Categories:
- Rallying the Team
- Personal Success
- Ins and Outs of Entrepreneurship
- Conquering Fear
- Dealing with Failure
- Overcoming Challenges
- Thoughts on Innovation
Dealing with Failure
If you can’t stand the heat, don’t tickle the dragon.
Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.
Nothing is easy. If you want to do nothing, that’s easy.
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
If a ruler’s anger rises against you, do not leave your post; calmness can lay great offenses to rest.
Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.
With Early Stage companies, it’s never one thing. It’s always one thing after another.
You want to learn from experience, but you want to learn from other people’s experience when you can.
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
Smart MFs sound like Crazy MFs to Dumb MFs.
What is not possible is not to choose.
Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.
The first 98% of the engineering design takes 98% of the time. The remaining 2% of the design work takes the other 98% of the time.
It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.
There are no stupid questions, just stupid people.
More is more.
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.
If everything is important, then nothing is.
The less money you need, the harder it is to run out.
Failing is good as long as it doesn’t become a habit.
A setback is a setup for a comeback.
If you don’t have a solution to match the scale of the problem, you have a hobby.
Big companies are amazing at coming up with reasons not to do things.
The customer of my customer is my customer.
People have a historical memory that goes back to breakfast.
I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present.
Done equals good.
Accommodate changing times but cling to unchanging principles.
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
Let’s go invest tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
The root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.
Your faith needs to be greater than your fear.
I often tell would-be entrepreneurs that you have to be a little crazy or even masochistic to choose this life. The energy, endurance, optimism and just plain thick skin required aren’t for the faint of heart.
I believe that smart people working hard will eventually get lucky.
If you‘re the smartest person in the room, you haven’t hired well.
Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.
Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
A leader is a dealer in hope.
The fact that others are bad does not imply that you are good.
We was doin’ good till we blowed up!
We’re imperfect people pursuing perfect ideas and there’s tremendous frustration in the gap.
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
Adult humans are only a little more rational than five-year-olds.
An expert is [somebody] who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
Even if the situation or challenge is very complex, usually the simplest solution is the one to go with.
There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.
People have anxiety about ambiguity.
Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
Discovery is the process of simultaneously seeing things that everyone sees and thinking things that no one has thought.
Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.
Trust your mistakes.
Try to become not a [person] of success, but try rather to become a [person] of value.
Sleep on your big decisions and then be decisive.
Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.
Make space for the new mistakes.
Life is on the wire. The rest is just waiting.
Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
For nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
The rational and the irrational complement each other. Individually, they are far less valuable.
When the rate of change outside exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is in sight.
I see the light when I feel the heat.
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!
Humility is the most underrated aspect of being an entrepreneur. Once your head gets too big, you’re cooked.
More important than what disease the person has is what person has the disease.
Until we have an exit, we Angel investors are just donors.
Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.
By the time you get really good at this, you’ll be dead!
Done is better than perfect.
The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.
I don’t want a lawyer who tells me what I can’t do. I hire a lawyer to tell me how to do what I want to do!
You can’t talk yourself out of a problem you’ve behaved yourself into. You must behave yourself out!
For some entrepreneurs it’s better to be never than late.
Fear is an excellent motivator. I find that it really brings out the true ingenuity of a creature.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Don’t give up on your dream, but have a backup dream.
Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness.
Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell.
Wandering is an essential counterbalance to efficiency.
When you’re through changing, you’re through.
In my next life, I will try to commit more errors.
The seven smartest words in the English language are: ‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out.’
All you need is faith, trust and pixie dust!
If all you ever did is all you’ve ever done, then all you ever get is all you’re gonna get.
Mistakes … the portals of discovery.
Someone needs to do something about this.
Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget.
Life is just one damned thing after another.
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
Interesting, if true.
The simplest explanation is always the most likely.
Nothing new ever happened before.
Never rule out that there are economic linkages you don’t understand.
You can never complete the work, nor must you abandon it.
Design is an agent of change, which can help us to make sense of what is happening and to turn it to our advantage.
The darkest nights produce the brightest stars.
There’s only one boss: the customer. He can fire everybody from the chairman on down simply by spending his money elsewhere.
The amount of money start-ups raise in their seed and Series A rounds is inversely correlated with success. Yes, I mean that. Less money raised leads to more success.
I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I’ve invented.
No matter what cohort you think you are part of, there is always a bell-shaped curve.
If you have perfect customer analytics, you will know how to find people who look like your current customer. But if you focus only on them, you will never get any new business.
They say the secret of success is being at the right place at the right time, but since you never know when the right time is going to be, I figure the trick is to find the right place and just hang around.
Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline.
He that can’t endure the bad will not live to see the good.
I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
The first person you lead is you.
Being early and being wrong are sometimes not that different.
Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.
God gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason.
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.
We shall make no progress today.
Focus wins. Doing too many things fails.
A goal is a dream with a deadline.
You have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for the law is too slow. I will ruin you.
I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I don’t have a lot of regrets.
Entrepreneurship exists in the tiny space between madness and genius; and, its journey requires a few cross border violations across both madness and genius to get to the final destination.
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
Partners don’t pay each other, they help each other get paid.
Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.
It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop.
It’s so much easier to do something new than to do something well.
You can’t let your past hold your future hostage.
Take my factories and my money but leave me my salesmen and I’ll be back where I was in two years.
What got you here won’t get you there.
Never mistake a clear view for a short distance.
We’re not trying to entertain the critics… I’ll take my chances with the public.
Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.
It’s nice to be nominated but it’s better to win.
I worship entrepreneurs. They do more than anyone thinks is possible – with less than anyone thinks is possible.
It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.
Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you’re scared to death.
I am not a fan of lost causes. But a … of causes not yet won.
There is nothing so depressing as boundless optimism.
In economics, things take longer to happen than you think they will, and then happen faster than you thought they could.
If you can’t be kind, at least be vague.
If you presume, you are putting ‘P’ on your resume.
If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor.
Problems don’t age well.
Long as the night will be, the sun will rise without you.
There is always a well-known solution to every human problem – neat, plausible, and wrong.
Solving big problems is easier than solving little problems.
You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
When you need money, go ask for advice. When you need advice, go ask for money.
There are decades when nothing happens and then there are weeks where decades happen.
Expedite the inevitable.
You can’t make a good deal with a bad person.
I did not always think he was right, nor did he always think I was right. But we were each the person the other trusted.
Things are never going to turn out the way you think they will.
Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment.
Politicians are the same everywhere. They promise to build a bridge even when there’s no river.
The impossible missions are the only ones that succeed.
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optimist sees the glass as half full. The engineer sees the glass as twice the size it needs to be.
If you are going to doubt something, doubt your limits.
Good judgment comes from experience and experience … well, that comes from poor judgment.
Too little confidence, and you’re unable to act; too much confidence, and you’re unable to hear.
Developers will fill the world with empty buildings – if you pay them to do it.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go long, go together.
Angels who won’t conduct postmortems climb the ladder of success wrong by wrong.
Make no little plans.
Feed the strong, starve the weak. Lead with your strength and avoid protecting the weak – weak brands, weak products and weak people. Know your strengths and lead with them.
Storms make trees take deeper roots.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss in enthusiasm.
The harder I work, the luckier I get!
Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.
A leader’s job is to have all the questions. You have to be incredibly comfortable looking like the dumbest person in the room.
When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.
If this is a blessing, it is certainly very well disguised.
In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning in indispensable.
A smooth sea never made for a skillful sailor.
Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, and abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it.
History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Panic is not a strategy.
