Build Something of Lasting Excellence
Steven Florio, Vice-chairman of Advance Magazine Group reflected on what contributed to his success in Donald Trump’s book, The Way To The Top. Note the lesson he learned at an early age:
One day, when I was about twelve, I was down in my carpenter grandfather’s basement workshop when he said, "You should start earning your own money. You clean up this wood shop and I’ll pay you what it’s worth."
So I spent the next three hours making that place shine. I swept up all the wood shavings; I wiped down every piece of equipment and made it gleam. I stacked all the wood neatly.
Then I found my grandfather and we went back to the shop. He looked around for what seemed like a very long time. Then he nodded slowly and said, "Fantastic!"
You can imagine how proud I felt.
Still nodding his approval, he reached into his pocket and handed me my wages - a quarter! Twenty-five cents.
A quarter?! I couldn’t believe it. Even in 1960 a quarter for three hours of work was nothing to an American kid.
He said, "I want you to learn something about the world.
"In the real world, cleaning up is useful, but it’s not worth much. Anyone can do it. It’s worth, maybe, a quarter.
"Now, if you had built something useful with these tools, a bookcase maybe - something that was functional - that would have been worth a bit more.
"But if you had envisioned something new, something no one had ever thought of before, and if you had built that, pouring your heart and your soul into it, well, that would have been worth a lot of money. Remember that."
And I have. To this day, I still carry that quarter.
It reminds me of the importance of envisioning and building something excellent, something that will last long after you are gone.
And that kind of vision and love of craft is not something you can get from most businesses. You certainly don’t get it from a business plan or a five-year projection. You get it from your heart. It’s got to be something you feel in your heart. That’s where it all begins.
When given so many choices of what you can do in this world or with the opportunities set before you, do you settle for the menial? If you are going to have to put time into a job, pick the one with the largest payoff and greatest personal sense of ownership. You will be valuing yourself and your time.
Owners and Everyone Else
Owners are not like everyone else. Without people who think like owners, there would not be opportunities for everyone else. As Peter Drucker said, “Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” There are great rewards in being an owner. The challenge is in the mindset.
Different Thinking
People with a low tolerance for risk, whose behavior is guided by fear, have a low propensity for success. – Keith Ferrazzi
This was a comment by Keith Ferrazzi in Never Eat Alone and it has been our observation through thousands of hours in business coaching. People do live either by fear or by belief. You can hear what guides a person’s decisions just by listening carefully to how they talk. If you hear a lot of excuses, justifications, or focus on the negatives, it is likely rooted in fear. However, we do not walk around telling people we are fearful. Life is not that candid.
There are many people who think they can start a business, but they lack the mindset to ever succeed. They have an employee mindset. They will never succeed unless they can grow. Typically, they:
Confuse Involvement with Commitment. Many people have had jobs. They perform for a corporation or an owner. They play with house money, not their own money. They make decisions and enjoy structures, resources and customers that are not their own. Martina Navratilova said it best, “The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.” If you have never been committed, then it is easier to stay an employee and just be involved.
Focus on Cost Not Investment. The person handles any discussion on spending as a cost rather than thinking in terms of return on investment. It is funny. We live in an ecosystem. People have an interdependence on each other’s goods and services. These people expect everyone to buy what they have because they see value and think it would be a good return to a person. The blind spot is that they do not assume the same behavior they expect of others when dealing with buying. They are thinking in scarcity rather than abundance. Do you invest in yourself? Or again, does it first have to be house money?
An Unforgiving Reality
"If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability." — Henry Ford
Our economy is increasingly playing to the person with the owner mindset. While we all seek security, the question is whether a person seeks it in being an employee or an owner. To transition, you must be able to transition your security and belief system to an owner’s mindset; otherwise, it is better to be someone’s employee. Life is very short. You are who you have been becoming.