Necessary Endings Quotes

“Endings are not only part of life; they are a requirement for living and thriving, professionally and personally. Being alive requires that we sometimes kill off things in which we were once invested, uproot what we previously nurtured, and tear down what we built for an earlier time.”

“Even the most gifted people and leaders are subject to feeling conflicted about ending things, so they resist.”

“Without the ability to end things, people stay stuck, never becoming who they are meant to be, never accomplishing all that their talents and abilities should afford them.”

“Getting to the next level always requires ending something, leaving it behind, and moving on. Growth itself demands that we move on.”

“For companies that operate like a family: Sometimes the commitment to being a family gets interpreted in two destructive ways that often remain unspoken. The first one is that ‘we will put up with you no matter how you perform, and you will always have a place here.’ Second, in these companies, it can also be implied that ‘if you give yourself to us, we will take care of you, almost for life.‘”

“Some leaders think all of life and business is a start-up. ‘More, more, more,’ is their mantra. That can kill a business that could have had very good life if someone had seen that sowing had to stop and operating had to begin.”

“False hope buys us more time to spend on something that is not going to work and keeps us from seeing the reality that is at once our biggest problem and our greatest opportunity.”

“Your business and your life will change when you really, really get it that some people are not going to change, no matter what you do, and that still others have a vested interest in being destructive.”

“You cannot fix people who will not take feedback, because from their perspective, they do not have a problem. So as far as they are concerned, there is nothing to fix.”

“Some of those activities may be good, but they are taking up resources that your best ones need. So you always will have to choose between good and best. This is especially tough for some creative people, causing them a lack of focus. They create more than they can focus on and feed, they are attached to every idea as if they were all equal, and they try to keep them all alive. Instead of a to-do list, they have a to-do pile. It goes nowhere fast.”

“We get comfortable with our misery, as we find ways to medicate ourselves, delude ourselves, disassociate our feelings, or get enough distance from the problem that it does not touch us directly.”

“One of the most important types of decision making is deciding what you are not going to do, what you need to eliminate in order to make room for strategic investments.”

“Recommitment does not make a person who is unsuited for a particular position suited for it all of a sudden. Promises by someone who has a history of letting you down in a relationship mean nothing certain in terms of the future.”

“Failing well means ending something that is not working and choosing to do something else better.”

“The fool tries to adjust the truth so he does not have to adjust to it.”

“All of your precious resources—time, energy, talent, passion, money—should only go to the buds of your life or your business that are the best, are fixable, and are indispensable. Otherwise, average sets in…”

“We are not prepared to go where we need to go. So we do not clearly see the need to end something, or we maintain false hope, or we just are not able to do it. As a result, we stay stuck in what should now be in our past.”

“Today may be the enemy of your tomorrow. In your business and perhaps your life, the tomorrow that you desire and envision may never come to pass if you do not end some things you are doing today.”

“They have realized that their success depends on having the time and energy resources to go deep with a few relationships, and they have to end the wish to go deep with everyone, as it leads to skimming the surface with almost everyone.”

“It is in complete alignment with the reality that both businesses and individuals will begin, gather, and have more activities than they can reasonably sustain.”