Bruce Lee: 10 Success Principles About Life and Business

Bruce Lee, one of the most famous successful actors and martial artists, is also one of my favorite success models. Did you know that before he became an artist, he was in philosophy? He has many amazing quotes that really make me think and inspire me to be successful.

Below are the 10 success principles in life and business from Bruce Lee. These are the quotes and his philosophy…

1.I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

Practice, practice and practice! No matter what industry or business you are in, you need consistently practice your skill to master it. Just like all the champion athletes, they practice the basics everyday until they are so good in it that they cannot get it wrong. Of course, practice is not going to make you perfect, practice will only make things permanent. The real way to practice is to do the deliberate practice. You practice the right way.

Look at Richard Branson, he is doing what he loves every single day, creating business and improving his business reach, grow his business and enjoy his business activities. He has been doing it for so many years, no wonder he is good in business, right? What about Donald Trump? The same, he talks about real estate and negotiate on the deals every day, and he becomes a successful real estate businessman. What about you? What did you do and practice every day?

2. If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.

Yes, if you look at life, it is made of time. Time is the most limited resource that we have in our life. You can sleep until 11am today, wake up, watch movie until 2pm, have your lunch, spend the next 6 hours playing computer games and the whole night partying. It is your choice. This is your life. However, remember this, whatever you choose to do, there is no way that you can turn back time and re-live the day.

Whatever you have done and has gone, will be gone forever. So don’t live a life you will regret. Do whatever you want to do and make the right choice right now. You have a chance to live a different life. You are given an opportunity to live the life you choose.

3. Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.

In other word, change. You need change to survive. If you look at the business world today, all the old businesses from 20 years ago are either gone or they innovate and change to fit to the current market. You cannot survive doing the same thing over and over again while the time has change and market has shifted.

Couple of years back a lot of people are into Japanese dramas and movies, but now the market has shifted to the Koreans. Look at the company that invented hand phones, where do Motorola stands today? What about Ford? The first automobile company that mass manufactured cars, but Ford is not the number one selling car company in the world. Time will change and things will change. And so you need to change to adapt to the market as well.

I like this quote very much, “The only thing that will never change is that the world will always be changing.”

4. If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.

Thinking itself is not enough. Things will never happen through thoughts alone. You cannot just think about reaching your dreams, you must do and take action. There is nothing wrong about spending time thinking and planning about what you want and what is the next step. You have to understand that some time in order to move forward, what you need is not thinking or planning, is just simply start and do it.

Don’t just think about living the dreams you desire. Don’t just thinking about driving the sport car you want. Don’t just think about building your business empire or making huge money and get to enjoy life. You can have plenty of time to enjoy after that, but first, you must do it.

5. To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.

Opportunities are everywhere, it is just that we are not trained to see them. If you look at the world as it is today, there are no more opportunities. Want to build a shopping mall? There’s Wal-Mart to conquer all. Want to build a software company? Can you beat Microsoft? Love animation and want to do animation? There’s Disney and Pixar. Want to venture into social networking? What about the famous Facebook? Want to do e-commerce? There’s already the big players like Amazon and recently shot to fame Alibaba.

As you can see, there’s almost no more space for you to build your name and your brand out there. But you have to know this, there will be more companies and brand names introducing to the world in the next 10 years which you have never heard about. When Amazon first started in the US, we never heard about Alibaba. Before Facebook there’s a Friendster. First we have Netscape, and then Yahoo, and now the Google.

Thus, opportunity is always there. There will be more successful companies coming out year after year. Where would you be?

6. Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

I love this quote. It is not going to be easy if you want to build a successful business and live an extraordinary life that most people can only dream about. This quote said it best, most people prefer to stay in their comfortable zone than going out to do something to stretch themselves.

Have gratitude and feel the satisfaction, but don’t get comfortable living the way you are right now. Set new goals and new aims, go higher and grow each day. Continue to improve yourself and get better each day. You can do more than you imagine.

7. As you think, so shall you become.

Understand this, your thoughts will affect your decision making, your decision making will affect how you react, and how you react definitely will affect the results you get in your life. It is all about your mindset and your thinking. If you consistently think about negative stuff and how things cannot be done, that will be your result.

Therefore, choose to think something better and something that will empower you to achieve what you want in your life. Try this, ask yourself this question, “What is H2O?” If your answer is “water”, congratulations, you get the right answer. If your answer is not water, probably you’re not paying attention here. My point is this, whatever you held in your mind or whatever question you direct to your mind, you will always get the answer. So why don’t think about ask something empowering, something that will move you forward and something that will drive you into taking action?

8. Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

You need to have at least some creativity and innovative to make things work. You cannot blindly follow what others do to replicate the exact result. Like one of my previous post about Jack Ma, he learned from other people’s failures instead of successes. This is because he believes that there are way too many reasons that will make someone successful and which sometimes we cannot replicate. Learning from other people’s mistakes and avoid making those mistakes would be a more appropriate way to achieve success.

You don’t have to drive a luxury car if that is not what you want. You don’t have to be like others. You don’t need to create a Facebook because you want to build a social networking site. You don’t have to be like Warren Buffett to be successful in investing. Yes, you can learn and get the inspiration and aspiration from them, but do not copy them. You are you, so be authentic and build your own name.

9. Don’t fear failure. — Not failure, but low aim, is the crime. In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.

There’s nothing glorious about living an ordinary life or aiming small. You want to go out and live your life to the fullest. You want to realize your potential and unleash your maximum achievement. Failure is not something to shun from. Failure is just a progress that you have to go through and failure is feedback telling you what is not working and what are the things that you should change.

Never be afraid to try out something new or aim for something beyond your reach. Things will look like beyond your reach because you are yet to find a way to achieve it. If making $100 million sounds impossible to you, it is because you are yet to make $90 million. Once you have reach the $90 million mark, making $100 million will be possible to you. The same goes for any amount, it could be your first $100,000 or your first $1 million mark.

Do not fear failure and never aim low. Start small and act now.

10. The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.

What kind of life do you want to live? Are you living a life worth remembering? If you never have thought about this or don’t have such a meaningful goal yet, I urge you to take some time to plan for this. Do something worthwhile and do something that will benefit the world. You don’t have to be a superman to do it.

Here’s a quote from “Superman”, Christopher Reeve himself, “What I do is based on powers we all have inside us; the ability to endure; the ability to love, to carry on, to make the best of what we have — and you don’t have to be a “Superman” to do it.”

So go for your dream, aim higher and live a passionate life!