Top 90 Jocelyn K. Glei Quotes (2026 Update)

1. “Genius is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

2. “To make great ideas a reality, we must act, experiment, fail, adapt, and learn on a daily basis.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

3. “With focus and consistency you can change your habits. By changing your habits, you reprogram the behaviors that control most of your life and ultimately determine your success.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

4. “Nothing truly innovative, nothing that has advanced art, business, design, or humanity, was ever created in the face of genuine certainty or perfect information. Because the only way to be certain before you begin is if the thing you seek to do has already been done. In which case, you’re no longer creating, you’re replicating. And that’s not why we’re here.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

5. “It’s not about ideas, it’s about making ideas happen.” Frequently.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

6. “Now, I think that’s pretty much Planning 101. You put the things that you really want do into your calendar.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

7. “Truly great creative achievements require hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of work, and we have to make time every single day to put in those hours. Routines help us do this by setting expectations about availability, aligning our workflow with our energy levels, and getting our minds into a regular rhythm of creating.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

8. “Here’s how it works for Stephen King: There are certain things I do if I sit down to write. I have a glass of water or a cup of tea. There’s a certain time I sit down, from 8:00 to 8:30, somewhere within that half hour every morning. I have my vitamin pill and my music, sit in the same seat, and the papers are all arranged in the same places. The cumulative purpose of doing these things the same way every day seems to be a way of saying to the mind, you’re going to be dreaming soon.1.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

9. “Whether it’s intelligence, creativity, self-control, charm, or athleticism – the science shows our abilities to be profoundly malleable. When it comes to mastering any skill, your experience, effort, and persistence matter a lot. Change really is always possible – there is no ability that can’t be developed with effort. So the next time you find yourself thinking, “But I’m just not good at this,” remember: you’re just not good at it yet.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

10. “The world is random and unpredictable, which means that it is close to impossible to outline exactly what your next best move is. But you can explore it – by doing and trying. Just make sure you don’t go all in before you’ve figured out that it works.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

11. “At the end of the day – or, really, from the beginning – building a routine is all about persistence and consistency. Don’t wait for inspiration; create a framework for it.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

12. “Thought, if not written down and shared with others, changes nothing. Does it matter?”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

13. “The idea is that one day a week, you need to get your mind in a different mode, you need to not work. Every week, your brain – and your soul – needs to be reset.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

14. “The difficulty of always feeling that you ought to be doing something is that you tend to undervalue the times when you’re apparently doing nothing, and those are very important times. It’s the equivalent of the dream time, in your daily life, times when things get sorted out and reshuffled. If you’re constantly awake work-wise you don’t allow that to happen.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

15. “After high school, kids know everything, after their bachelor’s degree, they know something, and after a PhD, they now know that they know nothing.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

16. “We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period, provided we work slowly and consistently.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

17. “Treat your work as a refuge – an oasis of control and creative satisfaction in the midst of the bad stuff. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not on fire creatively every day – give yourself credit if you show up for work and make even a small amount of progress. When you put down your tools for the day, you may even see your personal situation with a fresh eye. POVERTY.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

18. “Establish hard edges in your day. Set a start time and a finish time for your workday – even if you work alone. Dedicate different times of day to different activities: creative work, meetings, correspondence, administrative work, and so on. These hard edges keep tasks from taking longer than they need to and encroaching on your other important work.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

19. “What is a professional, anyway? A professional is someone who can keep working at a high level of effort and ethics, no matter what is going on – for good or ill – around him or inside him. A professional shows up every day. A professional plays hurt. A professional takes neither success nor failure personally.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

20. “To “know thyself” is hard work. Harder still is to believe that you, with all your flaws, are enough – without checking in, tweeting an update, or sharing a photo as proof of your existence for the approval of your 719 followers.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

21. “Yet there wasn’t a single day when I sat down to write an article, blog post, or book chapter without a string of people waiting for me to get back to them. It.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

22. “In other words, if you’re not motivated to be nice because of the good karma, be motivated to be nice because ultimately it saves time.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

23. “Frank Lloyd Wright insisted that constraints historically have resulted in a flowering of the imagination: “The human race built most nobly when limitations were greatest and, therefore, when most was required of imagination in order to build at all.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

24. “Like it or not, we are constantly forced to juggle tasks and battle unwanted distractions – to truly set ourselves apart, we must learn to be creative amidst chaos.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

25. “In short, lucky people are open-minded, upbeat, proactive, and always willing to try something new. While it’s good to be directed in your career, you’ll want to stay open and alert to unexpected possibilities. And when they show up, act on them. You never know what the outcome might be.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

26. “A professional plays hurt. A professional takes neither success nor failure personally. In.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

27. “When you make choices that will affect your career, aim for the intersection of your genuine interests, skills, and opportunities.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

28. “The challenge is that the demand in our lives increasingly exceeds our capacity.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

29. “Want to change the world? Push everyone you know to work within their ISO. Mentor people to help them realize their genuine interests and skills and capitalize on even the smallest opportunities around them. When it comes to your own career, make every decision with a constant eye toward your own intersection. A career of “work with intention” is the kind that moves industries forward. Do it for yourself and for the rest of us.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

30. “To truly excel, you must also continue to create for the most important audience of all: yourself.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

31. “I think we need that self-awareness. That we don’t have time because it’s convenient not to have the time, because maybe we don’t want to challenge ourselves.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

32. “At first meditation will be uncomfortable, but you’ll get better at it. You’ll learn a lot about yourself, and you’ll get better at being mindful, and being comfortable in solitude. You’ll also learn to watch your thoughts and not be controlled by them. As you do, you’ll have learned a key skill for focus: how to notice the urge to switch tasks and not act on that urge, but just return your attention to the task at hand. This is what you learn in solitude, and it is everything.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

33. “If you’re feeling frustrated with your progress toward your goals, it’s tempting to focus on what you lack that other people seem to have, to obsess over followers, engagement, traffic, or any other benchmark. The reality is that numbers don’t necessarily measure success, and they’re certainly not a requirement for fulfillment.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

34. “Every time you’re doing something, you’re not doing something else. But you don’t really see what it is that you’re giving up. Especially when it comes to, let’s say, e-mail versus doing something that takes fifty hours.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

35. “Deep and regular breathing, also referred to as diaphragmatic breathing, helps to quiet the sympathetic nervous system and allows the parasympathetic nervous system – which governs our sense of hunger and satiety, the relaxation response, and many aspects of healthy organ function – to become more dominant.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

36. “Consumers don’t need many things from your brand – they just need one thing from your brand. You.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

37. “Pick a vision that is ambitious and far-reaching enough to last decades, not years. Commit.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

38. “To build a career, the right question is not “What job am I passionate about doing?” but instead “What way of working and living will nurture my passion?”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

39. “I define Resistance as that self-created and self-perpetuated, invisible, impersonal, indefatigable force whose sole aim is to prevent us from doing our work, from becoming our best selves, and from rising to the next level of competence, integrity, and generosity. That.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

40. “We’ve been sold on the false idea that working from home or, worse, on vacation to help a harried client is a good thing. We are expected to be on call and available to everyone all the time. We’ve been fitted with an electronic leash for bad bosses, demanding clients, and bored friends. The.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

41. “What would it mean to approach e-mail and social media mindfully?”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

42. “Whatever your strengths are, they will likely lead straight into your weaknesses.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

43. “We’re asked to apply our intellectual capital to solve hard problems – a creative goal that requires uninterrupted focus. At the same time, we’re asked to be constantly available by e-mail and messenger and in meetings – an administrative goal that creates constant distraction. We’re being asked, in other words, to simultaneously resist and embrace distraction to advance in our careers – a troubling paradox.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

44. “How does being tethered to our devices impact our physical bodies – and even our imaginations?”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

45. “Leigh Michaels, prolific author of more than eighty romance novels, once said that “waiting for inspiration to write is like standing at the airport waiting for a train.” Conditions to produce one’s craft are rarely ideal, and waiting for everything to be perfect is almost always an exercise in procrastination.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

46. “When we are working with intention, we toil away endlessly – often through the wee hours of the morning – on projects we care about deeply. Whether it’s building an intricate model of an ancient ship, writing a song, or mapping out an idea for your first business, you do it out of genuine interest and love.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

47. “Finally, note that strong partnerships are often based on contrasting rather than coinciding strengths, so you’ll want to avoid the comfortable trap of seeking someone too similar to yourself. In Plato’s Republic, guards were taught by poets. Views contrary to your own are always helpful, as sometimes you will see truth in them and effect change, and, if not, you will be stress-testing and ultimately strengthening your own convictions.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

48. “Basic economics tells us that if you want something rare and valuable, you need to offer something rare and valuable in return – and in the working world, what you have to offer are your skills.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

49. “Creative minds are highly susceptible to distraction, and our newfound connectivity poses a powerful temptation for all of us to drift off focus.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei

50. “Be aware of the cost of constant connection. If your focus is always on others – and quenching your appetite for information and external validation – you will miss out on the opportunity to mine the potential of your own mind. Recognize.”

— Jocelyn K. Glei