When I was a kid, my step dad started this business and would go out and get lost cows and stuff. He was part-time truck driver, farmer and cowboy. He taught me how to ride from an early age.
I’ve been around the league for a while. I know the business of the league. Some stuff, like my mom said, you let it roll off your back like water on a duck’s back. You keep moving on.
I’ve been mocked a lot. I’ve been made fun of, you know, of the standards that I keep out, and that I hold out on the road and the way I conduct my business and myself and the way I behave in this business.
I wear two hats. The one is business and increasing my shareholders’ value; the other is social responsibility.
A large social-media presence is important because it’s one of the last ways to conduct cost-effective marketing. Everything else involves buying eyeballs and ears. Social media enables a small business to earn eyeballs and ears.
I spent some time studying Toyota, because how could a loom maker – they made looms. That was their business for 50 years, 35 years – and then they decided to go into the car business after everyone else was in the car business.
Extracting oil from the tar sands is a nasty, polluting, energy-intensive business.
In the rough and tumble world of business, media, or politics, the black knitted tie is indeed indispensable.
To the general public, show business may just mean the artistic part, but the dollar and cents element is the reality every performer has to face.
My father was an ironworker who eventually co-founded a construction business. My mother, Jeanette, was a stay-at-home mom who had been an operating-room nurse until my older brother, Jimmy, was born.
So we have a commitment to the business and to its people.
When I jumped off a roof in Cannes in a bee costume, I looked ridiculous. But this is my business; I have to humiliate myself.
During the day, I’m a business owner. I’m a teacher and a mentor.
And I’m not apolitical – I’m very specific in my politics. But a lot of the time it’s nobody’s business unless you’re over at my house having dinner.
People should mind their own business. This particularly applies to those who are inquisitive, and those who jump to conclusions.
We tend to default to complacency. Stick to the easy option. We all do it. We’ve tried to create a business model and society around us that is as easy and boxed as possible. We love creating boundaries and borders.
In the business world, those who are slow to act and adapt find themselves out of business in a hurry. In Washington, it can take 10 years to get even a good idea across the finish line.
Well first of all it’s a business and it’s a tough business, and you have to have the strength to survive all the set backs all the failures that make this a mean business, that’s getting meaner and meaner every year in my opinion.
To be a proactive person, you must learn to say no to most ideas and opportunities so you have the mental and physical bandwidth to execute the realistic business plans you have already mapped out.
Hire sales people who are really smart problem solvers, but lack courage, hunger and competitiveness, and your company will go out of business.
Passion gets an entrepreneur through the startup days and the enormous efforts it takes to build a business.
All the things I love is what my business is all about.
I’m rebelling against being handed a career, like, ‘You’re the next this; you’re the next that.’ I’m not the next anything, I’m the first me. I can’t be myself, I can’t just be Idris Elba. But that’s just the nature of the business.
As a restaurateur, my job is to basically control the chaos and the drama. There’s always going to be chaos in the restaurant business.
Part of show business is magic. You don’t know how it happens.
