You never quite know in business if what you are doing is the right or the wrong thing. Unfortunately, by the time you know the answer, someone has beaten you to it and you are out of business.

With every effort, I learned a lot. With every mistake and failure, not only mine, but of those around me, I learned what not to do. I also got to study the success of those I did business with as well. I had more than a healthy dose of fear, and an unlimited amount of hope, and more importantly, no limit on time and effort.

Most people think it's all about the idea. It's not. EVERYONE has ideas. The hard part is doing the homework to know if the idea could work in an industry, then doing the preparation to be able to execute on the idea.

One thing I learned in the NBA is that the No. 1 job of a general manager is to keep his job. They are only 30 positions where you make millions and hang around with basketball players all day.

Forget about finding your passion. Instead, focus on finding big problems.

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is that we lie to ourselves. We don't step back and look at ourselves like a competitor would.

Having the ability to be brutally honest with yourself is the greatest challenge you face when creating a business model. Too often we oversell ourselves on the quality of the idea, service, or product. We don't provide an honest assessment of how we fit in the market, why customers will buy from us, and at what price.