John Paul DeJoria Quotes

The hard part of running a business is that there are a hundred things that you could be doing, and only five of those actually matter, and only one of them matters more than all of the rest of them combined. So figuring out there is a critical path thing to focus on and ignoring everything else is really important.

As all entrepreneurs know, you live and die by your ability to prioritize. You must focus on the most important, mission-critical tasks each day and night, and then share, delegate, delay or skip the rest.

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.

The essence of strategy is that you must set limits on what you're trying to accomplish.

In business, staying focused requires that you turn most opportunities down.

Like most entrepreneurs, getting motivated to work has never been a problem for me; focus comes through delegating tasks to the best people you can find.

I have been a soldier and a commander for many years and know how to differentiate between things - not to be busy all the time with the most sensitive matters and to give everything its due attention without having the issues that cause concern to constantly be troubling or worrisome.

I used to spend my time more on process than strategy. Now, I prioritize my time around strategy, people, and process.

We all have many opportunities, but limited capacity to pursue them. Make choices, focus your time and energy, so that you can submit your share of masterpieces to the greater good.

Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.

You need to decide what problems, what opportunities, what projects you're going to work on.

In a company, hundreds of decisions get made, but objectives and goals are thin.

One skill of a great entrepreneur is to get a whole complicated discussion and then say, 'We're going to do this one and we're only going to do this one'. Managers are good at prioritizing. Entrepreneurs know what is the one thing.

I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.

I live a very balanced life. I am very good at delegating responsibilities.

I think long and hard about what it is I'm actually trying to do, and then I kind of have to narrow my focus into that. If I don't, I'm too all over the place.

The effort invested in 'getting it right' should be commensurate with the importance of the decision.

It's important to have a really clear strategy so when you are in business, you only have to make micro-strategy changes.

I have always looked after the little things of my business; weightier matters will take care of themselves.

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.

Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different.

Management is all about managing in the short term, while developing the plans for the long term.

Prioritization sounds like such a simple thing, but true prioritization starts with a very difficult question to answer, especially at a company with a portfolio approach: If you could only do one thing, what would it be? And you can't rationalize the answer, and you can't attach the one thing to some other things. It's just the one thing.

One of the challenges of a good policy is trying to figure out what your priorities are.

One of my philosophies of building companies is the importance of velocity.