Linda McMahon

It always is a battle for a Republican in Connecticut, even one who\'s a moderate like I am, and one who\'s an independent thinker.

I remember the early days when every month I had to decide whether I should continue to lease a typewriter or if I could finally afford to buy it. Yes, that $12 a month really made a difference in our budget.

More entrepreneurs are looking to come back to start businesses, and that is where SBA is perfectly positioned to be helping more people to realize their dreams.

Like all small-business owners, I know what it\'s like to take a risk on an idea, manage cash flow, navigate regulations and tax laws, and create jobs.

I think women are not as hung up on the testosterone thing. They\'re more collaborative. They multitask better, and I think they\'re more results-oriented. They just want to cut to the chase and get it done.

WWE is a company that produces fiction. It\'s a soap opera that runs 52 weeks a year without reruns.

My parents\' greatest wish was that I graduated from college. Neither of my parents had a college education, and they really wanted me to have one.

Small business people are people with goals and values that can\'t be calculated on a profit and loss statement.

You cant be afraid to take a risk. You can\'t be afraid to take a risk because you think you might fail.

I was my father\'s son and my mother\'s daughter. There was never any time when I felt I wasn\'t equally capable - whether it was being the only girl in the county who could hit a jump shot in basketball or playing first base in the baseball with the boys. I was always encouraged to do whatever I wanted to do.

The small businesses that I\'ve talked to have consistently said that the cost of health care is one of the things that they need the most help with.

We want to create more jobs. We want to qualify more lenders and expand lending markets. But also, I want a very different SBA - it\'s not your father\'s SBA. I want to modernize it and reposition it so when people think about jobs, they think about how the Small Business Administration would really be helpful.

I wasn\'t looking for a hobby. If I were looking for a hobby, it wouldn\'t be the United States Senate. That\'s one of the toughest jobs I\'d probably ever do. I just felt there wasn\'t enough compromise going on: People were too far to the left, too far to the right, with no one trying to build a compromise.

As a CEO, I want to show women that there are no limits to what they can achieve, whether through entrepreneurship, government, science or any path they choose, and there is plenty of room for women at the top.

We went bankrupt one time and lost everything. When I tell that story at my Women\'s Leadership LIVE conferences, people are shocked. I mean, our house was auctioned off and the car repossessed in the driveway. We had to start over again.

I never really thought about the fact that there weren\'t female role models, because I had them in my life. The women I knew in my life were so strong.

It\'s unfortunate, you know, that you can\'t change people\'s - habits, their personal habits.

Even entrepreneurs with the best ideas sometimes need a little wind beneath their wings.

Optimism is the ultimate definition of a leader. A leader has to look optimistically at what is ahead while not ignoring the challenges that must be overcome. Those challenges are in government, politics, world leadership, and even in community life.

When I was asked if I supported merging SBA into Commerce, I really wasn\'t focused on SBA or Commerce; I was focused on the concept of merging agencies, or reducing duplicative programs, so that we could reduce those costs. I am a firm believer that SBA needs to be a stand-alone agency.

I like to tell small business owners and entrepreneurs, \'I get it. I have your back on this. I understand about regulation. I understand how taxes are taxing. I understand what it is like not to be able to borrow money when you need it.\'

Being under the political spotlight is far different than anything I\'d experienced before. Every word is a critical word. Sometimes you really aren\'t allowed to get your full thought out. A lot of it is about having a 30-second sound bite.

Without truth, trust is lost. The ACA could not have been passed were it not for the repeated assertions, which proved to be false, that Americans who liked their health plans and their doctors could keep them.

I was a tomboy. And one of my first recollections of great success was playing baseball with the boys.

You have to think about the WWE as soap operas.

I\'ve made a payroll. I know what it\'s like to execute a business plan. I know what it\'s like to expect the proper return on investment... and I know you can\'t spend your way out of debt.

You have to have a work ethic. It is always 24/7. It is a lot of sweat equity, and it is a little bit of Lady Luck.

I think it\'s high time that we had a woman president. But I don\'t want to elect someone just because she\'s a woman; I want the best candidate to be elected. I think that any woman who is elected to the highest office in the land would clearly have positive role model effects for other young women.

Truly landmark pieces of legislation - including the Social Security Act, Medicare, and the Kennedy and Reagan tax reductions - historically have garnered strong support from both parties. The ACA did not.

I found when talking with many other women that they sometimes are more reluctant to toot their own horn, to talk about their success. They have to be more confident in doing that. That is not always the case, but there is that element that women don\'t put forth who they are.