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Success Quote by Les Brown

"If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you"

About this Quote

Les Brown is selling ambition the way a revival preacher sells salvation: not as a vague hope, but as a disciplined practice with tangible rewards. The line isn’t really about “gifts” at all. It’s about agency. By pairing “set goals” with “go after them,” Brown turns success into a verb, then ups the emotional stakes with “all the determination you can muster.” That last clause matters: it quietly admits you may not feel naturally confident or inspired. You “muster” determination like a resource in short supply, implying that the deciding factor isn’t talent but the willingness to keep showing up when motivation dries out.

The subtext is classic self-help pragmatism with a moral edge. “Your gifts will take you places” reassures listeners who suspect they’re starting from behind: you already have something worth betting on. Brown sidesteps elitist narratives of genius by making “gifts” feel broadly available, while still flattering the audience enough to get buy-in. The promise of being “amaze[d]” does cultural work, too: it frames achievement as self-surprise, not domination. That’s aspirational without sounding predatory.

Contextually, Brown’s career as a motivational speaker and business figure emerges from a late-20th-century American ecosystem where entrepreneurship, hustle culture, and personal branding blur into a single gospel. His intent is to convert uncertainty into action. It’s a recruitment pitch for perseverance, dressed as encouragement: define the target, pursue it relentlessly, and let the results retroactively prove you were capable all along.

Quote Details

TopicGoal Setting
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Brown, Les. (2026, January 18). If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-set-goals-and-go-after-them-with-all-the-22389/

Chicago Style
Brown, Les. "If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-set-goals-and-go-after-them-with-all-the-22389/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-you-set-goals-and-go-after-them-with-all-the-22389/. Accessed 4 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Les Brown (born February 17, 1945) is a Businessman from USA.

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