Quotes About Success

When startups succeed, they do so against all odds. In the beginning, you have nothing except for your own talents and resources. By definition, everyone else is bigger, further along, and more established than you. To win, you have to swim upstream early on - and that requires hard work and long hours. There are no shortcuts.

Start your day in a upward direction, and the rest of the day will follow the uphill path.

We've had some huge moments. But we've always been on a steady, gentle, upward slope, and I think that keeps us grounded. There's been no overnight success here, and we haven't dealt with a whole lot of hot and cold.

Look, the fame rocket is only on the upward trajectory for a limited time.

The upward climb I'm on, obviously I'm getting better. And if that continues to happen I should end up in a good place.

My career has always kind of moved forward and upward. I've never had anything kind of stall out or go in the opposite direction. I've always kind of been moving in the right direction.

If you had looked at my life when I was 14 years old and said, 'Well, what's going to happen to this kid?' you would have concluded that I would have struggled with what academics call upward mobility.

If you knew the upward mobility that South Dakota's kids have gotten from the opportunity to intern and to work and to be employed and to have upward mobility in that company and move on, it's been phenomenal for South Dakota.

I consider myself fortunate to have grown up in Brooklyn. It's what gave me my drive to succeed, the upward mobility I've been after my whole life.

In Hollywood you just fail upwards.

When you have been lucky enough to move up the ladder, all you see, really, is the slide back down. You don't see the further steps upwards.

Man, I really think I was just fascinated with money... and I always wanted it growing up. I always wanted money... Once I got upwards in age, the older I got, the more fascinated I got with money.

I tell people to look at me and understand that everybody first told me that I couldn't be a 6-foot, 9-inch point guard, and I proved them wrong. Then they told me I couldn't be a businessman and make money in urban America, and I proved them wrong. And they thought I couldn't win all these championships, and I proved them wrong there as well.

One reason Zipcar succeeded was its branding: cool, hip, smart, urban, fun, innovative. Who wouldn't want to be associated with that?

I did the co-writing thing all through the '90s and I got one hit out of it - a Keith Urban song called 'But For The Grace Of God' - but then I got burnt out.

I'm happy to see somebody from the urban community that could go out and make a half-a-billion dollars.

One of the things that sells music is when the artist is looked at as someone who's come up from the streets. Not just any streets, but the toughest, meanest streets of the urban ghetto. And that's called 'street credibility.'

I really didn't think this was going to be a success. We did the first three episodes and I said to Adam, 'I can't see this going anywhere. I've already used up all my urban legends.'

I think, first of all, I don't think people understand Ice Cube's body of work. Ice Cube is a, and I hate to use the word 'urban' but - when you think of Judd Apatow, and a person who's launched so many careers, Ice Cube has done that for so many comedians, you know?

A lot of rappers say 'I'm talking about stuff that goes on, what I grew up in, that I know about.' And these journalists say, 'Yeah, but you're making 80 million dollars, that stuff's not about you.' Look how long he's been making 80 million. He grew up poor in an urban city and the things he's experienced and knows.

Quite frankly, the Urban brand organization became too siloed, with too little communication across functional areas. The great creativity that has been the hallmark of our success became stifled.

My husband was working as principal of an urban transformation high school - the kind of public charter school determined to do whatever it takes to give its mostly minority, low-income student body the education they need and deserve to be successful in life.

When Aventura began, there was a lot of salsa and merengue, and we said, 'Let's just do what we do.' Then Aventura blew up, but urban was in its prime.

There's this concept in urban music and lifestyle that money is everything, and I'm just not with it. If it makes money, it doesn't make it good. If it's good, it's good.