Jay Samit

No obstacle is so big that one person with determination can't make a difference.

Jay Samit (born 31 January 1961) is an American digital media innovator, who has pioneered advancements in music and video distribution, social media, and ecommerce. He is the CEO of SeaChange International.

Quotes

Disrupt You! (2015)

Disrupt You! Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation (2015); page numbers refer to the 2015 Flatiron Books 288 page edition, ISBN 1250059372.

• All disruption starts with introspection.
  • p. 5
• You have a choice: pursue your dreams or be hired by someone else to help them fulfill their dreams.
  • p. 7
• Lifelong learning is no longer a luxury but a necessity for employment.
  • p.64
• All businesses — no matter if they make dog food or software — don't sell products, they sell solutions.
  • p. 4
• There is a difference between failing and failure. Failing is trying something that you learn doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the towel and giving up.
  • p. 12
• Disruption causes vast sums of money to flow from existing businesses and business models to new entrants.
  • p. 17
• There are riches to be found simply by capturing the value released through others' disruptive breakthroughs.
  • p. 22
• The majority of people are not willing to risk what they have built for the opportunity to have something better.
  • p. 24
• Would you rather work forty hours a week at a job you hate or eighty hours a week doing work you love?
  • p. 24
• Security doesn't rob ambition; the illusion of security robs ambition.
  • p. 25
• Disruption isn't about what happens to you, it's about how you respond to what happens to you.
  • p. 27
• Self-disruption is akin to undergoing major surgery, but you are the one holding the scalpel.
  • p. 30
• In life, you get what you believe you deserve.
  • p. 35
• A negative mind will never find success. I have never heard a positive idea come from a person in a negative state.
  • p. 39
• The most successful people have the same twenty-four hours in a day that you do.
  • p. 42
• A dream with a deadline is a goal.
  • p. 42
• Your energy is a valuable resource, distribute it wisely.
  • p. 42
• Accepting that the odds are against you is the same as accepting defeat before you begin.
  • p. 46
• If you don't know where you want to be in five years, how do you ever expect to get there?
  • p. 47
• Starting each day with a positive mindset is the most important step of your journey to discovering opportunity.
  • p. 49
• You can truly have it all, just not all at the same time.
  • p. 50
• Plan for ways to get more enjoyment into your life and you will get more joy out of it.
  • p. 51
• A career is just a longer trip with a whole lot more baggage.
  • p. 51
• You will have more regrets for the things you didn't try than the ones you tried and didn't succeed at.
  • p. 53
• Building a career or a company is about living a few years of your life like most people won't so that you can spend the rest of your life living at a level most people can't.
  • p. 55
• The difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that successful ones know that the most unprofitable thing ever manufactured is an excuse.
  • p. 56
• Be the best at what you do or the only one doing it.
  • p. 61
• The most important tool you have on a resume is language.
  • p. 65
• Whether driven by ambition or circumstance, every career gets disrupted.
  • p. 75
• The business world is littered with the fossils of companies that failed to evolve. Disrupt or be disrupted. There is no middle ground.
  • p. 82
• Corporate planning cycles are a classic example of generals fighting the last ware over again instead of preparing for what might lie ahead.
  • p.84
• An average idea enthusiastically embraced will go further than a genius idea no one gets.
  • p.93
• "Speed to Fail" should be every entrepreneur's motto. When you finally find the one idea that can't be killed, go with it.
  • p.101
• If you can imagine a solution, you can make it happen.
  • p.104
• A disruptor finds opportunity and profit from his misfortunes.
  • p.107
• Problems are just businesses waiting for the right entrepreneur to unlock the value.
  • p.109
• Insight and drive are all you need. Everything else can be hired.
  • p.109
• The trouble with most entrepreneurs is that they would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.
  • p.115
• Data has no ego and makes an excellent copilot.
  • p.119
• Success doesn't teach as many lessons as failure does.
  • p.122
• Data is the most rational and productive member of any startup team. Data may disappoint, but it never lies.
  • p.124
• Most startup failures result from entrepreneurs who are better at making excuses than products.
  • p.128
• Every threat to the status quo is an opportunity in disguise.
  • p.132
• Billions of dollars in research knowledge lie dormant at universities waiting for the right disruptor to come along and create a business.
  • p.140
• The harder I work, the luckier I get.
  • p.151
• Those who recognize the inevitability of changes stand to benefit the most.
  • p.168
• What's at the heart of all sales and marketing: creating demand even in the absence of logic.
  • p.169
• The customer is always right. Even when they're wrong.
  • p.177
• Solve for others to solve for you.
  • p.198
• You'll never know how close you are to victory if you give up.
  • p.201
• Crowdsourcing is the ultimate disruptor, because in a most Zenlike fashion, the content is controlled by all and none at the sme time.
  • p.206
• Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing themselves.
  • p.219
• A free and open Internet is a despot's worst enemy.
  • p.235
• Your future -our world's future- is far more malleable and controllable than most people realize.
  • p.240
• No obstacle is so big that one person with determination can't make a difference.
  • p.241
• No leader got there by following another's path. Better to walk alone than follow a crowd going in the wrong direction.
  • p.241

Future Proofing You (2021)

Future Proofing You: Twelve Truths for Creating Opportunity, Maximizing Wealth, and Controlling Your Destiny in an Uncertain World (2021); page numbers refer to the 2021 Wiley 272 page edition, ISBN 1119772060.

• Are you truly living life or just paying bills until you die?
• Our world is fundamentally different from the one we were taught about in school.
• Attitude is something each one of us can learn to enhance and control.
• School was designed to get you to fall in line and get a job in someone else’s company.
• Most of your life you have been told to get the safe and steady job by people who had given up on their dreams years before you came along.
• No democracy can survive without a thriving middle class and entrepreneurs are our job creators.
• Wealth that can last generations can now be attained in the shortest time ever in history.
• There are two reasons most people don’t attain wealth: they didn’t think they were smart enough to get rich and they were never taught how to create wealth.
• Self-perception is more important than any other factor in predicting success.
• Unfortunately, growing up with a zero-sum perspective is like a horse wearing blinders – it limits the field of view for opportunity.
• You will win every race as long as you are the only runner on the track.
• The first truth you must accept for Future Proofing You is that nothing can be achieved without a growth mindset.
• Too many people’s careers are ruined by praise instead of propelled by criticism.
• The antidote for self-pity and negative thinking is gratitude.
• Obstacles, not products, are the source of creating wealth.
• Be thankful you have problems because they are the key to your salvation.
• Most people are more afraid of the unknown than death.
• Fear kills more dreams than failure ever will.
• The third of the twelve truths in this book is that you must accept that fear is good.
• You cannot live forever, but what you create and build in your lifetime can.
• Immortality is making a difference with the time we have.
• If your job isn’t fulfilling, why are you so afraid of losing it?
• Instead of fearing what could go wrong. Fear what happens if you never try.
• The best time to launch your new company was a year ago; the second-best time is now.
• You have the power to change the world and your only fear should be wasting the opportunity while you have the time to wield it.
• Failure is a frequent stop on the road to success.
• Spending all your money before you have a business model, makes about as much sense as drinking all your water before you hike across a desert so that you won’t have to carry the canteen.
• Too many people believe that they have to wait until they are wealthy to follow their passion, when in fact, it will be their passion that will make them wealthy.
• Having a purpose puts you in control of your destiny.
• Next time you get lost in thought, pay attention to where you went for therein lies your inner passion.
• A stable middle class is the backbone of a free society and entrepreneurs are the true job creators that power our world.
• Make sure your goals are your goals.
• No one ever built a billion-dollar company without employees, investors, business partners, and customers.
• Company mentoring programs are also a key tool in promoting diversity at the workplace.
• Everything is a Tech Startup. Yes, Everything!
• Each minute, of every day, people watch 4.7 million YouTube videos, send 19 million texts, scroll through 700,000 Instagram pictures, share 2.5 million Snaps, query Google 4.1 million times, send 59 million messages and send 190 million emails.
• If you are spending most of your time and money in the digital world today, why not build your career and business there?
• Steve Jobs wasn’t an engineer and he built a trillion-dollar company without ever learning to code.
• If the big multinational corporations are making the bricks, you can make millions supplying the mortar that holds their market together.
• Spatial reality will be as vital to the success of a two-person startup as it is to the largest multinational conglomerate.
• The physical and the virtual will seamlessly meld before our very eyes creating an augmented life called spatial reality.
• The spatial web holds so much promise for improving our lives that those companies failing to invest and embrace the future will go the way of Kodak, Radio Shack, and Blockbuster.
• The true potential of an augmented life is revealed when it provides us with the information we need, at exactly the right time and place.
• Working hard doesn’t make you rich, working smart does.
• Remote Workers are Your New Competitive Advantage.
• You now have access to a global talent pool eager to maintain their freedom. Employees can travel the world while still maintaining a full-time job and not have to wait until they retire to enjoy life.
• The next generation of sustainable companies need to evolve their business practices to ones of shared values.
• If you want to live a purpose filled life, what better goal to guide your career is there than saving the planet?
• Paying it forward is not about grandiose gestures, but in refocusing your perspective on making every day count.

External links

• Official website