Todd Henry Quotes & Sayings

It's easy to slip into guardedness and close ourselves off from the world when dealing with the messiness involved in navigating expectations, misunderstandings, and collaborative disagreements. This is especially true when we are busy or feel like we don't have the time or emotional bandwidth to deal with the complexity of relationships. — Todd Henry

We need to fall in love with the process, not just the end product of our work. — Todd Henry

pay attention to that little voice inside your head that sends you prompts, insights, and hunches. Note things that you don't understand, and rather than shying away from them, turn them into questions to pursue. — Todd Henry

We need to overcome this fear of insignificance and replace it with a mind-set of contribution. — Todd Henry

The great problems we see in the world today will not be solved by people functioning at half capacity cranking out work they don't care about in order to buy more things that will eventually rust and rot. — Todd Henry

One thing about creative work is that it's never done. In different words, every person we interviewed said that it was equally true that they had worked every minute of their careers, and that they had never worked a day in all their lives. They experienced even the most focused immersion in extremely difficult tasks as a lark, an exhilarating and playful adventure. — Todd Henry

it's easy to confuse progress with effectiveness. All progress is not true progress. It's possible to gain ground for many days, weeks, months, or even years but be going in a completely wrong direction. That's — Todd Henry

The next great idea for your work will probably not come from watching your competitors, but from taking an insight from an unrelated industry and applying it to your own. — Todd Henry

perpetual inbox obsession wasn't an organizational expectation; rather, it was fueled by a deep insecurity that something important was going to happen and that he wouldn't respond in time to contribute meaningfully to the conversation. — Todd Henry

Nachmanovitch writes, "It's great to sit on the shoulders of giants, but don't let the giants sit on your shoulders. There's no room for their legs to dangle! — Todd Henry

Make sure that you're nurturing your process. It's the only thing you can truly control, and it's the thing you'll always have regardless of where you end up. — Todd Henry

Don't go to your grave with your best work inside of you. Choose to die empty. — Todd Henry

Remember that common sense is not common practice, and that people who succeed are often those who do the little, everyday things that others won't. — Todd Henry

A strong, authentic, compelling voice is the expression of identity, guided by vision, and achieved through mastery. — Todd Henry

Two things will paralyze our creativity faster than anything else: 1. We haven't defined success. 2. We haven't defined failure. — Todd Henry

The most valuable land in the world is the graveyard. In the graveyard are buried all of the unwritten novels, never-launched businesses, unreconciled relationships, and all of the other things that people thought, 'I'll get around to that tomorrow.' One day, however, their tomorrows ran out. — Todd Henry

A good rule of thumb is that every single day should include some kind of stimuli that is directed at your personal growth (working through a book, studying a skill or technique, et cetera) and some kind of stimuli that you've sought out for purposes of advancing your work (an industry trend report, a research study, a trade magazine). — Todd Henry

No matter what you say about your priorities, where you spend money and your time will prove them out. — Todd Henry

Someone who operates from a place of wishful thinking is - in essence - a closet pessimist. — Todd Henry

Principle: To counter aimlessness, you must define your battles wisely, and build your life around winning them. — Todd Henry

Waiting for permission to act is the easy way out. — Todd Henry

If you want to thrive, you need to systematically engage with other people, in part to be reminded that life is bigger than your immediate problems. — Todd Henry

we each have resonant frequencies that we respond to naturally, and when we encounter them in others, their words or actions are amplified in us and we begin to resonate with the other person. — Todd Henry

Give yourself permission to not know things. Some people see ignorance as a point of failure, but successful people see it as acknowledgment of reality and an opportunity for growth. — Todd Henry

Your work tells tales. — Todd Henry

You need to create space for your creative process to thrive rather than expect it to operate in the cracks of your frenetic schedule. — Todd Henry

Don't go to the grave with your best work still inside of you. Die empty. — Todd Henry

Knowing does nothing for you - it's doing that matters. — Todd Henry

PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION How much work did you do today that you will be proud of tomorrow? I don't mean just how you handled the big things, but also how you addressed the little, seemingly insignificant ones. Did you make progress on what matters most to you, or did you allow the buzz, busyness, and expectations of others to squelch your passion and focus? I've been asking these questions of others and myself each day for more than a decade, and they are the main reason I originally felt compelled to write Die Empty. Through my work I've encountered many teams of brilliant, sharp, amazing, talented people who have at some point "settled in" or begun coasting on past success. Unfortunately, — Todd Henry

Our relationships will eventually grow stale unless we are diligent about directing and cultivating them. — Todd Henry

some of the best ideas I've had in my life and in my work, they often occurred in the spaces "in between" my commitments. They materialized when I least expected, during a moment of downtime, and typically when I was doing something in no way related to the project. — Todd Henry

it can be beneficial to disconnect from certain sources of information and streams of content so that you can cultivate a more curated flow of inspiration. — Todd Henry

A lifetime of mediocrity is a high price to pay for safety. — Todd Henry

Emptying yourself of your best work isn't just about checking off tasks on your to-do list; it's about making steady, critical progress each day on the projects that matter, in all areas of life. — Todd Henry

The key to cultivating creatively stimulating relationships is threefold: you need relationships in your life in which you can be real, you need relationships in your life in which you can learn to risk, and you need relationships in your life in which you can learn to submit to the wisdom of others. — Todd Henry

No matter how successful or skilled you are, you will inevitably fail at many things in your work. — Todd Henry

one path toward unlocking our latent abilities is returning to a simple practice that came so naturally to us as children: We need to rekindle our ability to emulate the positive attributes of those we admire in others, and apply those same attributes to our life and work. When we are conscious of the qualities we want to emulate, they become points of traction to help us coordinate our daily activities around a set of principles rather than reacting spontaneously to circumstances throughout the day. They comprise the operating system that guides how we engage our work, how we interact with others, and how we make decisions with our focus, time, and energy. — Todd Henry

It's all part of the process, and it's never ending. However, the key is to remain focused on your vision and embrace the journey. — Todd Henry

Acquiring new skills and adapting to complex, uncertain environments isn't easy, though. It requires persistent attention and near-constant effort to maintain a trajectory of growth. As such, it's easy to grow tired or lose your drive. However, when you stop growing, you start dying. In much the same way that an organization needs to be persistently innovative in order to maintain market share, individuals must make a personal commitment to lifelong personal innovation through skill development, risk-taking, and experimentation in order to avoid stagnation. The seeds of tomorrow's brilliance are planted in the soil of today's activity. — Todd Henry

You must get comfortable with eliminating things in your life that are getting in the way of clarity and focus. — Todd Henry

You can't just wait around for inspiration to strike - you have to aggressively pursue it by asking probing questions and mining your environment for the raw materials of brilliance. — Todd Henry

we show enough of ourselves to differentiate us from the competition, but not so much as to isolate us. — Todd Henry