Andy's Favourite One-Liners

[Andy Black]

I love collecting quotes and boiling thoughts down to one-liners.

I've had this list for a few years and always meant to expand on each. They're not organised, and I need to attribute them. I'll do this over time.

Thought I'd drop the list in here in case some of them resonate with you.

Let me know if you have questions about any, and what your favourite are.

1. What's the best that can happen?
2. I am enough. Because I say I am. (Craig Desorcey)
3. You have to eliminate to focus.
4. Pick a direction. Get started. Keep going.
5. Hell yeah, or no. (Derek Sivers)
6. If it’s not a hit, switch. (Derek Sivers)
7. If you can make it free then you can vaporize your competitors’ business model. (From "Free" by Chris Anderson)
8. There are no f*cking secrets.
9. If it’s not a B2B play then it’s a B2C play, and you’re the C.
10. The biggest lie is that it’s not that simple. It is that simple. (From some movie I can't remember)
11. What if you already know enough? (Craig Desorcey)
12. You don’t need to be on any lists brother, it’s already within you. (Craig Desorcey)
13. Who can you help?
14. If money was no object, what work would you be doing? (Craig Desorcey)
15. What’s stopping you? (Craig Desorcey)
16. Don’t automate too soon. Welcome the high friction, it sharpens your sword.
17. Engage the market in hand-to-hand combat.
18. Move faster dammit.
19. I am speeed. (Lightning McQueen)
20. Avoid "Yes, but."
21. Overthinking is the art of solving problems you don’t already have.
22. Hurdles are stepping stones in disguise. (Blaise Brosnan)
23. If you’re not encountering new problems then you’re stuck.
24. Don’t ask how. Focus on what needs done and why.
25. There are a million different ways how.
26. Ask a silly question, get a silly answer. (Andy Black Snr)
27. Ask better questions.
28. If you’ve nothing nice to say, say nothing. (Grandma Black)
29. 10% will pay 10 times as much. (James Schramko)
30. 20% will pay 4 times as much. (Perry Marshall)
31. 80/20 squared is 64/4. Which 4% of your customers accounts for 64% of your profits? (Perry Marshall)
32. I’m doing it anyway.
33. Stop asking for permission. Just f*cking do it already.
34. Levels of value:
    I’ll show you how.
    I’ll work with you.
    I’ll do it for you.
    I’m doing it anyway.
    I’ve already done it, do you want it or not?
35. Sales happen when you get the right people to the right offer at the right time.
36. What’s better than low hanging fruit? Apples already falling out of the tree.
37. Feed the starving crowd. (Gary Halbert)
38. Darken the page. (Gary Halbert)
39. Figure it out.
40. If you're still talking about the same thing a month later, then you’re a wantrapreneur.
41. Find out if it’s got legs, or needs a bullet.
42. The internet is just one big lead generation machine.
43. Consider product-founder fit. (Dan Norris)
44. Your About You page should be about them.
45. Everyone’s tuned to WiiFM (What’s in it For Me?).
46. Are you an action-taker or course-taker?
47. Wisdom is earned.
48. Stop trying to impress an invisible board of MBAs. (Derek Sivers)
49. You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want. (Zig Ziglar)
50. You have to give to receive.
51. If you complete the transaction then it won’t come back to you in other ways. (Craig Desorcey)
52. Give thanks.
53. Talk to everyone.
54. Enjoy the journey.
55. You can’t break tackles at marathon pace. (Blaise Brosnan)
56. Are they street-smart? (Blaise Brosnan)
57. Be wary when someone tells you how great you are and how much they look forward to working with you. You’re being set up. (Blaise Brosnan)
58. How you do anything is how you do anything.
59. They aren’t a customer till they have a custom of buying from you.
60. Businesses exist to create customers. (Peter Drucker)
61. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go in a team.
62. If you want to go fast and far, go in a small team.
63. If your only growth strategy is to increase prices then you’re a consultant not an entrepreneur.
64. The fun is in the squiggly bits on the map.
65. A stream with no rocks is a stream with no song.
66. It’s all part of the rich tapestry of life.
67. Keep moving.
68. Woohoo it’s Monday! It’s like New Years Day every week.
69. Woohoo, one in a row!
70. Don’t make them think. (The title of a book on website design)
71. Get buyers to your page and gtf out of their way.
72. Go on the B of Bang. (My athletics coach when I was a teenager)
73. If you're comfortable you’re not moving fast enough.
74. Procrastination stops you starting. Perfectionism stops you finishing. Both are fear of shipping.
75. Ship.
76. Start (@Vigilante)
77. Stop looking where you’re going. Look where you want to go. (Any advanced motorbiker)
78. Keep doing the right thing and the results will follow.
79. Nothing’s so f*cked up you can’t f*ck it up more. (Me when managing mission critical IT systems)
80. It’s not repeatable until someone else has done it.
81. Stop building stuff.
82. Business is about building relationships.
83. Dump it. Delegate it. Defer it. Do it. (Blaise Brosnan)
84. It’s not about what *you* want.
85. Be wary of people who say “you need to”.
86. Want to be known as The XYZ Guy? Help people with XYZ
87. Stop asking people to PM you ffs.
88. Be so good they can’t ignore you. (Steve Martin)
89. Catch them when they’re good.
90. Praise in public. Criticism in private.
91. It’s my fault. (Any leader who wants their staff to fix problems)
92. Stop following the herd if you want to see less arseholes and smell less BS.
93. The lad who washed your windows didn’t need an MBA, a business plan,or a website.
94. If no-one’s paying you then you don’t have a business, you have a hobby.
95. The single most important skill an entrepreneur can have is to control the silence. (Blaise Brosnan)
96. It’s the extra twist that makes all the difference. (Blaise Brosnan)
97. Sometimes a problem shared is two people with the same problem.
98. In a two sided marketplace, start by getting the people who want to give their money to someone.
99. Give people what they want.
100. If everyone’s selling shovels then who’s left to dig for gold?
101. Not everyone who can do can teach.
102. Teaching is a skill itself.
103. When you give a few books away it leaves space on your book shelf for new books.
104. “I don’t have time” is a polite way of saying it’s not as important as what I’m doing right now. (Blaise Brosnan)
105. Be curious, not furious.
106. Be the type of person people want to buy from.
107. People refer you if you turn up on time, have manners, do what you say you’re going to do (or let people know if things slip), and you’re competent. (Dan Sullivan)
108. Your lack of planning is not my emergency. (Me supporting mission critical IT systems)
109. A stream with no rocks is a stream with no song.
110. Price it so you'll be delighted if they said Yes.
111. Prioritise quantity of time with your family and quality of time with your business.
112. Do what others don't think to do, don't know how to do, or don't want to do.
113. Once is a mistake, twice is a decision.
114. You don’t need a website, you need sales.
115. It’s the job of the business owner to ask good questions, and get someone else to answer them.
116. A project managers job is to pass a test.
117. Time management is a myth. It’s all about prioritisation. (Blaise Brosnan)
118. You can get money from customers or investors, but not both.
119. Your infrastructure needs people, processes, and technology, in that order.
120. Learn the skill. Sell the skill. Scale the skill.
121. The most important formula in business is R+R=Profit. Repeat Business plus Referrals equals Profit. (Blaise Brosnan)
122. Good things happen when you move at pace.
123. Money can't be in two places at once. (Blaise Brosnan)
124. You don't learn until you launch. (Dan Norris)
125. Tell me what you've done and I'll tell you who you are.
126. The person who'll run with the ball is the person who catches it.
127. You can complete a project by dropping it. (Arianna Huffington)
128. You can go slower than you think.
129. Start simple and then add complexity if necessary. (Shane O’Leary)
130. You can't invoice for input. (Blaise Brosnan)
131. You can't steer a parked car. (James Schramko)
132. Business is simple. Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
133. Money is proof you helped your fellow man. (MJ DeMarco)
134. Take what other people say with a pinch of salt. Whenever I hear “You should”, “You need to”, or “It’s best to” then I always wonder “Hmm... is that really true? What if I did the opposite?
135. Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest to you. (Mother Theresa)
136. You can’t sell to someone who needs something but doesn’t want it.
137. Fulfil demand that’s already there before generating more demand.
138. What will you do to make a sale this week?
139. Find out asap if the person in front of you sees the value in what you do, or just the cost. (Blaise Brosnan)
140. Spend your money on diesel and coffee. (Blaise Brosnan)
141. You're selling the wrong product.
142. Help the people in motion. (Amy Hoy)
143. If you’re providing a marketing service then your clients don’t pay you, their customers do.
144. Sales is a screening process. (Blaise Brosnan)
145. Who already has your clients? (Jay Abraham)
146. Sales cures all.
147. The person who speaks first loses.
148. State your price then stfu.
149. Landing pages don't convert. People do.
150. They’re not clicks, they’re visitors
151. If you’re calling it traffic then you still don’t get it.
152. Show, don’t tell.
153. Your market is a demonstrated cashflow, not a demographic. (A Tropical MBA podcast)
154. People listen to experts, they follow leaders. (Dan Gallappo)
155. Who’s got my money? (Grant Cardone)
156. Have a fallback position. (Me supporting mission critical IT systems)
157. Are they searching with a cup of coffee in their hand, or their credit card?
158. You don't get rich saving $5/day. Spend $5/day on ads instead and see where that takes you.
159. You don't make money, you earn money.
160. Money already exists. It flows around us. Hence the words cashflow and currency. Your job is to get some of it to flow through you. (Grant Cardone?)
161. Don't say different things to the same people. Say the same thing to different people.
162. Your step's too short

 

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[Antifragile]

Great list! I vote for instant gold thread.


What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

Think slow, act fast.

Make no small plans.

 

[Vigilante]

Marked gold

 

[Isaac Odongo]

1. You don't make money, you earn money.
2. Money already exists. It flows around us. Hence the words cashflow and currency. Your job is to get some of it to flow through you.

I love these two first. Now I understand well why the making money phrase is obnoxious in the TFF. Those two points agree with the core principle of providing value, even perceived value to earn money, and doing something to get others buying it.

Pick a direction. Get started. Keep going.

I love this one big. Focus. Laser. Sniper. THE ONE THING. Don't be the hyena who was chasing two goats. When the goats ran where two roads diverged, each took either, the hyena remained at crossroads, trying to run this side and that side at the same time so he could get both goats until the goats disappeared in the horizons. And the hyena never had dinner that day.

Take what other people say with a pinch of salt. Whenever I hear “You should”, “You need to”, or “It’s best to” then I always wonder “Hmm... is that really true? What if I did the opposite?

This probably is a pillar in my choice making processes. I need to remember this always and do it each and every time I see an opportunity.

You don’t need a website, you need sales.

When the time comes I will find out how this figures in my very near future. I will determine it.

Overthinking is the art of solving problems you don’t already have.

What do I want to do next? What do I want to start it today? This makes it very simple. For example: I want an app. I first do the flowcharts and the Pseudocode. I draw them on paper or on a software, function by function, operation by operation till the process is done. Or I write code for one function at a time. This is an assumed example. If doing something takes too long to accomplish it is probably too difficult. Perhaps you need to simplify it or do something else.

IT is a great thread started here.
I have heard and read money loves speed.

~Isaac~

 

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[Subsonic]

I collect quotes and love boiling thoughts down to one-liners.

I've had this in a Trello board for a couple of years and always meant to expand on each.
They're not organised, and I need to attribute them. I'll do that over time.

Thought I'd drop the list in here in case some of them resonate with you.

Let me know if you have questions about any, and what your favourite are.

1. What's the best that can happen?
2. I am enough. Because I say I am. (Craig Desorcey)
3. You have to eliminate to focus.
4. Pick a direction. Get started. Keep going.
5. Hell yeah, or no. (Derek Sivers)
6. If it’s not a hit, switch. (Derek Sivers)
7. If you can make it free then you can vaporize your competitors’ business model. (From "Free" by Chris Anderson)
8. There are no f*cking secrets.
9. If it’s not a B2B play then it’s a B2C play, and you’re the C.
10. The biggest lie is that it’s not that simple. It is that simple. (From some movie I can't remember)
11. What if you already know enough? (Craig Desorcey)
12. You don’t need to be on any lists brother, it’s already within you. (Craig Desorcey)
13. Who can you help?
14. If money was no object, what work would you be doing? (Craig Desorcey)
15. What’s stopping you? (Craig Desorcey)
16. Don’t automate too soon. Welcome the high friction, it sharpens your sword.
17. Engage the market in hand-to-hand combat.
18. Move faster dammit.
19. I am speeed. (Lightning McQueen)
20. Avoid "Yes, but."
21. Overthinking is the art of solving problems you don’t already have.
22. Hurdles are stepping stones in disguise. (Blaise Brosnan)
23. If you’re not encountering new problems then you’re stuck.
24. Don’t ask how. Focus on what needs done and why.
25. There are a million different ways how.
26. Ask a silly question, get a silly answer. (Andy Black Snr)
27. Ask better questions.
28. If you’ve nothing nice to say, say nothing. (Grandma Black)
29. 10% will pay 10 times as much. (James Schramko)
30. 20% will pay 4 times as much. (Perry Marshall)
31. 80/20 squared is 64/4. Which 4% of your customers accounts for 64% of your profits? (Perry Marshall)
32. I’m doing it anyway.
33. Stop asking for permission. Just f*cking do it already.
34. Levels of value:
    I’ll show you how.
    I’ll work with you.
    I’ll do it for you.
    I’m doing it anyway.
    I’ve already done it, do you want it or not?
35. Sales happen when the right people get to the right offer at the right time.
36. What’s better than low hanging fruit?
37. Feed the starving crowd. (Gary Halbert)
38. Darken the page. (Gary Halbert)
39. Figure it out.
40. If you're still talking about the same thing a month later, then you’re a wantrapreneur.
41. Find out if it’s got legs, or needs a bullet.
42. The internet is just one big lead generation machine.
43. Consider product-founder fit. (Dan Norris)
44. Your about you page should be about them.
45. Everyone’s tuned to WiiFM (What’s in it For Me?).
46. Are you an action-taker or course-taker?
47. Wisdom is earned.
48. Stop trying to impress an invisible board of MBAs. (Derek Sivers)
49. You can have anything you want in life if you help others get what they want. (Zig Ziglar)
50. You have to give to receive
51. If you complete the transaction then it won’t come back to you in other ways. (Craig Desorcey)
52. Give thanks.
53. Talk to everyone.
54. Enjoy the journey.
55. You can’t break tackles at marathon pace. (Blaise Brosnan)
56. Are they street-smart? (Blaise Brosnan)
57. Be wary when someone tells you how great you are and how much they look forward to working with you. You’re being set up. (Blaise Brosnan)
58. How you do anything is how you do anything.
59. They aren’t a customer till they have a custom of buying from you.
60. Businesses exist to create customers. (Peter Drucker)
61. If you want to move fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go in a team.
62. If you want to go fast and far, go in a small team.
63. If your only growth strategy is to increase prices then you’re a consultant not an entrepreneur.
64. The fun is in the squiggly bits on the map.
65. A stream with no rocks is a stream with no song.
66. It’s all part of the rich tapestry of life.
67. Keep moving.
68. Woohoo it’s Monday! It’s like New Years Day every week.
69. Woohoo, one in a row!
70. Don’t make them think. (The title of a book on website design)
71. Get buyers to your page and gtf out of their way.
72. Go on the B of Bang. (My athletics coach when I was a teenager)
73. If your comfortable you’re not moving fast enough.
74. Procrastination stops you starting. Perfectionism stops you finishing. Both are fear of shipping.
75. Ship.
76. Start (@Vigilante)
77. Stop looking where you’re going. Look where you want to go. (Any advanced motorbiker)
78. Keep doing the right thing and the results will follow.
79. Nothing’s so f*cked up you can’t f*ck it up more. (Me when managing mission critical IT systems)
80. It’s not really repeatable until someone else can do it.
81. Stop building stuff.
82. Business is about building relationships.
83. Dump it. Delegate it. Defer it. Do it. (Blaise Brosnan)
84. It’s not about what *you* want.
85. Be wary of people who say “you need to”.
86. Want to be known as The XYZ Guy? Help people with XYZ
87. Stop asking people to PM you ffs.
88. Be so good they can’t ignore you. (Steve Martin)
89. Catch them when they’re good.
90. Praise in public. Criticism in private.
91. It’s my fault.
92. Stop following the herd if you want to see less arseholes and smell less BS.
93. The lad who washed your windows didn’t need an MBA, a business plan,or a website.
94. If no-one’s paying you then you don’t have a business, you have a hobby.
95. The single most important skill an entrepreneur can have is to control the silence. (Blaise Brosnan)
96. It’s the extra twist that makes all the difference. (Blaise Brosnan)
97. Sometimes a problem shared is two people with the same problem.
98. In a two sided marketplace, start by getting the people who want to give their money to someone.
99. Give people what they want.
100. If everyone’s selling shovels then who’s left to dig for gold?
101. Not everyone who can do can teach.
102. Teaching is a skill itself.
103. When you give a few books away it leaves space for new books to come in.
104. “I don’t have time” is a polite way of saying it’s not as important as what I’m doing right now. (Blaise Brosnan)
105. Be curious, not furious.
106. Be the type of person people want to buy from.
107. People refer you if you turn up on time, have manners, do what you say you’re going to do (or let people know if things slip), and you’re competent. (Dan Sullivan)
108. Your lack of planning is not my emergency. (Me supporting mission critical IT systems)
109. A stream with no rocks is a stream with no song.
110. Price it so you'll be delighted if they said yes.
111. It’s the quantity of time with family and quality of time with business.
112. Do what others don't think to do, don't know how to do, or don't want to do.
113. Once is a mistake, twice is a decision.
114. You don’t need a website, you need sales.
115. It’s the job of the business owner to ask good questions, and get someone else to answer them.
116. A project managers job is to pass a test.
117. Time management is a myth. It’s all about prioritisation. (Blaise Brosnan)
118. You can get money from customers or investors, but not both.
119. Your infrastructure needs people, processes, and technology, in that order.
120. Learn the skill. Sell the skill. Scale the skill.
121. The most important formula in business is R+R=Profit. Repeat Business plus Referrals equals Profit. (Blaise Brosnan)
122. Good things happen when you move at pace.
123. Money can't be in two places at once.
124. You don't learn until you launch. (Dan Norris)
125. Tell me what you've done and I'll tell you who you are.
126. The person who'll run with the ball is the person who catches it.
127. You can complete a project by dropping it.
128. You can go slower than you think.
129. Start simple and then add complexity if necessary. (Shane O’Leary)
130. You can't invoice for input. (Blaise Brosnan)
131. You can't steer a parked car. (James Schramko)
132. Business is simple. Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
133. Money is proof you helped your fellow man. (MJ DeMarco)
134. Take what other people say with a pinch of salt. Whenever I hear “You should”, “You need to”, or “It’s best to” then I always wonder “Hmm... is that really true? What if I did the opposite?
135. Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest to you. (Mother Theresa)
136. You can’t sell to someone who needs something but doesn’t want it.
137. Fulfil demand that’s already there before generating more demand.
138. What will you do to make a sale this week?
139. Find out asap if the person in front of you sees the value in what you do, or just the cost. (Blaise Brosnan)
140. Talk To People FFS.
141. Spend your money on diesel and coffee. (Blaise Brosnan)
142. You're selling the wrong product.
143. Help the people in motion. (Amy Hoy)
144. If you’re providing a marketing service then your clients don’t pay you, their customers do.
145. Sales is a screening process. (Blaise Brosnan)
146. Who already has your clients? (Jay Abraham)
147. Sales cures all.
148. The person who speaks first loses.
149. State your price then stfu.
150. Landing pages don't convert. People do.
151. They’re not clicks, they’re visitors
152. If you’re calling it traffic then you still don’t get it.
153. Show, don’t tell.
154. Your market is a demonstrated cashflow, not a demographic. (A Tropical MBA podcast)
155. People listen to experts, they follow leaders. (Dan Gallappo)
156. Who’s got my money? (Grant Cardone)
157. Have a fallback position. (Me supporting mission critical IT systems)
158. One ad group with lots of keywords and ads is WRONG.
159. Are they searching with a cup of coffee in their hand, or their credit card?
160. You don't get rich saving $5/day. Spend $5/day on ads instead and see where that takes you.
161. You don't make money, you earn money.
162. Money already exists. It flows around us. Hence the words cashflow and currency. Your job is to get some of it to flow through you.

"You don't get rich saving 5€/day. Spent 5€/day on ads and see where that takes you" is my favorite.

Another good one I heard recently is this:
If your going through hell, keep going. (Winston Churchill)

 

[Bohemi]

Ask better questions

this has the power to create real magic <3

Im sure there is a lot of amazing one liners in your thread, but I just skimmed it and my eyes paused at this for a perfectly good reason (I needed this reminder thanks for that @Andy Black )

 

[Antifragile]

Not a one liner but one of the most powerful concepts… that we all already know but often need a reminder


"Did you ever consider how ridiculous it would be to try to cram on a farm—to forget to plant in the spring, play all summer and then cram in the fall to bring in the harvest? The farm is a natural system. The price must be paid and the process followed. You always reap what you sow; there is no shortcut." (Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)

 

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[buscus.stan]

Fantastic list! My favorite ones from your list:

41. Find out if it’s got legs, or needs a bullet.
42. The internet is just one big lead generation machine.
79. Nothing’s so f*cked up you can’t f*ck it up more. (the corollary to this one is: what has been F*cked, cannot be unfucked)
117. Time management is a myth. It’s all about prioritisation. (Blaise Brosnan)
132. Business is simple. Help people. Get paid. Help more people.

Some of my favorite ones:
Be good to people for no reason

Wherever you are, make sure you're there (Dan Sullivan)

Build your own dreams or someone else will hire you to build theirs (Farrah Gray)

Why? Why not?

and one that is funny, but not that funny when I'm at the town hall waiting in line for the 5th time because some incompetent moron doesn't value someone else's time

I do random acts of kindness every day, I want to kill people but I don't

 

[Nazca]

If you do easy things, life will be hard.
If you do difficult things, life will be easy.

Great minds discuss ideas
Average minds discuss events
Small minds discuss people.

EDIT:

Be wary when someone tells you how great you are and how much they look forward to working with you. You’re being set up.

Can someone elaborate on this?

 

[Andy Black]

Can someone elaborate on this?

Just be wary when people gush and gush and gush about how good your work is and how much opportunity they see in you working with them on some fantastic projects that are going to blow your business up and really leverage your potential to the fullest beyond your wildest dreams... gush gush gush.

 

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[Nazca]

Just be wary when people gush and gush and gush about how good your work is and how much opportunity they see in you working with them on some fantastic projects that are going to blow your business up and really leverage your potential to the fullest beyond your wildest dreams... gush gush gush.

Thanks for clarifying

 

[Nazca]

You are the average of the 5 people you hang out the most with.

 

[Jinzou]

Love this thread. Thanks Andy.

If I may add some of my favorites, which kept me going for the last years:

1. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results - Albert Einstein
2. Your dreams aren't big enough if they don't scare you.
3. If we don't live to help each other, what are we living for?
4. Get going. We don't have time to get experienced in everything before acting. - Jesse Itzler
5. Are you aware of your mortality? - Jesse Itzler

 

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[Andy Black]

Love this thread. Thanks Andy.

If I may add some of my favorites, which kept me going for the last years:

1. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results - Albert Einstein
2. Your dreams aren't big enough if they don't scare you.
3. If we don't live to help each other, what are we living for?
4. Get going. We don't have time to get experienced in everything before acting. - Jesse Itzler
5. Are you aware of your mortality? - Jesse Itzler

Whoa. Thanks for these, and thanks for the bump. I forgot I'd created this thread.