It has been a while since I’ve presented some favourite inspirational quotes for women in business. And because I’ve had a challenging week, it seems like an appropriate time!

The first quote (from Barbara Corcoran, real estate magnate) is a bit of a kick up the pants: “The difference between successful people and others is how long they spend time feeling sorry for themselves.". How many times have you heard business people blame their circumstances and bemoan loudly all the things that have gone wrong? I wonder if we spent less time dwelling on those events and just got on with it, we might be more successful?

Arianna Huffington (founder of The Huffington Post) expands that thought with this quote: “We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes - understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.”. When I look back on my ten years in business, I can certainly agree with Arianna! In hindsight, I can see how my failures fed, greatly influenced and lead to success. Without those experiences, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

As business women, we take on various leadership roles, and this quote from Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook) embodies the ‘bigger picture’ of leadership and success: ”Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.”

Sometimes though, I think women in business spend too much time comparing themselves to others, particularly in relation to ‘success’. Anne Sweeney (Co-Chair of Disney Media Networks) says “Define success in your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live.”. This means that one women’s success is not necessarily your definition of success. When striving for ‘success’ make sure that it you are striving for something that you want, rather than what you think success is ‘supposed’ to look like.

Michelle Grice writes a weekly column for business women in The Western Weekender

There are many women in business who have inspirational stories and lessons we can learn from. Arianna Huffington is visiting Sydney this week, so this is an opportune time to write about what we can learn from her.

Arianna Huffington is most well-known for the news and blog site ‘The Huffington Post’ that she launched in 2005. If you are on social media, you are likely to have seen an article or two from this website, which has become a “frequently cited media brand”.

Aside from Huffington’s forays into politics, book writing and even some acting, an incident in 2007 gave her another ‘platform’ to push. She suffered a facial injury when she fainted at work, because she was severely exhausted and not getting enough sleep. In many of her books and within her own workplace, she promotes a healthy balance between work and the ‘rest of life’ and the ‘power of a good night’s sleep’.

Her latest book, ‘Thrive’, is the culmination of what she has been practicing and preaching since her fainting incident. It is an attempt to ‘redefine what it means to be successful in todays’ world’.

What is success to you? Is it about the amount of money you are earning? The number of staff you have? Arianna Huffington has learnt the hard way that our traditional notions of success lead to burnout, illness and “an erosion in the quality of our relationships, family life, and, ironically, our careers”.

Most business women I know are not getting enough sleep and operate their work and lives in a way that can have disastrous effects. As Huffington says “The essence of leadership is being able to see the iceberg before it hits the Titanic."

Michelle Grice writes a weekly column for business women in The Western Weekender