“I’m glad he left because I was going to fire him anyway.”

“We were going to drop our prices anyway.”

“It’s not our fault that we bought the wrong business.”

Watch out for these lines.

They’re the lines that losers tell to make themselves feel better about being bad businessmen.

If you need to fire someone, fire him before he quits.

If you need to drop prices, drop them before the competition does.

If you bought a dodgy business, take responsibility for the bad decision.

Don’t lie to yourself, or your staff, or your shareholders.

Don’t be a loser.

• lesson from Ben Horowitz in The Hard Thing About Hard Things