When I research topics for this column, it is primarily quotes and/or business advice from men that I come across. This advice and the motivation that can be found in those quotes is inspiring and can definitely be useful for women in business. But I think it is also important for women to hear from other women. There are unique struggles for female business owners and sometimes we need to hear from those who’ve forged the way before us!

So here are some of my favourite quotes for and from women in business:

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” (Mary Anne Radmacher)

“Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live.” (Anne Sweeney - President of Walt Disney)

“I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.” (Marissa Mayer - CEO of Yahoo)

“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.” (Arianna Huffington - Editor In Chief of Huffington Post)

And this one from Melinda Gates goes beyond the realms of ‘business’, but for me personally, is a great reminder of us all being part of a much bigger picture:

“If you are successful, it is because somewhere, sometime, someone gave you a life or an idea that started you in the right direction. Remember also that you are indebted to life until you help some less fortunate person, just as you were helped.”

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

Although not exclusively a ‘female trait’, many women use gut instinct or intuition (or other ‘unmeasurable’ methods) in their personal decision making. But do you use it in your business decision making? And should you?

My answer is: yes you should. Early on in my business, I learnt the hard way that I needed to listen to those niggly feelings. Too many times I listened to what seemed like the logical factors in a situation (all very valid factors), but failed to take notice of the unsettled feeling I had which I couldn’t necessarily explain.

Most of the truly innovative and great inventions were born from someone trusting their gut instinct, because if they had listened to logic or the knowledge available at the time, it would not have looked possible.

Henry Ford is a really great example of this. Not only was he a great innovator in the car industry, he realised he needed to do something to change the extraordinary 370 percent employee turnover rate in his factories. So despite people thinking he was crazy, he shortened the work day from nine to eight hours and paid his employees a higher wage. By following his gut instinct, he reduced his employee turnover to 16 percent within one year, and began the successful empire we know of today.

Deepak Chopra says that “There are receptors to these molecules in your immune system, in your gut and in your heart. So when you say, 'I have a gut feeling' … you're not speaking metaphorically. You're speaking literally.”

So don’t be afraid to take heed when you’re your get that ‘gut feeling’. Learn to be attuned to it and use it to question whether your ‘logical decision’ is really the right one to make.

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

I love motivational quotes. Yes, they can get annoying and asinine when you see meme after meme appearing on your Facebook feed, but there is definite value in pondering the thoughts of those who have been before us in business. So here are some of my favourites (and why I’ve chosen them):

“Done is better than perfect” (Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook): although I am not a fan of all the ways that Sandberg views business, I agree with this statement. Particularly in current society, technology forces change much more quickly than we have ever experienced. Therefore, we have to shift from waiting until something is perfect, to knowing when something is ‘good enough’.

In the same vein is this quote from Meg Whitman (CEO of HP): “The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of a mistake”. It is far better to launch a new idea, with the risk of making some mistakes, than to launch an idea too late (or not at all). What is innovative and relevant now has a high chance of not being relevant if you wait. Get moving on your ideas and use the mistakes (that you are highly likely to encounter), to improve your product or service. Learn from your mistakes!

And this quote to end on: “Never work just for money or for power. They won’t save your soul or help you to sleep at night” (Marian Wright Endelman, Activist). If your chief motivation for having your own business is to make lots of money, you may just do that. But you may also ‘lose’ a lot of other personal (and frankly more important) things in life. Work on what you are passionate about, and the rest will follow.

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