A collection of quotes for entrepreneurs curated in March 2025 around a theme of thinking clearly when you are in trouble, gaining situational awareness personally and shared situational awareness at a team level.
Quotes for Entrepreneurs Curated in March 2025
I curate these quotes for entrepreneurs from a variety of sources and tweet them on @skmurphy about once a day where you can get them hot off the mojo wire. At the end of each month I curate them in a blog post that adds commentary and may contain a longer passage from the same source for context. Please enter your E-mail address if you would like to have new blog posts sent to you.
My theme for this month’s “Quotes for Entrepreneurs” is thinking clearly when you are in trouble, gaining situational awareness personally and shared situational awareness at a team level.
“Neither the first thought nor the first impression is always right. One must walk all around a thing to see it from every angle, to make the best decision.”
John Wanamaker in Maxims of Life and Business (1923)
Commit to “walking around a situation.” There are often more than two valid points of view.
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“I suppose the hardest of all things to learn and the thing that most distinguishes what is called a ‘ripe old age’ is the knowledge that while bold uncritical action is necessary if things are to move at all, we are only heading for fresh disaster if some portion of our interior soul doesn’t function in critical detachment, while we commit ourselves to the tide, keeping a weather-eye upon both horizons!”
John Cooper Powys in”Art of Growing Old” (January 1, 1944)
John Powys (1872 –1963) was 72 when this book was published; he lived another 19 years. I appreciate his realism about success, that it requires intellectual and spiritual humility, the ability to take bold action balanced with an ongoing assessment of risks and possibilities.
I used a portion of this in Finding Common Ground and Workable Solutions.
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“Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”
Sir Raymond Priestly his 1956 address to the British Association
This was a paraphrase of
“There are jobs for which, if I had to do them, I would like to serve under Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton and Wilson—each to his part. For a joint scientific and geographical piece of organization, give me Scott; for a Winter Journey, Wilson; for a dash to the Pole and nothing else, Amundsen: and if I am in the devil of a hole and want to get out of it, give me Shackleton every time. They will all go down in polar history as leaders, these men. ”
Apsley Cherry-Garrard in his introduction to “The Worst Journey in the World”( 1922)
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Three from Merlin Mann’s Wisdom Project related about thinking clearly when you are in trouble.
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“Sometimes, when you’re about to ask someone for help, you have a hunch that it might be something you could probably figure out on your own. To test your hunch, draft (but do not send) your question as the smartest and most succinct message you can manage. Yes, reading it back to yourself may end up solving your actual problem. But, it nearly always helps to clarify whether it’s something you actually could figure out on your own.”
Merlin Mann in Merlin Mann’s Wisdom Project
This is a method for cultivating self-awareness and situational awareness. It’s a way of working through situations where “imposter syndrome” or pessimism may be holding you back from trying to solve the problem.
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“Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.”
George Carlin
You can stop the leak or put the fire out but now you have to consider preventative measures.
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“The greater an incident’s severity or impact, the more attention post-incident activities get. But we need to pay more attention to omens: near misses or operational surprises with no actual impact, which would have been a major incident if conditions were slightly different.”
Lorin Hochstein in “You’re Missing Your Near Misses“
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“(COINCIDENCE You weren’t paying attention to the other half of what was going on.)
Chad Mulligan in the Hipcrime Vocab”
Published in 1968 and set in 2010, “Stand on Zanzibar” is a prescient time capsule, as relevant as Neuromancer to today. In 2013 Ted Gioa documented 17 predictions for 2010 Brunner got right in “The Weird 1969 New Wave Sci-Fi Novel that Correctly Predicted the Current Day.”
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“We’re starting on a second generation of people, worldwide, who are day trading their emotions and confronting ideas that have no past and little future.”
Seth Godin in “Across and Within”
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“The window is not the view.
The window allows the view.”
Hugh Prather in “Notes on Love and Courage” (1977) [Archive]
What can you do to get perspective on a problem? How do you transition from “first person” to “third person” and see yourself in the situation?
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“Disorder is domination of public space for private purposes. The core to combating disorder is restoring public control of public space.”
Charles Fain Lehman in “It’s Time to Talk About America’s Disorder Problem“
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“Work as hard as you possibly can on at least one thing and see what happens.”
Jordan Peterson
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“Always act as though you’re going to survive. If you don’t survive, it probably won’t matter how you acted. And, if you do survive (which you probably will), I’ll bet it’s at least partly because you acted like you were going to survive. Try it.”
Merlin Mann in Merlin Mann’s Wisdom Project
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“You learn to sail in a maelstrom as you make your way to shore, not in a lake sheltered from storms where other vessels never come. Skill comes through sailing one’s craft amidst rocks, bars, opposing fleets, storms, whirls, and counter currents.”
Newell Dwight Hillis condensed from “Man’s Value to Society” (1896)
Here is the longer passage
“Responsibility is a teacher of righteousness. God educates men by casting them upon their own resources. Man learns to swim by being tossed into life’s maelstrom and left to make his way ashore. No youth can learn to sail his life-craft in a lake sequestered and sheltered from all storms, where other vessels never come. Skill comes through sailing one’s craft amidst rocks and bars and opposing fleets, amidst storms and whirls and counter currents. English literature has a proverb about the incapacity of rich men’s sons. The rich man himself became mighty because he began in poverty, had no hand to help him forward, and many hands to hold him back. After long wrestling with opposing force he compacted within himself the strength and foresight, the frugality and wisdom of a score of ordinary men. The school of hard knocks made him a man of might. But his son, cradled in a soft nest, sheltered from every harsh wind, loving ease more than industry, is in danger of coming up without insight into the secrets of his profession or industry.”
Newell Dwight Hillis in “Man’s Value to Society” (1896)
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“Occasionally silently remind yourself, “Remember you said you wanted this.”
Merlin Mann in Merlin Mann’s Wisdom Project
I do this after I wake up at 3am, look in the mirror and ask myself, “Now what?”
My answer, “I guess I got what I asked for, perhaps I should have been more specific.”
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“There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.”
Alain de Botton
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“Nothing brings people together like having the same deck stacked against them.”
Robert Brault
Look for others who are unhappy with the status quo.
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“Nothing we do can change the past, but everything we do changes the future.”
Ashleigh Brilliant
We can learn from the past and plan for the future but can only take action in the present. There is no value in regrets except when they alter your current behavior and plans. Regret over results is worthless compared to regret over motivation and your decision criteria and rules of thumb that led to an unwanted outcome. There is always the possibility of a good decision leading to a bad outcome.
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“When you’re trying to introduce something across the whole organization, you have to break it down into something that every part of the organization can absorb. Different parts of an organization absorb change differently.”
Jeff Allison in “How to Drive Innovation and Meet Commitments“
Many intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs, end enterprise sales people learn this the hard way. A “one size fits all “approach that doesn’t allow for tailoring the needs of different groups and key individuals rarely succeeds.
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“It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done.”
Samuel Smiles
h/t Terry Tao “Use the Wastebasket”
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“That awkward moment when you realize your intuition was off by a couple orders of magnitude.”
John D. Cook (@JohnDCook)
This is recycled from my Feb-2016 collection of quotes for entrepreneurs. In my experience, it’s beyond awkward, triggering disorientation or even panic. Examples: 9-11 with the fall of the Twin Towers and the grounding of all airplane travel in the US for weeks, the Jonestown massacre, and the fall of Skylab. Before it fell, I had assumed that NASA would get its act together. But afterward, I recalibrated on NASA and was strangely prepared for the Challenger and Columbia disasters.
Good events can also surprise, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, my father making a full recovery from what his doctor said would a crippling stroke, and my three-month-old niece making a full recovery from open heart surgery.
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“Larry’s Number One Rule For Life and Business:
Do what you said you would do,
when you said you would do it,
the way you said you would do it.This simple statement is rooted in personal responsibility. It should be at the very core of all your interaction with others. Every time you are tempted to slack off and do less or be less than you could, remind yourself that you are a person of integrity who lives by this simple creed.
This passage is also an excerpt from “The Idiot Factor: The 10 Ways We Sabotage Our Life, Money, and Business” The book is a fast read with some good checklists and practical advice. I included it in this month’s roundup as it’s good advice for thinking clearly when thing are going sideways.
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“Valuations represent discounted future expectations. They are not a reward for what you have accomplished in the past.”
Bill Gurley in “Bill Gurley sees Silicon Valley on a dangerous path.” (WSJ Oct-26-2015)
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“Wise are they who have learned these truths:
Trouble is temporary.
Time is tonic.
Tribulation is a test tube.”
William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)
Tribulation has a sense of suffering or serious pain. Viewing pain and suffering as a vehicle for understanding and an opportunity for transformation reminds me of a quote from Henri-Frédéric Amiel: “You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.”
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“I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.”
Glendon Swarthout in “The Shootist” (spoken by J. B. Books, the Shootist; these lines are also spoken by John Wayne in the movie of the same name).
If you don’t try to take advantage of others, seeking a win-win outcome, I think you are offered better deals and are harder to take advantage of
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“What of all the entrepreneurs that fail? Well, many do, particularly the successful ones; often several times. And if you ask them the secret of their success, they’ll tell you it’s all that they learned in their struggles along the way; yes, it’s what they learned from failing.”
Ronald Reagan in An American Life: The Autobiography
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“Something’s wrong with our planning, because we’re extending the future based on what we know today. I keep looking at the semiconductor learning curve [Moore’s Law] where you double the number of transistors on the chip every 18 months. If that’s the case, we shouldn’t need these plants.”
Kurt Rahlfs in 1972, quoted in “Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western Electric” by Stephen B. Adams and Orville R. Butler
Adams and Butler note: “The planning team did a rudimentary analysis and determined that rather than opening a factory year, as they were then doing, Western would have to close a factory a year. This was a stunning revelation. Western Electric ultimately closed a plant a year for the next decade, with employment falling from 215,000 in 1970 to 153,000 in 1975.”
If AI is a GUI for SaaS, which leverages Moore’s Law to provide benefits, and AI extends productivity benefits to new tasks, functions, and the entire scope of some jobs, we are likely to see a repeat of what happened at Western Electric in the 70’s in other industries.
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“A tight process will never cover loose communication.
But tight communication will always cover a loose process.”
Bryan Vartabedian (@Doctor_V)
A tight process derived from extended experimentation and refinement protects against novice improvisations that are unlikely to work. Tight communication enables the shared situation awareness that underpins successful shared improvisation. A loose process can either be the result of a lack of knowledge or a lack of care; either way, it benefits from tight communication.
When you find yourself “off the map” or otherwise in trouble, rely on tight communication and shared improvisation with other stakeholders or team members.
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“Intellect may exist without wisdom,
just as strength may exist without responsibility,”
Stanislaw Lem
h/t Dr. Colin W.P. Lewis (@DrColinWPLewis) in “Lem and the Decline of Human Thinking“
I cannot find a source for this beyond the essay by Dr. Lewis I cite. It appears to be a paraphrase of a of an observation by Lem. But it’s such a good quote, especially worth remembering about the counter-parties you may be working with in a crisis.
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“Never wait for trouble. You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don’t give up.”
Chuck Yeager+ + +
“This analysis suggests that a person who has not made peace with his losses is likely to accept gambles that would be unacceptable to him otherwise.”
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decisions Under Risk” (1979)
This is worth bearing in mind when you are in trouble: we tend to become risk-seeking when facing a loss and risk-averse with the prospect of a gain. It’s safer to “take the hit” mentally and work your options from that position than take larger gambles to avoid what you have likely incurred
h/t Richard Thaler and Eric Johnson in “Gambling the House Money and Trying to Break Even: The Effects of Prior Outcomes on Risky Choices” (1990)
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“This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble.”
Ludwig van Beethoven
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“Getting a castle ready for combat was more critical than bold leadership during a siege. If the castle wasn’t ready for a fight, leadership alone would not save it.”
Jim Dunnigan and Daniel Masterton “The Way of the Warrior“
A crisis tests preparation as much as improvisation. Dunnigan and Sullivan currently manage “The Strategy Page” a good website for practical insights into military affairs. It covers armed forces world wide, as well as up to date reporting on wars and hot spots wherever they may be. In addition to information on weapon systems it addresses often ignored items like leadership, peacetime operations, intelligence, and information warfare.
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“Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later, win a little more.”
Louis L’Amour in “The Walking Drum” (1984)
Play a long game, don’t look for a quick fix when you are in trouble.
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“Each memory was brought to life before me and within me. I could not avoid them. Neither could I rationalize, explain away. I could only re-experience with total cognizance, unprotected by pretense. Self delusion was impossible, truth exposed in this blinding light. Nothing as I thought it had been. Nothing as I hoped it had been. Only as it had been.”
Richard Matheson in “What Dreams May Come“
The protagonist is in the afterlife, reviewing his life to learn from it. One key aspect of getting out of trouble after the firefighting and recovery phase is finished is to conduct a dispassionate review of what happened, why it happened, and how it might be avoided or mitigated in the future.
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A quarter of 2025 has slipped away or been put to good use, leaving a curious alloy of two activities of very different value. It’s a personal blend of execution, exploration, relaxation, recharge, pointless worry, and wasted time/opportunity.
Now swapping “if only” for “next time.”
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Image Credits (Licensed from 123RF)
- Abstract Fractal 122703872 https://www.123rf.com/profile_kshavratskaya
- Circle of Footprints 130856042 https://www.123rf.com/profile_mtmmarek