Life is a creative process, not a journey of discovery or a school of learning. You're not discovering yourself, but recreating yourself. So don't try and figure out who you are, but establish who you want to be. You create your reality every minute, probably without realizing it. You can be, do, and have whatever you can imagine. Didn't I say you were gods?

Don't be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.

If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we've destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don't you think that we might see each other once or twice?

"You've trained yourself to face reality. You've trained yourself to tell the truth. You've trained yourself to tell it like it is. So in the beginning, these fantasies feel a little inappropriate, because it's like you're fooling yourself. Sometimes people will say, "Well, isn't this just denial?" And we say, we hope so! We hope that you are denying the absence that you do not want. And we hope that you are embracing the presence of what you do. But somehow the idea of denial has become a dirty word to you; like it is virtuous to face the reality of the horror of your own lives. And we would be ignoring anything that did not please us. We would get our eyes on what feels good."

"This world is not set up for failure and demise and decline. It's set up for improvement and expansion and better and better, and better. And so, it must get better and better and better. And it is. We would just like all of you to let yourselves in on more of it."

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.

Entrepreneurs create their businesses for a diversity of reasons. However, I believe that most of the greatest companies in the world also have great purposes which were discovered and/or created by their original founders and which still remain at the core of their business models. Having a deeper, more transcendent purpose is highly energizing for all of the various interdependent stakeholders, including the customers, employees, investors, suppliers, and the larger communities in which the business participates. While these deeper, more transcendent purposes have unique expressions at each business they also can be grouped into certain well known and timeless categories. Philosophy dates back to Plato the timeless ideals of “The Good”, “The True”, and “The Beautiful” that humanity has been seeking to create, discover, and express for thousands of years. If we add the ideal of “The Heroic” to the above three we have the framework of higher ideals which most great businesses seek to express in some form or fashion.

But we have not achieved our tremendous increase in shareholder value by making shareholder value the primary purpose of our business. In my marriage, my wife's happiness is an end in itself, not merely a means to my own happiness; love leads me to put my wife's happiness first, but in doing so I also make myself happier. Similarly, the most successful businesses put the customer first, ahead of the investors. In the profit-centered business, customer happiness is merely a means to an end: maximizing profits. In the customer-centered business, customer happiness is an end in itself, and will be pursued with greater interest, passion, and empathy than the profit-centered business is capable of.

...follow your heart wherever it takes you. Choose love instead of fear. If you do, a wonderful life adventure awaits you! Carpe diem!