• Columnists

Chris Carbone, Futurist

Chris Carbone has worked in trend and foresight consulting for over a decade, serving clients from Fortune 500 corporation and foreign and US government agencies. During this time he has researched and authored dozens of reports and scenarios on wide-ranging topics…from the future of leisure and play, to the future of urban mobility, to emerging consumer lifestyles in China.

Chris has been quoted in numerous publications including The Miami Herald, The Washington Post Express, and Fast Company, and appeared on the CBS Early Show. He currently oversees Innovaro’s two multi-client research projects—Global Lifestyles and Technology Foresight—and contributes to the firm’s custom engagements.

Chris has an MBA from Johns Hopkins University with a concentration in marketing, and received his undergraduate degree in history from Gettysburg College. For more information, contact him at chris.carbone@innovaro.com.

About Innovaro—Insights & Research

Innovaro Insight & Research helps organizations understand and shape the future of their business. Through its syndicated and custom research services it provides actionable business insights to help clients uncover emerging consumer needs and behaviors, anticipate and seize growth opportunities, define critical emerging issues shaping the future of their industry, mitigate risk, and enrich decision-making. For more information visit /www.innovaro.com.

I always maintained that the greatest obstacle in life isn’t danger, it’s boredom. The battle against it is responsible for most of the events in the world — good or ill.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.”

– Francesca Reigle

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

– Henry Miller

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

‎The biggest flaw in our existing theory of capitalism lies in its misrepresentation of human nature.”

– Muhammad Yunus

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

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

The good ideas are all hammered out in agony by individuals, not spewed out by groups.”

– Charles Brower, Advertising Hall of Fame

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

– Carl Rogers

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen.”

– Sarah Ban Breathnach

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

– Peter F. Drucker

When you are asked if you can do a job, tell ‘em, ‘Certainly I can!’ Then get busy and find out how to do it.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

We are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die.”

– Douglas Coupland

You’ve got to be willing to crash and burn. If you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.”

– Steve Jobs

Remove those ‘I want you to like me’ stickers from your forehead
and, instead, place them where they truly will do the most good—on your mirror.”

– Susan Jeffers

Treat the attainment of happiness in the same way an entrepreneur would approach building a business — with a vision, plan, goals, and a systematic approach.”

– Ted Leonsis

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

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Think of their needs.”

– Barack Obama

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

– Oscar Wilde

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

– Mark Twain

I’m not afraid of storms,
for I’m learning to sail my ship.”

– Louisa May Alcott

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

– Zig Ziglar

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

– Martha Beck

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!”

– Andrew Carnegie

Traveling is one way of lengthening life, at least in appearance.”

– Benjamin Franklin

A diamond is a lump of coal that stuck with it.”

– Norwegian proverb

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something.”

– Nolan Bushnell, founder, Chuck E. Cheese's

A man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.”

– Chinese Proverb

There is little success where there is little laughter.”

– Andrew Carnegie

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

– Robert Frost

I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

– Thomas Edison

As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what nurtures creative thinking.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

Letting go of expectations is a ticket to peace. It allows us to ride over every crisis—small or large—like a beach ball on water.”

– Martha Beck

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

– Annie Dillard

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

I’ve come to confirm that one’s title, even that of president, says little about how well one’s life has been led. No matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, to learn, and to achieve.”

– Barack Obama

Anything not worth doing well is not worth doing.”

– Warren Buffett

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

Remember that it’s okay to ask for help when you’re stumped, because sometimes you really can’t be expected to handle everything alone.”

– Martha Beck

I can’t go back to yesterday—because I was a different person then.”

– Lewis Carroll

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

– Basil King

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

– Anais Nin

You must have chaos within you, to create a dancing star.”

– Frederic Nietzsche

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”

– Robert Fritz

We never know how high we are
 till we are called to rise;
 And then, if we are true to plan,
 Our statures touch the skies.”

– Emily Dickinson

Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

– Carlos Castaneda