Excerpts that have transformed me into who I am today.

Late Steve Jobs

“I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

Oprah Winfrey

“If you’re constantly pushing yourself higher and higher, the law of averages predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to remember this: There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction. Now, when you’re down there in the hole, it looks like failure. When that moment comes, it’s okay to feel bad for a little while. Give yourself time to mourn what you think you may have lost. But then, here’s the key: Learn from every mistake, because every experience, particularly your mistakes, are there to teach you and force you into being more who you are.”

Suze Orman

“You know, the truth is when your back is up against the wall, when you owe somebody something — sometimes you won’t do something for yourself, but when you need to do something for somebody else to pay them back, you owe them, you lost what they gave you, that gives you the courage.”

JK Rowling

“Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

Soichiro Honda

“Success represents the 1% of your work which results from the 99% that is called failure.”

Walt Disney

“All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles have strengthened me … You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”

Tyler Perry

“All you can do is plant your seed in the ground, water it everyday and believe. That is what allowed me to be in the position I am right now. I would not stop believing.” “All you can do is plant your seed in the ground, water it everyday and believe. That is what allowed me to be in the position I am right now. I would not stop believing.”

Wendy Davis

“I had a lot of insecurities about not having done enough with myself. And I remember so vividly, when [my husband] would talk to peers and they would talk about, you know, their education or their travels, fine wines or foods, I just felt so left out of those conversations. And I had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder about it. And so I wanted to prove to myself, more than anything, that I could be one of those people, too. I could get an education like that, too.”

Mark Cuban

“[My former boss] had a huge flaw: He never did the work. He never demonstrated the initiative to go out to sell. I had realized by that time that ‘sales cures all.’ That’s a phrase I still use to this day. He was my mentor, but not in the way you’d expect. Even now I think back to things he did, and I do the opposite. And he made me superstitious about titles. I’m never listed as the CEO of my companies. There is no CEO. I am the president.”

John Paul Dejoria

“Be prepared for a lot of rejection, people saying ‘no’ to the service or the product you want to sell. People saying, ‘Oh, it’s too difficult. I don’t want to do it.’ If you knock on 100 doors and they all say ‘no,’ on door 101, be just as enthusiastic.”