I am a HUGE Bruce Lee fan! As a kid I was in awe of Bruce Lee’s incredible martial art skills, and later on I started to learn more about Bruce Lee’s life story – which I found inspiring. Every so often I come across some Bruce Lee Quotes – which for me, are timeless. There are the obvious references to martial arts, Eastern philosophy and personal development – but there is also a very relevant message for banks, fintech companies and corporates. The bank, fintech and corporate landscape is changing and this is culminating in a clash between incumbents and newcomers. Take a look at my posts covering disruption, disruptive innovation and fintech disruption in financial services, and some reasons why disruption is a myth…. Then read these 11 Bruce Lee Quotes and it will become apparent that Bruce Lee was a leading innovator and disruptor of his time.
Bruce Lee Quotes:
1. Bruce Lee – Efficiency…
“It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.”
- Its not about quantity, its quality
- Being able to truly reflect and recognise what we are doing badly and correcting it is often half the battle!
2. Bruce Lee – Getting Things Done…
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”
- At a personal level, what a great life lesson!
- Fintech and disruptive technology companies are transforming the conventional bank and corporate environment, incumbents need to decide very quickly if and how they are going to embrace the changes that are happening around them
3. Bruce Lee – Going With the Flow…
“The great mistake is to anticipate the outcome of the engagement; you ought not to be thinking of whether it ends in victory or defeat. Let nature take its course, and your tools will strike at the right moment.”
- At a personal level, believe in yourself!
- This encapsulates the incumbents versus newcomers clash, and for me “your tools” could be likened to the technology being used. The right technology can effectively strike and wipe out rivals
4. Bruce Lee – Constant Improvement…
“Be happy, but never satisfied.”
- As Steve Jobs said – “don’t settle”
- Banks, fintech companies and corporates must not be content, and must strive to make further improvements – if they don’t, someone else will!
5. Bruce Lee – Opportunity…
“In the middle of chaos lies opportunity”
- The chaos being created by technology is definitely opening up opportunities…
6. Bruce Lee – Mistakes Happen…
“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”
- Banks, fintech companies and corporates need to recognise where they may have screwed up, rectify the mistakes and move on
7. Bruce Lee – Uniqueness…
“Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own”
- At a personal level, I take this to mean – be unique!
- For me, I read into this that technology enables great things – but you need to stay true to your company, its values and the customers your serve
8. Bruce Lee – Reflection…
“It is not a shame to be knocked down by other people. The important thing is to ask when you’re being knocked down, ‘Why am I being knocked down?’ If a person can reflect in this way, then there is hope for this person.”
- The saying “too big to fail” springs to mind…. This is something that banks and corporates don’t do enough of. To question why their services and or products are no longer being used or why sales are falling is surely a critical step in understanding that the world around them is changing
- At a personal level, taking some time even 5 minutes to reflect on why, how to remedy whatever it is and then acting on it is something that we should do – but never get round to…. eh?
9. Bruce Lee – Have Faith…
“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”
- Whoever YOU are (a company, individual) YOU cannot afford to imitate and lose sight of who YOU are and what YOU stand for
10. Bruce Lee – Innovation…
“Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system.”
- So Bruce Lee had this theory that all of the different fighting styles had their place. But one was not necessarily better than the other. Rather it was up to the individual to understand him or herself, and in turn encouraged free thinking within his students to adapt, mix and apply set patterns and styles as they saw fit. Bruce Lee was being disruptive and challenging the conventional way of doing things – isn’t that what fintech companies are doing today…?
11. Bruce Lee – Be Like Water…
My favourite Bruce Lee quote is “Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”.
- I suppose Bruce Lee was speaking about adaptability – now that is something for banks, corporates and fintech to contemplate!
Let me know what you think about these Bruce Lee quotes below…