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

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