I was recently asked as part of an awards process to outline the lessons I have learned from starting my own business in 2001. I then referred to my blog to find out that of the 770 blog posts I have written – 164 of the posts have been dedicated to ‘Lessons Learned’. These are my own originals – but I add four from the famous below.
Then I set about trying to summarize, and I thought there might be some value to the LinkedIn community in what I distilled:
- Persistence is not pigheadedness.
- Passion is authentic – you either love what you do every day… or you don’t
- People are everything to success (family, friends, community colleagues) you cannot do it alone
- Process sets you free; it provides the foundations for growth
- ‘Hope’ is not a strategy
- Brands are held in the heart of the customer
- It is not about me – it is about the legacy I create well beyond my own generation – Asking “Am I making the planet a better place over and over again?”
- The more I teach the more I learn.
- We need to know failure to know success.
Which brings me to some of the great quotes put together in a presentation by friend Amanda Gore:
- “I have not failed I have just found 10,000 ways that did not work” Thomas Edison
- “Remember that failure is an event not a person.” Zig Ziglar
- “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without loosing your enthusiasm” Winston Churchill
- “Just because you fail at one thing doesn’t mean you will fail at everything” Marilyn Monroe
