Success Quote by Ross Perot

Perot’s line reads like a management memo with teeth: if you want seismic results, you have to tolerate seismic aftershocks. The key move is his contrast between “honest mistakes” and punishment. He’s not romanticizing failure; he’s drawing a bright moral line between error made in good faith and negligence or bad intent. That distinction matters in organizations where blame travels faster than insight. By naming “punishing” as the real villain, Perot shifts the focus from the individual screw-up to the system that turns learning into risk management theater.

“Moving and shaking the earth” is Perot at his most Texan-propulsive, a deliberate exaggeration that sells urgency and scale. It’s also a permission slip. He’s telling ambitious employees: take big swings, because small, safe wins won’t justify our existence. The subtext is recruitment and retention: innovators don’t stay where every misstep becomes a career-ending deposition.

Contextually, this sits neatly in late-20th-century corporate America, when Perot built his reputation in high-stakes tech and services, where speed and experimentation can beat cautious incumbents. It also echoes a businessman’s pragmatism: mistakes are not only inevitable; they’re a cost of doing business when you’re trying to outpace competitors. Underneath the pep talk is a hard bargain: I’ll back you when you fail honestly, but I expect you to keep moving. The earth won’t shake itself.