Success Quote by Leo Burnett

A businessman telling you to reach for the stars isn’t selling stardust; he’s selling standards. Leo Burnett, one of advertising’s great mythmakers, understood that ambition is most useful when it’s practical. The line flatters the dreamer, then immediately trims the fantasy: you “may not quite get” a star. That concessive clause is the credibility engine. It’s a promise that doesn’t overpromise, which is exactly the kind of rhetoric a career advertiser would trust.

The real move is in the second half: “but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.” Burnett isn’t arguing that aiming high guarantees glory; he’s arguing it protects you from shabby outcomes. The subtext is managerial and moral at once: set lofty goals and the floor rises with them. In creative industries especially, the fear isn’t failure, it’s mediocrity that looks like effort. “Mud” is what you get when you optimize for safety, copy competitors, chase the brief instead of the idea.

Context matters: Burnett built an agency in the mid-century boom, when mass media turned brands into national folklore and “big ideas” were a competitive weapon. His philosophy prized bold, human storytelling (the Marlboro Man, Tony the Tiger) that could survive committees and market research. This quote is a pep talk aimed less at poets than at teams: raise your sights, accept imperfect landings, and you’ll still end up somewhere cleaner than compromise. It’s aspiration as risk management, a dream with a balance sheet.