EQ Journal

Some Quotes from Prof Bruce and Fellow Travelers to Help Entrepreneurs Along their Way
(For Quotes 1 to 600, please refer to: http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=1084.)

601. “It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way,” Aristotle.
602. “Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes,” Benjamin Disraeli.
603. “Letting your customers set your standards is a dangerous game, because the race to the bottom is pretty easy to win. Setting your own standards–and living up to them–is a better way to profit. Not to mention a better way to make your day worth all the effort you put into it,” Seth Godin.
604. “It is what it is,” Erich Fried.
605. “An idea is salvation by imagination,” Frank Lloyd Wright.
606. “The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution,”-Hannah Arendt.
607. “Never start a business without a succession plan. That way, you can be sure you will have created a lasting enterprise,” Prof Bruce.
608. “There is never a good time to have kids, so why wait?” Prof Bruce.
609. “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman,” Margaret Thatcher.
610. “Chance favors the prepared mind,” Harlan Ellison.
611. “It is easier to die for one’s principles than to live up to them,” Alfred Adler.
612. “I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom,” Bob Dylan.
613. “Until you find something worth dying for, you’re not really living,” Rebecca St. James.
614. “A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done,” Dwight D. Eisenhower.
615. “The things you own, they end up owning you,” Chuck Palahniuk.
616. “Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember,” Seneca the Younger.
617. “The joy that isn’t shared dies young,” Anne Sexton.
618. “We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another…,” Luciano de Crescenzo.
619. “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing,” Warren Buffet.
620. “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom,” Malcolm X.
621. “If I had listened to the people, they would have gotten faster horses,” Henry Ford.
622. “A mind all logic is like a knife all blade,” Rabindranath Tagore.
623. “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today,” Malcolm X.
624. “Of all man’s miseries the bitterest is this, to know so much and to have control over nothing,” Herodotus.
625. “To have money is to have power, to be able to reach out with long arms…for good or for ill,” Prof Bruce.
626. “Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life,” Bertolt Brecht.
627. “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible,” St. Thomas Aquinas.
628. “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage,” Anais Nin.
629. “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen,” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
630. “Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors,” African proverb.
631. “Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises,” Demosthenes.
632. “Make sure your everyone around you pulls up their own socks. It’s hard enough just minding your own,” Prof Bruce.
633. “A dozen little kids will slaughter three big men in tug o war, not just because they weigh more but because they develop a lot more friction. So remember that 12 customers paying something is a lot better than none paying everything,” Prof Bruce.
634. “Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves,” Confucius.
635. “There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew,” Marshall McLuhan.
636. “Wisdom outweighs any wealth,” Sophocles.
637. “Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses,” Confucius.
638. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently,” Warren Buffet.
639. “Do not fear- only believe. All things are possible to him that believes,” Jesus of Nazareth.
640. “It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop,” Confucius.
641. “Don’t count the days, make the days count,” Muhammad Ali.
642. “Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought,” Jonathan Swift.
643. “Relatives are the family we are born with; Friends are the family we choose,” Carlos Robinson.
644. “When there’s an accident on the track and the other drivers take their foot off the gas, I put mine down,” probably by Jean-Pierre Sarti, fictional Formula One driver in the film, Grand Prix.
645. “You’ve heard of horse whisperers and dog whisperers. Well, what we need is more startup whisperers,” Prof Bruce.
646. “Want to make better presentations and make more sales? Then remember to smile when you walk into that room,” Professor O. J. Firestone.
647. “If you get the business model right, the harder you work, the more money you make rather than the reverse,” Prof Bruce.
648. “You don’t have to be a genius to create a great business model but you do have to have something that differentiates you from the competition,” Prof Bruce.
649. “For the first time in 10,000 years of recorded history, we can mass customize products and services by reversing out much of the work to customers and suppliers through the intermediary of the Internet,” Prof Bruce.
650. “By connecting and matching clients with suppliers through an Internet application, we can create scalable service businesses for the first time,” Prof Bruce.
651. “If you have a great idea but lousy execution you are going to get stomped by someone who has a mediocre idea but great execution: just look at the toy industry,” Prof Bruce.
652. “How cool is it that we can create custom products from standard inputs?” Professor John Callahan.
653. “Rules? In a knife fight? No rules!” Harvey Logan.
654. “Entrepreneurs make up their own rules as they go along,” Prof Bruce.
655. “All teaching should be augmented by a learn-by-doing approach,” Prof Bruce.
656. “If a predictable level of income is important to you, get a JOB,” Prof Bruce.
657. “If you never read the instructions and prefer to figure things out as you go, maybe you’re cut out to be an entrepreneur,” Prof Bruce.
658. “If you have a fallback position or a Plan ‘B’, you’ve set yourself up to fail,” Prof Bruce.
659. “You’re either in the boat paddling like heck to get to the other side of the ocean or you’re onshore. You can’t have one foot in the entrepreneur’s boat and one foot onshore,” Prof Bruce.
660. “If you have a Plan ‘B’, it becomes Plan ‘A’,” Prof Bruce.
661. “If you had to take care of a pet when you were a kid, you probably know how to take care of a startup now that you are an adult,” Prof Bruce.
662. “If your parent or parents or grandparents were entrepreneurs, you probably are too,” Prof Bruce.
663. “Entrepreneurs have to do everything in parallel. So if you can’t juggle, get a JOB instead,” Prof Bruce.
664. “There are no ‘fire and forget missiles’ in business. You have to check everything,” Prof Bruce.
665. “I’m glad I started most of the businesses I have been involved with before the age of the Internet arrived because there is always someone working on the same idea as you are and it is quite intimidating to find that out before you launch,” Sir Terence Matthews.
666. “I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then,” Bob Seger.
667. “When you say ‘no one else is doing this’ you are undoubtedly misinformed. There are tens of millions of smart Americans, Chinese, Indians and others in their basements, right now, thinking up great ideas including yours,” Prof Bruce.
668. “Standards like, say, a common language, a common currency, a set of Laws, Internet Protocol, Building Code, Electrical Code, traffic management, file extensions, fax transmission, temperature, date, time, distance, weight, volume, accounting, railway gauge and 18,000 other things covered by ISO have always made everyone wealthier by reducing transaction costs, allowing all of us to ‘talk to each other’, reducing barriers to entry and upping innovation. So why hasn’t the tech industry got its act together?” Prof Bruce.
669. “There are many forms of government: democratic, socialist, communist, dictatorship, kingdom, feudal, Utopian, libertarian, gift, communal, kleptocratic, mafia, friends of the boss, religious, tribal, military, anarchic, council, money-based, Klingon, Romulan, Federation. It turns out that democracy has a bit of them all,” Prof Bruce.
670. “As you get older, you change: from wanting more quantity to wanting more quality in pretty much everything. But why wait til you’re older?” Prof Bruce.
671. “It’s a privilege to do it and it’s voluntary, so stop wingeing about your critics being unfair and get on with the job,” Cherie Booth to husband and PM Tony Blair.
672. “When you are a downhill skier, you know that if you don’t fall occasionally, you’re not learning or pushing hard enough. Same thing in entrepreneurship,” Prof Bruce.
673. “An entrepreneur is someone who does everything in parallel, i.e., they can suck and whistle at the same time,” Prof Bruce.
674. “If you are starting a new enterprise, it would be nice to be able to talk to a ’startup whisperer’, someone who has a natural feel for what it takes to build a successful new venture, an unconventional mentor,” Prof Bruce.
675. “Sell what you have not what others say they wished you had,” Prof Bruce.
676. “People don’t like to say ‘no’ to a salesperson so instead they give you the ‘hoop treatment’: they keep raising the hoop, until you, the trained poodle, can’t jump any higher,” Prof Bruce.
677. “When someone says they would buy what you have to sell if only you made a few changes first, what they are actually saying is ‘no’,” Prof Bruce.
678. “If you sell your advertising properties in pairs and for a term of not less than two years then you’ve just cut your workload by 3/4,” Prof Bruce.
679. “The most beautiful home in the world is the one you drive up to and there’s no mortgage on it,” Anon.
680. “The owners of Pizza Pizza make millions but they still have their eyes on my pennies,” Pizza Pizza Franchisee.
681. “It was easy to make money with my new Pizza Pizza franchise: all I had to do was work 16 hours a day for the first three years, lose money each day for the first two and keep a smile on my face at the same time,” Pizza Pizza Franchisee.
682. “Failure is not a crime. Failure to learn from failure is,” Walter Wriston.
683. “Our greatest fear as individuals should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter,” New Tribes Missionary.
684. “The best test to use before you press ’send’ is whether you are OK with the content of your email showing up on the front page of your local newspaper,” Prof Bruce.
685. “When you want to get even with someone and send them an angry email, don’t do either,” Prof Bruce.
686. “You need a little suspension of disbelief if you want to be an entrepreneur,” Prof Bruce.
687. “The reason artists are studying entrepreneurship now is that they want to get rich while they’re still alive,” Prof Bruce.
688. “A harsh environment is a good thing,” Terry Gou.
689. “Facts tell, stories sell,” Saul Jacobson.
690. “I look for players with the character to know right from wrong and to conduct their lives by that knowledge,” Sean Payton.
691. “John Maynard Keynes may have said: ‘It’s better for your reputation if you fail conventionally than succeed unconventionally’ but entrepreneurs know better,” Prof Bruce.
692. “You know what happens if you are the owner of a NHL team and the coach tells you the team bus leaves at 12:30 and you’re 30 seconds late? It’s gone,” Prof Bruce.
693. “The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur,” Vince Lombardi.
692. “We could have finished last without you,” Atlanta Braves Manager.
693. “It’s hard to win a pennant, but it’s harder losing one,” Chuck Tanner.
694. “If a team wants to intimidate you physically and you let them, they’ve won,” Mia Hamm.
695. “The vision of a champion is someone bent over, drenched in sweat, to a point of exhaustion, when no one else is watching,” Anson Dorrance.
696. “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail,” Roy Keane.
697. “Every battle plan, every business plan or model changes, often unrecognizably, after coming into contact with the enemy or the marketplace,” Prof Bruce.
698. “Know your exact plan of attack. Then adjust,” Jon Gruden.
699. “Show some adaptability,” Marine Corps Unofficial Motto.
700. “Your theory is crazy, but it’s not crazy enough to be true,” Bertolt Brecht.
701. “Give a lawyer one problem to solve and they’ll come back with two more,” Anon.
702. “If you want to be able to sell, you have to know and understand your client’s business almost as well as you know your own,” Prof Bruce.
703. “A signed contract has as much value as the intention of the other side to actually honour it,” Prof Bruce.
704. “To win in life, overcome obstacles. Along the way, climb mountains,” Mike Shanahan.
705. “You have to sell to your suppliers because you trust them to perform on time and on budget and they trust you to pay them,” Prof Bruce.
706. “Suppliers will often give your startup access to credit and even sometimes cash. Why? Because if you succeed, they have created another, loyal customer for themselves,” Prof Bruce.
707. “Your customers will often give your startup its first orders and sometimes even cash deposits. Why? Because if you succeed they have created another link in their supply chain,” Prof Bruce.
708. “If you ever get into trouble, you can go four places for help: to your shareholders & Directors, your employees, your suppliers and customers; after all, they want you to stick around as part of the business ecosystem,” Prof Bruce.
709. “Every time you draw a line on a piece of paper, at least as far as real estate is concerned, you create additional value,” Prof Bruce.
710. “Even in very small businesses, there are probably things you are doing that you should stop doing by outsourcing them, closing them or selling them,” Prof Bruce.
711. “If you could differentiate every square foot of your office space, or for that matter, any product offering, you’ll command higher prices, better margins and lower vacancy rates,” Prof Bruce.
712. “We once sold a word processing business inside a mini office business that was losing $3,000 a month to an entrepreneur for $50,000. Within 90-days she turned that around and was taking home $5k a month. Shows what a narrower focus and an emphasis on core competencies can do…for both parties,” Prof Bruce.
713. “Never act against your own best interests out of spite,” Prof Bruce.
714. “The stock market is for insiders,” Professor OJ Firestone.
715. “Pricing is an art. If you can break your price into two, like, ‘buy this car for $9,000, engine extra’, you’ll sell more,” Prof Bruce.
716. “Commercial Landlords know a lot about the art of pricing. They quote you a low net net net rent on usable area then add operating costs, property taxes, utilities priced at retail, administration costs and common area charges, all based on rentable area (your usable area grossed up for common area),” Prof Bruce.
717. “The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of quills with the smallest possible amount of hissing,” Jean Baptiste Colbert.
718. “Lenders are just like everyone else, highly influenced by good media coverage and bad. So make sure yours is good,” Prof Bruce.
719. “The worst time to cut your marketing budget is when your sales are in the dumpster. It’s also the easiest time to do it,” Prof Bruce.
720. “Out of crisis, opportunity but only if you can see it and seize it,” Prof Bruce.
721. “Recessions provide great political cover for actions you should have taken anyway,” Prof Bruce.
722. “Governments keep all the best businesses for themselves like lotteries, casinos, alcohol, energy and, of course, taxation,” Prof Bruce.
723. “In what other business could you raise prices without regard to the value you are delivering and, if the customer doesn’t pay, you can get an ex parte judgment against them and, if they still don’t pay, you can jail them? It’s called the government,” Prof Bruce.
724. “Did you know that top shopping centres in Canada produce more than $1,000 per square foot in sales each year? But top casinos produce more than $5,000 per square foot and they do that every day,” Prof Bruce.
725. “Hire your toughest competitor,” Prof Bruce.
726. “In real estate markets, you have to buy before the bottom of the market. If you wait for the bottom, market psychology has already turned positive and Sellers won’t sell. So it turns out you can never actually buy at the bottom just like, for the same reason, you can never sell exactly at the top of the market,” Prof Bruce.
727. “Never regret selling too soon if you made a profit,” Professor OJ Firestone.
728. “If you are thinking of a second career or starting a new business, remember what Malcolm Gladwell said: it’ll take you 10,000 hours to master it,” Prof Bruce.
729. “If you’ve spent years building up a skill set, why dump it to start something new? Ever heard of a holiday?” Prof Bruce.
730. “There is no such thing as a human colony with zero environmental impact, we have always made a mess of things. It’s just that now there are so many more of us and we do everything on an industrial scale,” Prof Bruce.
731. “Humans with their big brains and opposable thumbs have always liked shaping the environment around them; startups are in us,” Prof Bruce.
732. “A tree here or there in the city is not an environmental issue although from the hullabaloo from local politicians and nimby’ites you might think it is. If you want to see a real environmental issue, check out the deforestation of Canada’s boreal forests or the burn off in the Amazon basin,” Prof Bruce.
733. “I recently had the opportunity to speak to two MIT physicists; they don’t speak a word of ‘business’ but then, that’s up to you,” Prof Bruce.
734. “Want to see how a narrow focus works? Think about being NBC, CBS or ABC and competing in sports with ESPN, news with CNN and TV series with HBO,” Prof Bruce.
735. “I am quite sure coaches’ decision making would improve if they practiced more too and had a better brain trust around them,” Prof Bruce.
736. “Sometimes, despite everyone telling you one thing, an entrepreneur has to do the other. You just have to know which is which,”Prof Bruce.
737. “I have an international speed limit theory: the speed at which business can move in your city depends on legal, accounting and financial services plus its culture too. If Hong Kong is 100, then NYC is 10, Toronto is 1 and Ottawa is .1,” Prof Bruce.
738. “If you’re mad at your parents for how your life turned out, quit it and get on with your life,” Prof Bruce.
739. “If you are waiting for your parents to die so you can be rich, do the math. If the last one lives to 90 and they had you when they were 25, you’ll be an old age pensioner when you finally read the will only to discover: a) the IRS is owed the bulk of their fortune or b) they spent it all or c) gave it to the dog,” Prof Bruce.
740. “The information economy is at least 10,000 years old: if I saw that you were good at hunting antelopes and you knew that I was good at making flint knives and, if we both decided to specialize in what we do best, there would be an explosion in our little village’s GDP,” Prof Bruce.
741. “Defending a lawsuit is a lot like defending Stalingrad. You can kill two or three attackers for every one you lose,” Prof Bruce.
742. “Litigation is a last resort but if someone is trying to kill your business with it, ‘go to the mattresses’ as the mafia would say,” Prof Bruce.
743. “In defensing a litigation, delay is often a winning strategy,” Prof Bruce.
744. “One day for you is one less for your enemy,” Prof Bruce.
745. “If you don’t think you have any enemies, you’re just not looking hard enough,” Prof Bruce.
746. “80 percent of your sales comes from 20 percent of your clients,” The Pareto Principle.
747. “It’s OK to fire a client,” Prof Bruce.
748. “Stephen Covey teaches us not to be driven unconsciously by the ‘tyranny’ of the urgent but (mostly) unimportant but instead to focus and spend more time on the non-urgent, important things in life and business. If you are always being pushed around by urgent tasks, you will never establish a business that is sustainable, that will have a life beyond you, its Founder,” Prof Bruce.
749. “Who pays whom? In the modern economy it isn’t always obvious. Should the cable company pay ABC because ABC has Diane Sawyer and Primetime News or should ABC pay the cable company because it has the feed into millions of homes? Steve Jobs figured that out before he launched the iPhone when he insisted that AT&T give him a share of its subscriber revenues and he would give them a share of app revenues; with that, he revolutionized yet another industry’s biz model,” Prof Bruce.
750. “You can think your way to wealth a lot faster than you can work your way there,” Prof Bruce.
751. “Whether you are running for office, managing a complex organization or masterminding a huge wartime effort, the ability of your team in the ‘war room’ to react quickly, correctly and in a coordinated fashion as new circumstances arise is crucial to success,” Prof Bruce.
752. “Spock, I’ve found that evil usually triumphs unless good is very, very careful,” Dr. Leonard McCoy.
753. “Freedom, that is a worship word of the Yangs,” Cloud William.
754. “Entrepreneurs know that nothing is ever really ‘free’ and they don’t expect or want anything for free,” Prof Bruce.
755. “Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator character said: ‘I’ll be back’. That’s also the entrepreneur’s credo,” Prof Bruce.
756. “Entrepreneurs are eternal optimists; their headstones should read: ‘Here Lies Entrepreneur Bill, He’s Life-Challenged’,” based on ‘Bizzarro’ by Dan Piraro.
757. “Playing it safe never works. Ever watch ‘Final Destination’?” Prof Bruce.
758. “Entrepreneurs are too busy inventing the future to bother about predicting it,” Anon.
759. “If you play not to lose, you will,” Jim Rome.
760. “Work with you have have not you wish you wish you had,” Peter Harris.
761. “Don’t be afraid of going slowly, only be afraid of standing still,” Arnel Santos, ‘The Turtle Principle’.
762. “From the first time you walked to school by yourself, you started to become the boss of you. So take advantage,” Prof Bruce.
763. “Anything worth doing, is worth doing poorly until you can learn to do it well,” Zig Ziglar.
764. “Many entrepreneurs feel that access to high cost capital is better than no access,” Prof Bruce.
765. “A bad business with money is still a bad business,” Robert Herjavec.
766. “I would rather invest in someone who has failed three times than someone who has never run a business,” Kevin O’Leary.
767. If you do this for the rest of your life and all you do is making a living out of it, will you be happy? If the answer is yes, go for it,” Robert Herjavec.
768. “We do things this way because we’ve always done it this way. We’ll always do things this way because that’s the way it’s done,” Moron Business Executive.
769. “Startups often think that giving up equity to employees, partners, angels and VCs is a cheap way to finance their companies. If you are successful, it’s the most expensive,” Prof Bruce.
770. “It’s axiomatic that there are only 10 tens in a 100 so be careful how you divvy up the equity in your new startup,” prof Bruce.
771. “After getting back alive, I realized that every day is a holiday,” American Vietnam Vet Larry Cochran.
772. “When you’re a salesman and you don’t have money, then ipso facto you are authentic,” Ted Wright.
773. “Everyone in your organization is in sales,” Prof Bruce.
774. “Plans change, goals don’t,” Prof Bruce.
775. “When ‘experts’ are talking bafflegab, it’s because they don’t know what to do and won’t admit it,” Dawn MacMillan.
776. “Somebody said to me, ‘But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.’ That’s a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, ‘Now, let’s write a swimming pool’,” Paul McCartney.
777. “I believe that business modeling is the key to decoding the DNA of successful startups,” Prof Bruce.
778. “Expecting the best from people can be a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Daniel Goleman.
779. “Want to become indispensable to your clients? Then digitize all their information and know where to find it fast on your PC,” Prof Bruce.
780. “Businesses and business models based on Open Standards will win, I am sure of it,” Prof Bruce.
781. “Don’t wait for your ship to come in…swim out and meet the bloody thing,” Barry Sheene.
782. “Chase your passion, not your pension,” Denis Waitley.
783. “The best way to predict your future is to create it,” David Shepherd.
784. “Habitually double check every knot….whether or not your life depends on it,” Allan Beckett.
785. “Form an early (and lasting) attachment to the customer,” Sir Terence Matthews.
786. “Stay team focused—superstars must park their egos at the door,” Sir Terence Matthews.
787. “Create a great biz first and cool tech second,” Sir Terence Matthews.
788. “Leverage your investment with government grants and OPM, Other People’s Money,” Sir Terence Matthews.
789. “Follow a global mandate from the get go—Canada is too small a market to be the primary focus,” Sir Terence Matthews.
790. “Not only should you go after every geography, you also want to go after every vertical,” Sir Terence Matthews.
791. “Standing is more tiring that walking,” Paradox.
792. “If it’s to be, it’s up to me,” Anon.
793. “Opportunity always comes disguised in work clothes,” Anon.
794. “You have to have a dream, if you want to make a dream come true,” Anon.
795. “None of the characters central to the (Facebook) story really cared that much about getting rich,” Ben Mezrich.
796. “It’s easy to miss an iceberg provided you turn early enough,” Prof Bruce.
797. “To entrepreneurs, the unattainable is unknown,” Prof Bruce.
798. “I have found that ‘great’ ideas that are never tested in the real world tend to suck,” Prof Bruce.
799. “If you start a business in which you don’t have any expertise, you begin at the top and work your way to the bottom from there,” Prof Bruce.
800. “Entrepreneurs know in their guts that the only reason the waters are calm is because they haven’t looked behind them recently to see the next huge wave about to crash down on their heads,” Prof Bruce.
801. “Your business will never go out of ’style’ as long as your value proposition doesn’t either,” Prof Bruce.
802. “There are many things you need to know about your business that can only be discovered after you start it,” Prof Bruce.
803. “To be sustainable, every business needs to control some kind of ‘franchise’ or ‘concession’, also known as a value proposition,” Prof Bruce.
804. “The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan,” Carl von Clausewitz.
805. “Corporate get-togethers should only be held in order to celebrate or teach or both,” Prof Bruce.
806. “Want more clients? Then be as passionate about their business as they are,” Prof Bruce.
807. “Want more sales? Then don’t ask a client for a retainer, ask them for coffee,” Prof Bruce.
808. “As an entrepreneur you have to believe, on your darkest day, that better days lie ahead,” Prof Bruce.
809. “When Tenants of ours got into trouble, we didn’t distrain or sue them. We worked with them and guess what? We saved about half,” Prof Bruce.
810. “Put a human face on all aspects of your business and watch client retention rates jump,” Prof Bruce.
811. “Faces count, even in the Internet age. So why do so many ‘About Us’ pages tell you nothing about anyone?” Prof Bruce.
812. “If Steve Jobs had been afraid to ask for a share of AT&T’s subscribers’ fees, where would the iPhone have gotten its recurring revenues?” Prof Bruce.
813. “When you have several pieces moving around at the same time, if you nail one in place, often the whole project will crystallize around it,” Prof Bruce.
814. “I’m like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz: I have half a brain. My computer is the other half,” Prof Bruce.
815. “If a judge is nodding ‘yes’ to your opponent in court, he or she should worry. Judges don’t like to be overturned on appeal,” Prof Bruce.
816. “If a friend of yours promises to vote with you on a BOD and then doesn’t, it could be because of strategic voting: you were going to lose anyway,” Prof Bruce.
817. “Selling is persuasion. Marketing is persuasion. Every business meeting is based on persuasion…. You can do all of them better if you understand how the mind works, how people think,” Scott Adams.
818. “Authentic goals become self-fulfilling prophecies,” Prof Bruce.
819. “Authenticity comes when heart, head and gut are all in alignment,” Prof Bruce.
820. “A typical entrepreneurial battle plan sends scouts out to quickly and cheaply take as much territory as possible/later slow-moving armor and infantry move in to secure the gains,” Prof Bruce.
821. “Bend but don’t break,” Defensive Coordinator.
822. “Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure,” Earl Wilson.
823. “No pressure, no diamonds,” Mary Case.
824. “By spending time in the past, reliving old glories or getting even with old foes, you’ll never have any new ones,” Prof Bruce.
825. “Learn to swim instead of worrying about drowning,” David J Schwartz.
826. “Entrepreneurs don’t turn down any orders no matter how big they are; they just find a way to produce on time and on budget,” Prof Bruce.
827. “The reason I think you need to have at least three launch clients is that you can probably convince one fool or maybe two but not three,” Prof Bruce.
828. “Sometimes I go to a meeting by myself knowing I’m going to be outnumbered but it disarms people so they stop negotiating & start talking,” Prof Bruce.
829. “No matter how fast you run, you can’t win if your biz model is broken. I can beat Usain Bolt in the 100m … if I start at the 80m mark,” Prof Bruce.
830. “Fear of loss is a stronger motivator than desire for gain so if you want to make more sales, get customer buy-in early and often,” Prof Bruce.
831. “To be a clutch performer, you need focus, adaptability, discipline, be present mentally and a combination of fear of failure and desire to succeed,” Paul Sullivan.
832. “Anyone who thinks people make rational decisions just hasn’t done enough deals yet,” Prof Bruce.
833. “I never want to hear from someone who works for me just to prove how hard they’re working; I just want RESULTS,” Prof Bruce.
834. “If you give someone, who ‘runs onto the field & moves the goalposts’ during a deal, incentive, don’t be surprised when they do,” Prof Bruce.
835. “Ruskies never do anything without a plan. You should too but assume the best yet prepare for the worst,” Prof Bruce.
836. “Whenever I leave a sales presentation, I leave behind 2 or 3 reasons why they should buy from us. 2 or 3 not 10. No one can remember 10,” Prof Bruce.
837. “As you get older, you realize that the only people you should have around you for the rest of your life are both tested & trusted,” Prof Bruce.
838. “You need to stiffen the spine of people around you so you are not the only person standing up for your organization,” Prof Bruce.
839. “Engineers want to be perfect but in business, you have to settle for good or, maybe, great,” Prof Bruce.
840. “Harvard students would rather invent a job than find one,” Larry Summers.
841. “It’s easier to act your way to a new way of thinking than to think your way to a new way of acting,” John Shook.
842. “Entrepreneurs don’t really like to ask for free stuff, they want to trade with you instead,” Prof Bruce.
843. “Be nice to your employees even if you don’t feel like it; they’ll work harder and smarter if you do,” Prof Bruce.
844. “Corporate culture is about how you behave not what you think,” Prof Bruce.
845. “Never lie to someone who trusts you; never trust someone who lies to you,” Lumen Anne Pierce, character on Dexter.
846. “If you’re only in it for the money, you won’t see any,” Prof Bruce.
847. “Do what’s right for your clients and that’s what’s right for you,” Prof Bruce.
848. “Sell like you don’t need the commission,” Steve Mitchell.
849. “If you’re not seriously embarrassed by the first product you shipped, you probably waited too long,” Anonymous California VC.
850. “Declarative knowledge means you understand a concept; procedural knowledge means you know how to put that concept into action. Entrepreneurs do both,” Prof Bruce.
851. “The reason people might be tenants or employees rather than owners is that they may not have the right mental stance for it,” Prof Bruce.
852. “We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future,” Marshall McLuhan.
853. “Money is the poor man’s credit card,” Marshall McLuhan.
854. “Today each of us lives several hundred years in a decade,” Marshall McLuhan.
855. “Today the business of business is becoming the constant invention of new business,” Marshall McLuhan.
856. “Give me a nickel,” Expert Negotiator.
857. “If your excuse for not doing something is that you’ve never done it before, you’ll never do anything,” Prof Bruce.
858. “Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t tell if a girl was interested in a date since she didn’t carry a sign which led to the innovative ‘relationship status’ feature on FB. Opportunity lies where you find it,” Prof Bruce.
859. “Got a problem you can’t solve? Get up/move/breathe/stretch/change rooms/do something else. The answer will pop into your head momentarily,” Prof Bruce.
860. “You can control your upside by planning your way there but you don’t plan your way to failure so why worry about it,” Prof Bruce.
861. “You can invest your way to wealth a lot faster than you can save your way there,” Prof Bruce.
862. “Want longer arms? Then hire up. Great hires provide you with terrific leverage for the time and brain power you invest in your business,” Prof Bruce.
863. “Leverage in business comes from 8 sources: great HR, using OPM, forced savings, innovation, capital equipment, location, brand & inflation” Prof Bruce.
864. “You can talk about your work or do it but not both,” Prof Bruce.
865. “In real estate terms, if you occupy a particular location, it obviously means that no one else can, so make it a good one,” Prof Bruce
866. “Entrepreneurs get ‘magic from a hat’, that’s really what they do,” Prof Bruce.
867. “Just because you could price your new product at $1.99 when your competition is at $9.99, doesn’t mean you should. What’s wrong with $8.99?” Prof Bruce.
868. “Existing customers are annoyed when you give another client a price break until they get one too. Build flexibility into your pricing model,” Prof Bruce.
869. “High returns tend to get competed away unless you continue to innovate & you have some type of concession or franchise in your biz model,” Prof Bruce.
870. “Got a problem you can’t solve? Get up/move/breathe/stretch/change rooms/do something else. The answer will pop into your head momentarily,” Prof Bruce.
871. “Play to the whistle & a little beyond is good advice for entrepreneurs too,” Prof Bruce.
872. “Steve Jobs believes that the most important decisions you make are not the things you do, but the things that you decide not to do. He’s a minimalist,”, John Sculley.
873. “Your call centre reps & receptionists are your real Chief Information Officers; make sure they are the first to receive your media releases,” Prof Bruce.
874. “Both of them (Steve Jobs & Dr. Edwin Land) had this ability to not invent products but discover products,” John Sculley.
875. “People can copy whatever you do, especially in the age of the Internet, but what they can’t copy is what you are going to do,” Daniel Beauchamp.
876. “It takes time to find your voice on social media; it can’t all be planned but must be discovered through trial & error & feedback,” Ryan Anderson.
877. “Entrepreneurs are like Bilbo Baggins in the Hobbit: trying to stay on top of half-filled barrels as they rush down the River of Life,” Prof Bruce.
878. “An entrepreneur looks at the probability of success; an employee, the possibility of failure.” Prof Bruce.
879. “Self knowledge is the foundation of wisdom because you can look inside yourself & counteract your own worst tendencies,” Prof Bruce.
880. “Want to be happier? Then focus on making enough money so that your wallet is not on defibrillator mode,” Prof Bruce.
881. “Your employees ‘own’ part of your company even if you don’t know it because they are stakeholders,” Prof Bruce.
882. “I’ll tell you what happens if you don’t prepare before a presentation or a meeting: nothing, you’ll muck it up,” Prof Bruce.
883. “I don’t pay much attention to skeptics, they’re just envious of people who actually do stuff,” Prof Bruce.
884. “An empty wallet won’t make a person happy but a full one doesn’t either,” Prof Bruce.
885. “At 14, I met McGill’s Dean of Engineering. Remember to smile, my Dad told me. Years later the Dean said he accepted me because of the smile,” Prof Bruce.
886. “A simple but sincere smile is a ’secret’ selling tool,” Prof Bruce.
887. “Getting good media coverage lately? Just wait awhile. Journalists comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” Prof Bruce.
888. “Politicians, journalists & other sophisticates think around corners, 3 moves ahead of you. Don’t play their game, you’ll lose. Be authentic,” Prof Bruce.
889. “The absence of proof isn’t, in itself, proof that a new concept or theory is wrong & skeptics should know better. Listen to your inner self,” Prof Bruce.
890. “Richard Branson believes that EVERYTHING should pay for itself even his principal residence on Necker Island. Never invest to lose money,” Prof Bruce.
891. “Cities and civilizations are created by positive people doing positive things so stay positive,” Prof Bruce.
892. “Everyone reports to someone even entrepreneurs who must report to a Board/Bank/Partner/Investor/Customer/Analyst/Media/Spouse,” Prof Bruce.
893. “When starting a new enterprise, begin at the teeth end of the snake not its tail; i.e., find launch clients & build it backwards from there,” Prof Bruce.
894. “Sometimes it is better to have 2 or 3 launch clients instead of 20 or 30 so, if you muck up, you only have to say ’sorry’ a couple of times,” Prof Bruce.
895. “By an early & relentless focus on launch clients, you get ‘wet & splash around’ before having to swim in the deep end of the pool,” Prof Bruce.
896. “Networking is really about remembering to thank the people who’ve helped you, telling others about them & generally closing the loop,” Prof Bruce.
897. “What ever happened yesterday is irrelevant; what’s important is what’s going to happen tomorrow… I don’t have much of a reverse gear,” Peter Brown.
898. “Creativity should not be confused with enthusiasm— truly creative ideas are not full of holes,” Prof Bruce.
899. “A successful SMEE needs you to be: an entrepreneur, manager & technician. You cannot delegate away 100% responsibility for any one of them,” Prof Bruce.
900. “It’s still true today that if you get in to work an hour before your competitors, you’ll eat their lunch,” Prof Bruce.
901. “Dollars are democrats,” Prof Bruce.
902. “One person with passion is worth 40 people merely interested,” Peter Brown.
903. “Some people are afraid of becoming an entrepreneur because it’s like walking a tightrope with no net. My advice: stop looking down,” Pierre Azzi.
904. “The people I know who are successful work hard, they’re goal oriented, they set targets for themselves and they’re disciplined. And when they reach their goal, two things happen: one, they get the satisfaction of doing that, and then, two, they raise the target. If you’re succeeding, the bar is always moving up,” Peter Brown.
905. “If you don’t mind if it ends up in your local newspaper, it’s probably OK to send, tweet, IM, FB, text… Otherwise fuggedaboutit,” Prof Bruce.
906. “The people you really want in leadership positions are those that don’t seek power,” Prof Bruce.
907. “The thing I ask myself almost every day is ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?’” Mark Zuckerberg.
908. “Most coaches are interested in how fast you can run. Great ones want to know how much guts you have,” Anon.
907. “If you wait until all the lights are ‘green’ before you leave home, you’ll never get started on your trip to the top,” Zig Ziglar.
908. “One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one’s greatest efforts,” Albert Einstein.
909. “The time it takes to reach your destination is sometimes twice as long as the time it takes to get back home since, you might get lost, make mistakes and have to do detours while reaching your destination. However on the way back, the path is clear and smooth since you know what to avoid. The same concept applies to a business, think of where you are going with your business and then work backwards. The next steps you need to take suddenly seem clearer,” Robert Thompson.
910. “Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal,” E. Joseph Cossman.
911. “All the strength and force of man comes from his faith in things unseen. He who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions,” James Freeman Clark.
912. “Life is short, but talent is immortal,” Anon.
913. “Don’t forget to celebrate your small successes…it will keep you energized to go the distance,” Glo Higdon.
914. “…small businesses in the United States simply do not work; the people who own them do,” Michael E. Gerber.
915. “Some people dream of success, while others wake up and work hard at it,” Anon.
916. “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful,” Warren Buffett.
917. “Greedy people want every deal to be ‘heads I win, tails you lose.’ You know what? They almost never get deals done + everyone hates them, Prof Bruce.
918. “In life and business, there are two cardinal sins: the first is to act without thought, and the second is to not act at all,” Carl Icahn. Tx 2 Allison Chen. #ec3396
919. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go,” T.S. Eliot.
920. “Opportunities multiply as they are seized,” Sun Tzu.
921. “Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it,” Bill Cosby.
922. “Whomsoever misses an opportunity, misses an opportunity,” Bob Cross.
923. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Wayne Gretzky.
924. “The odds are against you, so what?” Robert Herjavec.
925. “The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds,” Samuel Clemens.
926. “If you can’t smile, don’t open a store,” Anon.
927. “Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement,” Randy Pausch.
928. “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,” Donald Trump.
929. “Money isn’t everything but you can buy freedom with it and freedom is everything,” Arian Foster.
930. “The easier it is to quantify, the less it’s worth,” Seth Godin.
931. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” Anon.
932. “Those mundane and tedious little things that, when done exactly right, with the right kind of attention and intention, form in their aggregate a distinctive essence, an evanescent quality that distinguishes every great business you’ve ever done business with from its more mediocre counterparts whose owners are satisfied to simply get through the day,” Michael E. Gerber.
933. “The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse,” Don Juan.
934. “Nothing in this world that’s worth having comes easy,” Bob Kelso.
935. “To live through an impossible situation, you don’t need the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules, the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do,” Anthony Greenbank.
936. “Your business is either growing or it’s dying, even if you don’t know it,” Prof Bruce.
937. “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted, it belongs to the brave,” Ronald Reagan.
938. “Whoever said: ‘It is very easy to endure the difficulties of one’s enemies. It is the successes of one’s friends that are hard to bear,’ has no friends,” Prof Bruce.
939. “If you spend all your time in the trenches, you will not be successful in biz. If you spend all your time at 30,000 sf, you won’t be either,” Prof Bruce.
940. “Live today as you wish to live tomorrow by bringing the future into the present moment,” David Engwicht.
941. “If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” Jim Rohn.
942. “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail,” Ralph Waldo Emerson.
943. “Some people have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can,” Willis R. Whitney.
944. “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed,” Michael Jordan.
945. “My son is now an ‘entrepreneur.’ That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job,” Ted Turner.
946. “Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune,” Jim Rohn.
947. “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort,” Franklin D. Roosevelt.
948. “Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners,”Robert T. Kiyosaki.
949. “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time,” Thomas Edison.
950. “If a colleague & I schedule a meeting & one of us can’t go, the other does. It’s called a tag team approach; worked for wrestlers & for us,” Prof Bruce.
951. “I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it became one,” Tom Watson.
952. “The Entrepreneurial Model … fulfills the perceived needs of a specific segment of customers in an innovative way,” Michael E. Gerber.
953. “Know what you do, do what you know,” Peter Hauderowicz.
954. “I carry around a piece of paper that says: ‘It’s Real Estate, Stupid’ to remind me to ALWAYS invest in something I know something about,” Prof Bruce.
955. “If you work on your business instead of in it, you will fail. You must do both,” Prof Bruce.
956. “Creativity thinks up new things. Innovation does new things,” Theodore Levitt.
957. “If you build it, they will come,” misquote from Field of Dreams.
959. “The Godfather tells his son, Michael Corleone, not to be careless, to go over things again & again to get it right. Same for entrepreneurs,” Prof Bruce.
960. “The difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts… The difference between stupid and intelligent people–and this is true whether or not they are well-educated– is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations– in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward,” Constable Moore in Neal Stephenson’s ‘The Diamond Age’.
961. “Let us never fear to negotiate. But let us never negotiate out of fear,” John F. Kennedy.
962. “When you win, nothing hurts,” Joe Namath.
963. “Everyone should do two things each day that they hate to do, just for practice,” William James.
964. “When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say, and two-thirds thinking about him and what he is going to say,” Abraham Lincoln.
965. “Most people forget that while you are looking out through your eyes, others are looking back through theirs,” Prof Bruce.
966. “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail,” John Wooden.
967. “It’s what you learn after you know it all, that counts,” Harry Truman.
968. “Whenever two people meet, there are six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is,” William James.
969. “When I’m angry, I count to ten before I speak. When I’m very angry, I count to one hundred,” Thomas Jefferson.
970. “You don’t know what pressure is until you play for five bucks with only two bucks in your pocket,” Lee Trevino.
971. “The best way to get what you want is to help the other side get what they want,” Ron Shapiro.
972. “Whatever you are most passionate about is what you will be best at,” Prof Bruce.
973. “When negotiating, you’ll get further if you ask a question rather than demand an answer,” Prof Bruce.
974. “What I hear, I forget. What I read, I remember. What I do, I understand,” Confucius.
975. “In negotiations, try to get agreement on the little things first—to build momentum and trust,” Prof Bruce.
976. “In deal making, try for WIN-win. Big win for you, little win for the other side,” Ron Shapiro.
977. “It’s not the sale, it’s the relationship that counts,” MBNA Bank.
978. “Negotiation is the commerce of information for ultimate gain,” Ron Shapiro.
979. “I think the future will be brick and clicks not just clicks and not just bricks,” Prof Bruce.
980. “Negotiating with amateurs takes forever: they’re never prepared & can’t make a decision because they’re never sure it’s the right one,” prof Bruce.
981. “When negotiating, if you know what you want & what they want, you are way ahead of any negotiator who only knows half the equation,” Prof Bruce.
982. “Bad things happen to good people. Maybe a client doesn’t pay & you go bankrupt. You’ve 3 days to pick yourself up & get on with your life,” Prof Bruce.
983. “I hate to lose more than I like to win,” Jimmy Connors.
984. “Prepare, probe, and propose,” Ron Shapiro.
985. “To determine what is important in your life, let Death be your advisor,” Don Juan.
986. “It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible,” Aristotle.
987. “Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats,” Howard Aiken.
988. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong,” Mahatma Gandhi.
987. “If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough,” Mario Andretti.
988. “I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it,” Pablo Picasso.
989. “A committee is twelve men doing the work of one,” John F. Kennedy.
990. “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence,” Robert Frost.
991. “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will,” Mahatma Gandhi.
992. “If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway,” Anon.
993. “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler,” Albert Einstein.
994. “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away,”Antoine de Saint Exupery.
995. “All that we are is the result of what we have thought,” Buddha.
996. “Do or do not… there is no try,” Yoda.
997. “You can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won’t back down. No I won’t back down,” Tom Petty.
998. “Once you become an entrepreneur, it’s almost impossible to become an employee again—it’s a one-way journey,” Prof Bruce.
999. “Almost everything humans do is ultimately an act of faith despite all the analysis and debate,” Prof Bruce.
1000. “A witty saying proves nothing,” Voltaire.

Hope this was helpful,

Prof