I don’t like cheesy, vague advice. I like specifics that really challenge my thinking about a situation. Often, just changing the prism you look through can offer the perspective you needed all along. Words can be that prism.
Growing a business often entails a series of small actions, such as growing your social media communities or cold calling. However, it’s meaningless without a vision behind it and the directions to accomplish it. You must simultaneously consider the pieces and the whole, like a jigsaw. This is how you become an awesome entrepreneur.
Having been an entrepreneur for years (and currently on my third startup), I’ve built up a collection of strong quotes that keep me inspired and keep me on track. In sharing them with you, I hope these quotes may help you start the new year with laser focus on your business.
These quotes will help your entrepreneurial efforts when you start losing focus or come up against the proverbial brick wall.
- “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting with the first one.” -Mark Twain
- “Vision is not enough; it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps; we must step up the stairs.” -Vaclav Havel
- “Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now.” -John Wooden
- “The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.” -Nolan Bushnell
- “People seldom do things to the best of their ability. They do things to the best of their willingness.” -Anon.
- “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.” -Simon Sinek
- “People think that what a business does is make money. But money is just the intermediate stage—just a shorthand—for whatever people want. What most businesses really do is make wealth. They do something people want.” -Paul Graham
- “Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.” -Warren Tracy
- “If you can’t write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don’t have a clear idea.” -David Belasco
- “Do something today that your future self will be thankful for” -Anon.
- “If you want money, provide value. It really is that simple” -Anon.
- “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning” – Bill Gates
- “Build what the world wants, not what you think it wants” -Denis Duvauchelle
- “You’ve got to think about the big things while you’re doing the small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.” -Alvin Toffer
- “It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out. It’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” -Robert Service
- “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.” -Anon.
- “We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us.” -Herbert Marshall McLuhan
- “Facebook and Twitter aren’t the real problems in the office. The real problems are what I like to call the M&Ms, the Managers and the Meetings.”-Jason Fried
- “Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.” -Peter F. Drucker
- “Recessions are great because they unlock the best people.” -Aaron Patzer
- “Life does not mean coming to office, going home and sleep. There is more to a life. You need time to socialize, exercise and relax. Don’t make your life meaningless. A person who sits in the office until late is not a hardworking person. He is a fool who does not know how to manage work within the stipulated time. Besides, he is a loser who does not have a personal or social life.” -Always Leave The Office On Time
- “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” -Dale Carnegie
- “Learn. Ceaselessly. Learn to code, to write persuasively, to understand new technologies, to bring out the best in your team, to find underused resources and to spot patterns.” -Seth Godin
- “Mistakes teach you important lessons. Every time you make one, you’re one step closer to your goal. The only mistake that can truly hurt you is choosing to do nothing simply because you’re too scared to make a mistake.” –Anon.
- “The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster.” -Rosabeth Moss Kanter
- “Finished crap can be edited. Unfinished greatness languishes forever. The only bad writing is the thing you didn’t write!” -Margarita Gakis
- “You can’t look at the competition and say you’re going to do it better. You have to look at the competition and say you’re going to do it differently” -Steve Jobs
- “If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.”-David Ogilvy
- “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” -Calvin Coolidge
- “Geniuses think productively, not reproductively. When confronted with a problem, they ask “How many different ways can I look at it?”, “How can I rethink the way I see it?”, and “How many different ways can I solve it?” instead of “What have I been taught by someone else on how to solve this?” -Michael Michalko
- “Big innovation lives right on the edge of ridiculous ideas.” -Brendan Boyle
And to finish…
– Betsy Cañas Garmon
