Tycoons share their best business advice for 2014

In giving advice seek to help, not to please, your friend.  —Solon

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.—Cicero

What are the best pieces of advice from top businessmen for fellow entrepreneurs and professionals? 

Through the years I’ve had the privilege of interviewing or chatting with many top business leaders, receiving nuggets of wisdom not only about business strategies, but also on health, work ethics, people and life in general.

• Live a healthy lifestyle. On Jan. 1 I had the chance to chat with 80-year-old self-made tycoon Lucio Tan over dinner at his home and I asked about his health secrets. He said, “Take a power nap of a half hour after lunch, exercise regularly, sleep seven to eight hours a day, eat healthy and simple foods, and do not earn too much money so that you will not have too many burdens (laughs).” Tan always advised me to continuously brush up on Mandarin and to study Chinese history.

• Don’t do things on impulse. Among the many progressive business ideas and positive values cited by Henry Sy Sr., which he used to build up SM Group and BDO, he once said, “I am hands-on and personalized in my management style. I do not do things on impulse. I think long and hard about every project.”

• Create brands. John Gokongwei Jr., whose father died when he was only 13, told me that it is important to marry a good spouse and have a stable family life. Among his many business ideas, I remember he once stressed the importance of creating brands. “The important thing to know is that life will always deal us a few bad cards, but we have to play those cards the best we can,” Gokongwei said. “And we can play to win. This was one lesson I picked up when I was a teenager. It has been my guiding principle ever since. When I wanted something, the best person to depend on was myself.”

• Aim high and do your best. Metrobank Group boss George SK Ty last year told me something interesting about himself. Apart from hard work, self-discipline, having a grand vision and engaging in philanthropy, he said, “One positive trait I possess is I don’t give up. I always want to do the best at what I’m doing and to go to the highest level — that is what I aim for.”

• Treat everyone fairly. Not so long ago, the talented yet low-profile entrepreneurial couple Andrew Gotianun and Mercedes Tan-Gotianun told me one guiding principle in their decades of successful business ventures and deal-making: “Treat everyone fairly.”

Just before Christmas, Business Insider writers Max Nisen and Jenna Goudreau sought out 12 successful American entrepreneurs to share the best advice they ever got. Here they are:

• See every detail of your business. Restaurateur and TV show Bar Rescue host Jon Taffer said, “Years ago when I was very young, a VP of Hyatt looked at me and said, ‘You look, but you don’t see. See every crack, every detail, I learned to really see and not just look at my business.”

• Don’t give up. Dilbert comic strip creator Scott Adams said, “The best advice I got was before I was a syndicated cartoonist. I asked advice of a professional cartoonist, Jack Cassady, who had a TV show called Funny Business years ago on PBS. I wrote to him, and he gave me this advice: ‘It’s a competitive business, but don’t give up… I put some comics together and sent them to magazines — The New Yorker, Playboy — but they rejected them. So I said, ‘Oh well, I tried.’ A year later, I get a second letter from Cassady. He’d been cleaning his office and came across my original samples. He said he was just writing to me to make sure that I hadn’t given up. And I had. So I took out my art supplies, and I decided to raise my sights. I had to do one more thing for luck to find me.”

• Being comfortable is the enemy. Advertising entrepreneur Sara Rotman of ModCo said, “The best advice I ever received was from my first accountant when I was discussing the launch of my company. We were speaking about my business plan and how much money to borrow to launch. She wisely said, ‘Only have enough cash on hand to barely survive; never so much that you are comfortable. It’s important to stay scared in the beginning.’ I have found this hunger to be an incredibly important motivator during my entire career. Being comfortable is the enemy. Staying hungry forces you to push yourself to continue to survive, grow, and evolve.”

• There are no shortcuts. Billionaire Mark Cuban got this piece of advice from his dad:  “Do the work. Out-work. Out-think. Out-sell your expectations. There are no shortcuts. He was always very encouraging but also realistic.”

• It’s okay to ask for help. Lululemon founder Chip Wilson said, “It took me a long time to understand it, but (the advice was) to ask for help and that I don’t know it all. People love to help. I don’t have to be insecure and know it all.” He got this insight at the Landmark Forum, a weekend workshop he attended in 1991.

• You are who you associate with. Entrepreneur and The 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferriss said, “The best advice I ever got is: You’re the average of the five people you associate with the most.” Ferriss got this advice from a wrestling coach when he was in high school, and has never forgotten it. “I use it always, whether it’s choosing start-ups to invest in, choosing investors, sports teams to join, or people to have dinner with. Constantly, I think about this.”

• Get into a business where you can be a big fish. Camping World CEO Marcus Lemonis said, “The best advice I ever got was from Lee Iaccoca, who was very influential in my career. It was very simple. It was get into a business where you can be a big fish, not the little fish. Get into a business where you can be a change agent, where you can make a difference.”

• Simplicity is everything. Acre Farms CEO Dan Horan said, “Simplicity is really important. It’s got to be simple, and sometimes to make something simple you have to really, really study everything about it. It might turn out to be complex, but you have to present it simply, particularly when it comes to people: when people buy something, they don’t want a lecture.”

• Your time is a precious commodity. Hello Design CEO David Lai said, “When I was growing up my father would always tell me, ‘We all only have 24 hours a day. ’It’s what we choose to do with that time that defines us. It’s the one thing you can never get back.”

• Insults can be the best advice. Real estate tycoon Barbara Corcoran said, “My best advice was an insult. It’s kind of weird. The best advice was the worst advice. It was from my boyfriend and partner in my first business when he told me I would never succeed without him. I was injured, no doubt. But thank God he insulted me because I would not have built a big business without that. It kept me trying everything because I couldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me fail. So the best advice was an insult.”

• If you’re not being told ‘no’ constantly, you’re not pushing hard enough. NewsCred CEO Shafqat Islam said, “Multiple people have told me this, and I don’t know if I can credit it to a single person, but one thing that I think about is if you’re not getting told ‘no’ enough times a day, you’re probably not doing it right or you’re probably not pushing yourself hard enough.”

• Learn to say ‘no’ and focus on what you do best. SumAll CEO Dane Atkinson said, “One thing that I’ve slowly come to realize is that focus is so critically important. Saying to great ideas is necessary to get to the brilliant ones. At every step of the way you have to cut towards one path. It’s such a hard thing to do as an entrepreneur because you don’t really have the confidence in where you’re going yourself.”

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