Jan Koum Quotes

Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it.

Grit may carry risk because it's about putting all your eggs in one basket, to some extent.

Great entrepreneurs focus intensely on an opportunity where others see nothing. This focus and intensity helps to eliminate wasted effort and distractions. Most companies die from indigestion rather than starvation, i.e., companies suffer from doing too many things at the same time rather than doing too few things very well.

I have yet to meet anyone quite so stubborn as myself and animated by this overpowering passion that leaves me no time for thought or anything else. I have, in fact, no interest in life outside racing cars.

I'm woefully one-track-minded.

Silicon Valley tends to be very myopic - to be focused on one or two things - which has some strengths as well as weaknesses.

Once I get an opponent, I'm locked into him.

I possess the greatest power ever bestowed upon mankind, the power of choice. Today, I choose to persist without exception. No longer will I live in a dimension of distraction, my focus blown hither and yon like a leaf on a blustery day. I know the outcome I desire. I hold fast to my dreams. I stay the course. I do not quit.

Just keep clear mind, go straight ahead, try, try, try for ten thousand years.

You have to be un-compromised in your level of commitment to whatever you are doing, or it can disappear as fast as it appeared. Commitment cannot be compromised by rewards.

You really have to focus on what you're doing and just plow ahead no matter what hurdles are thrown in front of you.

I have to win this now, and for all time, or I’ll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse.

Commitment is the ultimate assertion of human freedom. It releases all the energy you possess and enables you to take quantum leaps in creativity. When you set a one-pointed intention and absolutely refuse to allow obstacles to dissipate the focused quality of your attention, you engage the infinite organizing power of the universe.

Live for an ideal, and that one ideal alone. Let it be so great, so strong, that there may be nothing else left in the mind; no place for anything else, no time for anything else.

I was taught that everything is attainable if you are prepared to give up, to sacrifice, to get it. Whatever you want to do, you can do it, if you want it badly enough . . .

Be like a solid tower whose brave height remains unmoved by all the winds that blow; the man who lets his thoughts be turned aside by one thing or another, will lose sight of his true goal, his mind sapped of its strength.

Even if one's head were to be suddenly cut off, he should be able to do one more action with certainty.

If the going is tough and the pressure is on, If the reserves of strength have been drained and the summit is still not in sight, then the quality to seek in the person is neither great strength nor quickness of hand, but rather a resolute mind firmly set on its purpose that refuses to let its body slack or rest.

It gives me a sense of tunnel vision.

Every person who wins in any undertaking must be willing to burn his ships and cut all sources of retreat.

FOCUS - Follow One Course Until Successful

I realize that just my personality is, that I've gotta stay focused. I can't be too distracted.

We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We're just going to stay the course.

Days when you just don't have it, you don't mail it in, you don't pack it in, you give it everything you've got. You grind it out, I don't care what kind of game you have, you somehow try and find a way to get it done ... That's part of my attitude and belief, that you should always have the switch on. You can't turn it on and off.

It's dogged as does it. It ain't thinking about it.