The Most Powerful Wisdom I've Collected Over 12 Years

In this episode of Pay or Quit, I’m sharing the most powerful quotes I’ve collected over 12 years—wisdom that has shaped my journey as an entrepreneur. From legendary leaders to personal insights, these lessons will challenge your mindset, help you navigate risk, and push you toward financial and business success. Don’t just listen—take notes, apply the wisdom, and level up your entrepreneurial game! 🚀 

Please rate the podcast!

Shawn's Newsletter: https://shawnaustinjohnson.beehiiv.com/

Follow Shawn:
X: https://x.com/shawnAJohnsonX
Website: https://www.shawnaustinjohnson.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@shawnaustinjohnson

Transcript

 Risk cannot be avoided. Instead, you should evaluate the risk and decide what has the greatest risk. Don't think that doing nothing has no risk. There is a great risk in doing nothing. It just highlights the opportunity cost greater. To evaluate, ask yourself these two questions. If I am right, will I love it?

And if I am wrong, can I live with it? If the answer to both of these is yes, then go. You've just given yourself.  Welcome 

entrepreneurs to 

pay or quit, 

where we reveal the gritty truth behind business success. 

People see the glory, but not the struggle it takes to get there. 

We're here to share the real stories of entrepreneurs navigating the tough intersection of business and relationships.

I'm Tony Klein. 

And I'm Shawn Johnson. And together we'll guide you through the real challenges faced as serial entrepreneurs.  

Join us for the untold stories behind the scenes. 

Buckle in, it might get messy. The mocker seeks wisdom and finds. But knowledge comes easily to the discerning. Proverbs 14. 6. So today I'm going to dive into 12 years of notes that I've kept on my iPhone when I hear or read something That was impactful for me and there are some extremely powerful things in this list And it'll probably take me about 20 minutes to get through some of them But I hope that if you don't do something similar like when you hear or read something that's impactful  To jot it down so you can reference it in the future.

You're missing out.  I have done this for about 12 years now And here's some of the things that I'm going to share today. But what I do is I read them about every quarter I go through them. So I can keep them in my mind as I try to level up and learn more. Sometimes I just breeze through it, you know, every few days.

I'm, Oh, what was that quote? You know, just to, to refresh my mind.  The important thing is, is to.  Keep something down. I mean, this is how we sharpen right the the blade sharpens here The other thing is it is you're listening today Use that 15 second back button if you hear something that oh, that was that was a good quote and jot it down yourself This is a library if you will of years of amazing quotes knowledge even some bible verses  mindsets  Over the course of of more than a decade in my life.

And yes, I've missed some things  And haven't jotted everything down But these are the ones that I took the moment  in that time to write it down and put it in my Note section of my phone. The other thing is is that not every single quote I was able to reference so I must have forgotten  to jot down who actually said it some of these are my own as well so hopefully This will impact your life as much as so many of these have impacted mine.

Here we go. Leaders must own everything in their world. There is no one else to blame. Extreme Ownership. Written by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.  There are no bad teams, only bad leaders.  Power is the ability to achieve purpose and effect change. Martin Luther King Jr.  Never, under any circumstance, let someone else's opinion of you determine your reality.

Les Brown  When you come to the boundaries, of what you know it's time to make some mistakes.  That is from Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad's Guide to Investing.  I love that one because it reminds me of the Peter Principle, which says that we are only as good as our own incompetence.  That just motivates me to level up and to learn more. 

We make our choices and then our choices make us. That's me. I probably say this one to my kids a little too much. But,  whether we make a good choice or a bad choice, no matter what the choice we make, it actually shapes who we are and how we've become. Now, does that mean we should be damned to everything that we have done wrong?

No, absolutely not. That's not what I'm saying.  Some people want it to happen. Some wish it would happen. Others make it happen. Michael Jordan. If more information was the answer, Then we'd all be billionaires with perfect abs. Derek Sivers.  Our past mistakes limit our future options. Bob Russell.  The moment you view mastery as a journey you go down, rather than a destination you arrive at, it starts to feel attainable and achievable.

It's not about knowing how to do something, it's about being willing to do anything.  Right is right, even if everyone is against it. And wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.  Failure is not the enemy of success. In fact, it is the teacher of it. That was me.  The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. 

Thomas Paine  My top five passions in life. Number one. Jesus. Number two. My family. Number three. Investing. Number four. Travel. Number five. Education and self development.  The most dangerous animals out there in the world is a realtor acting like a property manager. One aw shit eliminates  1000 attaboys. 

Make the required remarkable. Leaders aren't one man bands. We are conductors who focus on empowering, equipping,  and enabling others to perform at their best. This requires mastering the art of leadership. of delegation by learning what and how to hand things off by letting go and trusting others. We become multiplying leaders capable of achieving exponential results  with and through others that we could never achieve on our own. 

Best of all. Multiplying leaders learn one of  leadership's most important lessons. It's not about you.  I consider this the higher calling of leadership. It's not about how successful we are or how high we've climbed, but what we do with our leadership to serve God and benefit others. Failure happens to ensure our path to success. 

Good intentions do not achieve results.  Price is only important when quality is an insufficient substitute.  Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things. Peter Drucker  God is more concerned with our character than our comfort level.  Focus on today. The future won't matter if we can't handle today. 

I'm driven by the hope that I haven't created my best work yet. Me.  That's me.  Emotions are contagious if you act nervous or act fill in the blank. So will the person you are talking to.  Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. John Adams  It takes a genius to take something complicated and make it simple.

Any fool can take something simple and make it complicated. Albert Einstein  Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today, today is a gift and that's why they call it the present. Disturb us, Lord,  when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed.

too little when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord,  when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life. Having fallen in love with life, we have seized To dream of eternity and in our efforts to build a new earth We have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim Disturb us lord to dare more boldly to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery Where losing sight of land we shall find the stars We ask you to push back the horizon of our hopes and to push us into the future in strength Courage, hope and love  this we ask in the name of our captain who is Jesus Christ, Sir Francis Drake, entrepreneurs are dreamers.

If they don't have a dream big enough to work towards, they will get bored. Dan Martell.  We are shaped by our thoughts. We become what we think. When our, when the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves. Buddha.  Strong people make as many mistakes as weak people. Difference is that strong people admit their mistakes, laugh at them, learn from them.

That is how. They become strong.  Richard Needham.  Comfort leads to complacency, and complacency leads to boredom. Our entire society is built around comfort and not impact. Me. Excellence is the culmination of a thousand details done perfectly.  When providing excellent service, being right is irrelevant.

Saying sorry doesn't mean you're wrong.  My goal is to not fail fast. My goal is to succeed over the long run.  They are not the same thing. Mark Andreessen  To do original work, it is not necessary to know something nobody else knows.  It is necessary to believe something few other people believe. Mark Andreessen. 

Are you doing what you are uniquely capable of? What you feel you've been placed here on the earth to do? Can you be replaced?  Life favors the specific ask and punishes the vague wish. Tim Ferriss.  Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we often might win by fearing to attempt. Jane Addams. 

You'll never go broke investing in yourself.  Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure. Napoleon Hill.  Finding someone else to blame will never lead you to the truth. Genuine gratitude should lead you to the truth. you to take action.  Are you missing the point of all the good things God has given us? 

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. Winston Churchill.  Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your Altitude,  zig, zig, zig, ziggler.  Winning is an intentional act. Success is not failure. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.

Winston Churchill,  most billionaires have a mission so big that it, that it floods out the pain, Cody Sanchez,  society is produced by our words and government by our wickedness, the former promotes are positively  actually, I'm going to read this one here,  society naturally arises from people's needs. Needs to desire to cooperate while government is only necessary because of human inclination towards evil and its primary function is to control bad behavior by imposing restrictions.

That is Thomas Paine, 1776  from The book common sense  embarrassment is the cost of entry if you aren't willing to look like a foolish beginner You'll never become a graceful master here I am doing a podcast about all these quotes and I can't read sometimes let's laugh at our laugh at each other here  We must all suffer from one of two pains the pain of discipline or the pain of regret Jim rone  if you want to learn something read it if you want to understand it Write it, and if you want to master it, teach it. 

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read. Mark Twain  Sometimes, when you're in a dark place, you think you've been buried, but actually you've been planted.  The definition of anger  is the emotional punishment you give yourself for someone else's behavior.  He who blames others has a long way to go.

He who blames himself He who blames no one has arrived. Chinese Proverbs. Proverb. Those who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed. Lloyd Jones  One interruption ruins an entire time block.  If you make your mission making money, you'll be rich.  Sometimes, by losing a battle, you find a new way to win the war.

Donald Trump. The poor remain tethered to the ground by necessity, while the rich ascend on the wings of opportunity.  Risk cannot be avoided. Instead, you should evaluate the risk and decide what has greatest risk. Don't think that doing nothing has no risk. There is a great risk in doing nothing. It just highlights the opportunity cost greater.

To evaluate, ask yourself these two questions. If I am right, will I love it? And if I am wrong, can I live with it? If the answer to both of these is yes, then go. You've just given yourself the green light. They fear it not working more than looking forward to it working.  The people who have the least to lose are the most afraid to lose it.

The people who have the most to lose are the least afraid, afraid to lose it.  If there is no opportunity to lose big, there is no opportunity to win big. If you don't live a life by design, you will live a life by default.  Be prolific  before you be profound. The rich man's wealth is his strong city. The destruction of the poor Is there poverty? 

Proverbs 10 15.  We desire to be better, but not that much better. We think we're serious about getting rich, but we're only curious about getting rich because when we find out what it takes to get rich, we're not really interested. in doing it once we find out what it takes. I believe that was Myron Golden. 

I think most people have a business to rescue themselves from loss, but they never use it to increase opportunity.  The biggest thing preventing people from making 1 million a year is them making 100, 000 a year.  Imagine a life where your financial decisions are driven by your dreams. Rather than your obligations. 

If you're struggling financially, turn off your devices and read more. Build your awareness to financial literacy and stop fantasizing about people on the screen.  If you can't imagine it, you can't have it.  Tony Morrison  Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. Simon Will 

All business problems are personal problems that manifest themselves All business  problems are personal problems that manifest themselves in the business. That's a great one.  Have big dreams big enough for your team's dreams to fit inside of it. Dan Martell  When you buy back your time, make sure it stays sold.

Dan Martell  You can live a financially rich life without ever owning a personal home.  True story. Successful investors treat investing like watching paint dry.  The most expensive thing you are paying for is all the things you don't know. Trying to look rich is what's keeping you broke. Or being scared to look broke is what's keeping you broke.

Going into debt to buy stuff, vacations,  paid for by debt, etc. is keeping you poor. It will catch up to you if it hasn't already.  A lack of knowledge. The lack of knowledge is the thing that is costing you  blank more than anything else. So fill in the blank. The lack of knowledge is the thing that is costing you  more than anything else. 

It is 10 times easier to build a successful company when you aren't strapped for cash in your personal life.  No one remembers what you complain about. They only remember that you complain. The reason  it is important for us to protect. Tect our mind and not be flooded by our emotions is because we tend to drift towards our weakest trait. 

Well, there you go.  About 12 years of powerful quotes and knowledge from people around the world over the years.  Even as back as I think as old as  Thomas Paine. So hopefully you jotted some of those down and really  struck a chord with some of those quotes. 

Thanks for listening. We'll be back next time to cut through the noise of what it really takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

If today's episode hit home, share it with a friend and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next 

one.