Women Entrepreneurs Quotes

I'm going to ask you to remember the prostituted, the homeless, the battered, the raped, the tortured, the murdered, the raped-then-murdered, the murdered-then-raped; and I am going to ask you to remember the photographed, the ones that any or all of the above happened to and it was photographed and now the photographs are for sale in our free countries. I want you to think about those who have been hurt for the fun, the entertainment, the so-called speech of others; those who have been hurt for profit, for the financial benefit of pimps and entrepreneurs. I want you to remember the perpetrator and I am going to ask you to remember the victims: not just tonight but tomorrow and the next day. I want you to find a way to include them -- the perpetrators and the victims -- in what you do, how you think, how you act, what you care about, what your life means to you. Now, I know, in this room, some of you are the women I have been talking about. I know that. People around you may not. I am going to ask you to use every single thing you can remember about what was done to you -- how it was done, where, by whom, when, and, if you know -- why -- to begin to tear male dominance to pieces, to pull it apart, to vandalize it, to destabilize it, to mess it up, to get in its way, to fuck it up. I have to ask you to resist, not to comply, to destroy the power men have over women, to refuse to accept it, to abhor it and to do whatever is necessary despite its cost to you to change it.

I've been lucky enough now in my life to meet all sorts of extraordinary and accomplished people - world leaders, inventors, musicians, astronauts, athletes, professors, entrepreneurs, artists and writers, pioneering doctors and researchers. Some (though not enough) of them are women. Some (though not enough) are black or of color. Some were born poor or have lives that to many of us would appear to have been unfairly heaped with adversity, and yet still they seem to operate as if they've had every advantage in the world. What I've learned is this: All of them have had doubters. Some continue to have roaring, stadium-sized collection of critics and naysayers who will shout I told you so at every little misstep or mistake. The noise doesn't go away, but the most successful people I know have figured out how to live with it, to lean on the people who believe in them, and to push onward with their goals.

Social issues impact every business. Whether we're talking about womens health or education or economic equity or climate change or renewable energy... All of these things impact businesses and their ability to profit. And they all present business opportunities also. So there's a lot to consider at the intersection of business and social work. And you can't really care about business without also caring about people's well-being, so every entrepreneur should be a social entrepreneur trying to help other people live better lives in some way.

Winners are losers who got back up.

My quality of life. And for me, quality of life is having the freedom to make choices that are not fear based.

If you sincerely want to be successful in life, all you need is one person to believe in you, and that one person should be YOU. As long as you genuinely believe in yourself, you can and will be a success. Your mindset is a powerful force! What you think and how you think will be the ultimate factor of your journey’s end.

Charity? No. I want lasting change. Remember the trouble of raising wages to a living wage as a single entrepreneur? I want a restructuring of government expenditure. A systemic redistribution of wealth—that is what I want.

Anyone not busy learning is busy dying. For as long as you foster a willingness to learn, you will ward off sclerosis of the brain and hardening of the mental arteries. Curiosity has led many a man and women into the valley of serious wealth.

Some women think being arrogant, selfish, bitter and looking down on others are qualities of being an Independent, strong, powerful and successful business women. No matter how high you are in life. Never look down on others and never forget humanity.

Sensuality is the ultimate path to breaking through plateaus in business particularly for the new breed of women entrepreneurs.

What does success mean to you?' Those are moments when I feel like I’m contributing something but I’m also receiving something. Reciprocity feels like success. (Melissa Harris-Perry)

God, how I wish I could relive the whole thing. Short of that, I'd like to share the experience, the ups and downs, so some young man or woman, somewhere, going through the same trials and ordeals, might be inspired or comforted. Or warned. Some young entrepreneur, maybe, some athlete or painter or novelist, might press on. It's all the same drive. The same dream. It would be nice to help them avoid the typical discouragements. I'd tell them to hit pause, think long and hard about how they want to spend their time, and with whom they want to spend it for the next forty years. I'd tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don't know what that means, seek it. If you're following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you've ever felt. I'd like to warn the best of them, the iconoclasts, the innovators, the rebels, that they will always have a bull's-eye on their backs. The better they get, the bigger the bull's-eye. It's not one man's opinion; it's a law of nature.

A well-dressed, self-assured business executive steps into a quiet corner of the conference room, crowded with people. Everyone there is aware of her presence. She's dark-haired, petite, and alluring. She is quick to smile, and when she does, her whole face lights up. Her enthusiasm is infectious. Young men and women nod as they pass by, briefly breaking off their conversations with colleagues. The executive looks down at her compact electronic device and quickly texts: "Smile. Talk into the mic. Good luck.

After a lifetime of making money and observing better men and women than I fall by the wayside, I am convinced that fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth. Trust me on this.

I used to say I admired women who never doubted themselves, who have no fear and could just kind of roar it out and do it. But I’ve changed my mind, because I actually don’t think that exists. I admire women who are open and vulnerable about the self-doubt that happens in the creative process and yet go forward and do it anyway. (Aarti Sequeira)

Her emergence tapped into the public’s hunger to see a female entrepreneur break through in a technology world dominated by men. Women like Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg had achieved a measure of renown in Silicon Valley, but they hadn’t created their own companies from scratch. In Elizabeth Holmes, the Valley had its first female billionaire tech founder.

You can take the smartest kid at Wharton, the one who gets straight A’s and has a 170 IQ, and if he doesn’t have the instincts, he’ll never be a successful entrepreneur. Moreover, most people who do have the instincts will never recognize that they do, because they don’t have the courage or the good fortune to discover their potential. Somewhere out there are a few men with more innate talent at golf than Jack Nicklaus, or women with greater ability at tennis than Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova, but they will never lift a club or swing a racket and therefore will never find out how great they could have been. Instead, they’ll be content to sit and watch stars perform on television.

They wanna know what team I’m on… TEAM SUCCEEDING.

Sorry, Sister. You're not “normal.” You're exceptional. You're a Bombshell. If this was easy, everyone would be a successful business owner.

Success occurs when preparation meets opportunity.

All successful people have the same amount of time that you have each day.

You will only find yourself in a race when you choose to compare yourself to others.

Smile and Slay. You have to slay it in life or life will slay you.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

My mom told me that I should not be scared or too cautious," concludes Dimples. "Just do it if you have the guts. If it is correct, it will work.

Never, ever, ever, write off anything you’ve achieved as merely being lucky. You are not lucky: you are hard-working and capable. Don’t ever question it.

Build the table you want a seat at

If your brand lacks sensuality, it has got no power.

Sensual feminine women inspire the spirit of excellence, creativity and innovation in both their personal and professional life.

Being intentional about the way you begin each day sets the tone for how you will perform, perceive, and respond to your experiences for the remainder of the day.

I rely on six touch points to make myself feel whole: kids, love, business, health, travel, spirituality. If I touch them all each day, in varying intensities, I am successful.

What is your personal or professional motto? Let go or be dragged.

Love, compassion, care, listening, communicating—these aren’t secondary skills. They’re of primary importance.

Leadership is not about command and control: that’s for the army.

Entrepreneurship, with the right mindset, can help anyone reach his goals in life.

Strive for balance in your life. You are the heart and soul of your business so take care of yourself.

You won’t accomplish or reach your greatest potential in life if your main focus is on what other people think of you. No matter how great you are, some people will form their own negative opinions of you. Don’t give your haters your time or energy! People that are negative, jealous, and envious of you aren’t worth your future. Go after your dreams with purpose and unwavering belief!

You have to stretch to grow. And surround yourself with not only talented people whom you can delegate to, but also with good souls. Without grace and kindness, your skills are unimportant to me.

It all feels rather catch-22ish. In a field where women are at a disadvantage specifically because they are women (and therefore can’t hope to fit a stereotypically male ‘pattern’), data will be particularly crucial for female entrepreneurs. And yet it’s the female entrepreneurs who are less likely to have it, because they are more likely to be trying to make products for women. For whom we lack data.

Success requires planning, structure, and consistency. If you step out into the world armed with only a vision, enthusiasm, and good vibes—you will encounter every challenge imaginable on the way to attain it.

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Which of your traits are you most proud of? I’m proudest of my resiliency. I have had a tough life and have been through a lot. And I am still standing. And in spite of all the odds, I have found success and happiness.

The Kochs were also directing millions of dollars into online education, and into teaching high school students, through a nonprofit that Charles devised called the Young Entrepreneurs Academy. The financially pressed Topeka school system, for instance, signed an agreement with the organization which taught students that, among other things, Franklin Roosevelt didn’t alleviate the Depression, minimum wage laws and public assistance hurt the poor, lower pay for women was not discriminatory, and the government, rather than business, caused the 2008 recession. The program, which was aimed at low-income areas, also paid students to take additional courses online.

Women had to discard the doctrines of sexual purity that so often led to frigidity in marriage. Entrepreneurs were glad to help. For just ten cents a woman could buy a discreetly wrapped book titled How I Kept My Husband, which instructed her in how to give oral sex.32

People will doubt you, money will come and go, and the unexpected will happen. Still, your commitment to the manifestation of your vision must remain intact because you exist for a specific reason. Your voice and your purpose matter—we need you to live as boldly as possible!

Black female entrepreneurs don’t make excuses, we find solutions. We’re leaders, resourceful, ambitious, hardworking, and creative. We’re powerful, unstoppable, confident, smart, and fearless. We’re Exquisite Black Queens that represent Black Excellence… We are success! There’s no denying it… Black female entrepreneurs are resilient and we rock!

Strong women are the architects of their destinies, the CEOs of their lives, and the superheroes of their own stories. They don't just break glass ceilings; they shatter them with style. Their sass is their superpower, and their laughter is their battle cry. From juggling responsibilities to sparkling kindness like glitter, they do it all with flair and finesse. So, here's to the strong women; you make the world a better place!

Name the biggest overall lesson you’ve learned in running a business. That it is a business before all else. Regardless of the type of business it is, you must treat it as a business first and foremost. Even if you are a creative person, the daily nuts and bolts are really about honing your business sense. Without that, it is very difficult to be profitable and thus have creative freedom. It is something I have battled since I started my business.

Entrepreneur Sheila Brooks, who was raised in a ghetto, told me most of the kids she grew up with are dead, in jail, or still impoverished, but she “beat the odds” through hard work and an unshakable faith in a Higher Power. “I truly believe that all things are possible with God. Every day I spend time in meditation and prayer. I thank my Higher Power for everything He has given me. When I do that, I know that no matter how bad things are, I can overcome.

resources on self-promotion, specifically targeted to introverts and accessible online, now abound. Popular examples include Beth Buelow’s The Introvert Entrepreneur blog and podcast (bethbuelow.com) and Nancy Ancowitz’s Self-Promotion for Introverts® site (selfpromotionforitroverts.com). Ancowitz, business communication coach and author of the book Self-Promotion for Introverts, recommends that introverts build on what they do naturally rather than try to replicate extroverts:

The impotence of liberal humanism is a symptom of its essentially contradictory relationship to modern capitalism. For although it forms part of the ‘official’ ideology of such society, and the ‘humanities’ exist to reproduce it, the social order within which it exists has in one sense very little time for it at all. Who is concerned with the uniqueness of the individual, the imperishable truths of the human condition or the sensuous textures of lived experience in the Foreign Office or the boardroom of Standard Oil? Capitalism’s reverential hat-tipping to the arts is obvious hypocrisy, except when it can hang them on its walls as a sound investment. Yet capitalist states have continued to direct funds into higher education humanities departments, and though such departments are usually the first in line for savage cutting when capitalism enters on one of its periodic crises, it is doubtful that it is only hypocrisy, a fear of appearing in its true philistine colours, which compels this grudging support. The truth is that liberal humanism is at once largely ineffectual, and the best ideology of the ‘human’ that present bourgeois society can muster. The ‘unique individual’ is indeed important when it comes to defending the business entrepreneur’s right to make profit while throwing men and women out of work; the individual must at all costs have the ‘right to choose’, provided this means the right to buy one’s child an expensive private education while other children are deprived of their school meals, rather than the rights of women to decide whether to have children in the first place.

Without taking into account the ways in which money has motivated oppression, we are missing an essential layer as to why so many powerful and influential entities, business owners, entrepreneurs, and moguls refuse to take on social justice: it’s just not cost effective to do so. And this legacy has continued and even adapted as some businesses have feigned a more populist message regarding representation of women. Regardless of how many times they can say “feminist!” in a product or ad, it’s the allegiance to money that has hindered progress.

Women are often convinced by many different social norms, expectations, and incentives to live within constraints that similarly placed (in terms of race, class, culture, and time period) men need not consider. This sort of internally constrained vision, whether it is because of false consciousness, shame, stereotype, or trauma, is the kind of violation of their positive freedom that should most concern feminists. Capitalism, by providing an option outside kin and traditional community norms for independence and social power, can allow women the wherewithal to escape these constraints. Even if a particular woman does not choose to work outside the home or compete in the marketplace as an entrepreneur, the fact that women have this option under capitalism increases the freedom of all women. Enlarging the set of things that women are seen as capable of can reduce the sense that women have that they are inferior, and this can increase their confidence in a wider set of social circumstances. It puts the lie to the idea that women are incapable, and helps women to stand up to ill-treatment and violence.

Never stop pushing for what you want! If something is truly important to you, stay diligent and find a way. Depending on whom you ask, the answer may be different. Never settle for the first answer! Do your own research, ask different people, go above other people’s head if you have to. Sometimes it’s necessary to push the envelope. Some people will purposely give you the wrong answer to try to stop you and/or hold you back. This, unfortunately, is a reality. Some people’s intentions are all wrong. Be mindful that not everyone will have your best interest at heart.

When I say we, I'm referring to society: copywriters, companies, and overall general opinion; I am in no way taking personal responsibility. We/they market to women like they are giant toddlers. This endless, pejorative, female-targeted infantilization of the English language when it's directed toward women: "Mama Bear needs her beauty rest!" "Rockstar gal gets her glam on!" "Work it, she-entrepreneur!" "Be a diva-licious ass-kicker in stilettos! The biggest, badass, boss-babe in herstory! The fiercest, she-matologist working in the blood lab!" This pervasive rhetoric is basically watered down, digestible empowerment designed to get a woman's money. It's the advertising equivalent of a "Live Laugh Love" sign.

One way to get a life and keep it is to put energy into being an S&M (success and money) queen. I first heard this term in Karen Salmansohn’s fabulous book The 30-Day Plan to Whip Your Career Into Submission. Here’s how to do it: be a star at work. I don’t care if you flip burgers at McDonald’s or run a Fortune 500 company. Do everything with totality and excellence. Show up on time, all the time. Do what you say you will do. Contribute ideas. Take care of the people around you. Solve problems. Be an agent for change. Invest in being the best in your industry or the best in the world! If you’ve been thinking about changing professions, that’s even more reason to be a star at your current job. Operating with excellence now will get you back up to speed mentally and energetically so you can hit the ground running in your new position. It will also create good karma. When and if you finally do leave, your current employers will be happy to support you with a great reference and often leave an open door for additional work in the future. If you’re an entrepreneur, look at ways to enhance your business. Is there a new product or service you’ve wanted to offer? How can you create raving fans by making your customer service sparkle? How can you reach more people with your product or service? Can you impact thousands or even millions more? Let’s not forget the M in S&M. Getting a life and keeping it includes having strong financial health as well. This area is crucial because many women delay taking charge of their financial lives as they believe (or have been culturally conditioned to believe) that a man will come along and take care of it for them. This is a setup for disaster. You are an intelligent and capable woman. If you want to fully unleash your irresistibility, invest in your financial health now and don’t stop once you get involved in a relationship. If money management is a challenge for you, I highly recommend my favorite financial coach: David Bach. He is the bestselling author of many books, including The Automatic Millionaire, Smart Women Finish Rich, and Smart Couples Finish Rich. His advice is clear-cut and straightforward, and, most important, it works.

Women getting run out of tech matters, because it’s where so much of the wealth creation and opportunity in the economy is right now. And it purports to be more of a meritocracy. So if it’s not simply a case of needing more women to enter the tech funnel, what gives? Is the tech industry just full of a ton of sexist bigots? Some, sure. Trust me, I know them. But the far more pervasive problem is one of unconscious bias and an overreliance on pattern recognition. VCs tend to rely on a gut feeling about an entrepreneur because they frequently don’t have a business or product yet to evaluate, or in many cases, even a track record to look at. And when you don’t have written-out, quantifiable qualifications to hire based on, bias creeps in.

Those who govern on behalf of the rich have an incentive to persuade us we are alone in our struggle for survival, and that any attempts to solve our problems collectively – through trade unions, protest movements or even the mutual obligations of society – are illegitimate or even immoral. The strategy of political leaders such as Thatcher and Reagan was to atomize and rule. Neoliberalism leads us to believe that relying on others is a sign of weakness, that we all are, or should be, ‘self-made’ men and women. But even the briefest glance at social outcomes shows that this cannot possibly be true. If wealth were the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the ‘self-attribution fallacy’.10 This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you were not responsible. The same applies to the belief in personal failure that assails all too many at the bottom of the economic hierarchy today. From birth, this system of belief has been drummed into our heads: by government propaganda, by the billionaire media, through our educational system, by the boastful claims of the oligarchs and entrepreneurs we’re induced to worship. The doctrine has religious, quasi-Calvinist qualities: in the Kingdom of the Invisible Hand, the deserving and the undeserving are revealed through the grace bestowed upon them by the god of money. Any policy or protest that seeks to disrupt the formation of a ‘natural order’ of rich and poor is an unwarranted stay upon the divine will of the market. In school we’re taught to compete and are rewarded accordingly, yet our great social and environmental predicaments demand the opposite – the skill we most urgently need to learn is cooperation. We are set apart, and we suffer for it. A series of scientific papers suggest that social pain is processed11 by the same neural circuits as physical pain.12 This might explain why, in many languages, it is hard to describe the impact of breaking social bonds without the terms we use to denote physical pain and injury: ‘I was stung by his words’; ‘It was a massive blow’; ‘I was cut to the quick’; ‘It broke my heart’; ‘I was mortified’. In both humans and other social mammals, social contact reduces physical pain.13 This is why we hug our children when they hurt themselves: affection is a powerful analgesic.14 Opioids relieve both physical agony and the distress of separation. Perhaps this explains the link between social isolation and drug addiction.

I also gained a deeper appreciation of what it must have been like for my mother to be in a foreign country unable to speak the language (in her case, unable to read or write any language). As I walked around by myself, however, it was obvious that based on my body language people perceived me as American but at the same time different enough from other Americans that they felt free to come up and ask me all kinds of personal questions about where I came from, what kind of work I did, whether I was married, how many people there were in my family. Back in the 1930s when I asked personal questions like these of a Chinese student at Bryn Mawr, she reprimanded me for being too personal. I’m not sure whether that was because she came from a higher social class or because the revolution has opened things up. I answered their questions as best as I could in my limited Chinese. The ingenuity and energy of the Chinese reminded me of my father, for example, the way that they used bicycles, often transformed into tricycles, for transporting all kinds of things: little children (sometimes in a sidecar), bricks and concrete, beds and furniture. I was amazed at the number of entrepreneurs lining the sidewalks with little sewing machines ready to alter or make a garment, barbers with stools and scissors, knife sharpeners, shoe repairmen, vendors selling food and other kinds of merchandise from carts. Everywhere I went I saw women knitting, as they waited for a bus or walked along the street, as if they couldn’t waste a minute. I had never seen such an industrious people. It was unlike anything that I had witnessed in England, France, the West Indies, Africa, or the United States.

It would be nice to help them avoid the typical discouragements. I’d tell them to hit pause, think long and hard about how they want to spend their time, and with whom they want to spend it for the next forty years. I’d tell men and women in their midtwenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt. I’d like to warn the best of them, the iconoclasts, the innovators, the rebels, that they will always have a bull’s-eye on their backs. The better they get, the bigger the bull’s-eye. It’s not one man’s opinion; it’s a law of nature. I’d like to remind them that America isn’t the entrepreneurial Shangri-La people think. Free enterprise always irritates the kinds of trolls who live to block, to thwart, to say no, sorry, no. And it’s always been this way. Entrepreneurs have always been outgunned, outnumbered. They’ve always fought uphill, and the hill has never been steeper. America is becoming less entrepreneurial, not more. A Harvard Business School study recently ranked all the countries of the world in terms of their entrepreneurial spirit. America ranked behind Peru. And those who urge entrepreneurs to never give up? Charlatans. Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to try something else, is genius. Giving up doesn’t mean stopping. Don’t ever stop. Luck plays a big role. Yes, I’d like to publicly acknowledge the power of luck. Athletes get lucky, poets get lucky, businesses get lucky. Hard work is critical, a good team is essential, brains and determination are invaluable, but luck may decide the outcome. Some people might not call it luck. They might call it Tao, or Logos, or Jñāna, or Dharma. Or Spirit. Or God. Put it this way. The harder you work, the better your Tao. And since no one has ever adequately defined Tao, I now try to go regularly to mass. I would tell them: Have faith in yourself, but also have faith in faith. Not faith as others define it. Faith as you define it. Faith as faith defines itself in your heart.

Numbers are difficult to calculate in part because sex workers can’t be divided neatly into categories of those working voluntarily and those working involuntarily. Some commentators look at prostitutes and see only sex slaves; others see only entrepreneurs. But in reality there are some in each category and many other women who inhabit a gray zone between freedom and slavery.

Tell them about your blog. What is your blog about? Try to narrow it down to a theme. For example, my theme is intentional leadership. Next explain what kinds of things you write about. I think it is best to limit yourself to a handful of categories. The more focused your content, the more readers you will attract. Kate McCulley’s About page on Adventurous Kate’s Solo Female 104 Travel Blog gives a few fun facts about Kate (she has been shipwrecked and once made a pass at Jon Stewart; she quit her job to travel the world), and then dives right into her theme: I am a solo traveler at heart, and one of my goals is to show women that solo travel can be safe, easy, cheap and a lot of fun. Meanwhile, I’m committed to showing you what the lifestyle of a long-term traveler and online entrepreneur is like. Like anyone else in the world, I have good times and bad times, but I promise to show you reality—with honesty and humor.3

two days of pay on the first-year anniversary grew to four weeks of pay by the tenth-year anniversary. Additionally, five-year employment anniversaries were celebrated with a cake, ten years with a monogrammed silver platter with the name Pepperidge Farm and the date inscribed on the bottom, and fifteen years with a monogrammed

You're only as small as you hold yourself.

In moments of self-doubt or adversity, how do you build yourself back up? Self-care, which for me means taking walks alone, journaling, and doing yoga.

Find another solution. That’s how you move toward success.

David and Neil were MBA students at the Wharton School when the cash-strapped David lost his eyeglasses and had to pay $700 for replacements. That got them thinking: Could there be a better way? Neil had previously worked for a nonprofit, VisionSpring, that trained poor women in the developing world to start businesses offering eye exams and selling glasses that were affordable to people making less than four dollars a day. He had helped expand the nonprofit’s presence to ten countries, supporting thousands of female entrepreneurs and boosting the organization’s staff from two to thirty. At the time, it hadn’t occurred to Neil that an idea birthed in the nonprofit sector could be transferred to the private sector. But later at Wharton, as he and David considered entering the eyeglass business, after being shocked by the high cost of replacing David’s glasses, they decided they were out to build more than a company—they were on a social mission as well. They asked a simple question: Why had no one ever sold eyeglasses online? Well, because some believed it was impossible. For one thing, the eyeglass industry operated under a near monopoly that controlled the sales pipeline and price points. That these high prices would be passed on to consumers went unquestioned, even if that meant some people would go without glasses altogether. For another, people didn’t really want to buy a product as carefully calibrated and individualized as glasses online. Besides, how could an online company even work? David and Neil would have to be able to offer stylish frames, a perfect fit, and various options for prescriptions. With a $2,500 seed investment from Wharton’s Venture Initiation Program, David and Neil launched their company in 2010 with a selection of styles, a low price of $95, and a hip marketing program. (They named the company Warby Parker after two characters in a Jack Kerouac novel.) Within a month, they’d sold out all their stock and had a 20,000-person waiting list. Within a year, they’d received serious funding. They kept perfecting their concept, offering an innovative home try-on program, a collection of boutique retail outlets, and an eye test app for distance vision. Today Warby Parker is valued at $1.75 billion, with 1,400 employees and 65 retail stores. It’s no surprise that Neil and David continued to use Warby Parker’s success to deliver eyeglasses to those in need. The company’s Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program is unique: instead of simply providing free eyeglasses, Warby Parker trains and equips entrepreneurs in developing countries to sell the glasses they’re given. To date, 4 million pairs of glasses have been distributed through Warby Parker’s program. This dual commitment to inexpensive eyewear for all, paired with a program to improve access to eyewear for the global poor, makes Warby Parker an exemplary assumption-busting social enterprise.

What was the best piece of business advice you were given when you were starting out? To make sure to hire professionals to do the things you are not good at or knowledgeable about. The key takeaway was that you don’t have to be able to do everything on your own. Look to the experts when you need to.

She went to the spiritual gym. She constantly read books by other entrepreneurs, she had pictures taped to her walls of women who’d done stuff like run successful restaurants in war zones, she memorized poems, meditated, and constantly reminded herself that uncertainty is part of the process. Everyone

It is critical to unearth and understand our stories – both as individuals and as entrepreneurs. Once we do that, make peace with it, and embrace it, not only can we live empowered, transformed, and fulfilling lives, we can help others do that too as models and as guides." p. 29

One of the most disappointing things about our schools and the way we raise our kids is that we don't spend more time teaching kids to take more risks. Instead, we teach them to play it safe. Be good, get good grades, get a good job, and eventually you can have a good retirement. That's the lesson society endorses. But what if that lesson is totally out of date? What if the idea that getting good grades and then going to a good college and then getting a good job represents an outmoded plan? In fact, most of our schools today are based on a model created over a hundred years ago for an industrial society in a world totally different from the one into which most of us were born. Back then, you went to work, punched a clock, did what you were told, and eventually were handed a gold watch (maybe). There was hierarchy and a well-defined system within which to work. Not anymore. Today, ideas created out of thin air can become billion-dollar enterprises. The people who get ahead are the ones who know how to communicate, how to think outside the box and persuade others. Unfortunately, many of our schools are still preparing our kids for the old system. Sit still. Be quiet. Do what you are told and we will give you good grades. Get good grades, get a good job and lifelong security. I'm not suggesting that kids shouldn't get good grades and go to college. Of course they should. But it seems to me that our schools are creating worker bees at a time when society is rewarding entrepreneurs. We need to raise our children to think bigger and more creatively than we did. So ask yourself right now, "What am I teaching my kids about life's challenges?" Are you raising your children to go for their dreams or simply to avoid failure?

The Kochs were also directing millions of dollars into online education, and into teaching high school students, through a nonprofit that Charles devised called the Young Entrepreneurs Academy. The financially pressed Topeka school system, for instance, signed an agreement with the organization which taught students that, among other things, Franklin Roosevelt didn’t alleviate the Depression, minimum wage laws and public assistance hurt the poor, lower pay for women was not discriminatory, and the government, rather than business, caused the 2008 recession.

the Triple Win”: Money, Meaning, and Mobility.

So why do women keep falling victim to the trap of jealousy, comparison, negativity and cattiness?

You should also know that whatever your gift is, nobody can do it quite like you. One of the biggest traps we fall into as women is the comparison trap, the “she’s got it all” trap, the “she has more fans” trap, or the “she’s making more money” trap. We tend to stack ourselves up against everyone else and pick ourselves apart based on what other people are doing. This practice does nothing to make us better,

Mara Foundation is the nonprofit side of Mara’s business, a social enterprise focused on emerging entrepreneurs. We have myriad programs designed to address the complete life cycle of an entrepreneur’s business idea, from start-up advice right through to venture capital. My sister Rona, the foundation director, has been a dynamic force in ongoing advocacy for youth and women in business. Always someone with a keen eye for detail, she has secured partnerships for the Foundation with Ernst & Young to nurture and develop small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) in Africa and with UN Women, whose UN Women’s Knowledge Gateway for Women’s Economic Empowerment has operations in 80 countries. A spin-off of this is a program called Mara Mentor—tagline: Enable, Empower and Inspire—an online community that connects budding entrepreneurs with experienced and inspiring business leaders around the world.

In late 2008, one of my business partners, Clayton Christensen offered his opinion that the recession would have an “unmitigated positive impact on innovation” because “when the tension is greatest and resources are most limited, people are actually a lot more open to rethinking the fundamental way they do business.” This theory is supported by the Kaufmann Foundation statistic that “51 percent of the Fortune 500 companies began during a recession or bear market or both.” Whether launching a business or pursuing a dream, there are many high-profile instances in which a lack of resources ultimately proved to be a boon, rather than a bane. If we dig a bit, each of us can uncover examples among friends and family, and ourselves. Would most children have as many opportunities as they do in sports, music, or other extracurricular activities without parents, mothers in particular, who are accomplished at bartering as a way to stretch limited family budgets? Would kids have as many chances to explore their interests if their parents weren’t so adept at arranging for carpooling, chaperoning, and borrowing, thus enabling their kids to participate? Without the constraints of time, money, and health, would the online retailer Shabby Apple exist? (For a reminder of how that business came to be, see chapter 5.) If my parents could have paid for college, would I have caught an early glimpse of corporate life during the Silicon Valley heyday? Would I have ever set foot on Wall Street had I not needed to work to put my husband through school? All of us have had the opportunity to bootstrap if we look hard enough. Men seem to know how to do this in the business world: 88 percent of the founders of Entrepreneur magazine’s Hot 500 were men. But I wonder if women aren’t better at bootstrapping than we think we are. Chronically under resourced (whether due to the gender pay gap or ceding our resources to conform to societal expectations), women continually feel the tension of having too little budget and too little time. Because of this tension, we are expert at rethinking how to get things done. Many of us know how to turn scarcity into opportunity.

So we should not be surprised when The Economist tells us that “in Beirut, Cairo, Dubai, Riyadh or even Gaza City, small technology firms are multiplying.”18 We should not be surprised that in many Middle East cities women comprise 35 percent of Internet entrepreneurs, three times the global rate for such startups.19 We should not be surprised that in high-growth industries twice as many entrepreneurs are over fifty as are under twenty-five.20 Entrepreneurs are everywhere. Opportunities to nourish them are everywhere, too.

People that blatantly lie, cheat, steal, or manipulate other people to become successful seriously lack any kind of integrity. It amazes me how some people hold their head up high and walk around like they’re all of that, knowing that they wouldn’t be where they are today or have what they have if it wasn’t for some kind of corruption on their part. You shouldn’t have to do any of those things to get ahead. I am greatness! I vow to NOT compromise my character in any way, shape, or form while building my empire. I represent excellence and I have no desire to be anything less.

A Bombshell’s constant struggle is living up to her God given potential while also battling in her mind the difference between her expectations and the world’s expectations.

A Bombshell wants it all, yet she is beginning to see she can’t have it all at once.

The concept of “work-life balance” is a fleeting idea for a Bombshell. Instead, a focus on work-life success—where her time and energy shifts based on the rotating demands of each area of her life—is far more realistic.

A Bombshell commands attention for her business with a strong culture, consistent branding, and simple, no-to-low cost marketing.

In November 2011, San Francisco magazine ran a story on female entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and illustrated it by superimposing the featured women's heads onto male bodies. The only body type they could imagine for successful entrepreneurship was wearing a tie or a hoodie. Our culture needs to find a robust image of female success that is first, not male, and second, not a white woman on the phone, holding a crying baby.

As a Shark, I’ve been in the tank with these entrepreneurs and I can tell you Rachel gets right to the heart of how they succeeded,” said Barbara Corcoran in her endorsement of the book. “‘Shark Tank MOMpreneurs’ is a must read for anyone looking to learn the inside secrets of getting on ‘Shark Tank’ and landing a deal, or getting the publicity that’s essential for any successful business.

These women, these Shark Tank Mompreneurs are so passionate about what they created and what they are doing, and that just shines through. That's a major reason why they nailed their audition.

In 2014, some 60,000 women entrepreneurs cover a population of a hundred million deep in rural India where there is poor road and media connectivity. These women doubled their household income in no time. Women started to gain social respectability and for Unilever it was competitive advantage in distribution. “What a tremendous win-win he helped us create.

Age did not have to prohibit or inhibit a woman’s ability to make money or a living. Age did not diminish a woman’s usefulness as a self-employed person or entrepreneur. Age did not limit the ways in which a woman made money through self-employment or entrepreneurship.

People who achieve great success do so by persistently and successfully meeting the challenges on The Path. Their stories are found in ancient mythology, classic and modern literature, virtually all genres of fiction, great movies, the sacred writings of the world religions, the biographies of great men and women, the lives of successful business people, entrepreneurs, teachers, parents, and the stories of “regular people” who have paid the price of greatness.

Entrepreneurs, let’s begin to turn our desire and design into reward.

Entrepreneurs are innovators, visionaries—generators of new ideas turning into coinage

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.

Zach is part of an exploding movement of social entrepreneurs who offer new approaches to supporting women in the developing world. Aid workers function in the context of an aid bureaucracy, while social entrepreneurs create their own context by starting a new organization, company, or movement to address a social problem in a creative way. Social entrepreneurs tend not to have the traditional liberal suspicion of capitalism, and many charge for services and use a business model to achieve sustainability. Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.

Nellie Cashman, from Midleton, County Cork, made a mint providing "bed, board, and booze" to the gold and silver miners all over the western US and Canada. She was a prodigious entrepreneur, running and owning numerous stores, restaurants, and hotels in various mining settlements. While working the bar of her hotel, canny Nellie was able to buy a number of very lucrative mines by discretely listening to the gossip of drunken prospectors.

Remember, you are not aspiring for perfection, Bombshell. You are aspiring for progress, one step at a time.

With nearly 70% of its associates being women, BananaIP has pioneered the participation of women in intellectual property. I hope all organizations will strive towards this goal on World IP Day.

I’m the founder and CEO of Barrett Enterprises. Entrepreneur, philanthropist, investor, and prolific businessman. Men want to destroy me. Women want to fuck me.

Rise To New Challenges!!

Then one magical day, the actress and fitness instructor Jane Fonda wore a pair of Reeboks in her popular series of aerobics videos—and sales went crazy! First in the women’s market but then the men wanted in on the action too. In five years, they went from $9 million in sales to almost $900 million. It’s funny how even in the days before social media, influencers could still make a difference for your business. What’s old is new again.

Still, they had more problems to face as now they were encountering an athletic market dominated by the likes of established brands such as Adidas and Nike. While the running market had allowed them to scale to America, things had stagnated, and they needed to pivot. “Being an entrepreneur means taking risks,” he observed, and one of the big risks they decided to take was when a key player on their team, Arnold, came across another new exercise wave: aerobics. They decided to create a couple hundred pairs of sneakers for women’s aerobics and see what would happen.