Advice from billionaires

Passion is the ability to get excited about something. Irrepressibility and tenacity is about the ability to stay with it. If you take a look at all of the companies that have been started in our business, most of them fail. If you take even a look at the companies that have succeeded, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, you name it, all of these companies went through times of hardship. You get some success. You run into some walls. You try a formula for a new idea, a new innovation, it doesn’t work. And it’s how tenacious you are, how irrepressible, how ultimately optimistic and tenacious you are about it that will determine your success.~University of Southern California, 2011

Always think creatively and boldly. Where do you see a massive opportunity? Where do you think something is going to change, where you see something that most other people don’t see? Part of being a successful entrepreneur is to be contrarian and to be right. It’s the two that are particularly important because if it was obvious to everyone there’s no market opportunity, there’s no gap to go do something about it. But then you have to be right about it.

No matter what you do in life, your ability to succeed will be largely dependent on your ability to work with people. Indeed, it has often been said that what you do is less important then who you do it with – that the people you surround yourself with, whether a spouse, or friends, or co-workers, will ultimately be the principal determinant of the course your life will take. So don’t just focus on the job descriptions, or the brand name of the organization you’re going to join – also focus on who you’ll be working for, and with


From Forbes.com http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2012/05/09/billionaires-advice-for-new-college-graduates-jobs-oprah-zuckerberg-and-more/3/