I am still looking for the modern equivalent of those Quakers who ran successful businesses and made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently . . . This business creed, sadly, seems long forgotten.
It is true that there is a fine line between entrepreneurship and insanity. Crazy people see and feel things that others don't. But you have to believe that everything is possible. If you believe it, those around you will believe it too.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Entrepreneurship often requires bold thinking that can seem irrational to others, but belief in possibilities can inspire those around you.
Anita Roddick suggests that entrepreneurship might be perceived as a fine line between creativity and madness, as it often involves ideas and visions that the average person may not comprehend. However, she emphasizes the importance of belief in potential, stating that if you hold a conviction that anything is achievable, you can motivate and influence others to share that vision, making the seemingly impossible a collective reality.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech to aspiring entrepreneurs, you could use this quote to inspire belief in their ideas.
More from Anita Roddick
All quotes →I started The Body Shop in 1976 simply to create a livelihood for myself and my two daughters, while my husband, Gordon, was trekking across the Americas. I had no training or experience and my only business acumen was Gordon's advice to take sales of £300 a week. Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.
If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.
But if you can create an honorable livelihood, where you take your skills and use them and you earn a living from it, it gives you a sense of freedom and allows you to balance your life the way you want.
Quite apart from anything else, my experience is trying to change things for the better makes you feel better, healthier. Humans are communicative animals: when you do good in a community, the benefits eventually get back to you.
First, you have to have fun. Second, you have to put love where your labour is. Third, you have to go in the opposite direction to everyone else.
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