For those wondering what we mean by “expanded,” here’s a small sample…

Disclaimer: Although Mark’s words are important, if there’s anything more elegant than the female form for visual emphasis, we haven’t found it—and we make no apologies.

Now, back to the text only…

“Regarding central banks: never has so much power been wielded over an economy by so few people since the time of kings.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“With the distortions codified into capital markets through quantitative easing, markets can no longer stand on their own. They function like The Clapper®: they only work when the Fed claps on.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Markets correct themselves through pain—that’s capitalism. Manipulating outcomes to avoid pain only ensures far more of it later.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Bubbles are easy to spot. Knowing when they’ll pop is another matter entirely.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“It’s easy to find answers today. The problem is most are garbage. What’s worse is that far too many can’t tell the difference—including those dispensing it.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Information is just information. Used properly, it’s an edge; misunderstood, it becomes the edge at your throat.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The misuse of “consensus” as a substitute for fact has revealed not truth, but groupthink—and the inability to tell the difference.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Critical thinking is knowing the difference between an encyclopedia and Wikipedia—and when to use either, or neither.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Entrepreneurship isn’t something you join—it’s something you become. Those looking to merely ‘join’ rarely last.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“You can be fired from a job by anyone. The only person who can fire you from being an entrepreneur is you.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Entrepreneurship is an exclusionary club. Entry barriers are low—but what it takes to stay is the stuff legends are made of.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The self-empowered engage ambiguity without permission, guarantees, or salaries. They risk everything.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“If you wait for perfection before doing, then perfectly waiting is all you’ll ever do.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Far too many overthink direction and obsess over baby steps. Progress comes from choosing a direction—and moving boldly.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Sprint. Walk. Run. What’s missing—and what halts everything—is stop.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Sales runs on momentum. Nothing sells more than more sales.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Titles confer position, not authority. Until tested, leadership may be nothing more than a veneer.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“True leaders don’t hide behind prose. They step out front and say, ‘Follow me,’ by example.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Teams endure sacrifice for a shared outcome; committees protect positions. Most failures happen because people confuse the two.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“If you’re running a business, own the outcomes. Excuses are for hobbies, not enterprises.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Every commodity business is a race to the bottom—and when the bottom drops out, it happens fast.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Today’s stories celebrate billion-dollar valuations without profits. I’ve read this book before—it always ends in Chapter 11.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Market mechanisms can be delayed or distorted—but reality can’t be nullified indefinitely.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The obvious is often missed because no one truly wants to see it.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Being ‘right’ for the wrong reasons is far more dangerous than being wrong for the right ones.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The biggest thing holding you back—no matter what you think—is what you think.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Before you gain leverage, adjust your fulcrum.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Life is defined by how you take it—not how it’s handed to you.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“I’ve noticed many have switched to lower-wattage bulbs to better match the intensity of their ideas.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Some can walk. Some can talk. Most still have gum on their shoe.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Beware when everyone’s on the bandwagon—except the band.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The greatest and most lasting wealth is built during uncertainty—by those disciplined enough to avoid calamity.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“There’s nothing wrong with the economy. What matters is your relationship to it—and your willingness to define value fearlessly.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Do what needs to be done to become who you want to be.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The system now functions like The Clapper®: markets only work when the Fed claps on—and fail when it claps off, until it’s forced to clap again.”
— Mark St. Cyr

Additional Observations
Short-form reflections, diagnostics, and aphorisms that expand on the themes above.

“When looking at predictions of the future, most discount them on the grounds that they’re always flawed and usually wrong. That may be true. However, there is a real point of insight available if one wants it: discount the probability all you want, but never out of hand discount the credibility of the person making the prediction or their reasoning—because that’s where the true insight lies, and where most miss it.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The issue with most statements of fact is that most are based solely on someone’s interpretation of a fact—not what actually is one.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The answer to the question, ‘Has social media, technology, et al. made us more stupid or intolerant?’ is no. We’ve always been this way.

The difference is that, in the past, those who wanted to change their lives could simply remove themselves from a handful of bad influences—by moving, changing jobs, or altering their immediate environment. Today, that escape is harder, because those same influences now surround you and follow you, often through people you’ve never known or had contact with.

The problems haven’t changed. Only the mechanics have. There’s nothing new under the sun—the only new thing is how you react to what you perceive as new.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Most people think of introspection as a cursory reflection on times past, and move on believing that simply performing the exercise was the mission. I believe that misses the mark.

Truly meaningful introspection can be done through a simple test: if you can look back on your past problems, conflicts, and failures—those that cost you dearly—and honestly be grateful for them, because without them you wouldn’t be who you are today, then you know you’ve grown. At that point, introspection stops being theoretical and proves its value.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“If you want to understand the premise behind most news stories, it’s this: in traditional, bread-and-butter reporting, ‘if it bleeds, it leads,’ so stories are spun toward maximum danger.

In financial reporting, the opposite is true—dire outcomes are reframed as opportunity. ‘Man loses half of life savings in the stock market; grateful he can now buy it all back at a 50% discount.’”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Have the courage to dare nothing, with the audacity to BE anyone.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“People forget that much of business is based on the laws of the jungle—not those of a zoo. Or, said differently: one keeps you safe to observe the animals and not get eaten. The other makes it safe for the animals to devour you.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The death of a business goes like this… First, the business forgets its customer. Then, the customer forgets the business.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“I use AI every day. Mine is twice as powerful as most—not because I use AI to enhance my output, but because my actual intelligence was never artificial or delusional to begin with.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Casual knowledge is exactly what it implies, and most are geniuses in its pursuit. But it’s the rare few who understand that only when you know—when you need to know—can you begin to realize knowledge for actual application.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“More often than not, businesses of all stripes will do whatever it takes to stop consumer backlash from social media—even apologizing when they’ve done nothing wrong. Many proudly cite the ‘two most important rules of business’: Rule 1—don’t lose money, and Rule 2—see Rule 1.

But that framing misses a more important truth, which I call Rule 1A: never let your business, yourself, or your employees be seen doing—or promoting—anything that could cost you business. Period.

Ignore Rule 1A, and you can lose more money faster than Rules 1 or 2 will ever save you.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Owning or running a business takes dedication. Leapfrogging the competition is where legends are made.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“There’s only one thing that stops a massive bank run from happening, and that is the absence of one.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The biggest change in higher education—one largely lost on, and destroyed by, the institutions themselves—is this: the signpost businesses once used to hire qualified people read ‘college educated and/or Ivy League graduate.’

Today, that same signpost is flashing a warning: ‘College educated and/or Ivy League graduate. Proceed with extreme caution. Untold dangers ahead. Seek alternate routes.’”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Regardless of what’s clouding the minds of the public or dominating the news cycle, the people dependent on their paychecks—Wall Street—remain single-minded, laser-focused, and willing to do whatever it takes to squeeze the last bit of gas from the tank to end the month as strong as possible.

If it can be done, it will be done—because their paychecks depend on it.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Here’s the fundamental issue with MMT (Modern Monetary Theory), obvious to anyone with real business acumen: the moment an outside vendor no longer recognizes the value of your currency at the price you assign to it—it’s over.

Welcome to the Zimbabweification process.

The moment you need something from outside your borders, and the counterparty decides they want their currency instead of yours, your currency has already lost.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“I’m not a financial analyst—nothing close. I watch the machinations of the markets only insofar as they inform the larger picture of business, because we’re all far more tightly connected to Wall Street than most are willing to admit.

Knowing where we stand in those cycles is less about prediction and more about preparedness—whether you’re facing a scattered shower or a Category-5 hurricane. For anyone serious about business, that awareness is imperative.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“If one does not continually and rigorously interrogate their own claims of ‘knowing’—with not just a willingness, but an eagerness to abandon assumptions proven wrong—there can be no personal growth.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“In business, politics, and human behavior, little has changed—only the tools we use to communicate. The struggles are the same. The phrase ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ has never been more relevant. What differs is not reality, but our personal perspective on why something matters.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“When there’s no fundamental reason to answer why a stock price is propelling ever higher. The only logical conclusion is that there’s now far more probabilities why it can come crashing down.”
— Mark St.Cyr

“The relentless surge across global markets has exposed how untethered prices have become from fundamentals. Attempting to apply logic now often feels like imposing reason on nonsense. Quantitative easing has made a mockery of market discipline—and history suggests this always ends the same way.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“What many misunderstand about company culture is this: without truly shared values, all remedies are superficial. Teams endure sacrifice for a shared outcome; committees protect positions. Most failures occur because people think they’re on a team—when they’re really on a committee.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“What’s at issue with many so-called ‘social platforms’ is this: the workers now run the company—not management, not the CEO. When leadership announces a course correction, only to reverse it days later in what looks like a hostage-style confession, it’s because the staff issued the ultimatum. Central bank interventionism made this possible. When Wall Street buys regardless of fundamentals, internal discipline disappears. But nothing lasts forever. And when Wall Street stops buying—or can’t—this illusion will end abruptly.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“It is precisely these kinds of circumstances that create the greatest opportunities. But be careful what you wish for—the condition that delivers what you desire may also be the one that tests you most.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“It has become obvious to me that the role of Ivy League business forecasting today is to make fundamental decision-making based on astrological signaling look respectable by comparison.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“True leaders don’t hide behind closed doors drafting leadership prose. They step out front and say, ‘Follow me,’ by example. There is a law of leadership that has never been broken: subordinates do what they see their leaders do. You cannot train others to be better while the upper ranks ignore the same standards. It has never worked—and it never will.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“There’s an old Wall Street adage: markets can remain irrational longer than one can remain solvent. Today, central banks have added a brutal corollary—tens of trillions in synchronized money creation can sustain the fantasy of ‘money for nothing’ far longer than prudent minds can maintain their sanity.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The real danger of any ruse—in business or in life—is not the deception itself, but whether the observer can discern it. Advantage belongs to those who can tell the difference, and act accordingly.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Only when you truly understand what you need to know can you begin to actually know it.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“From a pragmatic market perspective, central bank interventionism has rendered once-reliable metrics useless. Tens of trillions in synchronized money creation did that—enabling the fantasy of ‘money for nothing’ to persist far longer than prudence, or enterprises, can endure.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Getting advice is easy. The real problem is that most people can’t distinguish what’s relevant from what’s worthless—including many of those dispensing it.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Let’s be clear about AI: it can enhance output, automate tedious work, and improve efficiency. What it cannot do—no matter how much you want it to—is save a business built on a broken model.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“I always think big—but I dream even bigger.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“One of the most insidious developments in modern science is the misuse of the word ‘consensus’ as a substitute for fact. A million people sharing an opinion does not make it true. It only proves the existence of groupthink—and the inability to tell the difference.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“One of the most damaging ideas to capitalism in the last decade is the quiet acceptance of Fed-sponsored equities—once unthinkable, now celebrated as ‘brilliant policy.’ What makes it worse is that many of the loudest cheerleaders today are the same corporate leaders who once denounced such distortions as antithetical to free markets.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“If your washing machine starts sounding envious of the spin coming from financial media TV, you’ll be far more productive—and less stressed—by turning it off and picking up the hamper instead.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Many assume that larger companies generate more diverse thinking. In reality, the opposite often occurs: thought becomes monolithic, risk aversion turns to timidity, and firms cling to shrinking markets until they quietly fail.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“How you fix problems shapes how others perceive your business. Patching works—sometimes. But when patching becomes the only solution, people begin to wonder if you can afford to fix things properly. Eventually, customers and employees stop seeing a repair strategy and start seeing instability.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“If you think social media isn’t dying, explain why its most powerful architects are pivoting elsewhere instead of fixing what was supposed to embody social dominance. I find the answer unintentionally amusing.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“If you understand people first, you’ll understand business better. Reverse the order, and you’ll be out of business sooner than you expect.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Those who’ve built, failed, and rebuilt businesses will tell you the same thing: understanding people comes first. Get that right and the business follows. Get the business right without understanding people, and it won’t last.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Being ‘right’ for the wrong reasons is far more dangerous than being wrong for the right ones. When outcomes validate bad assumptions, you stop questioning. When you’re wrong for honest reasons, you’re forced to test your thinking—and that’s where real understanding is forged.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“If you printed currency to buy assets, you’d be arrested for counterfeiting. When a central bank does it, the assets are kept—and the act is praised as ‘prudent monetary policy.’”
— Mark St. Cyr

“When it comes to wisdom or advice: if you can’t understand it, apply it, or make sense of it, it’s useless—no matter who’s promoting it.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“It’s not about the questions you ask—it’s about the answers you believe are true.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Being early makes you look wrong for the wrong reasons. But when the reasons you were early finally arrive, those who once mocked the call often rush to claim they saw it coming.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“My description of Silicon Valley’s current business model: we promise you two hamburgers tomorrow for one today—as long as you never ask us to deliver.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Rules are made to be broken. Laws are created to enshrine competitive advantage for the politically connected.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“If you lack the resources others think you need, create or invent your own.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“It may offend some, but in a crowded market, if you don’t blow your own horn, no one will know you’re there.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“There are moments when I have to remember that what I see over the horizon from where I stand is the horizon for much of my audience.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Demonstrable skills trump academic credentials—unless the game is rigged.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“You’re well rewarded for becoming a better listener once you realize, in real conversations, just how few others are.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“My greatest competitive advantage is simple: I’m not afraid to be myself.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Be willing to start your own business revolution instead of waiting on others who can’t—or won’t.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“If you want to stand out, solve interesting problems while leading others through the process.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“I always choose my words carefully. Using them correctly is another matter entirely.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“All roads end. That’s why how you traveled matters.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“One clear warning sign of a late-cycle bubble or major shift is this: when companies considered sclerotic begin consuming the stunted.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Far too many overthink direction and obsess over baby steps, resulting in inaction. Progress comes from choosing the best direction you can—and moving boldly into the unknown.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Stop worrying about the competition and start making them worry about you.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Entrepreneurs are the special forces of the business world. They go where others fear to tread—without needing permission.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“There is far more to wealth than money or possessions, though it’s often dismissed under the guise of ‘being realistic.’”
— Mark St. Cyr

“You can hit bottom unintentionally. Bouncing back is a choice.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“It’s not enough to read the writing on the wall—you must verify that what you’re seeing is intelligible and actionable, not projection masquerading as insight.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Rules are bent or broken. Laws are exploited. Amateurs focus on the former; professionals move heaven and earth to protect the latter.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“You have an extraordinary opportunity to build wealth today—largely because most of your competition won’t even get out of bed, let alone prepare to win.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Most business books read like romance novels: they sound magical because they are—fantasy. If business worked that way, bankruptcy and divorce wouldn’t be growth industries.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The problem isn’t a lack of information—it’s an excess of useless information. Most don’t know what deserves attention, let alone what should be ignored entirely.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Buried within what many call the worst economies are the opportunities you’ve been waiting for all your life.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“There is no Holy Grail in technical analysis. When used properly, it’s disciplined interpretation—grounded in results over time—that allows for reasonable odds. Nothing more.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Entrepreneurs tend to read biographies of people they respect to extract insight. Managers tend to buy bestselling business books to impress other managers—often regardless of relevance.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“I’ve noticed many have switched to lower-wattage bulbs to better match the intensity of their ideas.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Many say we’re lacking leadership. I disagree. It’s not that it’s absent—most simply aren’t looking.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Properly articulated, actionable advice has no boundary.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“If you attend a conference wondering why successful people would bother speaking, you’ve already missed the point—and you’re likely to miss everything else too.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“When you market, be diagnostic. When you sell, be prescriptive.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Some look at things and ask why. I look at some things and say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The more so-called experts I meet, the wiser I feel unsubscribing from their musings.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Distractions are the true devil in the details.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Some values must be attained and upheld. Dignity and self-reliance are not optional, nor should they ever be lightly held.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“You’ll know real danger is near the moment those in charge begin assuring everyone there is none.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“I’m not here to make you comfortable. I’m here to provoke you into remembering how to think—comfortably or not.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The rules are dead, but their ghosts still terrify most from acting.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Forget the phrase ‘walking the talk.’ True leadership is setting the example while inspiring others to follow.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Life is a game governed by three fundamental rules: inertia, trajectory, and momentum.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“One of the greatest epiphanies is realizing you can stop reading about life and start being it.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The shackles you believe bind you aren’t removed by others. They’re unlocked from within—because the mind is the key to every lock.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The inconsistencies of the so-called smart crowd occur with remarkable consistency.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Many talk about walking the talk. True leaders walk—and hold the torch that lights the path for others.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“For me, ‘lead or get out of the way’ isn’t a euphemism—it’s a way of life.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Success accelerates when preparation and the willingness to act meet opportunity. Luck is simply shorthand for that process.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Those most afraid of dying are often the ones who never truly lived.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“I’ve permanently broken more things trying to fix them temporarily.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“It’s not about the questions you ask yourself—it’s about the answers you believe.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The difference between an economist and a business owner is simple: when a business owner gets a prediction wrong, bankruptcy is on the line. When an economist gets it wrong, they just make another prediction.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“When it comes to market dominance, remember this: blooms fade, no matter the rose.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The first warning sign a company is losing customer focus is the rush to replace human interaction with a shiny interface.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Reading with the intent to act matters more than reading volume. One idea put into motion is worth more than a thousand books left unused.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“I learned that real productivity often comes from removing efficient productivity wasters.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Knowing what deserves your attention—and what doesn’t—is as vital as knowing who to listen to, who not to, and where to find either.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Your bottom line exists to generate profit—not to break even.”
— Mark St. Cyr

St. Cyr’s Law of Wisdom: The more knowledge you accumulate, the dumber the questions you’ll be asked.
— Mark St. Cyr

“The secret to success is straightforward: self-empowerment.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Life’s real difficulty isn’t what people do to you—it’s how you must treat others afterward.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“In searching for lost loves, you may find something you like even more.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Putting the cart before the horse is a mistake. Convincing yourself the horse is a unicorn is a far bigger one.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Entrepreneurship is an exclusionary club. Entry barriers are low—but what it takes to stay is the stuff legends are made of.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Adaptation is a tool far more people need to adopt.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“There is no ‘easy way’ through hard things. Learning new skills and applying them pragmatically is what makes the hard work manageable.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The only thing greater than the universe is your imagination.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Rules are made to be broken. Laws are made to be exploited.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The most fortified prison in history is the one built in the mind—secured not by bars, but by the belief that escape isn’t possible.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The dirty secret of social media is that the metrics people chase can be bought for pennies—yet fortunes are wasted chasing them for free.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“There’s nothing wrong with the economy. What matters is your relationship to it—and your willingness to define and abandon value propositions fearlessly.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Many executives treat their businesses as monoliths. They’re not—they’re systems of fractals.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“What’s new becomes old. What’s old—like face-to-face selling—is rediscovered. Screen-to-screen is a poor substitute for peer-to-peer. Period.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Entrepreneurship isn’t something you join—it’s something you become. Those looking to merely ‘join’ rarely last.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Every commodity business is a race to the bottom. And when the bottom finally drops out, it happens fast—scrutiny, breakups, liquidations, and bankruptcies follow in rapid succession.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“Screen-to-screen will never equal face-to-face. S2S ≠ F2F—because human dynamism doesn’t transmit through glass.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“When things go wrong, many double down. A better approach is to reassess—and exponentially put up.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“The self-empowered engage ambiguity without permission, guarantees, or salaries. They risk everything.”
— Mark St. Cyr

“With the distortions codified into capital markets under Ben Bernanke through successive rounds of quantitative easing, markets can no longer stand on their own. Without constant intervention—printing, backstopping, and rescuing at the first sign of trouble—they collapse. Regardless of what the Fed claims, the system now functions like The Clapper®: the markets only work when the Fed claps on, and they fail when it claps off—until circumstances of its own creation demand the lights be switched back on again.”
— Mark St. Cyr

Disclaimer:
While the quotes on this page are attributed to Mark St. Cyr, attribution does not preclude the possibility that similar expressions may have appeared elsewhere. Reasonable efforts have been made to verify originality; however, no claim of exclusivity is asserted.

You are free to reference or quote material from this page, but you are responsible for conducting your own fact-checking and attribution review prior to publishing or using the content in other contexts.