Strategies: These quotes might help entrepreneurs GOIMO
— -- I'm a big fan of inspirational quotations. As someone who runs a small business, I find quotations inspire me, teach me, remind me of truths I know but may have forgotten, pick me up when I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.
I first started gathering quotations when I was in my early teens and have compiled thousands since. I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you. (My apologies if I have wrongly attributed a quotation. I've done my best to verify the source.)
Perhaps you'll find one or two of the following quotations speak to you.
On success:
"At the point in life where your talents meet the needs of the world is where God wants you to be." — Albert Schweitzer
"You either have to be first, best, or different." — Loretta Lynn
"I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been." — Wayne Gretzy
"A leader is powerful to the degree he empowers other people." — I Ching
"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." —Charles Darwin
"To be happy you need: Something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to." — Unknown
"The road to success is always under construction." —Lily Tomlin
On life and self-confidence:
"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." — John Wooden
"It's how many things you do right, not how many things you do wrong, that counts." — Sandra Kurtzig,
"In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble." — Yun-Men
"You miss 100% of the shots you never take." —Wayne Gretzky
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did." —Mark Twain
On work:
"If you don't paddle your own canoe, you don't move. " —Katharine Hepburn
"Nothing will work unless you do." — Maya Angelou
"Great faith. Great doubt. Great effort." — The Little Zen Companion
"The only place where success comes before work is in a dictionary." — Vidal Sassoon
"Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." —Albert Einstein's three rules of work
On setbacks:
"A really important part of competition is coming back, trying to do it better the second time than you did the first." — Brian Boitano
"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try." — Beverly Sills
"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." — Dolly Parton
"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails." — Dolly Parton
"Adversity causes some men to break,and others to break records. " — Unknown
Baseball great Yogi Berra's quotes were always fun, but sometimes also meaningful:
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so."
"When you get to a fork in the road, take it."
"If you don't know where you're going, you will wind up somewhere else."
One of my heroes, Eleanor Roosevelt, was a prolific writer and speaker, leading to many inspiring quotations:
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
"The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost."
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face ... You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
"Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn't have the power to say yes."
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
On moving on:
"If you're in a hole, you ought to stop digging." — Anonymous
"If you're going to drown, don't do it in shallow water." — Bulgarian proverb
"Every exit is an entry somewhere else." —Tom Stoppard
"Living well is the best revenge." — George Herbert
And a new quotation from a new friend, Martha Kanter, the current undersecretary of Education: "When bad things have happened to you, just remember GOIMO — Get Over It and Move On."
Rhonda Abrams is president of The Planning Shop, publisher of books for entrepreneurs. Her newest book is Successful Marketing: Secrets & Strategies. Register for Rhonda's free business tips at www.PlanningShop.com. For an index of her columns, click here. Twitter: twitter.com/RhondaAbrams. Copyright Rhonda Abrams 2009.