On December 15, 2008 I had an opportunity to sit down and talk with Juli Comstock from Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) on the subject of leadership. Juli is Manager of Customer Service Technology for OPPD. She is a student of Bellevue University’s Master of Leadership program. In addition to her thoughts on leadership, we discussed her experience with the leadership program at Bellevue.

Here are some of Juli’s favorite quotes:

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company … a church … a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past … we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude … I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you … we are in charge of our Attitude.” – Chuck Swindoll

John Adams:
• “People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity.”
• “It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue.”
• “In politics the middle way is none at all.”
• “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
• “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download