7 Life Lessons From 7 Of The World’s Top Business Leaders
Follow their advice to change your mindset and your life.
I have dreams. Just like you probably do. To keep me focused on where I want to get to I created a vision board at the start of the year. A collection of images and quotes represent who I am and my biggest goals for the year. Plastered across my vision board, which hangs on the wall across my bed is this quote by Benjamin Disraeli:
“Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes”
This really gets me going every day as I look at the targets I’ve set out for myself. I then take this energy and channel it into the work I have to do that day. Quotes from famous leaders often empower us and teach us lessons, which we too often forget.
Here are 7 lessons from 7 admirable leaders on how they approach their life and work along with ways for you to maximize your potential.
1. Elon Musk, CEO Tesla & SpaceX
“Persistence is very important. You should not give up unless you are forced to give up.”
We live in a world of stiff competition. Constant deadlines, chores, and tasks bury us daily. Yet, we often find ourselves in front of Netflix in denial with reality and living in a state of envy. We focus on what car someone drives, where they live, or how much they earn. The media glorifies “overnight successes,” which is really years and years of relentless effort. But all we see is the tip of the iceberg.
We give up when things don’t go our way. We throw a tantrum. But we don’t persist and persevere through the obstacles along the way. As someone who walked out of a six-figure salary to create my business, it was soul-crushing to see others thrive whilst I could hardly survive. But I had bigger dreams, dreams to one day create my own empire. And I had to remember that I opted for this path. And I alone had to stay accountable to myself. To push through every obstacle. Nobody said it would be easy.
There is a reason the leaders we admire have accomplished things of their wildest dreams. They simply didn’t give up. Elon Musk has faced countless criticisms along the way of his ability to pull off his lofty aspirations but he doesn’t ever give up.
Lesson: Your tenacity shapes you. Be accountable.
3 ways to foster grit and tenacity:
- Celebrate the small wins. Reward yourself along the way.
- Think long term.
- Follow a routine — this allows you to be consistent in your efforts.
2. Bill Gates, Co-founder Microsoft
“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
I too was guilty of this mindset once upon a time. Armed with stellar degrees and a high paying corporate salary I felt invincible. Like other millennials, our generation has been entitled in many ways. We had opportunities to go to university and land super corporate jobs whilst we were still studying. It was only once I became an entrepreneur that I really understood the value of money. Specifically, when I failed at achieving the high targets I set out for myself in the first year of my business.
The reality is we all will lose someday. It’s not if, but when. And if you aren’t losing you’re simply not taking on anything challenging. If you push your boundaries and venture into the unknown, failure is guaranteed. And this is when you will grow as a person. Setbacks make you stronger. They not only teach you resilience and humility but strategies you would have never thought of otherwise.
Lesson: Failure is our biggest teacher.
3 ways to embrace failure:
- Write down your lessons learned.
- Accept that it’s better to try than to regret not trying at all.
- Move on and plan what’s ahead. Don’t mourn what’s happened. “No point crying over spilt milk,” as they say.
3. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook
“Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.”
Whilst this lesson is more rooted in business, it can be applied to our lives as well. What Zuckerberg is encouraging is experimenting. Trying new ways of doing things. And in life, we all have to step out of our comfort zones. If we don’t try new things we will never know what resonates with us at a spiritual level. If we aren’t finding our passion it is often because we don’t know. And we don’t know because we haven’t experimented enough. Have you ever said you don’t like something without even trying it?
In business and startups, the lean startup methodology has taught us how to shorten product development cycles in order to test the viability of a business model by conducting small tests. By building a minimum viable product (MVP), you can save your business tremendous time and effort by releasing a simplified version of your product with minimum features and functionality. This gets it into the hands of your customers faster in line with Zuckerberg’s recommendation to move fast and break things.
Let’s aim to bring the same MVP philosophy into our lives. If you want to start a business but have a job consider starting a side hustle. If you want to transform your body, start with a small experiment. The point is don’t try to do it all at once. Keep trying, keep breaking. And repeat.
Remember, “Rome was not built in a day.”
Lesson: You’ll never know if you don’t try. Keep experimenting.
3 ways to experiment more:
- Focus on progress, not perfection.
- Stick to deadlines. This will allow you to iterate more often.
- Try everything before passing judgement.
4. Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon
“Life’s too short to hang out with people who aren’t resourceful.”
The first thing that comes to my mind from this quote is another quote!
“Man is known by the company he keeps.” — Old Adage
We all have a choice of who we spend our time with. According to motivational speaker, Jim Rohn, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” So then it is safe to say that leaders like Bezos must prioritize who they spend time with carefully. Besides their time is valuable. And so is yours.
I’ve noticed when I spend time with “downers,” I feel low and deflated about my ability to conquer something. The kind of people who tell you something is impossible. Stay away from such people. Instead, you want to be around people who will always show you a way out. Offer an alternative idea. Believe that there is a way to make something happen.
Being resourceful is to have the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties. It’s not just about one’s intelligence, it’s equally about one’s mindset.
Lesson: Spend time with others who are optimistic to always find a way out.
3 ways to manage your network:
- Pick your friends wisely.
- Spend time with those who you aspire to be like.
- Find a mentor who has faced similar hardships.
5. Sherly Sandberg, COO Facebook
“Done is better than perfect.”
This is most definitely a lesson for me as a perfectionist. But I’ve learned to realize perfectionism is just a perception. It’s impossible for anything to be perfect for everyone. Perfect is merely an opinion, not a fact.
So in life, if you are pursuing big goals just try to take a stab at getting the steps done. I’m currently working on writing a book and as a new author, it’s often painful. But I just write one page every day. And then the next day. And the day after that. I don’t focus on it being perfect. I just focus on getting done. Once I have a complete first draft, it will be easier to keep going.
Tim Ferriss’s mantra is to “write two crappy pages per day.” It’s always about doing the task at hand. And this goes for anything in life. Even the blank screen of Medium. Or even yoga —it’s doing a yoga practice, not yoga perfect.
Lesson: Focus on finishing. Learn to let go.
3 ways to get more done:
- Set time limits.
- Follow a strict agenda/routine.
- Eliminate distractions when you get down to a task.
6. Indra Nooyi, Former CEO PepsiCo
“Remain a lifelong student. Don’t lose that curiosity.”
It’s easy to be caught up with the work you have to do every day. To reserve learning to a classroom setting or through the degrees we achieve. But taking the time to learn each and every day is vital to growth. To keep our mind alert.
One might think that someone like Nooyi knows everything there is to know about the business after having been at the helm of PepsiCo for twelve years and being ranked #2 on the Forbes List of the 100 Most Powerful Women in 2015.
However, when she made the tough decision to overhaul PepsiCo’s IT system, she read 10 textbooks cover to cover over her holiday, which helped her understand the topic and overpower any skeptics. A leader such as her shows us how to be grounded even if you’re at the top.
As for me, despite holding business degrees from reputable universities, I continually learn what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur. Some of my most profound lessons have come from learning through books and practical on-the-job experience. I acknowledge that I will never know it all.
Lesson: Keep learning. Be Humble.
3 ways to foster learning:
- Be inquisitive. Ask questions — from your coworkers, leaders, friends, family, and mentors.
- Make it a point to have one non-fiction book in progress all the time.
- Take on new projects outside of your domain. You’ll have to learn.
7. Warren Buffet, CEO Berkshire Hathaway
“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
We love to compare our year 1 to someone else’s year 5. “Oh, but they have got this and that. I am still barely surviving.” This is the sort of mindset that serves no purpose. Where you are today is where you are based on the work you have put in. It’s easy to diminish the sacrifices someone else has already made because you did not live through them.
There are two ways to interpret this quote. On the one hand, it reminds us to appreciate where we began. To remember how it all started. But more importantly, it tells us that the outcomes we are looking for are the result of work done over a long time. In other words:
“You reap what you sow” — Old Adage
Lesson: Appreciate where you came from. Results take time.
3 ways to be more grateful/appreciative:
- Journal your achievements often.
- Focus on how far you have come — measure your progress.
- Stop comparing.
In closing, let’s all try to:
- Persevere when things get hard.
- Accept and expect failure.
- Fail faster.
- Be selective of who we hang out with.
- Kick perfectionism to get things done.
- Always be learning.
- Focus on the long haul.
By adopting these lessons, we too can shape our lives to be fulfilling whilst simultaneously inspiring and motivating others.
