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Thoughts become things, and as entrepreneurs and leaders, it is especially important that we remember to pay attention to our thoughts every day and motivational quotes are a great way of doing this. Your ability to stay motivated isn’t just for your personal benefit; it affects those around you as well: your team, your investors, your families and friends. When you can stay motivated, everyone around you is improved.
As you start each day, let these motivational quotes from some of the best minds on the planet, past and present, inspire you think positive, inspirational thoughts habitually throughout your days.
- “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” — Mother Teresa
- “The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” — Leonardo da Vinci
- “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” — Vincent van Gogh
- “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” — Farrah Gray
- “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” — Ayn Rand
- “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” — Amelia Earhart
- “Opportunities don’t happen, you create them.” — Chris Grosser
- “What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.” — Oscar Wilde
- “Being motivated costs you nothing, but can get you everything.” — Murray Newlands
- “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.” — Florence Nightingale
- “Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.” — W. Clement Stone
- “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” — Woody Allen
- “Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” — Steve Jobs
- “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily.” — Zig Ziglar
- “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” — Arthur Ashe
- “The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself — the invisible battles inside all of us — that’s where it’s at.” — Jesse Owens
- “You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.” — Beverly Sills
- “You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” — Christopher Columbus
- “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, ‘I’m possible!’” — Audrey Hepburn
- “I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” –Thomas Jefferson
- “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out.” — Robert Collier
- “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear.” — Mark Twain
- “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” — Vidal Sassoon
- “When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” — Audre Lorde
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Every event that happens can be amplified by adding the magic ingredient of other people. You’ll never be successful if you go it alone and refuse to bring in your fellow human beings. Are you wondering why you’re bored or keep giving up on your goals?
It’s because you’re not leveraging those around you. We’ve all had a relatively boring experience happen to us and then done the exact same thing years later with a group of people and thought it was the greatest thing since Mexican burritos with tomato relish. The difference is people.
Here are 5 reasons why your success is all about other people:
1. Our energy feeds off each other
This whole concept of success is a strange one. I mean am I successful? Some days yes, other days no. It depends on what side of the bed I wake up on. What I do know though is that the energy we all need to be successful doesn’t come only from ourself; the energy we need comes from each other.
When someone high fives you, you feel pretty good. When a team of people high five you, you feel incredible. When you high five with yourself, you feel absolutely zero and probably pretty stupid too.
If you’re scratching your head and wondering why you’re bored and uninspired, it’s because you’re not tapping into the people around you. You’re being selfish and thinking that you can do it all.
You can’t. Massive success can only be achieved by compounding the energy and successes of everyone around you. Going at the struggle by yourself is ten times harder, and you’ll always be asking yourself why you’re failing.
Stop wondering, and leverage the people around you. Give them everything you have and let your own energy become infectious. Be the guy or girl that gives the bright spark that everyone needs to get going and to start the walk of a thousand miles.
2. Loneliness creates negativity
We’ve all had days where we can’t be bothered doing anything. Where we would rather eat chilli fries than bother spending a single minute on our dream. We’ve all been negative as hell for a day or longer and then scratched our head and wondered where this crazy lapse in awareness came from. All of it stems from the fact that our success is about other people.
Without embracing other people, we become lonely. When you’re lonely, you have this big gaping hole that is unexplained a bit like the whole big bang theory. You know you’re messed up, but you can’t understand why. Well, the answer my friends is that you’re lonely.
Your body is starved of the nutrition that is the people around you. Lonely people become bitter and twisted a lot of the time because they can’t figure out what’s wrong with them. They’re often not even aware that they’re lonely. They think thoughts like, “Everyone must be on coke because I’m freaking awesome and I’m never wrong.”
You’re probably like me and wrong all the time so just admit it pal! Until you understand where your negativity is coming from, and why you need other people to be successful, you’ll become like one of those cases out of the X-files that never gets solved. People will be at your funeral one-day thinking to themselves, “Why is the loss of Johnny Big Guns not hurting me like I thought it would.”
3. We’re programmed to connect
You, me, your family, we’re all just mammals baby so let’s do it like the do on the discovery channel (okay maybe not right now in front of all these people). The fact is we’re all mammals, and we were put here to struggle together not by ourselves. Our brains were programmed only to acknowledge the concept of success when we connect with lots of people.
The more we connect with our fellow mammals, the more we’ll feel successful and like we matter. That’s why we crave attention. We don’t want the eyeballs; we want the feeling of success that we get when we engage and build our lives around other people. Truth be told, it’s probably why I’m writing this blog post.
I couldn’t give two shakes about people’s attention, but I do care about being able to inspire all of you and help you crush your goals. Like you, all I want is a feeling of connection. It’s like an IV line of love that takes me to the next level in my game of success.
“Success is a game, and you make progress when you add more and more people to your cause”
4. Connection gives us fulfillment
Feeling good about ourselves often requires external validation. It would be nice to think that we could validate ourself and say, “yup approved.” The point you want to get to is where you don’t require external validation as a must, but when you get it, it takes you to level ten in your enthusiasm.
A feeling of connection with our fellow human beings makes us feel like we’re fulfilled. It gives us the hope that when we face a massive challenge (and we will) that others have our backs. I’ve had those hellish moments recently where I have achieved the impossible and obliterated my goals, and then being left wondering, “is this all there is?”
Upon reflection, I realized that achieving goals means jack unless you have the people to share the success with. It’s the success stories and people I can help that matter, not the stupid numbers of social media shares. Fulfillment is a measure of connection, and this is subjective from person to person.
5. Dreams need teams
If Mark Zuckerberg gave you the thousand steps to start the next Facebook-like social media platform, it wouldn’t be enough. The reason is because even if you had the exact strategy to be a billionaire just like Zuck’s, you don’t have the team of people to execute on all the action items.
This fact again points back to why you can’t be successful without other people. Building your entrepreneurial empire is going to be a gruelling task. It’s going to take every ounce of energy you have, and there are days when you’re going to feel like you can’s be assessed.
It’s the champions that you surround yourself with that are going to beat you into shape again because their dream will be affected by your lack of action and care. Teams create a bond. Teams create leverage that goes beyond you to achieve something that by itself might seem impossible.
Even when you see the solo pianist perform in front of a sellout crowd, what you can’t see is the piano teacher, parents, friends, lighting teams, publicists, concert promoter, etc. that made them stand out in the first place. On the surface, success may seem achievable in a solo capacity. Believe me; it’s not. You can’t do it all superstar.
love, Personal Improvement, Research & Reports
Even people like Tony Robbins, Oprah, and Nelson Mandela have had to face humongous negative challenges in their life. No one is immune to them. Whether these negative situations infect you or not comes down to your toolkit of self-development weapons.
The last two weeks has given me two unexpected situations to deal with.
Situation One:
I decided to sell a car recently and received a call from a man that sounded pleasant. He was ready to buy it and wanted to see it as soon as possible. When he arrived at my house, I took him for a ride in it and all seemed to be well.
Then something unexpected happened. He checked the engine oil, and it was missing a few liters even though it was serviced a few months prior. Like a mad man, he began hurling some of the nastiest verbal abuse I’ve ever been victim to in front of his eighteen-year-old daughter.
This scenario left me broken for at least twenty-four hours afterward. At no stage did I ever expect to do the wrong thing by this person and the lack of oil in the car was an accident because I had no time to prepare the car and check these vital components beforehand.
Situation Two:
A friend of mine has been causing me constant pain. Each day they set a high level of expectation around what they believe I must say and do so that they can feel happy. After weeks of suffering, the tension became too much, and I decided enough was enough.
I suggested we either not be friends anymore or take a break for a few months to see if each of us form a different perspective. This approach started a wave of negativity and abuse that I wasn’t prepared for. The text messages escalated and each conversation became less friendly to put it politely. The outcome has resulted in me no longer being friends with this person which saddens me.
With these two enormously negative situations in mind, here is how I became bulletproof from all the negativity and how you can do the same:
1. Don’t react
When a negative situation occurs, you have to learn not to react. It’s this one skill that will see the effects of a negative situation quickly diminish. No matter what a person says or does, aim to remove yourself from the environment as quickly as possible.
Treat this negative environment like a war zone of dead bodies. You wouldn’t want to hang around there long would you? So evacuate as quick as you can and choose non-reaction. The self-talk stories in your head will last a few hours, but pretty soon there will be no energy left to power them because you have chosen non-reactivity.
2. Sleep ASAP
The quickest way to escape a wave of negativity is to sleep. Sleep will force your mind to rest and allow you to take a break from all the stories that are running through your head like an out-of- control subway train.
Before making any critical decisions about the negative situation, sleep first. Wake up the next day and see how you feel. Nine times out of ten you’ll experience a lower level of negativity so that you can at least function. Double down with a healthy dose of meditation if need be.
3. Disconnect from all conversations
Being bulletproof from negativity requires you to disconnect from all conversations about a negative event. This takes extreme discipline. You’ll never be able to escape a negative situation if you keep talking about it.
The more you talk about it the clearer the image of pain becomes in your mind. Your mind focuses on whatever you spend the most time thinking about. If it’s one of those negative situations like mine, then there probably is a solution. The best thing to do is hit the eject button and go to a safe zone.
My safe zone is being around beautiful people that lift me up and want me to achieve my dreams. These people are everywhere, if you look for them in the right place. You probably won’t find them at the pub or in a nightclub. They’re at seminars, meetups, personal development blogs, at the gym, and they are probably starting or running businesses.
They’re the people that are winning at life because they’ve constantly chosen to disconnect from events and people that don’t empower them. Are there any conversations you should disconnect from right away? If so, then do so right now.
4. Remember the one thing that matters to you
To be bulletproof from negativity, you must always keep your dream in sight. What can happen is that negativity can distract you from your dream and take you off course. By going off course, you feel even more negative emotions because you’re missing out on the fulfillment you get from your dream.
The way I got back on track was to remember what the one thing was that matters to me: inspiring people through entrepreneurship and personal development. It’s my two-sentence vision, and it’s how I recover from all the landmines that appear in my life when I least expect it.
[highlight]“You can become bulletproof from negativity when you practice the habit of always going back to the thing that gets you up in the morning”[/highlight]
5. Lose yourself
Becoming bulletproof from negativity requires you to lose yourself when a negative wave of events hits your human radar. Practically speaking, with the two situations above, I became lost in my own world and went and drove my brand new car.
I drove to the airport and watched the planes take off. This reminded me of how much I love traveling and how small the world is. It reminded me of how I used to think I was afraid of flying and would never travel. Now this fear is abolished, and it was all because of crushing my BS thoughts about why I thought I couldn’t do something.
I also lost myself by going to the beach and having a swim and watching the sunset. Nature can have a wonderfully positive effect on us if we let it. Nature brings us back to the present and reminds us just how much beauty there is in the world when we step outside ourselves.
“Becoming bulletproof is not about forgetting; it’s about losing yourself and being okay to be lost once in a while. It’s knowing that we can’t be laser focused 365 days a year and sometimes wandering off the walking trail can help us see a different world”
***A happy ending to the story
So with both of these situations that I mentioned, I tapped into my belief that things will change for the better. The wonderful thing about this belief is that you leave yourself open to whatever comes by. I was surprised when the next day I woke up to this article that I wrote on Entrepreneur.com going semi-viral.
My social media accounts exploded, and I was inundated with heartfelt messages of inspiration and praise. It’s like I always say; if you put out good in the world, then everything you could ever want will come right back at you.
people, Personal Improvement, Research & Reports
In the journey of life, we all come across certain challenges that in one way or another attempt to derail our success. Sometimes these challenges are of our making while other times they creep up on us when we least expect them.
Here are five enemies of success you need to avoid at all costs:
1. The Villainy of Complacency
Complacency is one of the biggest enemies of success we must avoid at all costs. Believing you have “arrived” is a very costly mistake. One never arrives at success. Success is a journey, not a destination. While you may achieve your goals and objectives, you must never forget that there are always bigger mountains to climb and tougher obstacles to face.
Unfortunately, many people do not realize early enough that there’s always more to do and that the competition is rapidly gaining on them in the race. They assume that the initial achievement of material benefits, i.e., money, power, and status is enough to sustain them on for the rest of their lives.
There’s always someone coming behind you who is hungrier than you, and willing to work a lot harder for less pay until they achieve what you have and more. As someone once said, “Complacency will get you killed.” You need to maintain your fire if you are going to stay the course and achieve lasting success.
“The right time is always right now.” – Casey Neistat
2. Lack of Resources
If you study successful people, you will observe that an overwhelming majority of them succeed in spite of their obstacles. On the other hand, failures always complain and give excuses that their failures are as a result of lack of resources i.e. money, connections, and access.
The presence or absence of resources is not the primary determinant of success. Resourcefulness is the essential ingredient that separates the winners from the losers. The ability to make the best out of what you have, and manipulate situations and circumstances in your favor is a critical success factor. Resourcefulness is a learned skill.
You can improve your resourcefulness by training yourself to collect seemingly disparate and unrelated resources. Casual information you stumble upon today could be the missing link to someone else’s success story. You need to become a collector and connector of resources and people if you want to achieve lasting success.
3. Ego
Your ego is another powerful enemy that can hinder your progress and success in life. Believing that you are infallible or invincible after achieving some prior success is a trap that ensnares many people.
The problem with a growing ego is that by the time you realize it is a problem, it is already too late. Ryan Holiday’s book “Ego Is The Enemy” discusses how the “Ego” has led to the failure and destruction of many great men and women throughout history. I would suggest that you grab a copy and read the section on how to manage your Ego during times of success. It is a compelling chapter with many valuable lessons that cannot be summarized in a few short sentences.
The main thing with your ego is that it does not let you see beyond your immediate circumstances. Ego blocks you from seeing the full picture and therefore increases the chances of failure. By not letting your ego get in the way, you can look at things from different perspectives and come up with solutions that are pragmatic.
4. Loss of Focus
When most people reach the top of their game, they become the envy of their peers. It is at that point many decide to branch out and diversify their interests and activities. As a result of increasing their capacity and activities, many people are unable to make any meaningful impact on any one task. This is a major problem for a lot of successful people.
To guard against this, you need to stay focused and dedicated to tasks that are the highest and best use of your time. If the project or task you are taking on next is not suited to your strengths and does not provide a high ROI, you need to seek help.
Learn to practice the art of strategic delegation. Delegation helps you create high leverage opportunities for yourself and provides an avenue for your team to learn and grow.
“The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.” – Brian Tracy
5. Fear of The Unknown
After achieving some success, many people shy away from taking bigger risks. They get accustomed to their new situation and create a comfort zone where they do not take risks. The truth is, everyone gets scared and everyone doubts themselves from time to time. It is a part of life. Everyone you look up to has at one point or another had to cause to question themselves.
A small voice in their head tells them “you have gone far enough, don’t rock the boat or you could lose everything.” That is the voice of Fear. Fear plants little suggestions that cause you to doubt and second guess yourself. Everyone has heard that voice at one point or another. The people you look up to hear that voice routinely. The only reason they appear heroic to you is that despite the self-doubt and overwhelming fear of the unknown they still make a conscious decision to take action.
Action breeds confidence and kills fear. The only way to silence the voice of fear and doubt in your life is to act confidently and trust your instincts. When you approach new challenges and larger obstacles, you must believe that you already have what it takes to succeed. Once you can do that, you will become unstoppable, and your future success is guaranteed.
