What I've come to realize is that emotional intelligence, which I define as buoyancy, was the only way I knew how to lead, and is, in my option, the only way to inspire real change.

As buoyancy is not contrary to other characteristics of leadership, including decisiveness, accountability and performance standards, I don't ever think it can be self-defeating.

The secret is to be prepared, to draw on the strengths of the people around you, and most importantly, to instill confidence that your team will step up and find a solution.

At the end of the day it's really easy to be a great leader when things are going well. The real test, whether or not you believe in being an emotionally intelligent leader, is when things go wrong.

As a sensitive and highly intuitive person in the command-and-control corporate world, I always felt miscast.

Mandela stands alone in possessing all of the qualities of other great men, but has one quality which is transcendent... his ability to forgive and to place others above himself.

My grandfather used to say to me when I was a boy, "Getting knocked down is no big prize - it's getting up that's the real trick." I couldn't agree more.

True buoyant leaders can never communicate in percentage points, or charts and figures. First and foremost, they must be storytellers, communicating with their hearts, not heads.

Maintaining patience, being generous, and helping your peers takes time, and no small amount of emotional fortitude. But it brings an exponential difference in your team's ability to problem-solve.

As I was coming up in business, screwing up was not an option in any form.

Survival in the demand economy depends on and requires experimentation, risk taking, and trial and error.

The soul's rainbow has more colors than the sky's stars.

It is easy

Geniuses were like storms or cyclones, pulling everything into their path, sticks and stones and dust.

Your life experience is unfolding in the precise response to the vibrations that radiate as a result of your thoughts, whether you know it is or not.

I was brought up in industrial south Lancashire, down the cobbled road from where LS Lowry (1887-1976) lived and painted.

Stick with the optimists. It's going to be tough enough even if they're right.

The greater the hold of government upon the life of the individual citizen, the greater the risk of war.

Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury; the time spent engaged in it is not time that could be better spent in more formal educational pursuits. Play is a necessity.

Hopefully life is long. Do stuff you will enjoy thinking about and telling stories about for many years to come. Do stuff you will want to brag about.

Every book changes my writing because I'm always trying to do something I didn't do before. I try to do what's hard for me, what I haven't done in the past.