Growing up I’ve always had the passion for business and Bill Gates was someone who I had always looked up to and kept an eye on. I’m sure a lot of people felt this same way, as Bill Gates was the common person of choice when you thought of someone who was super successful and rich. This of course was before the rise of the internet.

As a kid who was always coming up with new ways to make money and run businesses, I often heard the phrase “He’s the next Bill Gates!” – it’s not that I was making a TON of money in my pre-teens/early teens, but is that I had the same mentality and passion that Bill probably had when he was starting his first companies and Microsoft.

I thought it would be fun to reflect back on the years and see how some of Bill Gates’s most notable quotes apply to myself and business in general. Feel free to grab any of these quotes and post them on your blog, social networks or whatever you like.

“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”

This quote is very true in the world of online marketing. One day you can make an amazing web site, mobile app or ad campaign and do $100,000 in profit in a few short weeks, then you can start thinking you are the king of the world and then the campaign dies out. You always need to stay on your toes and make sure you keep your feet on the ground.

“Life is not fair, get used to it.”

Life definitely isn’t fair… what happened to someone and not to others is all of the difference in the world. Why did this person have to die, why did another get to win the lottery, why do nice people always finish last? – all common questions that just prove life isn’t fair, however that doesn’t mean everything has to happen by chance. Nearly all entrepreneurs are successful because of their own ambition, passion and dedication to succeed. While life may very well be unfair, you do still have a fighting chance to take charge and make the most out of it.