5 Quotes to Inspire the Entrepreneur in You

Keeping a good attitude will help you weather the storms of entrepreneurship. The daily life and grind of entrepreneurship can be filled with big highs and lows, but staying focused on the end goal and seeing the opportunity in your challenges will take you far.

Here are five quotes that will inspire you to keep your chin up from five successful optimistic entrepreneurs who have been where you are now. They just might inspire you to see the possibilities in risk, failure and every opportunity that lurks around the corner when you're open to it. 

1. "The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change by merely changing his attitude." -- Oprah Winfrey

When it comes to mega success, there are a select few at the top who you don’t need to reference their business to know who they are and what industry they’re in. Oprah Winfrey is one of those people. She turned a news career into a talk show and her talk show into an empire. However, the real tipping point for Winfrey was when she started focusing her show on making people’s lives better. Whether that was in body, spirit or mind, her empire has expanded to make her the go-to guru and established her as a truly optimitistic entrepreneur.

2. “Optimism helps us persevere. Life isn’t easy. But life is always good.” -- John Jacobs, co-founder, “Life Is Good” clothing brand

You know those cute little T-shirts that you see around the mall or in airport gift shops with the stick figure that says, “life is good,” or the stick-figure dog that says, “bark less, wag more?” Those are from John Jacobs and his brother Bert’s T-shirt startup, Life Is Good, that’s transformed into a happy brand embraced around the world. It all started with a lot of elbow grease, selling shirts on the street and college campuses. A good attitude can take you a long way, and who knows, might even make you a success story in business, too.

3. “Don't let what you don't know scare you, because it can become your greatest asset. And if you do things without knowing how they have always been done, you're guaranteed to do them differently.” -- Sara Blakely, founder of SPANX

SPANX is a globally recognized brand of hosiery that has set Sara Blakelyas the youngest female billionaire (and that’s self-made). She talks a lot about the success and optimism that’s behind failure and how it fueled her to keep going. When you’re feeling stuck in a rut or overwhelmed by what you don’t know, remember that the optimistic entrepreneur always looks for the growth and the opportunity in challenges. Don’t worry about what you don’t know -- it could help you change the game.

4. “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” -- Richard Branson

Like Oprah, Richard Branson is another one of those rock-star entrepreneurs who is known without even needing to mention his vast line of Virgin-branded products (which includes a cell phone service, an airline and space tourism, to name a few). Branson is all about risks and big ideas. Sometimes as an entrepreneur you might think the only opportunity is the one right in front of you, or you may even lament one you passed up. However, as Branson says, there are always opportunities wherever you go. The key for the optimistic entrepreneur is to keep your eyes open and see how regularly they show up.

5. "Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember you can achieve." -- Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics

Mary Kay started her cosmetics empire to provide women with career opportunities from the ground up after struggling with workplace injustices in the early '60s. Her desire to create options for herself and her family in the business world has led to the well-known cosmetics company. But what might’ve happened for Ash and her family if she had limited her belief in what’s possible in the workplace? The optimistic opportunity works like an alchemist to spin setbacks into golden opportunities that create change.

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Richard Branson on Starting Up

Editor's Note: Entrepreneur Richard Branson regularly shares his business experience and advice with readers. Ask him a question and your query might be the inspiration for a future column.

Q: How can I develop an organizational structure without red tape? -- Cuthbert Tembo, Harare, Zimbabwe

Startups are trying to challenge the status quo in almost every industry and sector, from health care to finance. One of the main obstacles to their success is red tape. Rules, regulations and compliance requirements can bring a quick end to an entrepreneur’s dreams of creating something truly different.

While there is not always a lot you can do about red tape except to find creative ways to fight your way through and around the thicket, you can take action to make sure that your company isn’t creating its own internal obstacles as it grows. Often, the bigger a company gets, the less responsibility and autonomy employees are given; instead, the hierarchy and bureaucracy takes over. Left unchecked, this too can destroy an enterprise.

The secret to fighting both kinds of red tape is to maintain your company’s spirit of curiosity -- keep continuing to question the way people do business. Disruptive innovation is part of a startup’s culture, inherent to how it operates, so hang onto that. We at Virgin have prided ourselves on getting this right over the past four decades.

I have often talked about the need for a business’s founder to delegate day-to-day control of operations so that he or she can focus on the future of the business. You were the person who had the original vision for the enterprise, so you must be the person who takes on the mission of answering basic questions like “Can we do it better?” and “How can we improve?” -- this is what you need to know to move your idea forward.

Delegating also allows you to lead by example, when it comes to avoiding unnecessary internal bureaucracy and paperwork. Hire people you think are fit for the job, and then place your trust in them. Do not micromanage -- allow them to get on with things, without laborious sign-off processes. This will free up your time and is a good management strategy: More often than not, people flourish when they’re given the freedom they need to do their work well. When your people have the authority to solve problems creatively, you’ll be in better shape to tackle the external red tape.

One entrepreneur who is combatting bad regulations right now is Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk. He is fighting battles in many American states so that his company can sell its electric cars directly to the consumer, instead of through auto retailers. There are laws on the books in many states requiring that vehicle manufacturers only sell through licensed dealers, in order to protect the businesses that the dealers have built. He and his team concluded that auto dealers were not a good venue for electric cars because they would continue to favor gasoline-powered vehicles, which require oil changes, tune-ups and other maintenance that is a source of revenue for them.

The latest battleground is the state of New Jersey, where a recent ruling has effectively ended Tesla’s ability to sell its pioneering cars to buyers directly. Musk countered with a direct appeal to the people of New Jersey, which he published on his blog. Accusing the auto dealer lobby of cutting a backroom deal with Gov. Chris Christie, he wrote that they had “circumvent(ed) the legislative process and pass(ed) a regulation that is fundamentally contrary to the intent of the law,” and he urged New Jersey residents to contact their local political representatives. His team has tried different tactics in other states, from giving politicians test drives to selling the cars online.

Musk and his team have been able to combat all the red tape and regulation thrown at them because of the power of their product. There is no substitute for this. If your idea benefits the consumer and you work with the necessary regulatory bodies to prove this, you will eventually prevail.

Another company that is seeing success at fighting existing regulations is Airbnb, a company that helps travelers connect with people who have living space to rent. The traditional hotel sector has fought Airbnb at every point in their development. To counter the critics, the company has gone out of its way to pay hotel taxes across the United States and comply with the rules of each state; in New York, it has requested permission to collect the $21 million in taxes that would be due. Such a tactic is a mark of success for a company that has opened up a new, adaptable and affordable way for people to travel.

When a new product or service turns an industry on its head, regulators are forced to play catch-up. If you are the disruptor, it’s important that you stand your ground. Play fair, but be prepared for others to play dirty -- and don’t let them drag you into the mud.

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