DONNY DEUTSCH

The only thing I hated about the agency business was a lot of business travel. It was the only part of my job that I did not like. I found it very tedious and wearing.

I don't have a favorite medium; I was brought up on TV. so I am clearly of the TV generation, but it depends on what you are trying to sell; sometimes a fully integrated solution, sometimes a pure Internet solution, sometimes a pure billboard solution.

I appear wild on the outside, but I'm a conservative businessman.

My philosophy is to always find the smartest people you can. Hire people smarter than you.

Changes in my personal life are nerve-racking for me.

I am not one of these people who spend a ton of time in front on my computer; I see it as very utilitarian.

Every business is about understanding people. Which people you have to get through. Which people you have to embrace. Which people you have to jump over. Which people you have to push out of the way. That’s the game.

There are agencies who are good losers, places where losing is not only accepted, it becomes part of the culture, it is expected. That is debilitating. Don't let that happen to you. At Deutsch we go into every pitch assuming we are the Yankees. It's amazing what happens when you go into a room of smart, hungry people and say, "Failure is not an option." People are galvanized.

The key to success is not purely who's the smartest, who's the best, but also who can say with conviction, "I deserve it." The entire concept is wrapped up in one phrase: "Why not me?

When I looked into the mechanics of being a businessman, I found it wasn't rocket science.

You know you're doing what you love when Sunday nights feel the same as Friday nights.

The best bosses understand the people working for them. That's the first component: what makes my people tick? What are they in it for?

Every great business leader I've ever met, in addition to being very smart, very driven, they have this, 'Why not me? Screw it, I deserve it, let's go.' And if you don't have that, you can't achieve greatness.

I've always managed by walking around. Any CEO or leader who spends the majority of his time in his office is not doing his job.

If you can't embrace both failure or the possibility of failure, or the tremendous fear of failure, you can't be wildly successful. It's just an axiomatic truth.

The happiest people are the ones who follow their own dreams most closely.

Once you realize that there are no geniuses out there, you can think, "I can do that". One reason I've succeeded is that I have that naïve sense of entitlement.

When you see someone who has turned his passion into a profit, ask yourself, ‘Why not me?

The failure-dichotomy principle: failure is good. Failure is not an option. Balance those in your brain.

That outgrowth of arrogance comes at a price: some people don't like is. I take responsibility for that.

You can be hard on people as long as you're just as hard on yourself.

If the person who runs a company has a belief system and everything he does stays fairly truly to that system, it will attract like-minded people who buy into it and then keeps selling itself in concentric circles.

And here's what management is: motivating people and putting them in places where they can succeed.