Charles Koch quotes: advice from one of the world’s richest human beings, Charles Koch.
“Do what you have a passion for and is most rewarding to you.”
“To be happy you have to fulfill your nature. That’s what Aristotle taught so many centuries ago, that the road to happiness isn’t to go drink more or consume more. The road to happiness is to fully develop your abilities, and then apply them to do good.”
“My father wanted to instill the work ethic. And, because he knew if you don’t learn to work to be more productive to improve your efficiency, to cooperate with other people at an early age, you may never learn those habits.”
“By instilling a work ethic in me at an early age, my father did me a big favor, although it didn’t seem like a favor back then. By the time I was eight, he made sure work occupied most of my spare time.”
“My lessons weren’t specific to business, but they were fundamental values – integrity, humility, responsibility, work ethic, entrepreneurship, a thirst for knowledge, the desire to make a contribution, and concern for others – that profoundly influenced the way I do business and live my life to this day.”
“The process of discovery begins when we observe, often vaguely, a gap between what is and what could be. Our intuition tells us something better is just beyond the range of our mind’s eye. To build a culture of discovery, we must encourage, not discourage, the passionate pursuit of hunches no matter their origin.”
“An effective business vision starts with the creation of value and ends with the creation of value.”
“The only way you improve is to try new things.”
“True failures are lost opportunities – the things you should have done but didn’t.”
“If you never failed, then you’re probably not doing very much.”
“Prudent risk-taking should be encouraged by applying the concept of opportunity cost.”
“Embrace change. Envision what could be, challenge the status quo, and drive creative destruction.”
“We must measure what leads to results, not simply what is easy to measure.”
“My father would always say, ‘Learn everything you can and whenever you can, because you never know when it’ll come in handy.'”
“If you have methods without principles, you’re going to have trouble. But if you develop methods based on principles, then you can make progress.”
“To the person with only a hammer and no understanding, every problem looks like a nail.”
“Successful entrepreneurs are not deterred by their lack of authority to control resources.”
“An entrepreneur can’t just sit there and say, ‘Gosh, I want a certain revenue.’ You have to go out and find ways to create value.”
“There are a lot of people who have ideas but they don’t know how to get it done.”
“To succeed, a business must not only develop profit and loss measures, but also determine their underlying drivers, in order to understand what is adding value, what is not, and why. This knowledge informs its vision and strategies, leads to innovations, creates opportunities to eliminate waste, and guides continuous improvement.”
“Success is one of the worst enemies of success, because success tends to breed complacency and lack of humility.”
“Past performance does not guarantee future success.”
“The future is unknown and unknowable. You just keep pushing.”
“Successful companies create value by providing products or services their customers value more highly than available alternatives. They do this while consuming fewer resources, leaving more resources available to satisfy other needs in society. Value creation involves making people’s lives better. It is contributing to prosperity in society.”
“The most difficult and painful of all changes: a change in the way we think.”
“Our willingness to move quickly, absorb more risk, and give better service enabled us to become the leading crude oil gathering company.”
“I try to hire people who will challenge and have the humility to be challenged – people who have basically good values.”
“I like to think that I try to learn something every day – and change my views, modify my views as I learn.”
“Innovation comes from recombining existing technology and different perspectives in innovative ways.”
“To do meaningful work is to contribute – to create value in society.”
“A truly free society is based on a vision of respect for people and what they value.”
“I believe my business and non-profit investments are much more beneficial to societal well-being than sending more money to Washington.”
“When everyone gets something for nothing, soon no one will have anything, because no one will be producing anything.”
“I learned that unless you start working, if you’re frozen out of work, you will never learn the habits, the discipline, the values of cooperation and improvement unless you get a job, and that’s what statistics show. It’s, unless you get a job and keep it, you will not get out of poverty. If you do, you have a very good chance of working out of poverty.”
“If somebody is doing more and more to make other people’s lives better, have them make all they can, if that’s what drives them, because that’s what we want.”
“We are on dangerous terrain when government picks winners and losers in the economy by subsidizing favored products and industries.”
“I don’t have all the answers. I have a lot of questions. And I have some basic principles.”
“I always wanted to be different and do things differently. I was a pain in the neck. I was challenging everything you wanted me to do and challenging people in school.”
“I think this is so important – what’s not done well at education at every level – is helping kids find, as I discovered for myself, what I was good at. I was very lucky to find out that at an early age, which set my direction in life.”
“My parents worked really hard at communicating other values they felt were important, such as integrity, courage, humility, treating others with dignity and respect, and having a thirst for knowledge.”
“My father told me, ‘If you choose to let this money destroy your initiative and independence, then it will be a curse to you and my action in giving it to you will have been a mistake. I shall regret very much to have you miss the glorious feeling of accomplishment. Remember that often adversity is a blessing in disguise and is certainly the greatest character builder.'”
“My view on well-being and fulfillment comes from Maslow and positive psychology, and that is that you’re satisfying three sets of needs. First need is physiological and safety needs: got to satisfy those first. And the second is you got to satisfy your community needs because we’re social animals, and if we don’t have that, we’re empty and we don’t have people to share knowledge and bounce things off of, and challenge ourselves. And then the third is the idea to find a calling.”
“Best part of my job is fulfillment. When I see that, that we’re creating value, that we’re helping improve people’s lives, and we benefit from it – so it’s a system of mutual benefit. Our philosophy’s working. That’s what turns me on. That’s what keeps me going.”
“I feel a passion for what we’re trying to do. I mean, why does somebody who’s old who’s a writer keep writing? Because that’s who they are.”
“I’ve been blessed by learning certain principles and values that transformed my life and enabled me to accomplish more than I really had the ability to do or ever dream possible. And so I decided that I wanted to give as many other people as possible the opportunity to learn these ideas and transform their lives as I had.”
“I’ve devoted most of my life to understanding the principles that enable people to improve their lives. It’s those principles, the principles of free society, that have shaped my life, my family, our company, and America.”
“I want my legacy to be greater freedom, greater prosperity, and a better way of life for my family, our employees, and all Americans. And I wish the same for every nation on earth.”
Now hear what his bro said about success.
