including Ann Taylor, Capital G, West Pharmaceutical, Black & McDonald, Kimberly-Clark, CMIT, and numerous franchises and entrepreneur organizations. She is also a personal development expert whose first book “Forget Perfect,” was featured in The New York Times, and continues to sell a full decade after the original printing. And her essay collection, “Finding Grace When You Can’t Even Find Clean Underwear,” was featured on Oprah.com.

Lisa and her husband Bob live in Atlanta. They are the parents of two fabulous teenage daughters.

Confidence is the most important thing you can teach someone… if you can teach them confidence, you don’t have to teach them anything else.”

– Vin Diesel

Entrepreneurs are willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise.”

– Victor Kiam

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leon Joseph Suenens

Don’t wait for someone else to lead you to your right life; that privilege—and responsibility—is yours alone.”

– Martha Beck

Always look at what you have left. Never look at what you have lost.”

– Robert H. Schuller

How do you stay resilient? It’s about momentum. Like riding a bicycle. If you stop you fall over. So I keep pedaling.”

– Diane Lane

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”

– Marcel Proust

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow know what you truly want to become.”

– Steve Jobs

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. 
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.”

– Mary Jean Irion

When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

– Audre Lorde

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?”

– Magical

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

– Basil King

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”

– Bob Dylan

We are perfectionists. We are hungry to work all the time. We are entertained by every aspect of business and we never want to stop working.”

– Suzy Welch

Don’t follow, lead. Don’t copy, create. Don’t start, finish. Don’t sit still, move. Don’t fit in, stand out. Don’t sit quietly, speak up. (Not all the time, sure, but more often.)”

– Seth Godin

You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

– Mae West

If you want to be busy, keep trying to be perfect. If you want to be happy, focus on making a difference.”

– Lisa Earle McLeod

The dove descending breaks the air / With flame of inkandescent terror.”

– T.S. Eliott

Inspiration and genius — one and the same.”

– Victor Hugo

By your stumbling the world is perfected.”

– Sri Aurobindo

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

If you would create something,
 you must be something.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.”

– Steve Jobs

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

– William Butler Yeats

But all the while I was alone, the past was close behind, I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew, tangled up in blue.”

– Bob Dylan

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity 
and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”

– Indira Ghandi

The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.”

– William James

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

– Henry Miller

The world I believed in, back in my most innocent, uninformed, childish mind—is real.”

– Martha Beck

The quality of your life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty you can comfortably live with.”

– Tony Robbins

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.
 Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

– Ella Fitzgerald

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Education is an admirable thing to have, but it is well to remember that nothing worth knowing can be taught.”

– Oscar Wilde

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.”

– Thomas Dunn

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

– Leonard Cohen

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

– T.S. Eliot

Let us seize the day and the opportunity and strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.”

– W.E.B. Du Bois

Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

If people like you they’ll listen to you; if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

– Zig Ziglar

Entrepreneurs need to search purposefully for the sources of innovation that indicate opportunities for success.”

– Peter F. Drucker

A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

– Carlos Castaneda

It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.”

– Aristotle

Never never never never give up.”

– Winston Churchill

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.”

– Jalaluddin Rumi

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”

– Audre Lorde

If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more.
 If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.”

– Oprah Winfrey

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try going to sleep with a mosquito in your room.”

– A wisdomism