100+ Les Brown Quotes For Success In Life
Last Updated: 06 February 2020
This is a collection of the best Les Brown quotes on life, success, dreams, leadership and fear.
Les Brown encourages everyone to:
– Believe in their unique gifts, talents and abilities;
– Go after their dreams and grab success;
– Banish fear and live free.
Go ahead and ponder these amazing Les Brown quotes. May they help you realize that IT IS POSSIBLE to achieve more than what you have ever dared to imagine.
Les Brown Quotes
The Top 10
Les Brown Quotes
Life Challenges
If you look at your life, and if you’re not getting what you want, you owe it to yourself to do something differently.
In life you can go through life, you can come up with reasons or you can come up with results. You can come up with excuses or you can come up with achievements. You can go through life blaming or you can come up with solutions. The choice is in your hands. Satisfaction or despair — we can choose that.
When the challenges of life come your way, you got to find ways to increase your sense of self-appreciation. Because, if you don’t, you’re bombarded with negative stuff every day that beat you down and you will find yourself unconsciously engage in self-destructive behavior. If you don’t program yourself, life will program you.
I encourage you to live full and to die empty.
If you don’t have the courage to act, sometimes and particularly if you have something special to do, life will move on you.
Getting unstuck means that you are going to start living life on your terms rather than just gliding through everyday on automatic.
You don’t have to force yourself or motivate yourself to think negatively, to be depressed, to hate somebody, to want revenge, to want to get back at somebody, to beat yourself up over the head, to feel loaded with guilt. You don’t have to make any effort to do that. Your mind is on automatic. It will do that by itself. But, if you want to begin to move into your own personal greatness, if you want to begin to really enjoy a happy successful healthy life, you’ve got to be willing to go against the tide. You’ve got to be willing to harness your will and say in spite of this, I’m in control, I’m not going to let this get me down, I’m not going to let this destroy me, I’m coming back and I’ll be stronger and better because of it.
Don’t take it personally. Most people are so negative they will have to say “NO” seven times before they say: “YES”.
Help somebody and help yourself, because what you give is what you get. Find somebody that you can help so you can forget about you for a moment. Sometimes the best thing to do is to be.
It’s scary to go against the dominant thinking of your family, friends, and those people you associate with every day. But it is perhaps the most difficult act of courage you will ever perform.
You got to make sure that you have people in your life that can see it for you or that will encourage you. Non-affirming relationships can hurt.
Don’t confuse who you are with what you do.
You will go through things and while you’re going through them you can’t understand why it’s happening to you, but after you go through it, you get back and you look at it and you say oh now I understand why I needed that lesson. I couldn’t understand it then, but after I got through it then I saw that that was preparing me for bigger and better things.
Practice makes what? Perfect? Absolutely not. Dismantle that belief system. Practice makes improvement. You can always better your best. You can always go beyond anything that you have ever done. You never hit a state of perfection. You’re always bigger than what you do. And so all you’re looking for new breakthroughs through practice and practice and practice, you’ll get better and better and better.
I believe that all of us was born with a purpose, that all of us have something that we are supposed to do, that all of us have some goodness within us and that goodness gives us a responsibility to manifest our greatness.
Part of getting to get unstuck, you’ve got to decide that the behavior pattern that you have adopted doesn’t work for you. You’ve got to change your strategies and changing your strategy means reinventing your life, recreating you, and you have the power to do that.
Where have you been up to this point? Look at your life and look at what you produce. Are they giving you what you wanted? Are you living on purpose? Are you living your dream? Are you acting on your ideas? Are you doing all you can do? Have you gotten comfortable? Are you procrastinating? Are you evading your own greatness? Are you surrounding yourself with people that can nourish you? Are you challenging yourself? Are you experimenting? Are you learning something different? Is your life an adventure or is it boring?
Sometimes you have to back up and go within and pray and meditate and recharge your batteries. Go away, clear your head and then come back and look at it from a different vantage point. Don’t operate while you are under the spell of the effect of what’s going on.
Begin to discipline your emotion. If you don’t discipline and contain your emotions, they will use you.
You never find out how much you know until you find out how little you know.
It really doesn’t matter what has happened to you. The only thing that really matters is: what are you going to do about it? That’s all that matters.
You don’t want to ever put yourself in a vision or in a situation where you have a limited vision and you’re only using a limited amount of your talents, of your skills and of your abilities.
The major key to your making things happen in your life is YOU.
If people can put you on a guilt trip, they will use you and abuse you over and over and over again. You got to draw the line. You have to draw the line on them. Don’t go through life feeling like you’re powerless, victims of people that are powerless. You’re not powerless. You are powerful!
You got to have courage. When life knock you down, try to land on your back, because if you can look up, you can get up.
There is more in you than just working on a job where they pay you just enough to keep you from quitting and you work just hard enough to keep from getting fired.
There’s always a way. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
People who can’t see it(dreams) for themselves can’t see it for you.
Why do people stay together and they’re miserable, sleeping in separate rooms, or arguing? The only thing they have in common: paying the bills — don’t talk, don’t communicate, don’t share anything together. Day-in and day-out is short and unpredictable that life is, being mean to each other. Why do people do that? Known hells are preferable to strange heavens, because it’s familiar.
When you look at your past, give it an interpretation that empowers you. That’s where I used to be. That’s not where I am now. I’m growing.
Sometimes life will take you to your knees, but the pain opens spaces in the heart for joy. Somebody said about life — I love this – He says, “Life is like an onion. You have to peel it one layer at a time and sometimes you cry.”
I was reading a newspaper that said that millions of people are dying because of what they are eating. And then someone was whispering saying to me: Less the next time you speak say: that even more are dying because of what’s eating them.
Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.
Make your mind fertile ground for the seeds of opportunity. If you want to experience a sense of fulfillment, you’ve got to have an open mind so that ideas can come in there and take root and grow.
If you want to do anything worthwhile in life, you’ve got to be hungry.
Whatever you talk about that’s what you multiply and expand in your life experience. So, don’t talk about stuff, unless you wanted to keep it on happening to you.
It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one, than have an opportunity and not be prepared.
Don’t go around telling people what your story is. Everybody has a story: 80% don’t care and 20% glad it’s you.
All of us have experienced some tragedy and if we haven’t, we will, and you can either let it destroy your life or you can build upon it. You can permit it to let it hold you down or you can decide I’m not going to let that happen to me, I’m bigger than this.
I realized that we only have enough energy to take us to a certain level, but it’s necessary that we assemble ourselves with other people who share our vision, other people that can see it for us, to give ourselves a home court advantage. So, it’s necessary that you seek out other people who think like you, who are growing, who decided that they are not satisfied with where they are.
Just keep moving. Don’t stop feeling sorry for yourself. Don’t spend time blaming and talking about what happened to you.
Necessity in my opinion is not the mother of invention. Refusing to accept things the way that they are is the mother of invention.
Les Brown Quotes
Success, Dreams & Leadership
The real challenge of growth, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, comes when you get knocked down. Adversity introduces a man or woman to himself or herself. How you handle it: that’s, where the growth takes place.
Have some strategic partners that will hold you accountable for a higher standard. You can run faster with a hundred who want to go, than with one around your neck. You’ve got to evaluate the relationships that you have around you.
What people think about you and the possibilities for your dream is none of your business. That’s their business. They have no imagination. They are laboring out of the past, out of their memory. The attitude is: it can’t be done, because they haven’t seen it. They’re judging according to appearances.
Today, you got to be flexible, adaptable, versatile and you got to take responsibility for your own education, for taking control of your own career and advancing yourself. You’re not doing it for the corporation or supervisor. You’re giving your best, at all time and under all circumstances, because that’s WHO you are.
You got to be hungry. You have greatness within you. Begin envision yourself that you are blessed and highly favored to reach your goals.
The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory. What you become in the process is more important than the dream. It’s far more important the kind of person you become, the character that you built, the courage that you develop, the faith that you’re manifesting.
No matter how bad it is or how bad it gets, I’m going to make it.
Most people operate out of their personal history or their memory: things they have done, experience, seen, or observe. I suggest that you operate out of a larger version of yourself. See yourself doing what you want to do; experiencing what you want to experience; do what gives your life meaning and value; operate out of your imagination and not your memory.
Want shows up in conversation, expectation shows up in behavior. I can tell what you expect by what you do.
Not only it’s possible for you to have your dream, but it’s necessary that you have it, that you work on it, that you develop yourself, that you go for what is yours in the universe.
Many talented and gifted leaders go unnoticed in the world, you never had a chance to hear from them, because they allow themselves to become negative, they allow themselves to become volunteer victims, they allowed themselves to focus on the problem rather than the possibilities.
It’s Possible. I can live my dream. It’s not over until I win.
We all are born the same way: dumb, naked and speechless. No one comes here knowing anything, But, our greatest power as human being is the power to change. Choose who you will serve: the mediocre part of you or the greatness that you have in you.
Many leader’s effectiveness with their people, impact and influence begin to diminish, because they don’t take the time to shop in their mind, to build their faith, to build their skills, to empower, to increase the confidence in themselves.
If you want to make your dream come true, you got to stay focused. Some people rather get even than get ahead. Stay focused on where you want to go.
Watch your words. Watch what you say about yourself. Why? Because your words are powerful.
What are the heavens for? We have far more in ourselves, but we’ve got to challenge ourselves, we have to engage in that process. Most people just talk they go so far, and they park and they coast out to the sunset.
It was hard coming to speak to people and I was facing financial difficulties in my own life. I was behind on my bills and my dreams and I was saying to them: “You can live your dream”. It was very difficult to pick myself up each day believing that I could do it. There were times that I doubted myself. I used to ask myself: “Can I do this?”. And something said within me: “You’re the one. Don’t give up on your dreams”.
There are some people who believe it’s their personal business to stop you from living your dream.
You will fail your way to success. You will have a lot of failures and disappointments.
If you’re the smartest one in your group, you need to get a new group so you’ve got to have people around you that you can learn from and that you can grow from.
For those of you that have experienced some hardships, don’t give up on your dream.
As leaders, we have to begin to look to ourselves and be the message that we bring. If we want to produce greater result out of our people, we have to radically change who we are.
Ask for help, not because you’re weak but because you want to remain strong.
Most people don’t keep their commitment to their commitments. That’s why they lead lives of poverty, misery, and unhappiness. Whatever your commitments, keep your commitment to your commitments, no matter how hard it is.
My definition of success is doing what you love to do and find somebody to pay you to do it.
If someone can make their dream become a reality, then you can make yours become a reality.
Don’t stop running toward your dream.
Anything that’s worth doing is worth doing badly. Anything that is worth doing is worth doing right if you know how to do it. But, if you don’t know how to do it, it’s worth doing it badly until you get it right.
I suggest to you that if you are facing a challenge, don’t stop, stay busy, work your plan, continue to do those things that you know that work for you.
Life will catch your on the blind side. You would say: why does it have to happen to me? Well, why not you? Who would you suggest? It’s called life.
So, what we have to do is buckle in and we have to deal with it. We have to suck it up. It’s not personal! It’s called life! Leaders don’t panic. They are not intimidated by the change. They’re not intimidated by the difficulties. They are empowered by it.
It’s possible. I can have my dream. I can get what I want. I must be creative and never give up.
Never say I’m broke. Say: I’m overcoming a cash flow problem. Claim what you want and not what you don’t want.
Sometimes, we have to be intelligently ignorant. Many people fail to achieve the goals they are capable of doing because they judge according to appearances, they know too much and they think themselves out of it.
You don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.
Speed of the leader is the speed of the group. There is difference between being in the business and the business being in you. You set the pace for the organization. If the leader becomes cynical, if you don’t have faith that you can make it happen, […] if you have a victim mindset and feeling powerless, that non-verbal communication, your energy and the spirit of who you are will permeate and contaminate the spirit of the organization.
Continue to raise the bar on yourself and understand and know that there’s more in you to express, to do, then you can ever begin to imagine.
Who you are as a person comes out and shows up in your leadership.
The steps to accumulating wealth: you must be willing to do the things today others won’t do in order to have the things tomorrow others won’t have.
Make discipline a major force in your life.
I never wanted to be rich. All I’ve ever wanted to do was to be comfortable. Then, I realize in order to be comfortable you’ve got to be rich. Poverty sucks. Money gives you control over your life, gives you options, and allows you to live a life of contribution.
There are winners, there are losers, and there are people who have not discover how to win. And all they need is some coaching, help, assistance, insight or different …..
As you look into the future, while other people are giving up, feeling like victims, feeling powerless, becoming negative, turning on each other rather than to each other, feeling that they can’t make it, be ye not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind with the mindset of: that it’s possible. Whatever your dreams, March Forth.
History is being read, but it’s also being written by people with imagination.
Les Brown Quotes
Fear
Want to create a greater sense of fulfillment? Challenge your fears. Challenge them. Look those fears in the face and take them on. Don’t allow them to rule you.
It’s that: to laugh is to risk appearing the fool, to weep is to risk appearing sentimental, to reach out for another is to risk involvement, to expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self, to place your ideas, your dreams before crowd is to risk their loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return, to live is to risk dying, to hope is to risk despair, to try is to risk failure.
Most people spend their life not wanting to deal with the pain of rejection, the pain of defeat, the pain of being disappointed, the pain of losing, the pain of failure, the pain of being criticized, the pain of not being liked, the pain, the pain, the pain. That’s called life! Life is full of pain. It’s everywhere. But guess what, there’s no gain without pain.
Most people will resist change. Most people will fight change as if change would be worse than what they’re already experiencing.
The possibilities for you are unlimited. If you’re in a rebuilding process, it’s unlimited. If you’re coming back from adversity and devastation, it’s unlimited of what you can do. That’s the capacity of human beings. It doesn’t matter how many mistakes you’ve made, it doesn’t matter how many flops you’ve had, it doesn’t matter how much money you’ve lost. In fact, I see it only as an investment of what you learn from life, not losses, but investments of what’s possible for you.
A lot of people won’t try anything different in life because they don’t want to get hurt. Let me tell you something: it’s too much pain to duck! Pain is everywhere.
You can hide under here, it will come where you are. It’s everywhere. Risk must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. They may avoid suffering and sorrow but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, and live. Chained by their servitude, they are a slave. They have forfeited their freedom. Only a person who risks is free.
Life is unpredictable. It’s uncertain. There are no guarantees, no guarantees out here at all. So holding back, what are you waiting on? Ask yourself: What’s the benefit of your waiting? What’s the benefit of your not living your dream? What’s the benefit of not listening to yourself?
One great philosopher says, “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.” What does that mean, that valiant people aren’t afraid? No, no, no. It means that they experience that fear, and they move forward. They move forward anyhow.
A lot of people never try anything differently because they have been convinced by people in their lives that they value, that they can’t do it. They’re living within the context of the opinions that other people have of them: the low expectations.
Don’t determine what you’re able to do based upon your resources. Don’t determine what’s possible for you based upon where your life is right now.
Where your life is right now is not you. That’s just what it is right now. So turn off things that can contribute to your fear. Turn a deaf ear to people that all they can do is talk about how negative things are, because they have bought into the consciousness of the world. Start attending workshops, seminars, listening to tapes on a daily basis to begin to recondition your mind, to retrain your thinking. Faith comes by what? Hearing and hearing and hearing. Listen to things that can empower you, that can enable you to create a new reality for yourself and a new life for yourself.
Fear, limited vision, and lack of self-esteem is what keep most people doing things they don’t want to do.
Guard your mind against negative programming, like turn off the television. Don’t watch the news. So you’ve got to guard the kinds of things that you put in your mind. See if you don’t program your mind, your mind will be programmed, because human beings are goal-oriented.
If there is something that you have been given, don’t allow that inner doubt in you to talk you out of it.
Decide that you’re going to take some chances. You’ve got to be willing to risk. If you’re not willing to risk, you can’t grow in life. Life has no power when you’re not willing to risk.
Fear kills dreams. Fear kills hope. Fear put people in the hospital. Fear can age you. Fear, ladies and gentlemen, can hold you back from doing something that you know within yourself that you’re capable of doing, but it will paralyze you. And it seemed like you’re in a hypnotic spell. And I ask you a question: what is the benefit? What’s the benefit of allowing fear to hold you back? What’s the benefit of giving up on yourself, of not stepping out on life and taking life on? What is the benefit for you? What’s the plus in that?
Most people are governed by their habits, their fears, and the opinions of others.
Most people are spectators in life. You don’t want to be a spectator. You want to get out in the field where the action is. And you will be amazed after the struggle; there will be a calm period and things will begin to click for you.
How do we handle this fear factor? How do we increase our self-esteem? You have to begin to fortify yourself. How do we do that? I believe that you have to begin to consciously monitor your inner conversation and start talking to yourself. Start building yourself up. Sometimes the only good things you will hear about you are the things that you say to you. So I’m saying learn to be your own booster. Stop building yourself up. Start encouraging yourself. Start saying I can do this. I can make this happen.
When you step into your fears and continue to push yourself to go on, something happens for you: it wil enable you to transcend yourself.
As you look at your life, ask yourself the question: what would your life be like, what would your life look like, if you decided not to care what people thought of you? What would your life be like if you decided to give up some of your fears? What would your life be like if you decided to become courageous? What would your life be like if you decided to act on your dream? If you did what you felt in your heart?