Maverick Mindset Quotes

I've seen that phenomenally successful people believe they can learn something from everybody. I call them 'mavericks with mentors.' Richard Branson, for instance, is a total maverick but he surrounds himself with incredibly successful, smart people and he listens to them.

Genius is often called crazy, but crazy is never called genius. So you just have to put out the work and let the chips fall where they may.

A maverick may go his own way but he doesn't think that it's the only way or ever claim that it's the best one, except maybe for himself. And don't imagine that this raggle-taggle gypsy is claiming to be free. It's just that some of the necessities to which I am a slave are different from yours.

How could I be anything but a dissenter? Who wants the opinion of a group?

Breaking the rules and challenging convention is in the DNA of every successful entrepreneur.

In today’s Washington, with its emphasis on orthodox thinking, such a person could never rise inside the government … This is a great loss, because, as the life of George F. Kennan shows, individual, original thinking by one lonely person can sometimes illuminate and guide us better than all the high-level panels, commissions and interagency meetings.

Abnormal, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested.

Not playing by the rules, not seeing things conventionally, that's the heart of who he [ Steve Jobs] is, and he does it in small ways of everyday rebellion just almost to assert who he is, like not putting a license plate on his car.

Rebels learn the rules better than the rule-makers do. Rebels learn where the holes are, where the rules can best be breached. Become an expert at the rules. Then break them with creativity and style.

To be a hero you have to learn to be a deviant — because you're always going against the conformity of the group.

When you're the first person whose beliefs are different from what everyone else believes, you're basically saying, "I'm right, and everyone else is wrong." That's a very unpleasant position to be in. It's at once exhilarating and at the same time an invitation to be attacked.

My businesses are usually built around challenging conventional wisdom, so I tend to gain by taking the other side. It's been very profitable and entertaining for me

I’VE ALWAYS BEEN A REBEL. I NEVER DO THINGS THE WAY THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DONE. EITHER I GO IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OR I CREATE A NEW DIRECTION FOR MYSELF, REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE RULES ARE OR WHAT SOCIETY SAYS.

I valued my independence from an early age and was always something of a individualist … Well, a show-off anyway.

Holding unconventional opinions makes people feel they have strong characters.

You need to be a little crazy to change the world, and you can’t really fake it.

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.