• Columnists

Tricia Mininger, Business Banker, PNC Bank

Tricia Mininger, business banker for PNC Bank, manages business and nonprofit banking relationships for clients in the Greater Washington, DC, market. She excels at finding solutions for her clients’ cash-flow needs and is an expert in deposit and lending services.

Tricia also is a certified Women’s Business Advocate for PNC, one of 500 bankers in the company educated to better understand the challenges and opportunities for women in business. Tricia holds bachelor’s degrees in Marketing and Hispanic Languages and Literature from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently pursuing an MBA at George Washington University. She resides in Arlington, Virginia.

For more information, contact Tricia at patricia.mininger@pnc.com, or by phone at 202 835-2673.

About PNC Bank

PNC, one of the nation’s largest diversified financial services organizations, provides deposit, lending, cash management, and investment services to more than five million consumer and small business customers across 15 states and the District of Columbia.

As part of its longstanding commitment to offering financial advice and solutions to women-owned businesses, PNC recently commissioned a national survey of women business owners. The survey found that while most owners are pleased with their financial results, they are far more optimistic about their own company than the regional or U.S. economy.

More information, including detailed results of the survey, can be found on the PNC website at www.pnc.com.

A man without a smiling face
 should not open a shop.”

– Chinese Proverb

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.”

– Francesca Reigle

Do one thing every day that scares you.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

– Basil King

If you do not tell the truth about yourself
, you cannot tell it about other people.”

– Virginia Woolf

The awakening to the mystery of life is a revolutionary event; in it an old world is destroyed so that a new and better one may take its place.”

– J.J. Van Der Leeuw, The Conquest of Illusion

The best hobbies are the ones that take us furthest from our primary occupation.”

– Dr. Evelyn Vogel, Dexter

Who cares if my glass is half empty or half full; I still have something to drink.”

– Optimism rules

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.”

– Albert Schweitzer

To follow, without halt, one aim: There’s the secret of success.”

– Anna Pavlova

A people who mean to be their Governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

– James Madison

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.”

– Buddha

An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.“


– Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough.”

– Mae West

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity.”

– Ray Bradbury

Inspiration and genius — one and the same.”

– Victor Hugo

As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it”

– Andrew Carnegie

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”

– Audre Lorde

If it isn’t good, let it die. If it doesn’t die, make it good.”

– Ajahn Chah

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

– Nelson Mandela

The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it.”

– Voltaire

You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing.”

– Maya Angelou

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which obstacles vanish.”

– John Quincy Adams

You take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
 A terrible thing: no one to blame.”

– Erica Jong

A diamond is a lump of coal that stuck with it.”

– Norwegian proverb

Death is to lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.”

– Thomas Wolfe

Speaking more than one language is no longer just an asset in today’s job market; it is a requirement.”

– Tom Adams, CEO, Rosetta Stone

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”

– JFK

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.”

– Thomas Carlyle

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

– Henry Miller

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

– Anais Nin

‎Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

– Booker T. Washington

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

Letting go of expectations is a ticket to peace. It allows us to ride over every crisis—small or large—like a beach ball on water.”

– Martha Beck

You may ask me for anything you like except time.”

– Napoleon

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

You don’t go into a field that requires cracking people’s heads open or operating on something as delicate as the spinal cord unless you are comfortable with taking risks.”

– Dr. Ben Carson

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

Part of your destiny is to live in the zone of maximum satisfaction.”

– Martha Beck

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.”

– Benjamin Disraeli

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

– Albert Einstein

We are perfectionists. We are hungry to work all the time. We are entertained by every aspect of business and we never want to stop working.”

– Suzy Welch

Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what nurtures creative thinking.”

– Anita Roddick, founder, The Body Shop

Women once had the goal of being Superwoman; I think most of us now simply strive to have a super day.”

– Author, Activist Lee Woodruff

The journey is the reward.”

– Greg Norman

Confidence is the most important thing you can teach someone… if you can teach them confidence, you don’t have to teach them anything else.”

– Vin Diesel

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

Sometimes the dreams that come true are the dreams you never even knew you had.”

– Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones