I started The Body Shop in 1976 simply to create a livelihood for myself and my two daughters, while my husband, Gordon, was trekking across the Americas. I had no training or experience and my only business acumen was Gordon's advice to take sales of £300 a week. Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that's exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.
Interpretation
Entrepreneurship often stems from the need to survive and provide for loved ones, sparking creativity in the process.
Anita Roddick's quote emphasizes that the essence of entrepreneurship is not just about profit but also about creating a means of survival, especially for those we care about. She reflects on her personal journey, where the need to sustain her family pushed her to establish The Body Shop with limited resources, underscoring that many successful ventures originate from necessity rather than mere ambition.
In practice
In a speech about starting a business from scratch during challenging times.
I am still looking for the modern equivalent of those Quakers who ran successful businesses and made money because they offered honest products and treated their people decently . . . This business creed, sadly, seems long forgotten.
If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.
But if you can create an honorable livelihood, where you take your skills and use them and you earn a living from it, it gives you a sense of freedom and allows you to balance your life the way you want.
Quite apart from anything else, my experience is trying to change things for the better makes you feel better, healthier. Humans are communicative animals: when you do good in a community, the benefits eventually get back to you.
First, you have to have fun. Second, you have to put love where your labour is. Third, you have to go in the opposite direction to everyone else.
It is a critical job of any entrepreneur to maximize creativity, and to build the kind of atmosphere around you that encourages people to have ideas. That means open structures, so that accepted thinking can be challenged.
I feel like, O.K., if I can make it as a singer, then let me try rapping. If I can make it as a rapper, then let me try writing. All right? If I make it as a rap singer and writer, then why not try to produce? I don't feel limited in any way.
Failure seldom stops you. What stops you is the fear of failure.
I'm different than most people. When I cross the finish line of a big race, I see that people are ecstatic, but I'm thinking about what I'm going to do tomorrow. It's as if my journey is everlasting, and there is no finish line.
We may at times be unemployed, but no one ever becomes uncalled.
You have the choice to create the life your heart is yearning to live.
Women don't take enough risks. Men are just 'foot on the gas pedal.' We're not going to close the achievement gap until we close the ambition gap.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.