Business advice from Elon Musk and other smart business leaders

There are many stumbling blocks when it comes to succeeding in the small business landscape. To help you through these challenges and motivate you, we’ve gathered some words of wisdom from inspirational entrepreneurs who believe in hard work, passion and persistence.

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk Elon Musk: On motivation

“Going from PayPal, I thought: ‘Well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?’ Not from the perspective, ‘What’s the best way to make money?’”

Entrepreneur Dick Smith: On learning from your competitors

“My success in Dick Smith electronics and Australian Geographic was just to go around the world and copy the best, pinch the best ideas from everyone I could see … I noticed that each company I went to – I’d go to England, Canada, America – had different ideas, so I took the best of them, and that’s why I made so much money.”

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Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes: On the importance of company values

“You don’t have to have values for a company. They can be a team, department, office, anything right. I think the act of getting a group of people together and sitting down and saying ‘ what do we stand for’ and ‘what do we not want to lose’ is more important than ‘what do we want to be?’”

Harpo Productions chief executive and talk show host Oprah Winfrey: On making success happen

“The reason I’ve been able to be so financially successful is my focus has never, ever for one minute been money.”

RedBalloon founder and Shark Tank investor Naomi Simson: On learning to listen

“Often we get people who come before us whose ideas aren’t fully evolved yet. What often happens is we see people come in and they are so in love with what they think they’re going to do they actually can’t listen. The critical thing to business growth is your ability to listen. We were given to ears and one mouth for a reason.”

Written by: Thea Christie