Ash Ali > Quotes

“It's not about focusing on the negatives, it's about knowing the realities and leveraging the unfair advantages that we do have to help us live our best lives.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“Always keep in mind how others succeed and what status they may have had before they started. Don’t feel disempowered by others’ success, as there’s always more to it than meets the eye.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“Life isn’t fair. But if you use the unfairness of life as an excuse to have a victim mindset, to stop yourself from striving to achieve your goals, to make your dreams a reality, then you’re only shooting yourself in the foot.”
― Ash Ali

“Reality-growth mindset is about having your feet rooted on the ground, with your head in the clouds. Not just your head in the clouds believing anything is possible! And not just your feet on the ground thinking, ‘I can never be above average and ordinary.’ You need both! It is about setting achievable goals rather than looking at outliers and anomalies.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“hard work also plays a very important role, because it’s true that hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. But combine the two and that’s when you get rocket fuel.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“Location affects the vibe that you’re infected with. It’s said that you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with, so being surrounded by innovative and entrepreneurial people, who are ambitious and hardworking, is likely to have a positive effect on your own ambitions, attitudes and productivity.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“Most startups fail, not because they can’t build a product. But because they can’t get traction.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“An unfair advantage is a competitive upper hand, and your set of unfair advantages is unique to you.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“By and large, you are born into an extravaganza of fixed variables that you do not control. You must accept this. At the same time, you also must believe you are the master of your own future. You can take responsibility for the outcomes in your life. You can achieve virtually anything you set your mind to, as long as what you set your mind to is within the realms of possibility for you, based on your strengths and assets (your unfair advantages).”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“Meritocracy means those who “merit” it are the ones who achieve it. In other words: those who deserve to get rich, get rich. At the core of these narratives, you’ll find a fallacy: We can all become billionaire entrepreneurs on the cover of Forbes, if only we pulled our socks up. If only we wanted it badly enough. If only we got up at 4 a.m. and hustled hard enough. We read articles and watch news segments about these superstar startup founders, and we read books that tell us we can all be like them if we simply get our shit together. Bullsh*t.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“Conscientiousness ‒ how organised, self-disciplined and goal-oriented you are”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“you’re very high on neuroticism, entrepreneurship is not likely to be something you’d enjoy, as it is very stressful and filled with uncertainty. You will need a healthy dose of emotional stability because of the incredibly high highs and low lows in starting and running a business. It may be worth considering doing something with less risk to help manage your mental health.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“every disadvantage can have a corresponding advantage, and vice versa. Your circumstances and unfair advantages, whether apparently positive or negative, can be double-edged swords.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“Before dreaming about the future or making plans, you have to articulate what you already have going for you ‒ as entrepreneurs do.’ These are the words of Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, in his book The Start-Up of You. He and his co-author Ben Casnocha were trying to illustrate how exactly a person could transform.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“An Unfair Advantage is a condition, asset or circumstance that puts you in a favourable business position.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“The MILES Framework is a powerful tool to help you identify your unfair advantages. It will tell you whether you should be focusing on leveraging your location, whether your education sets you apart or whether your true strength lies in your status.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“disempowering victim mindset where, instead of looking at what you have in your favor, you focus on what you don’t.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“One of the biggest ‘hacks’ or shortcuts to personal growth and development is via those we spend our time with.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“Blitzscaling”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“impetus”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“People with a fixed mindset believe they are born naturally gifted at doing some things, but incapable of others. This black-and-white way of thinking often obstructs their development. Failure is a disaster to a person with fixed mindset. When it happens, they will bury their heads in the sand or blame others.”
― Ash Ali

“It’s not about working harder. It’s about working the system.’ Working hard without working smart is useless.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“Ask yourself: What do I personally have going for me that few other people do? If you have a co-founder, what personal advantage does he or she have?”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

“Unfair advantages (just like disadvantages) build one on top of another and have a snowballing effect. They don’t just add together, they often multiply together. In other words, the more unfair advantages you can stack up in life, and the earlier in life you can develop them, the stronger they will be.”
― Ash Ali, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed