C. Las 50 mejores citas

De 2 567 citas seleccionamos las 50 más potentes. Los criterios de selección son estrictos: concreción (no palabras generales, sino formulaciones precisas), no obviedad (nada de banalidades tipo «work hard» o «never give up»), peso del hablante (prioridad para los multimillonarios, luego los multimillonarios con nombre conocido). 206 citas de multimillonarios pasaron por el filtro. Resultado: 42 citas de multimillonarios, 8 de multimillonarios reconocidos. Frases que dan en el blanco y se quedan en la memoria.

Dinero y riqueza

1. “The champagne doesn’t get any better at a certain level. The women don’t get prettier at a certain level. The beaches don’t get any nicer.” – empresario que vendió su compañía por más de $1B

2. “Rich is loud, wealth is quiet.” – Vic Keller

3. “It takes the same effort to make $1 to make a hundred million.” – John Ruiz

4. “The C students run the world. The B students work for them and the A students are the doctors, the lawyers and the CPAs.” – Ken

5. “Money does not buy you happiness. Money buys you freedom. That’s all it’s about.” – Peter Tuchman

6. “Money is a mirage. My biggest strength is I can be happy with nothing.” – Adam Whitesman

7. “You can’t save your way to wealth.” – Ken

8. “When you’re rich is when you have 25 times your annual spend.” – Ken Ricky

9. “If you don’t come from a rich family, a rich family can come from you.” – Tony Robbins

10. “Billionaires make millionaires. Millionaires make billionaires. But I’ve never seen a billionaire make another billionaire.” – Vic Keller

11. “If you want to buy it, buy it with cash.” – Don Vultaggio (fundador de AriZona Iced Tea)

12. “We don’t borrow money at all ever for anything.” – Dave Ramsey

Ventas y negociación

13. “Put the pen across the table and the first person who talks loses.” – Stephen Cloobeck (Diamond Resorts → Hilton)

14. “Selling isn’t about convincing, it’s about helping.” – Mark Cuban

15. “Sales doesn’t require talent. The reason I’m good at it is I’m very teachable.” – Shawn Mike

16. “Do I have your permission to be ridiculously, pathetically, brutally honest with you?” – Shawn Mike

17. “If you put me in the African jungle, I’ll make also there – I will sell the property to the animals over there.” – Ran Sant

18. “Once you know how to sell, you can always start a business.” – Mark Cuban

19. “Don’t go to any negotiation without doing your homework.” – Kendra Scott

20. “You need to understand what is the customer requirement properly, listen to him.” – Ran Sant

Negocio y escala

21. “Anything that you can teach somebody to do, even if they’re half as effective as you at it, then you build something massive.” – Shawn Mike

22. “Companies are bought, not sold.” – Reed Hoffman

23. “A brand is a promise. A great brand is a promise well kept.” – Daniel Lubetzky (fundador de KIND)

24. “It takes decades and decades to build a brand. It takes minutes to kill a brand.” – Stephen Cloobeck (Diamond Resorts → Hilton)

25. “I almost never play a one-year game. I play a 10-year game.” – Reid Hoffman

26. “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” – Jimmy John

27. “If you make something people want, you’ll be okay.” – Steve Madden

28. “Marketing is very overrated. Really, what really works is a better product.” – Jim Koch

29. “Nothing ever happens unless somebody pursues a vision fanatically.” – Todd Graves

30. “Do one thing and do it better than anybody else.” – Todd Graves (Raising Cane’s)

31. “Cash flow is critical to any business. It’s your oxygen.” – Jim Keys

32. “Keep your head down, build a profitable business, not just a business that looks good topline.” – Kendra Scott

Personas y equipo

33. “If you’re going to scale and you want great people, you got to bring them along with you and they got to make a lot of money WITH you, not FOR you.” – John Morgan

34. “The best piece of advice I got is something that is not on your balance sheet, but should be on your balance sheet. Human capital.” – Stephen Cloobeck

35. “I’m not a smart guy, but I’m smart enough to go find smart guys and girls.” – John Morgan

36. “Life is a team sport, not an individual sport. Pick your team.” – Reed Hoffman

37. “If it smells like dog shit, there’s dog shit.” – John Morgan

38. “Relationships don’t mean shit in good times, but in tough times, they mean everything.” – Michael Rubin

39. “One stick is breakable. Two sticks tied together are snappable. Three sticks intertwined are unbreakable. You can’t be beat.” – Stephen Cloobeck

Mentalidad y riesgo

40. “The wall that protects you imprisons you.” – Tony Robbins

41. “If you can earn ten pounds, risk it to earn twenty, because you know you can always earn ten pounds again.” – el primer multimillonario de la industria de la marihuana medicinal

42. “Knowing what you don’t know is such a gift.” – Steve Madden

43. “Comfort is the most dangerous drug.” – Muhammad Benghati

44. “You want to go to people and say, ‘What’s wrong with my idea? Why would it fail?’ And then, ‘What do I know that they don’t know?’” – Reed Hoffman

45. “Don’t listen to the masses. The masses are entirely wrong.” – Todd Napola

46. “If you’re the smartest guy in the room, you’re in the wrong room.” – Scott, ex-CEO de una empresa pública (42 000 empleados)

Fracaso y resiliencia

47. “Nobody’s going to come save you. Nobody’s going to come discover you. The Lone Ranger’s not coming.” – Dave Ramsey

48. “I work like I can’t pay my rent next month.” – Anastasia Soare

49. “Life doesn’t quit throwing hard problems at you. You just get more used to dealing with them.” – Scott, ex-CEO de una empresa pública (42 000 empleados)

Vida y propósito

50. “If your ambition is to become a billionaire, good luck. But if your ambition is something different, you’ll do well.” – Jim Koch (fundador de Sam Adams)

Destilado de 726 entrevistas callejeras del canal School of Hard Knocks. Traducción al español preparada con cariño para los hispanohablantes.