Managing Your Business

35 Alex Rodriguez Business Quotes For an All-Star Career

March 1, 2023 5 min. read

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Quotes about entrepreneurship

So many entrepreneurs start from the bottom because they have to and work themselves up.
The most important things I’ve done are surrounding myself with much smarter people, and continuing to be a lifelong student.
VCP stands for vision, capital, people. What is the vision? How much capital do you need? Do I have the right people in place?
Confidence, conviction, and sticking to your guns is the right thing to do.
Have a crystal-clear vision of who you want to be—one, three, five years from now.
My brain is wired to say, what is the opportunity here?
Business and entrepreneurship, like baseball, is so difficult. While fun, it will bring you to your knees more often than not.

When you get into a situation and you get cornered, you have two choices. You can either tap out and quit, or you can look in the mirror and take full accountability.
When you mess up, raise your hand and say, “It was my fault.”
I had to rewire my brain and understand the difference between right and wrong. When you get it wrong, get out there, do it fast, do it now, do it quick, and put it behind you.
I take a lot of lessons, the good, the bad, and the losses, the strikeouts, and I’ve brought them to the boardroom in business.
Problems only get bigger. They don’t get smaller.

As a young entrepreneur, are you better off with a team or four or five that are all B or C players? Are you better off with one or two A-plus players, and then wait as you expand your roster?
When things go well, you can go in the background and let others take the lead.
As a leader, think twice if you’re asking one of your teammates to do something. If you’re not willing to do it yourself, then you probably shouldn’t tell them to do it.
When you put a contract in front of anyone… if you turn it around, would you sign it? If the answer’s no… that’s not a way to build trust and build bridges. That’s a way to be coy and burn bridges.
Some people are very fortunate that they have present parents. A lot of them, all they have to do is sit at the dinner table every night, and there’s your leadership.
When we win, everybody gets a taste of champagne, not just the principals.

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When you have partners or investors, lead with the bad news. Creating that transparency will pay great dividends for any entrepreneur.
You can’t win a championship without great people around you. Not only talented, but aligned in character, in vision, in work ethic, in grit, and everyone at the door checking their ego.
Diverse teams are better. Once we got in that clubhouse, it didn’t matter what color, what gender, what age. It just mattered that we all brought something to the party that helped us win.
You’re looking for people that have great self-awareness, that are totally accountable, that are never going to point the finger when things are going bad.

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If you and I are going to do business, and your competition can give me a 15% return on my money and you can only give me 12%, but I like you, I respect you, 10 out of 10 times I’m gonna go with you.
Spend more time on your relationships, your trust, your likeability, and solving problems for your customers.
I don’t want to just do one [deal], charge a premium, and leave a poor taste in your mouth. Yes, I got my win today, but I burned a bridge.

A lot of people collect art, collect baseball cards. I’m a big believer in collecting great people and mentors.
If you’re willing to have the courage to pick up the phone… 9 out of 10 times you’ll be surprised that most people are willing to help and share their stories. A lot of times, you can’t shut them up.
Fast forward to when you’re 85 years old, sitting in your rocking chair, telling great stories. Your career success will have two things: your net worth will resemble your network. So really think about building those relationships over the years.

Understanding the way business works and the way capital markets open up, how not all revenue is created equal, the importance of revenue versus net earnings—all of that is really important.
Some of the greatest people that I’ve seen in business don’t have fancy degrees from great universities.
Mom had two jobs and Pops left when I was 10. I really had to understand that I needed to learn my virtues and educate myself outside of home, outside of dinner time every night.

I had a dream when I was 10 years old. I call it the two B’s. I wanted to be a Major League Baseball player, and I wanted to be in business.
Part of the reason I got into real estate is we were lifelong renters… I was inspired by fear. When I signed my first professional contract with the Seattle Mariners, the first thing I did was buy my mom a house.
When I think about my life, I hope that I get to be an example and a role model of someone who has gone as high as anybody and even lower than anybody, and yet has learned from his mistakes and applied those lessons learned.
Hopefully as the son of two immigrant parents, as a Latino that sits in a boardroom, that owns an NBA team, that’s had the great privilege of playing baseball, [I want] to leave that door open in the boardroom and bring others with me.

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