Donny Deutsch: Changes in my personal life are nerve-racking for me.

You know you're doing what you love when Sunday nights feel the same as Friday nights.

Donny Deutsch

friday sunday night

There are moments in business and in life when you have to say, "Failure is not an option."

Donny Deutsch

failure moments business

Once you realize that there are no geniuses out there, you can think, "I can do that". One reason I've succeeded is that I have that naïve sense of entitlement.

Donny Deutsch

positive-thinking realizing genius

If the person who runs a company has a belief system and everything he does stays fairly truly to that system, it will attract like-minded people who buy into it and then keeps selling itself in concentric circles.

Donny Deutsch

circles running inspirational

A good ad is one simple idea, with humanity in it, that connects with consumers, that represents the value system of a company and then can connect it with the consumer. We always say a brand is set of shared values. So if you can simply demonstrate your value system as a brand, so that a consumer could say, "Ah, our values line up. I vote for you, brand!" that's a good ad.

Donny Deutsch

simple people ideas

The failure-dichotomy principle: failure is good. Failure is not an option. Balance those in your brain.

Donny Deutsch

balance principles brain

And here's what management is: motivating people and putting them in places where they can succeed.

Donny Deutsch

succeed inspirational people

If you can't embrace both failure or the possibility of failure, or the tremendous fear of failure, you can't be wildly successful. It's just an axiomatic truth.

Donny Deutsch

fear-of-failure possibility successful

That outgrowth of arrogance comes at a price: some people don't like is. I take responsibility for that.

Donny Deutsch

arrogance responsibility people

The key to success is not purely who's the smartest, who's the best, but also who can say with conviction, "I deserve it." The entire concept is wrapped up in one phrase: "Why not me?

Donny Deutsch

why-not keys success

The passion, the competitiveness, the swinging for the fences, it adds up.

Donny Deutsch

swinging-for-the-fences passion winning

There are agencies who are good losers, places where losing is not only accepted, it becomes part of the culture, it is expected. That is debilitating. Don't let that happen to you. At Deutsch we go into every pitch assuming we are the Yankees. It's amazing what happens when you go into a room of smart, hungry people and say, "Failure is not an option." People are galvanized.

Donny Deutsch

smart failure inspirational

The greatest business icons-it's not that they were worth hundreds of millions, or billions or trillions of dollars, it's that they moved society forward.

Donny Deutsch

billions icons dollars

My philosophy is to always find the smartest people you can. Hire people smarter than you.

Donny Deutsch

smarter philosophy people

The best bosses understand the people working for them. That's the first component: what makes my people tick? What are they in it for?

Donny Deutsch

boss inspirational people

You can be hard on people as long as you're just as hard on yourself.

Donny Deutsch

inspirational long people

Every business is about understanding people. Which people you have to get through. Which people you have to embrace. Which people you have to jump over. Which people you have to push out of the way. That’s the game.

Donny Deutsch

understanding games people

I've always managed by walking around. Any CEO or leader who spends the majority of his time in his office is not doing his job.

Donny Deutsch

office leader jobs

Every great business leader I've ever met, in addition to being very smart, very driven, they have this, 'Why not me? Screw it, I deserve it, let's go.' And if you don't have that, you can't achieve greatness.

Donny Deutsch

smart greatness leader

I've built my success on the idea that a win for me involves a win for everyone around me.

Donny Deutsch

winning success ideas