Daniel Steven Peña Sr., a prominent American businessman who personifies success.
Pena, who was born on August 10, 1945, is of Mexican American origin and grew up in East Los Angeles, California.
In 1971, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the San Fernando Valley State College School of Business Administration and Economics.
Kickstarting his career on Wall Street as a financial analyst, he exhibited immense potential that soon led him to the presidency of Great Western Resources, Inc., a Houston-based oil company listed on the London Stock Exchange.
After being ousted in 1992, his relentless spirit led him to sue the company, resulting in a $3.3 million award by an American jury.
Peña’s journey as an entrepreneur expanded in 1984 when he purchased Guthrie Castle in Angus, Scotland, running various ventures from there.
Despite a hiccup in 2017 involving an employee’s fraud at the castle, Peña showed admirable integrity by forgiving the employee and covering the stolen £130,000.
Related: Brad Lea quotes and Dan Lok quotes.
His inspirational journey makes Peña’s quotes a treasure trove of wisdom for aspiring entrepreneurs.
I have selected the most positive quotes by Dan Pena to inspire you.
Best Dan Pena Quotes
The more you investigate, the less you have to invest. ~ Dan Peña.
You can’t have a dream come true unless you have a dream. ~ Dan Peña.
The older you get the less you are surprised. ~ Dan Peña.
Don’t set time limits for achieving goals. They should transcend time. ~ Dan Peña.
Show me your friends and I will show you your future. ~ Dan Pena.
My time is much too precious to be wasted on people who merely want to talk about being a high performance person and can’t or won’t take action! ~ Dan Peña.
We are only as emotionally strong as our deepest/biggest secret! ~ Dan Peña.
A deal has to sound good before it is good. ~ Dan Peña.
Virtually all big law firms have good to super-good lawyers. All big law firms don’t have great litigators. ~ Dan Peña.
All you need is the desire, passion, and will to fulfill your dreams! ~ Dan Peña.
Reading books is not taking action! Taking action is pulling the trigger! ~ Dan Peña.
Popular Dan Pena Quotes
High-performance people have larger, more expanded comfort zones than most! ~ Dan Peña.
I could not be more proud of the countless lives that I have changed since I began my coaching and mentoring career! ~ Dan Peña.
We have two bank accounts – the emotional bank account and the financial bank account. We empty one into the other. ~ Dan Peña.
Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future. ~ Dan Peña.
Fear of failure is caused by lack of self-esteem and confidence. Dealing with fear is the key to super success. ~ Dan Peña.
Don’t waste time on things you can’t change! ~ Dan Peña.
Don’t under any circumstances, ever, second guess yourself. ~ Dan Peña.
The world is full of people who want their ears tickled on strategies for wealth creation and protection and so-called revealed secrets to wealth creation. And there are plenty of slick ‘business coaches’ who are more than willing to do just that – for a fee. This is the world of the seminar guru. ~ Dan Peña.
All my life, I was always in a hurry! I was always hustling! ~ Dan Peña.
Once you learn to make money, it is not that hard… what’s hard is to stay excited about it. ~ Dan Peña.
Man plans – God Laughs! ~ Dan Peña.
Cash only prolongs death. It doesn’t avoid it. ~ Dan Peña.
Inspirational Dan Pena Quotes
Size is the enemy of speed! Speed to react matters more than size of company… ~ Dan Peña.
I have said countless times high performance people are never satisfied with what they do or how they do it! Hence, I am always endeavoring to improve. ~ Dan Peña.
People want to be led by strong leaders, and good leaders are constant students. ~ Dan Peña.
Practice within when you’re without. Practice success. ~ Dan Peña.
I have been following what is now called the ‘Spartan Way’ long before it became popular! ~ Dan Peña.
Tough times don’t last – tough people do! ~ Dan Peña.
If you change a billion lives, that’s the formula to become a billionaire and change the world. ~ Dan Peña.
I could write a book describing what differentiates the high performance person from all the rest! Heck, I could write volumes! ~ Dan Peña.
We’re all self-made, but only successful people admit it. ~ Dan Peña.
Man’s greatest burden is unfulfilled potential. ~ Dan Peña.
I can work 5-10 hrs. straight with no problem, though I do take some time towards the end of a 6-8 hrs work stint out to beat myself severely in the gym with weights/aerobics, including intervals! ~ Dan Peña.
Don’t be a loser. ~ Dan Peña.
There’s no seminar in the world that will give you multi million-dollar advice on building a business from scratch! ~ Dan Peña.
Turner, Iacocca, Ford, Dell, Edison, Gates, Jobs, Tom Watson, Perot, Fred Smith, Knight, Bezoes, and probably any superstar you know all subscribe to do what others felt was wrong. ~ Dan Peña.
Dream big, Think big, Be big. ~ Dan Peña.
The internet is a giant lab experiment for corporate America and those companies that recognize this and play well within the rules of ambiguity & fluidity will survive and win. ~ Dan Peña.
Year-end goals are terrific! Affirmations with goals are even better! And goals, affirmations, along with visualization is even more effective! ~ Dan Peña.
Famous Dan Pena Quotes
We are told you have to remember who you are and where you came from. ~ Dan Peña.
Remarkably successful people habitually do what other people won’t do. They go where others won’t go because there’s a lot less competition and a much greater chance for success. ~ Dan Peña.
We are preached to that those ‘things’ are for the ‘other’ people; you certainly can’t expect that for yourself; whom are you kidding? You’ll only disappoint yourself. ~ Dan Peña.
I don’t want anybody to love me. In fact, I don’t want anyone to even like me. I want them to respect me. Respect is fine. ~ Dan Peña.
Our lives are a series of lowered expectations year after year. We got pounded by everything around us. Just like our parents and their parents. We are products of our social and economic milieu. ~ Dan Peña.
The Internet is a giant ‘lab experiment’ for corporate America, and those companies that recognise this and play well within the rules of ambiguity and fluidity will survive and win. ~ Dan Peña.
Stop playing to lose. Play to win. ~ Dan Peña.
I know what it’s like to have a house repossessed… I’ve been there. ~ Dan Peña.
Don’t just work longer hours, ‘staying busy’ as most other people do. ‘Work smart’ – i.e. Stay productive and don’t get distracted. ~ Dan Peña.
There’s no secret sauce to being a billionaire! ~ Dan Peña.
If you want to make more money, you’ll have to do things differently. You will have to do things you never even thought of doing in the past. You will have to do things out of your comfort zone. ~ Dan Peña.
You have to have faith in people. ~ Dan Peña.
People with low self-esteem protect themselves by not taking risks. High self-esteem gives you the power of confidence to take chances. ~ Dan Peña.
If you want things to change, first you have to change. ~ Dan Peña.
We cannot change the past, only recover from it. And perhaps learn its cruel lessons. ~ Dan Peña.
Great Dan Pena Quotes
Too many people waste time on personal development instead of execution. They confuse reading for action. ~ Dan Peña.
Progress often masquerades as trouble. ~ Dan Peña.
By definition, to work with me, you need thicker skin and must be OK with a certain amount of verbal abuse! ~ Dan Peña.
We all have baggage from our upbringing! That’s life! ~ Dan Peña.
I’ve never seen a ‘part-time’ super successful, high-performance person. ~ Dan Peña.
Success starts with you being comfortable being uncomfortable! ~ Dan Peña.
Now, admittedly, my power of concentration is and always has been extraordinary since my army training! In fact, other people say it is legendary and almost cosmic! ~ Dan Peña.
Never ever share your doubts. ~ Dan Peña.
You will definitely encounter lots of resistance on the road to super success, but don’t let others stop you from reaching your goals. ~ Dan Peña.
Top Dan Pena Quotes
Quantum Leap success means fishing with nets, not just with lines. ~ Dan Peña.
My candor has gotten me in a lot of trouble over the years! ~ Dan Peña.
Life without dreams is like a bird with a broken wing – it can’t fly. ~ Dan Peña.
Business deals start and end with people – the interaction of flesh and blood, bone and sinew, heart and mind, emotion and soul. ~ Dan Peña.
The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself! ~ Dan Peña.
The best form of customer service is self service. Constantly empower customers to get their own answers themselves. ~ Dan Peña.
The difference between a failure and a high-performance individual is how each deals with fear. We are all afraid. ~ Dan Peña.
I coach my mentees to act as if they are invincible – to act as if they could accomplish anything! ~ Dan Peña.
Your most valuable natural asset is your own gut instinct. Don’t be afraid of it. your instinct has more power than all of the conventional wisdom in the world. ~ Dan Peña.
Popular consensus = recipe for failure. The aforementioned rhetoric is what we and every other human being have been told since Guthrie man. ~ Dan Peña.
Wishing, hoping, and dreaming without an action plan – is nothing more than a pipe dream! ~ Dan Peña.
A famous man once said, ‘A sure formula for failure is to try and please everyone.’ Some might say I built a career on doing just the opposite of pleasing everyone. ~ Dan Peña.
Of course I have said, till I am blue in the face – people don’t lack goals, passion, grit, or drive – they lack leadership! ~ Dan Peña.
I have written and said countless times it is not what happens to you in life that makes a difference! It is how we react to what happens to us in life that creates our history and – more importantly – our future! ~ Dan Peña.
Inspiring Dan Pena Quotes
Don’t focus on mistakes; focus on the positive next time. ~ Dan Peña.
If you don’t think money can buy happiness, you don’t know where to shop ~ Dan Peña.
The only difference between a Champ and a Chump is ‘U’. ~ Dan Peña.
Always shoot for the moon. Even if you don’t hit the bulls-eye, you’ll at least get percent. ~ Dan Peña.
When you truly believe in your idea or your company or yourself, then you don’t need to have a huge ego or a huge personality. ~ Dan Peña.
A deal is either hot – or it’s not. ~ Dan Peña.
QLA is not about filling your brain with information – it is starting a fire within your heart and soul! ~ Dan Peña.
As I have told many, the only goal my dad had for me was to keep me alive to reach the age of reason! He had no aspirations for me vis-a-vis education, wealth, or anything else! ~ Dan Peña.
The road to success is always under construction… there are lots of potholes but no traffic jams. ~ Dan Peña.
The truth is, successful people are not ten times smarter than you. They don’t really work ten times harder than you. So why are they successful? Because their dreams are so much bigger than yours! ~ Dan Peña.
Positive Dan Pena Quotes
I have said many times: We have self-esteem or don’t, based on how we were raised! Self-esteem is normally produced in your first few years of life. ~ Dan Peña.
I may be wrong, but I am never in doubt! And anyone who has been around me for even a minute understands that my self-confidence and self-esteem is sometimes overwhelming! ~ Dan Peña.
If you don’t embrace a workload others would consider crazy, then your goal doesn’t mean that much to you. ~ Dan Peña.
Progress often masquerades as trouble. ~ Dan Peña.
People regularly practice playing a sport like golf or basketball – but few people think about ‘practicing being successful.’ I had practiced meeting the Queen of England – what I would wear, how I would stand, the handshake – so when I did meet her, I was comfortable – for I had practiced the moment for years. ~ Dan Peña.
High performance people take action quickly and change their mind slowly! ~ Dan Peña.
The difference between me and a lot of you here is that I have no fears. Once you become fearless, life becomes limitless. ~ Dan Peña.
Good lawyers win so-so lawsuits. Great lawyers can win lawsuits in which you have little or no chance to win. ~ Dan Peña.
Never start small where goals are concerned. You’ll make better decisions – and find it much easier to work a lot harder – when your ultimate goal is ultimate success. ~ Dan Peña.
When I came back from the military and completed a -year degree in /years, I developed the extraordinary habits needed to get a lot done in a very short period of time! ~ Dan Peña.
Great DNA encoding of people and values (not ideas) in young companies early on will create the truly great and lasting companies later. ~ Dan Peña.
Motivational Dan Pena Quotes
As I have often said, I would rather be lucky than smart! But it is even better to be lucky and super smart! ~ Dan Peña.
We must all remember life doesn’t have to be fair for us to succeed if we take change and become masters and creators of our own destiny! ~ Dan Peña.
Jerry Ormand was already a legendary Texas oilman when I met him. Yet he took the time to introduce me to the fine points of the oil business and how to survive and prosper amid the chaos of a rough-and-tumble industry. ~ Dan Peña.
The truth is, I almost always did accomplish what I said I would – in the face of overwhelming obstacles! ~ Dan Peña.
Just do it! ~ Dan Peña.
I have always known I had talent, LOL, but to be called a ‘talent’ feels a little strange – but well within my comfort zone! ~ Dan Peña.
Any problem solved will be replaced immediately by a larger more complicated one! ~ Dan Peña.
Hunger makes beasts of men and demons of beasts. ~ Dan Peña.
Good leaders make sense of change in the world… then imparts that insight to the team. ~ Dan Peña.
Super-success is not for everyone, and you will endure weeks and months and years of hard work, obstacles, failures, victories, pain, and any manner of ‘negative’ experiences to reap the rewards of success, drink from the golden goblet, own the brass ring. ~ Dan Peña.
People that read books don’t take action! ~ Dan Peña.
Entrepreneurship is enduring pain for a long time without relinquishing. ~ Dan Peña.
The more emotional distractions you have the harder it is to accomplish your goals – especially at the extreme levels! ~ Dan Peña.
Ask and you shall receive. ~ Dan Peña.
Next time, you question what you are doing – ask yourself? What could I do more? In most cases, extra time will be the greatest leverage you can apply! ~ Dan Peña.
As I have said many times – no one loves me as much as I love myself! And if you can’t really love yourself, you can’t love anything you do! ~ Dan Peña.
So these were the 118 top Dan Pena quotes on success, motivation, business mindset and entrepreneurship.
