Max McKeown Quotes

I think one of the reasons I've been successful is that I can see things before other people do. I've always been able to do it.

What's important now are the characteristics of the brain's right hemisphere: artistry, empathy, inventiveness, big-picture thinking. These skills have become first among equals in a whole range of business fields.

Part of the challenge of being an entrepreneur, if you're going for a really huge opportunity, is trying to find problems that aren't quite on the radar yet and try to solve those.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

Thought, not money, is the real business capital.

Great entrepreneurs focus intensely on an opportunity where others see nothing.

One of the biggest challenges we have, as business owners and people, is that we think in linear terms.

A lot of entrepreneurship is seeing the future in a way that no one else sees it. Then, it becomes about execution and doing what it takes to succeed.

Entrepreneurial business favours the open mind. It favours people whose optimism drives them to prepare for many possible futures, pretty much purely for the joy of doing so.

We must use what we have to invent what we desire.

A vision is something you see and others don't. Some people would say that's a pocket definition of lunacy. But it also defines entrepreneurial spirit.

I do not like the phrase: Never cross a bridge till you come to it. The world is owned by men who cross bridges on their imaginations miles and miles in advance of the procession.

The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.

I just have a vision of something, and it seems to go a long way. One thought goes a long way.

However tight things are, you still need to have the big picture at the forefront of your mind.

Leadership is people taking the initiative, carrying things through, having ideas and the imagination to get something started, and exhibiting particular skills in different areas.

A short term view will lead to a partial and perhaps twisted view of the whole picture. A crucial element may be missing. We may not be running the entire race. A friend of mine described a colleague as great at running the "ninety-five yard dash." That is a distinction I can do without. Lacking the last five yards makes the first ninety-five pointless. In fact, serious runners thing of it as a 110 yard dash so that no one will best them in the last few yards. You've got to think beyond the whole.

Intelligence is composed mostly of imagination, insight, things that have nothing to do with reason.

Imagination is a powerful force underlying all knowing

When you cannot be deceived by men you will have realised the wisdom of strategy.

Innovation comes from long-term thinking and iterative execution.

One gets into a state of creativity by conscious work.

The Wright brothers didn't contemplate the staying on the ground of things. Alexander Graham Bell didn't contemplate the noncommunication of things. Thomas Edison didn't contemplate the darkness of things. In order to float an idea into your reality, you must be willing to do a somersault into the unconceivable and land on your feet, contemplating what you want instead of what you don't have.

It's not always the strong that survive. It takes brains, guts, tolerance and forward thinking.

You want to be an alchemist so badly? Don't wait to react to the immediate problem. Plan ahead. Look at the big picture and you won't ever have to deal with that problem. Better to save yourself from a major catastrophe than drag your feet over a bunch of little inconveniences.