Wisdom in fragments

Good attention is very valuable. In 2017 unlike 2007 when I was yelling about this stuff, people now understand that personal brands are leverage. When you have people's attention, and especially if they think you have value, you can do amazing things.

Serial Entrepreneur, Author & Digital Marketing Strategist

Entrepreneurship is on a pedestal; everyone wants to be one. Here's the truth, it sucks. Entrepreneurship is hard and almost everyone loses. You genuinely have to like getting beat-up. You genuinely have to like conflict. You genuinely have to have an enormous amount of patience.

Serial Entrepreneur, Author & Digital Marketing Strategist

To be an entrepreneur, you need a love for process and to be comfortable with adversity. If you love process and you're comfortable with adversity, and if you love the journey over the fruits and riches of that journey- then you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

Serial Entrepreneur, Author & Digital Marketing Strategist

One of the best ways to make money is not to lose it. If you can learn not to lose money, you're making money. When you lose your own money, it hurts, it makes you careful, but you cannot let it take the mojo… the hunger out of you.

Icelandic billionaire businessman and former chess player

You will never find opportunities in your comfort zone, you have to push yourself. You have to be hungry and willing to go into the unknown. The unknown is where you will always find opportunity.

Icelandic billionaire businessman and former chess player

We only make progress by getting up from getting kicked to the ground. How does a baby learn to walk? It falls, gets back up… falls, gets back up, and one day its running. You will fall, stumble and fail- that's inevitable. You need to analyse it when it happens, learn from those mistakes, and move on. Don't dwell on failure.

Icelandic billionaire businessman and former chess player

Are you the guy who wants to know what he gets at the end of the month? Or are you the guy who says I'll take my chances and will do very well or very badly. If you can make that distinction in your own mind, the rest is up to you. That's where entrepreneurship comes from; it means you can live with risk.

Icelandic billionaire businessman and former chess player

I would not have believed anyone if they had told me that within eighteen months I would have lost 99 per cent of my $4 billion fortune and would be pursued almost to the brink of bankruptcy by seven major banks… I would have found it impossible to contemplate that I would be treated like a pariah in my home country, saddled with $1 billion in debts and hated as a man who had supposedly almost single-handedly brought down an economy. But that is exactly what happened…

Icelandic billionaire businessman and former chess player

There is a strong possibility that the relationship between humans and their environment would be so fundamentally changed that hundreds of millions of people, perhaps billions, would have to move. History tells us that this carries serious risks of severe and extended conflict.

Economist & Author of Stern Review on Climate Change Economics

The people of the world are gambling for colossal stakes. Two centuries of scientific enquiry, founded in basic physics and powerful evidence, indicate that the risks from a changing climate over the next hundred years and beyond are immense.

Economist & Author of Stern Review on Climate Change Economics

We are the first generation that through its neglect could destroy the relationship between humans and the planet, and perhaps the last generation that can prevent dangerous climate change.

Economist & Author of Stern Review on Climate Change Economics

Short-term vision does not allow one to build better businesses and create value. If we keep a long-term perspective in mind, we will go through the good cycles and the bad cycles and reach the other side.

Terra Firma Capital founder; acquired EMI Records in 2007

Simply put, a great business will understand its customers, have a clear, sound strategy and a business plan that can deliver against it.

Terra Firma Capital founder; acquired EMI Records in 2007

While most people are uncomfortable with change we have a business built on analysing it. Our business takes advantage of challenges and the opportunities they provide.

Terra Firma Capital founder; acquired EMI Records in 2007

To me, a great leader should be empathetic, authentic, entrepreneurial, creative, ethical and lead from the front.

Terra Firma Capital founder; acquired EMI Records in 2007

The most common mistake is to stop challenging when things are going well. I recognise failure as not having made a business better than when you were first involved.

Terra Firma Capital founder; acquired EMI Records in 2007