Bill Gates: The Billionaire Nerd
Bill Gates (1955), American businessman and philanthropist, he is the founder of the technology firm Microsoft and he also founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, committed to promoting health and education in the neediest regions of the world, this is why he and his spouse won the PrÃncipe de Asturias Award for their labor in international cooperation, in 2006. According to Forbes magazine, he is right now (November 2019) the second wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $96.5 billion, behind Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com Inc.
If we were to write here all the valuable quotes from this entrepreneurial figure, we would need at least 7 days to complete this article. Unfortunately, we cannot do that so we have selected 10 worthy quotes that we think will interest you. Remember: read carefully these quotes and let them time to consolidate in your head.
1. Dedicating yourself to serving beers or delivering pizzas doesn't take out your dignity. Your grandparents called it differently: o-ppor-tu-ni-ty.
Very often, people let the time run, hoping to find the opportunity of their lives, the business of the century or an incredible idea that will make them rich and will solve all their problems in life. That's possible but before waiting for that opportunity to arrive, something that is very unlikely to happen, it is so much better to go putting one brick every day. If you do that every day and without stopping, in the end, you end up having a giant wall built in front of you. Every opportunity is good to gain knowledge, experience, and contacts. Do not underestimate any job. Lots of times, big opportunities emerge from having taken advantage of the smaller ones.
2. Life is not fair. Get used to it.
Throughout your professional career and personal life, you will find obstacles and barriers of a diverse nature. Some of them have to do with social injustices and personal disloyalties. They are part of the game of life. The worst you can do is to resign, whine or abandon. Perhaps, that attitude will make us feel better, but it changes nothing. Cronyisms, favoritisms and old debts often trigger unfair situations. This is the law of life. One has to find a way to reach wherever he/she wants to be, bordering all of those inconveniences, finding new alternative paths and creating routes that drive us to other places. The most important thing is to always keep an eye on our objective.
3. On many occasions, you have to trust your intuition.
A lot of times, and nowadays, even more, one has to make decisions without the disposal of all data on the table. That's when our intuition is our best friend. Intuition is that inside inkling coming from the unconscious and, which results from joining and sewing all available information. The difficulty of rationalizing that intuitive inkling makes that, in many cases, we underestimate it and we don't take it into account. Intuition says to us "what to do", but it doesn't say "why do we have to do it"; for this reason, very frequently, we don't give too much value to it. Intuition is about "to not think" but "to think without thinking". The well-formed intuition is an unconscious reasoning that is elaborated at high speed. In a nutshell, intuition is the accelerated reason.
4. You won't be earning 5,000 dollars a month once you finished your bachelor's degree, or working as vice-president in a large firm until your efforts make you deserve both things.
We are the result of our results. You are not certificates, you are what you achieve. The former ones, open new doors and broaden your possibilities, whereas the latter ones make you progress or be stuck. The important thing here is how you transform your knowledge (informative learning) into results (transforming learning). The relevant thing is not what you know but the things you do with what you know. That's the truly important aspect. From there, it starts your credibility, from what you achieve. A single success is worth much more than a long list of bachelor's degrees, masters, PhDs and courses of any kind.
5. The problem with consultants is that what they call "analysis of the environment" I call it "talking to people".
It is vital to confront reality and to be close to the market. That is in the reach of any executive, walking on the streets is enough. We shouldn't be radicals, but the "mantra" of consultancy is always the same: to make money. To do that, they need to be able to justify the fees "dressing up" all reports, writing things in a very proper way and using invented concepts. Everything is more simple, but a lot of times the merit of the consultancy consists of making things difficult to later offer a solution to that difficulty. People run away from simplicity because most of the time they equal simplicity with ineffectiveness, they view it from a pejorative point of view. Abandon the cavern, go out from your office and ask and talk to people.
6. The world doesn't care for your self-esteem. The world is waiting for you to achieve something, independently of how you feel about yourself.
The philosophy of businesses is always the same: to provide value. Clients want solutions and companies want results. You don't have to wait to feel better to start acting, because that guarantees the inaction. You have to act always, especially when someone feels fine. The politician Indira Gandhi said: "The world demands results. Do not tell others the pain you suffered when you gave birth, show them your child". Gates himself, speaking to an audience of students, claimed: "True life doesn't have long summer, Easter, Christmas or school vacations, and few employers will be interested in helping you to find yourself".
7. At school, they may have eliminated the difference between the "winners" and the "losers" but real life hasn't. At school, they give you several opportunities to pass your exams, for your tasks to be easier and more interesting. That won't happen in real life.
The market is formidable. It gives and removes ruthlessly. While you create value and you provide it, the market joins you; when the opposite happens, it abandons you. Loyalty is minimum in every industry and it lasts until better alternatives come out. The market wants winners and identifies with them. If you are not capable of being part of the "winners", the market will ignore you. To avoid this, it is very important to provide something different (what is being offered, how is being offered or what emotional impact has on people) and to keep differentiating for an indefinite time. Success consists in differentiating and, then, to keep on doing that. If you refuse to take this into practice, your days are numbered.
8. Be friendly with the nerds. You likely end up working for them.
Times have changed. Each day, more youngsters are targeting older people. This is what is happening and you don't have any options rather than accepting it. Professional and labor relationships evolve and you have to adapt yourself to the changes. Complaining could be a solution but, perhaps, not the best one. Some people are stuck in the past (what was) or in the future (what would be) and few people accept the present (what is). And that is one of the worst and most dangerous enemies of the human being: to deny the reality. To accept it is the first step to manage it successfully.
9. You have to be always thinking about who's gonna catch you.
That is the most cautious attitude in the market environment, the one that always keeps you alert and out of your comfort zone. Almost all companies, like most people, end up accommodated, bureaucratized or routinized. Keeping an attitude that demands from you a constant improvement is not easy, but essential if you want to hold a leadership position in the industry where you work. Competitors, substituting products or market age are some factors that could ruin everything you have worked for if you are not able to adjust or renew the value proposal to what clients demand. Not so many achieve this though.
10. If you make a mistake, it's neither your parent's fault nor your teacher's, so don't cry for your wrong decisions and learn from them.
Mwalimu Musheshe said on one occasion: "If you don't change people's belief that they can influence their own future, nothing of what you do will serve". Taking responsibility for your own life is the first of many variables that define leaders. Nonetheless, the starting conditions are not the same for everyone, but it is also true that a lot of people who haven't lived in the most favored countries, who haven't received a good education, who haven't had access to the so-called mentors and, despite everything, they have been overcoming difficulties step by step until becoming truly successful people. Putting responsibility in oneself is the starting point for good things to happen. That's the "winning" philosophy: the desire to reach goals, to learn and to improve. The "excusitis" is the illness of failure.
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| William Henry Gates III (Bill Gates) |
If we were to write here all the valuable quotes from this entrepreneurial figure, we would need at least 7 days to complete this article. Unfortunately, we cannot do that so we have selected 10 worthy quotes that we think will interest you. Remember: read carefully these quotes and let them time to consolidate in your head.
1. Dedicating yourself to serving beers or delivering pizzas doesn't take out your dignity. Your grandparents called it differently: o-ppor-tu-ni-ty.
Very often, people let the time run, hoping to find the opportunity of their lives, the business of the century or an incredible idea that will make them rich and will solve all their problems in life. That's possible but before waiting for that opportunity to arrive, something that is very unlikely to happen, it is so much better to go putting one brick every day. If you do that every day and without stopping, in the end, you end up having a giant wall built in front of you. Every opportunity is good to gain knowledge, experience, and contacts. Do not underestimate any job. Lots of times, big opportunities emerge from having taken advantage of the smaller ones.
2. Life is not fair. Get used to it.
Throughout your professional career and personal life, you will find obstacles and barriers of a diverse nature. Some of them have to do with social injustices and personal disloyalties. They are part of the game of life. The worst you can do is to resign, whine or abandon. Perhaps, that attitude will make us feel better, but it changes nothing. Cronyisms, favoritisms and old debts often trigger unfair situations. This is the law of life. One has to find a way to reach wherever he/she wants to be, bordering all of those inconveniences, finding new alternative paths and creating routes that drive us to other places. The most important thing is to always keep an eye on our objective.
3. On many occasions, you have to trust your intuition.
A lot of times, and nowadays, even more, one has to make decisions without the disposal of all data on the table. That's when our intuition is our best friend. Intuition is that inside inkling coming from the unconscious and, which results from joining and sewing all available information. The difficulty of rationalizing that intuitive inkling makes that, in many cases, we underestimate it and we don't take it into account. Intuition says to us "what to do", but it doesn't say "why do we have to do it"; for this reason, very frequently, we don't give too much value to it. Intuition is about "to not think" but "to think without thinking". The well-formed intuition is an unconscious reasoning that is elaborated at high speed. In a nutshell, intuition is the accelerated reason.
4. You won't be earning 5,000 dollars a month once you finished your bachelor's degree, or working as vice-president in a large firm until your efforts make you deserve both things.
We are the result of our results. You are not certificates, you are what you achieve. The former ones, open new doors and broaden your possibilities, whereas the latter ones make you progress or be stuck. The important thing here is how you transform your knowledge (informative learning) into results (transforming learning). The relevant thing is not what you know but the things you do with what you know. That's the truly important aspect. From there, it starts your credibility, from what you achieve. A single success is worth much more than a long list of bachelor's degrees, masters, PhDs and courses of any kind.
5. The problem with consultants is that what they call "analysis of the environment" I call it "talking to people".
It is vital to confront reality and to be close to the market. That is in the reach of any executive, walking on the streets is enough. We shouldn't be radicals, but the "mantra" of consultancy is always the same: to make money. To do that, they need to be able to justify the fees "dressing up" all reports, writing things in a very proper way and using invented concepts. Everything is more simple, but a lot of times the merit of the consultancy consists of making things difficult to later offer a solution to that difficulty. People run away from simplicity because most of the time they equal simplicity with ineffectiveness, they view it from a pejorative point of view. Abandon the cavern, go out from your office and ask and talk to people.
6. The world doesn't care for your self-esteem. The world is waiting for you to achieve something, independently of how you feel about yourself.
The philosophy of businesses is always the same: to provide value. Clients want solutions and companies want results. You don't have to wait to feel better to start acting, because that guarantees the inaction. You have to act always, especially when someone feels fine. The politician Indira Gandhi said: "The world demands results. Do not tell others the pain you suffered when you gave birth, show them your child". Gates himself, speaking to an audience of students, claimed: "True life doesn't have long summer, Easter, Christmas or school vacations, and few employers will be interested in helping you to find yourself".
7. At school, they may have eliminated the difference between the "winners" and the "losers" but real life hasn't. At school, they give you several opportunities to pass your exams, for your tasks to be easier and more interesting. That won't happen in real life.
The market is formidable. It gives and removes ruthlessly. While you create value and you provide it, the market joins you; when the opposite happens, it abandons you. Loyalty is minimum in every industry and it lasts until better alternatives come out. The market wants winners and identifies with them. If you are not capable of being part of the "winners", the market will ignore you. To avoid this, it is very important to provide something different (what is being offered, how is being offered or what emotional impact has on people) and to keep differentiating for an indefinite time. Success consists in differentiating and, then, to keep on doing that. If you refuse to take this into practice, your days are numbered.
8. Be friendly with the nerds. You likely end up working for them.
Times have changed. Each day, more youngsters are targeting older people. This is what is happening and you don't have any options rather than accepting it. Professional and labor relationships evolve and you have to adapt yourself to the changes. Complaining could be a solution but, perhaps, not the best one. Some people are stuck in the past (what was) or in the future (what would be) and few people accept the present (what is). And that is one of the worst and most dangerous enemies of the human being: to deny the reality. To accept it is the first step to manage it successfully.
9. You have to be always thinking about who's gonna catch you.
That is the most cautious attitude in the market environment, the one that always keeps you alert and out of your comfort zone. Almost all companies, like most people, end up accommodated, bureaucratized or routinized. Keeping an attitude that demands from you a constant improvement is not easy, but essential if you want to hold a leadership position in the industry where you work. Competitors, substituting products or market age are some factors that could ruin everything you have worked for if you are not able to adjust or renew the value proposal to what clients demand. Not so many achieve this though.
10. If you make a mistake, it's neither your parent's fault nor your teacher's, so don't cry for your wrong decisions and learn from them.
Mwalimu Musheshe said on one occasion: "If you don't change people's belief that they can influence their own future, nothing of what you do will serve". Taking responsibility for your own life is the first of many variables that define leaders. Nonetheless, the starting conditions are not the same for everyone, but it is also true that a lot of people who haven't lived in the most favored countries, who haven't received a good education, who haven't had access to the so-called mentors and, despite everything, they have been overcoming difficulties step by step until becoming truly successful people. Putting responsibility in oneself is the starting point for good things to happen. That's the "winning" philosophy: the desire to reach goals, to learn and to improve. The "excusitis" is the illness of failure.