Entrepreneurial Motivation Quotes

When you work on something that only has the capacity to make you 5 dollars, it does not matter how much harder you work – the most you will make is 5 dollars.

You know you're doing what you love when Sunday nights feel the same as Friday nights....

Success in life is not for those who run fast, but for those who keep running and always on the move.

While others were dreaming about it - I was getting it done.

An entrepreneur is a man who knows he can fail, but he does not accept to fail before he actually fails, and when he fails he learns from his errors and moves on.

Pivoting is not the end of the disruption process, but the beginning of the next leg of your journey.

No obstacle is so big that one person with determination can't make a difference.

Just because you have baggage doesn't mean you have to lug it around.

The real challenge is for each of us to determine where we feel we can make the most impact.

Entrepreneurs see what others can't, do what others won't, and accomplish what others dream.

Disruptors don't have to discover something new; they just have to discover a practical use for new discoveries.

The difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that successful ones know that the most unprofitable thing ever manufactured is an excuse.

At the heart of all sales and marketing is the ability to create demand even in the absence of logic.

Lifelong learning is no longer a luxury but a necessity for employment.

As I would learn later on, developed countries will always welcome the Einsteins of this world -- those individuals whose talents are already recognized and deemed to have value. This welcome doesn't usually extend to the poor and uneducated people seeking to enter the country. But the truth, supported by the facts of history and the richness of immigrant contribution to America's distinction in the world, is that the most entrepreneurial, innovative, motivated citizen is the one who has been given an opportunity and wants to repay the debt.

Every threat to the status quo is an opportunity in disguise.

You have a choice: pursue your dreams, or be hired by someone else to help them fulfill their dreams.

All businesses -- no matter if they make dog food or software -- don't sell products, they sell solutions.

To be successful, innovation is not just about value creation, but value capture.

You'll never know how close you are to victory if you give up.

The most important tool you have on a resume is language.

No one who ever led a nation got there by following the path of another.

Speed to fail should be every entrepreneur's motto. When you finally find the one idea that can't be killed, go with it.

Insight and drive are all the skills you need. Everything else can be hired.

Success doesn't teach as many lessons as failure

It is not incumbent on the world to conform to your vision of change. It is up to you to explain the future in terms that those living in the past and present can follow.

The majority of people are not willing to risk what they have built for the opportunity to have something better.

Would you rather work forty hours a week at a job you hate or eighty hours a week doing work you love?

Starting each day with a positive mindset is the most important step of your journey to discovering opportunity.

A career is just a longer trip with a whole lot more baggage.

A free and open Internet is a despot's worst enemy.

Our world's future is far more malleable and controllable than most people realize.

An average idea enthusiastically embraced will go farther than a genius idea no one gets.

A disruptor finds opportunity and profit from his misfortunes.

Problems are just businesses waiting for the right entrepreneur to unlock the value.

Most startup failures result from entrepreneurs who are better at making excuses than products.

Data has no ego and makes an excellent co-pilot.

Smart entrepreneurs learn that they must fail often and fast.

Data may disappoint, but it never lies.

Be the best at what you do or the only one doing it.

Your energy is a valuable resource, distribute it wisely.

Does your story inspire you? If not, it's time to change it.

I have noticed over the past three years that most African Christians depend on their pastor or preachers for directions in life than their lecturers, politicians and nurses. That tells why most people refuse certain medical priorities with regards to their pastor's messages. I think if every pastor should have entrepreneurial knowledge coupled with spiritual integrity, Africa will shake!

There is a difference between failing and failure. Failing is trying something that you learn doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the towel and giving up.

Security doesn't rob ambition; the illusion of security robs ambition.

Disruption isn't about what happens to you, it's about how you respond to what happens to you.

If life, you get what you believe you deserve.

A dream with a deadline is a goal.

Accepting that the odds are against you is the same as accepting defeat before you begin.

If you don't know where you want to be in five years, how do you ever expect to get there?

You can truly have it all, just not all at the same time.

Plan for ways to get more enjoyment into your life and you will get more joy out of it.

You will have more regrets for the things you didn't try than the ones you tried and didn't succeed at.

Building a career or a company is about living a few years of your life like most people won't so that you can spend the rest of your life living at a level most people can't.

Billions of dollars worth of research knowledge lie dormant at American universities waiting for the right disruptor to come along and create a business.

Those that recognize the inevitability of change stand to benefit the most from it.

The customer is always right...even when they're wrong.

The best big idea is only going to be as good as its implementation.

There are two types of people in this world: those whose look for opportunity and those who make it happen.

If you can imagine a solution, you can make it happen.

A negative mind will never find success. I have never heard a positive idea come from a person in a negative state.

The most successful people have the same twenty-four hours in a day that you do.

The joy of disruption comes from accepting that we all live in a temporal state.

All Disruption starts with introspection.

There are riches to be found simply by capturing the value released through others' disruptive breakthroughs.

Whether driven by ambition or circumstance, every career gets disrupted.

Corporate planning cycles are a classic example of generals fighting the last war over again instead of preparing for what might lie ahead.

In life, you get what you believe you deserve.

An entrepreneur is not deterred by his lack of perfection, he knows no one else is

The people who adjust best to remote work train themselves to be more proactive, entrepreneurial, and motivated. The best remote workers are uncomfortable with the status quo. They avoid complacency and are not afraid to disrupt themselves when necessary.

Productivity -- real, self-driven productivity -- was one of the first entrepreneurial skills I learned. It served me well when I was on my own, and it has served me even better as an employee because it requires a kind of organization and self-motivation that employees aren't necessarily incentivized to cultivate. After all, if you are superproductive, all you'll get is more work to do, right?

With the invention of the city and its powerful combination of economies of scale coupled to innovation and wealth creation came the great divisions of society. Our present social network structures barely existed in their present form until urban communities evolved. Hunter-gatherers were significantly less hierarchical, more egalitarian and community oriented than we are. The struggle and tension between unbridled individual self-enhancement and the care and concern for the less fortunate has been a major thread running throughout human history, especially over the past two hundred years. Nevertheless, it seems that without the motive of self-interest our entrepreneurial free market economy would collapse. The system we have evolved critically relies on people continually wanting new cars and new cell phones, new widgets and gadgets, new clothes and new washing machines, new thrills, new entertainment, and pretty much new everything, even when they already have enough of “everything.” It may not be a pretty picture and it doesn’t work for everyone, but so far, it’s worked remarkably well for most of us, and apparently most of us seem to want it to continue. Whether it can is a topic I’ll return to in the last chapter.

Reading this book, you will probably get motivated to take a major faith step, but life can stare you back in the face and tell you that you are stupid to believe that God will answer your prayer. The bottom line is, GOD CAN DO IT, and He will do it if you let Him. Numbers, 23:19 states, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” Your entrepreneurial dream may seem impossible, but God can do it. Your finances might be in the worst shape that you have ever experienced in your life, but God can fix it. You might not have the education or the skill that you know is required to follow through on your dream, but God can supplement it. Will you trust Him to do it?

Don’t make promises when you are motivated or happy. Don’t make decisions when you are nervous or upset.

Develop flourishing schools … The purpose of the education system should be to create capable and emotionally well-rounded young people who are happy and motivated. At its heart, education policy must acknowledge that the best way of enabling people to realize their potential is to value them for who they are rather than their measuring their performance against exams and targets. Children have multiple intelligences and all schools should have a strategy to develop pupils’ overall well-being. The curriculum needs to be broadened to include more opportunities around sports, arts, creativity and other engaging activities. An education system which promotes flourishing would lead to higher productivity, a more entrepreneurial society and greater active citizenship.

Self-disruption is akin to undergoing major surgery, but you are the one holding the scalpel.

Crowdsourcing is the ultimate disruptor of distribution because in a most Zen-like fashion, the content is controlled by everyone and no one at the same time.

The power of crowd sourcing always remains with the crowd, not the technological implementation.

The business world is littered with the fossils of companies that failed to evolve. Disrupt or be disrupted. There is no middle ground.

CEOs will gladly overpay for a company if the acquisition enables them to keep their jobs.

Disruption causes vast sums of money to flow from existing businesses and business models to new entrants.

Jean-Baptiste Say may have coined the term 'entrepreneur' but he totally missed the opportunity to put it on a t-shirt and sell it.

We all have a little entrepreneur inside of us. Wanting to leverage it is what gives us an entrepreneurial spirit and an entrepreneurial mind. Actually doing it makes one an entrepreneur.

Netanyahu concludes: “We agree with that clear-sighted scholar who said, unreservedly, in plain language: ‘Anti-Semitism was born in Egypt.’” His book shows that motivating the Inquisition in Spain was not hostility to Jewish religion but rage against the superior effectiveness and ascendancy of Jews outperforming established clerics as Christians. “New Christians,” mostly Jewish, were taking over the Spanish church by being more learned, eloquent, devout, resourceful, and charismatic than Christian leaders. As Netanyahu writes, “The struggle against the Jews was essentially motivated by social and economic, rather than religious considerations . . .” For all their sage observations, Prager and Telushkin miss the heart of the matter, which is Jewish intellectual and entrepreneurial superiority.

Entrepreneurial employees possess what eBay CEO John Donahoe calls the founder mind-set. As he put it to us, “People with the founder mind-set drive change, motivate people, and just get stuff done.

Discussions of entrepreneurship tend to focus on the personalities and attitudes of top management people, and especially of the chief executive. 4 Of course, any top management can damage and stifle entrepreneurship within its company. It’s easy enough. All it takes is to say ‘No’ to every new idea and to keep on saying it for a few years – and then make sure that those who came up with the new ideas never get a reward or a promotion and become ex-employees fairly swiftly. It is far less certain, however, that top management personalities and attitudes can by themselves – without the proper policies and practices – create an entrepreneurial business, which is what most of the books on entrepreneurship assert, at least by implication. In the few short-lived cases I know of, the companies were built and still run by the founder. Even then, when it gets to be successful the company soon ceases to be entrepreneurial unless it adopts the policies and practices of entrepreneurial management. The reason why top management personalities and attitudes do not suffice in any but the very young or very small business is, of course, that even a medium-sized enterprise is a pretty large organization. It requires a good many people who know what they are supposed to do, want to do it, are motivated towards doing it, and are supplied with both the tools and continuous reaffirmation. Otherwise there is only lip service; entrepreneurship soon becomes confined to the CEO’s speeches.

Someone Else's words can detour your potential!

identify your employee adjectives, (2) recruit through proper advertising, (3) identify winning personalities, and (4) select your winners. Step One: Identify Your Employee Adjectives When you think of your favorite employees in the past, what comes to mind? A procedural element such as an organized workstation, neat paperwork, or promptness? No. What makes an employee memorable is her attitude and smile, the way she takes the time to make sure a customer is happy, the extra mile she goes to ensure orders are fulfilled and problems are solved. Her intrinsic qualities—her energy, sense of humor, eagerness, and contributions to the team—are the qualities you remember. Rather than relying on job descriptions that simply quantify various positions’ duties and correlating them with matching experience as a tool for identifying and hiring great employees, I use a more holistic approach. The first step in the process is selecting eight adjectives that best define the personality ideal for each job or role in your business. This is a critical step: it gives you new visions and goals for your own management objectives, new ways to measure employee success, and new ways to assess the performance of your own business. Create a “Job Candidate Profile” for every job position in your business. Each Job Candidate Profile should contain eight single- and multiple-word phrases of defining adjectives that clearly describe the perfect employee for each job position. Consider employee-to-customer personality traits, colleague-to-colleague traits, and employee-to-manager traits when making up the list. For example, an accounting manager might be described with adjectives such as “accurate,” “patient,” “detailed,” and “consistent.” A cocktail server for a nightclub or casual restaurant would likely be described with adjectives like “energetic,” “fun,” “music-loving,” “sports-loving,” “good-humored,” “sociable conversationalist,” “adventurous,” and so on. Obviously, the adjectives for front-of-house staff and back-of-house staff (normally unseen by guests) will be quite different. Below is one generic example of a Job Candidate Profile. Your lists should be tailored for your particular bar concept, audience, location, and style of business (high-end, casual, neighborhood, tourist, and so on). BARTENDER Energetic Extroverted/Conversational Very Likable (first impression) Hospitable, demonstrates a Great Service Attitude Sports Loving Cooperative, Team Player Quality Orientated Attentive, Good Listening Skills SAMPLE ADJECTIVES Amazing Ambitious Appealing Ardent Astounding Avid Awesome Buoyant Committed Courageous Creative Dazzling Dedicated Delightful Distinctive Diverse Dynamic Eager Energetic Engaging Entertaining Enthusiastic Entrepreneurial Exceptional Exciting Fervent Flexible Friendly Genuine High-Energy Imaginative Impressive Independent Ingenious Keen Lively Magnificent Motivating Outstanding Passionate Positive Proactive Remarkable Resourceful Responsive Spirited Supportive Upbeat Vibrant Warm Zealous Step Two: Recruit through Proper Advertising The next step is to develop print or online advertising copy that will attract the personalities you’ve just defined.

Set up your vision in such a way that it will continue to live even after you die

Many large corporations have companies of one hiding within them. If the skills and passion for innovation and autonomy of these employees are fostered, it can greatly benefit the entire business as a whole. But if they are stifled in their creativeness and freethinking, they tend to move on quickly to other employment or entrepreneurialism. They’re rarely motivated solely by money or salaries and lean more toward reinventing their job and role in a way that works best for them.

people with the entrepreneurial drive required to make multithreading successful usually want to start their own companies, or apply their skills to the company’s main thread. One thing that can keep these employees motivated is making the various threads discrete projects—the equivalent of “apps” running on the main thread’s “platform.” This makes it easy to answer the question “Why shouldn’t I just start my own company?” by pointing out the benefits of building on the platform.

Having a team of people with an employee mindset means you have to cater for employees. But people with an entrepreneurial mindset can wear different hats and tackle problems creatively. They will help you run your business instead of just doing whatever they’re told so they can get their paycheque. I suggest screening out anyone who shows signs of dependency. It may sound harsh, but you’ll end up with a far more motivated, productive workforce and better results

Growth-oriented performance demands sustained entrepreneurial efforts.

Multiple studies have confirmed that these two motivations are the most common. In the Kauffman Foundation’s study of 549 founders of American technology startups, 75% of the respondents said that building wealth was a very important motivation for becoming an entrepreneur and 64% said the same of wanting to own their own businesses.16 Likewise, the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics asked 1,214 respondents about their motives for starting a business. The top six motivations were control motivations, such as freedom to take one’s own approach to work and fulfilling a personal vision, and wealth-building motivations, such as gaining financial security and building great wealth.17 The CareerLeader

Relationships are not for entrepreneurs, if you are an entrepreneur then find an entrepreneurial partner and make this world a better place to live together

If you think you have entrepreneurial mindset then you should quit your job and start hiring people for your startup.

The path to failure is one without any action. If you do not act, you have already failed in achieving your goal. But there is time, and there are loads of activities you can do to change course—to move away from failure and toward success.

Black immigrants are more motivated, more hardworking, and “more entrepreneurial than native-born blacks,” wrote one commentator in The Economist in 1996. Their success shows “that racism does not account for all, or even most, of the difficulties encountered by native-born blacks.” Ethnically racist ideas, like all racist ideas, cover up the racist policies wielded against Black natives and immigrants. Whenever Black immigrants compare their economic standing to that of Black natives, whenever they agree that their success stories show that antiracist Americans are overstating racist policies against African Americans, they are tightening the handcuffs of racist policy around their own wrists. Black immigrants’ comparisons with Black natives conceal the racial inequities between Black immigrants and non-Black immigrants

Every good-to-great transition in our research began with a Level 5 leader who motivated people more with inspired standards than inspiring personality. Every 10x entrepreneurial success in our research had founders and leaders who, while sometimes colorful characters, never confused leadership with personality; they were utterly obsessed with making the company truly great and ensuring it endured beyond themselves.

One decision about team composition that early-stage startups often wrestle with is whether to hire for attitude or skill. This is a delicate balance. If founders hire mostly for attitude, their team will be comprised of highly motivated, hardworking, jack-of-all-trade generalists who will shift readily between tasks as circumstances require. Hiring for cultural fit can yield similar results,