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Steve Jobs

Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be.

Betsy Morris, Fortune interview, Kona, Hawaii, March 2008 source ↗

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Arsène Wenger French football manager; Arsenal 1996–2018; FIFA Chief of Global Football Development
A good coach is somebody who has a clear concept of what they want and what they love in the game, is capable of expressing it in an understandable way, and is able to obtain it on the football pitch. They're also someone who loves to help others. This means something more than just going out and coaching a session, they really try to understand who a player is and find the key to helping them. All players have different problems, and we have the capacity to help them solve them. That's why this is a very interesting aspect of being a coach, we have the chance to be capable to influence people's lives.
Recorded Interview published by FIFA, FIFA Training Centre, 1 January 2023 source ↗
Siya Kolisi South Africa international rugby union flanker and captain
I was living in survival mode when I was young. I'm now trying to teach the people to live in a mentality that they can be whatever they want to be even though the situation around them is hopeless.
Recorded Dan Roan, The Sports Desk podcast, BBC, BBC Sport, 15 October 2021 source ↗
Tom Stoppard Playwright and screenwriter
So far they are conforming to pattern, alas! I mean I am suffering from the usual delusion that the play was ready before we went into production. It happens every time. I give my publisher the finished text of the play so that it can be published not too long after the opening in London, but by the time the galleys arrive they’re hopelessly out-of-date because of all the changes I’ve made during rehearsals. This time I gave them Hapgood and told them that it was folly to pretend it would be unaltered, but I added, “I think it won’t be as bad as the others.” It turned out to be worse. Yesterday I realized that a chunk of information in the third scene ought to be in the second scene, and it’s like pulling out entrails: as in any surgery there’s blood. As I was doing it I watched a documentary about Crick and Watson’s discovery of the structure of DNA—the double helix. There was only one way all the information they had could fit but they couldn’t figure out what it was. I felt the same. So the answer to your question is that the rehearsals are going well and enjoyably, but that I’m very busy with my pencil.
Recorded Shusha Guppy, The Paris Review, Issue 109, Winter 1988, 1988 source ↗
Cathy Freeman Australian sprinter, 1990–2003
I looked straight across at the clock and I was disappointed with the time. I should have run under 49 and I didn't. And I knew I had a lot more in me.
Recorded Interview for the documentary Freeman, ABC News (Australia), 12 September 2020 source ↗

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Question When did you last change your mind about something important? Change of mind
I used to think that technology could help education. I've probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I've had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What's wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent. It's a political problem.
Recorded Gary Wolf, Wired 4.02, February 1996 source ↗
Question How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? Failure & regret
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
Recorded Stanford University 114th Commencement, Stanford News (Stanford University), 12 June 2005 source ↗
Question What do you do when you feel creatively stuck? Craft & work
We called that the 'story crisis,' and we never expected to have another one. But you know what? There's been one on every film. We don't stop production for five months. We've gotten a little smarter about it. But there always seems to come a moment where it's just not working, and it's so easy to fool yourself - to convince yourself that it is when you know in your heart that it isn't.
Recorded Betsy Morris, Fortune interview, Kona, Hawaii, March 2008 source ↗
Question Does the thought of dying frighten you? Death & what remains
I've always felt that death is the greatest invention of life. I'm sure that life evolved without death at first and found that without death, life didn't work very well because it didn't make room for the young. It didn't know how the world was fifty years ago. It didn't know how the world was twenty years ago. It saw it as it is today, without any preconceptions, and dreamed how it could be based on that. We're not satisfied based on the accomplishment of the last thirty years. We're dissatisfied because the current state didn't live up to their ideals. Without death there would be very little progress.
Recorded Daniel Morrow, Smithsonian Institution Oral and Video Histories, for the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Program, 20 April 1995 source ↗

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