{Peter Paul Rubens, "Fall of the Titans," circa 1637-1638.}

“The culture precedes positive results. It doesn’t get tacked on as an afterthought.” - Bill Walsh

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So far, since I began writing this series, “Standing on the Shoulders of Titans,” I have looked at two aspects of setting up a successful business.

My first article dealt with generating an idea. I looked at where and how some of the great business leaders developed their ideas.

The next article was the second in the series, and it focused on how titans of industry used discipline to manage and allocate their capital to maximum effect.

This article - the third in the series - will focus on individuals who understood how to scale their businesses, the main ingredient of which is people.

Yes, so many aspects are crucial, but the right people are what make things happen.

Attracting the right people requires a few crucial ingredients.

• The right incentives must be in place.

• People must feel like they are a part of something that they can be proud of.

• The owners/manager must actually care about them.

• The right culture is also another crucial ingredient; humans need to feel part of a community or a group with a shared goal or worldview, and any organisation can take on that role just as well as a community.

For the scope of this series, we are focusing exclusively on business leaders, but these similar principles exist across every group and organisation.

Now, we will look at examples of a few people who have done it best.

Jim Sinegal - Costco

Jim founded Costco in Seattle in 1983 with his business partner Jeffrey Brotman, based on the business model that he learned from his mentor, Sol Price. Jim had worked for Sol in FedMart, where he learned the tricks of the trade and worked his way up to an executive position.

Sol eventually sold FedMart but left soon after disputes with the new owner. He would go on to found Price Club. Costco would eventually merge with Price Club in 1993 to create the company we know today. Well, mostly….Price Enterprises spun off PriceSmart a year after the merger, and Sol and Robert Price left the new company to focus on their spinoff.

Jim Sinegal, much like his mentor, believed in running the company ethically. Costco would charge an annual subscription, and with that, the promise would be to offer the customer value they couldn’t receive anywhere else.

One way to ensure a happy customer was to also ensure happy employees, and that is what he strove for in his business.

Costco has consistently ranked among the best companies to work for in America. Their wages are among the highest in retail, and their attrition rate is among the lowest. Costco employees earn approximately $5-$10 more an hour than the employees of other retailers.

The company also offers fantastic benefits to its staff, from health insurance to retirement benefits, and this isn’t just for full-time staff; it is also offered to part-time staff, which is very rare in the industry.

Employees are also eligible for a bonus through the company’s stock, which incentivises employees in the long term.

In retail, the typical staff turnover rate is around 60-70% where as at Costco, it is 6-10%, meaning that although the company pays higher wages, it spends much less money on the acquisition and training of new staff as compared with its competitors.

Lessons

Treating employees with dignity and respect enables them to give their best in return and feel that they are being fairly compensated for the work they do.

As a result, there will be less staff turnover, fewer dissatisfied people working in the business and this will also appear in how they show up for and interact with the customers.

Les Schwab - Les Schwab Tire Centres

When it comes to incentives, few can do it as Les Schwab did.

Les grew up in poverty in a logging camp; his schooling in those early days took place in a railroad boxcar.

His mother, a teacher at the logging camp, passed away when Les was only 15 from pneumonia and his father, an alcoholic, was found dead a few months later outside a moonshine joint. He and his 3 siblings were orphaned.

Les began his career selling papers; he would be so successful that he was able to take on and manage multiple routes and people, all while attending high school. He would later become the circulation manager for the local paper. “The Bulletin” and served in the Air Corps in WW2.

It was at the age of 34 that Les took a gamble; he sold everything he owned, along with a little help from his brother-in-law, and bought an OK Rubber Tyre franchise in nearby Prineville, Oregon. He had never changed a tyre in his life.

Over the next few decades, he would transform that lone tyre shop into an empire.

How did he do it? - Incentives.

Les created an incentive structure that gave away half of the profits to the employees; those same employees would part-own and manage the stores as well as help train others to become future managers and assistant managers.

The company ethos was to promote from within, rather than hire outside management. It would prove to be a winning formula.

Les realised that it was better to share a large portion of a much bigger pie than to hold on to a much smaller pie all by himself.

Tyre Technicians who proved they were hard-working, honest, and willing to learn would have the opportunity to run a new store themselves when it opened. In each store, the profits would be shared between the company (Les) and the employees running the store. 50% of the profits were shared with the individual store, which was split among employees; the manager would receive the largest portion (maybe as much as 25%) and the assistant manager the second-largest.

The system encouraged the managers to run and develop the business; the more successful it became, the more they would be able to earn.

The assistant managers would use their time under their store manager to learn the ropes, and when the time came, and an opportunity presented itself, they would open their own store and assume managerial duties.

Over time, Les would perfect this incentive structure, and at the time of his death, there were 400 stores in 8 states.

Lessons

As the late, great, Charlie Munger said: “Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome.” Les understood this intuitively.

Allowing the employees to share in the success of the business guaranteed they would put their best foot forward in the day-to-day operations. They would treat the business very different than someone who simply had a job; they felt like they had a form of ownership.

The company’s philosophy of hiring from within would help prop up that belief, as the best would rise to the top and would know the workings of the business better than any hire. This would help maintain the long-term success and growth of the business.

Mary Kay Ash - Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc.

The story of Mary Kay Ash is one of perseverance and self-belief. At 45 years of age, she founded Mary Kay Cosmetics, about three weeks after the sudden death of her husband.

She had no choice; her money was invested, and the wheels were turning. To stop now would mean financial ruin.

With the help of her youngest son, she launched.

Mary Kay had spent years struggling. She divorced her first husband after WW2 and was effectively left to raise three young children, mostly on her own.

Working for Stanley Home Products, she was able to design a work schedule that fit around her children’s lives. For years, she was balancing a life of childcare, work and religion.

She would go on to become a top saleswoman, as well as build a network of additional salespeople for the company. She ended up receiving a promotion, which required that she move from Houston to Dallas, but in doing so, she would lose her additional income stream, as she had received a small commission from the sales of the network she had built. She had no choice but to take the role.

Mary would later move to World Gift Company and single-handedly build its direct sales department, and would be personally responsible for a 50% growth in the company’s turnover.

Then came the incident that changed everything.

A man whom she had trained was given a promotion; he would become her supervisor and receive twice the wage that she did. The company’s reason was that he was a man and needed more money as he had to support his family.

Never mind the fact that Mary Kay was a divorced mother of 3 children who had had to claw and scrape her own way to survive.

It was the final straw, and she resigned - or retired, as she called it.

Mary Kay had no pension or serious backup plan, so she decided to write a book. In it, she would detail her lessons, her beliefs about how staff should be treated and her ideas on how she felt a corporate structure and incentive system should be built.

She soon realised that what she was looking at was effectively a business plan and knew it was one that she should follow.

She decided that she would launch her own company, but first, she needed a product. Years earlier, Mark Kay came across a very effective homemade skin cream formula. The creator had died, but she tracked down his children, and they agreed to sell her the formula. It would cost her almost every penny she had.

She and her second husband, George, had decided to go into business together; she would handle the sales and marketing, and George would handle the administration. They set a date to begin trading, and 3 weeks before that, George dropped dead at the kitchen table due to a massive heart attack.

Again, life had decided to severely test Mary Kay Ash. Against all advice, she decided to launch the business anyway and convinced her youngest son to leave his well-paying job and join her. He agreed.

Her story was just beginning, and over the next few decades, she and her son Richard would develop the company into a powerhouse, but it wouldn’t be simple.

Mary Kay would build a company and use everything she learned about incentives and people to develop a top-class sales machine. Her system would involve recruiting and training saleswomen, who would be given the freedom to work the hours they wanted to accommodate their family lives. Saleswomen received commission on their sales; if they recruited other saleswomen, they would receive a commission on those sales as well. However, unlike the issues Mary Kay faced, she would not impose the same geographical restrictions as her previous employers.

Above all, Mary Kay believed in recognition, and she would ensure that her staff received it. The best operators would receive recognition, and their work would be rewarded. There was public recognition of people’s achievements, and the top saleswomen would be gifted with what would become the famous Pink Cadillac, the ultimate symbol of a top performer in the company.

Lessons

“Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.’” - Mary Kay Ash

People want and need to feel appreciated for the work they do, they want to be rewarded fairly and be recognised for their achievements. Mary Kay knew this.

She also knew that the rewards had to be valuable; people weren’t going to go above and beyond for some silly plaque. They want and expect a cut of what they take in. She gave them that and more.

Isadore Sharp - Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts

“Issy” Sharp was born in Toronto, Canada, to Polish Jewish parents who emigrated from Poland in 1920. An eerie fact about where his father grew up was what the place would be known for in the decades to come - Max grew up in Oswiecim, which today is known as Auschwitz.

Isadore’s early career was as a builder and then a developer before he eventually moved on to what he would ultimately become known for, a hotelier.

His father was a builder, and he joined him after completing his education and graduating with a diploma in architectural technology.

Having begun with houses in a post-war Toronto, there was plenty of work to go around, and by the time Issy joined his father, they had moved on to apartment buildings.

Two things came together that really sparked the move into the hotel industry.

The first was when Issy’s friend hired him to build him a motel. He had sold his business and wanted to use the proceeds to build and run this motel. Issy didn’t think it would work, but it proved successful.

The second occurrence happened on his honeymoon. He and his wife, Rosalie, were staying in a very average motel, all they could afford at the time. In the middle of the night, to their surprise, they realised they were also sharing a bathroom with another room. Issy realised that if a place like that could make money, he could design and build something much better.

In 1961, he built his first Motel, effectively the first 4 Seasons, and for the next few decades, he would be heavily involved in the construction, financing and management of the hotels.

Over time, this view began to shift as the construction of each new hotel involved massive risk, exposure and a mammoth effort to get it operational. All this before the doors even opened to the public.

The Four Seasons group would begin to transition into management only. Issy realised it was a much leaner system that allowed them to focus on the quality of the service they offered without the pressure of financing, building and operating the premises too.

Over the next 20-25 years, he began to develop his four pillars on which the company would focus. These are: quality, service, culture, and brand.

Lessons

He created a culture of excellence. Implementing the golden rule, “treat others as you would like to be treated”. He believed in treating staff well and, by extension, expected them to treat the customers well. He wanted staff to go the extra mile for the customer, to ensure they enjoyed their stay.

When it came to quality, he decided that the group would only run medium-sized hotels, believing that they could be managed more effectively than larger hotels or resorts. He believed that in order to maintain their quality of service, this would be a better route to ensure that.

He hired (and fired) for attitude instead of skill. Skills can be taught, but attitude, not so much. They enforced the golden rule. He wanted to be able to encourage the right behaviours and scale them.

Conclusion

I believe that the power of incentives isn’t taken seriously enough. Owners or founders at the head of businesses usually have something pushing them to succeed; they want the recognition, they want the financial rewards, or they even have an innate need to build or create.

What I think many of them forget is that their employees may not have the same drives as they do. Most people want a level of security for themselves and their family, they want to be able to afford to have some leisure time and have enjoyable experiences, and they want to feel a sense of purpose or accomplishment in what they do.

The best builders of companies or organisations realise that and ensure that they build an incentive system to maximise it.

There are always incentives at play, good and bad. Incentivising positive behaviours is a much better route than doing noting as that inevitably incentivises bad behaviour.

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” - Adam Smith

Thank you for taking the time to read this article!

Did anything in this post make you think?

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{A picture of a dry stone wall from the West of Ireland}

In a previous post, I discussed the importance of focus and used the adage (or what is commonly used of it), “a jack of all trades but a master of none….” as the title. That article focused (pun intended) on the skill of intense focus, and learning to sit down and give sole attention to one task at a time.

This piece is most definitely not an attempt to counter that argument.

The full quote is actually:

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

The second part of that quote (which I was previously unaware of) changes the meaning behind the saying, and it fits very nicely into what I want to write about today.

The ideas in this article are based on the concept of Talent Stacking by the late Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip.

It is a simple concept. Scott realised that it is intensely difficult to become a top performer in a single field; by nature, there can only be a select few.

For example, the likelihood of becoming a Premier League football player, an NBA star or a Formula 1 driver is so low that only the best of the best make the grade.

Only a small, highly talented, and intensely focused group will reach those positions.

That precludes roughly 99.9% of the population.

Talent stacking is a way for generally talented people to stand out and create their own personal niche.

What is Talent Stacking?

I’m glad you asked!

I’ll start with the words of the man who invented/discovered the concept, Scott Adams:

At its most basic level, it is the combining of multiple skills, interests and even personality traits in a unique way that together create something that no one else (or very few) can offer.

We are multifaceted beings; we tend to have multiple things that interest us on some level, and in some of those interests, we tend to know more about them than most other people.

With a little extra research and study, we can build an even greater base of knowledge in that area.

That is our anchor. For Scott, that was his likely drawing ability. Alone, that would not have been enough to propel him to the level of success that he would enjoy.

When coupled with his writing, his humour, his risk tolerance and his business skills, it became something else entirely.

Instead of resting on our laurels, we need to think about our other skills, interests or traits and start combining them.

What would surprise most people is that reading a book or two can be enough to raise their level of knowledge on that topic above, approximately 70% of the population.

It is at the intersection of these skills where the magic happens, and how uniquely combining them can lead to the creation of something totally new.

It doesn’t have to be one or two skills; the more the better. The bigger the “stack”, the more you differentiate yourself.

Let’s look at an example. I think the podcaster David Senra is a good one. He now has two highly successful podcasts, but it is the Founders Podcast where he built his success.

He loves to read autobiographies and biographies of great founders and leaders in the world of business; he also loves to talk about them and share his ideas. He is obsessive about this.

For his podcast, he reads a book a week and then passionately shares that information with his listeners. Over time, he has created hundreds of podcasts, attracted likely millions of followers and developed a corpus of knowledge on business.

As an added bonus, he has been able to build relationships with many different founders after they became listeners of the podcast.

Opportunity

The idea of talent stacking offers many of us opportunities that we no doubt wouldn’t have if we were to simply pursue a single craft.

This is not to say that pursuing a single skill cannot produce results; there are plenty of successful people who are in the top 10, 15 or even 20% of their field who enjoy a certain level of success.

An accountant who is in the top 10-15% of accountants can still enjoy a certain level of financial success. Whether or not they enjoy that line of work is the next question.

People sit in their cars day after day and commute to jobs they don’t particularly like to earn a living and provide for themselves and their families. Some don’t mind it; they see it as a means to an end and then enjoy their spare time. Others hate it but see little choice in the matter and are willing to do what they need to do.

Others end up in a job that fulfils them, that challenges them, and each day they get out of bed energised.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach; we must all find what works for us, but in my opinion, we must be able to find some form of passion in our job, as there is only so long we can white-knuckle it through things we feel we must simply endure.

Talent stacking can help us find a path that works for us.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article!

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“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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I recently listened to episode #245 of the Founders Podcast, which focused on the highly successful music producer Rick Rubin.

One of the main takeaways for me was the idea of letting go of that which is not needed, a process crucial to creativity.

Simplicity is about removing that which isn’t essential.

About finding the fastest and most direct journey from A to B.

The writer who can engender an image or an idea with the fewest words.

The artist who strips their canvas of all but the most essential colours and details.

Or, even a young Rick Rubin working with an older Johnny Cash, stripping away everything until it was just a singer and his guitar.

Simplicity at its core is the highest level of mastery.

You must first learn the rules

In his book Mastery, Robert Greene argues that we must first undertake an apprenticeship in a given discipline before we can move on to a stage of creation. This period of practice and learning helps us cultivate the basics of any skill, usually by following the teachings or style of one or more masters.

Greene states that “In the beginning of your career, you must submit to reality and immerse yourself in the process of learning.”

If we are to develop our own style, we must first learn the craft; we cannot develop a skill without first building a foundation of knowledge in that field.

Rick Rubin developed his style through total immersion. He spent years listening to different genres of music, totally engrossed. He began to develop an ear for what he felt sounded interesting.

It wasn’t an apprenticeship in the classical sense, but it was a period of deep study and learning. One that would give him the knowledge and belief needed to help propel him to success.

Find your own style

Once a certain level of competency has been gained, the next stage is experimentation.

Whether it was DaVinci adding details to the paintings of his master Andrea del Verrocchio, or Frank Lloyd Wright secretly designing houses while working for Louis Sullivan or even Ryan Holiday writing for himself while working as a research assistant to Robert Greene.

No one in pursuit of mastery can remain an apprentice indefinitely.

To reach a level of mastery, it isn’t enough to follow the style of another. What follows is a process of experimentation, trial and error.

This is what leads us to developing our own style.

Experimentation is chaotic, it’s messy and likely frustrating, but it is a crucial part of the process, and we must become comfortable with that reality.

It never ends; it is a feature, not a bug.

A writer’s first draft may resemble something written by a teenager. A sculpture begins life as a block of marble that needs to be attacked with a hammer or a lump of clay that needs to be shaped and reshaped.

Simplify

“I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” - Elmore Leonard

Although this appears here as a final step, it is in fact more of a continuous process. Throughout the creation of something, always approach it with simplicity in mind.

Simplicity is about stripping things back and removing the parts that aren’t needed.

This process is also useful in everyday life.

Could you have been clearer when making your point in a disagreement with your spouse? Maybe it could have been avoided altogether?

Maybe there was no need for the 32-slide PowerPoint at work when a simple one-page memo would have been sufficient.

There is a lot to be said for cutting away the non-essential in any situation. Others will definitely appreciate it.

I’ll finish with a quote from Stephen King to sum up what I, as a writer, believe encapsulates the idea perfectly:

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart.”

Thank you for taking the time to read this article!

Did anything in this post make you think?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments!! 💬

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{The Colossus (El Coloso),Francisco de Goya, c. 1808–1812}

"Watch the costs, and the profits will take care of themselves." - Andrew Carnegie

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In my last article, we discussed the idea, the first step in building or creating anything.

Nothing can come of nothing; we must have a thought or a goal. Some means we are working towards.

Once we know just what that is, we can begin to move towards it.

No business can succeed without capital, and capital needs to be managed correctly.

There is a saying in business: “Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is king.”

There are many examples of individuals and businesses with great products or services that were unable to take a disciplined approach to capital and ultimately failed.

One such example was William C. Durant, the founder of General Motors, who had a talent for deal-making and sales. A genius at putting things together and making money, but he constantly took gambles that stretched him too thin. His lack of discipline led to his removal from the company he founded. He would live the latter years of his life modestly after his financial ruin.

The great operators of the business world always have an eye on the finances. They are disciplined when it comes to expenditure, but they also know the value of well-placed capital and are not afraid to invest in better ways of doing things.

The following examples are men who epitomise financial discipline and knew how to truly put their capital to its best possible use.

John D. Rockefeller - Standard Oil

The name Rockefeller is synonymous with money and power. It all stems back to the founder, John D.

Rockefeller was a devout Baptist and had a simple guiding principle: He would become as wealthy as possible, and he would use that wealth to help others.

It may seem disingenuous, but by all accounts, he did believe this.

By the time he was first introduced to the oil industry, he was a bookkeeper and partner in a produce commission merchant firm. It was his business partner’s friend, Samuel Andrews, who would become their business partner in the oil industry.

As the huge potential of the oil industry became evident to him, he decided to go all in. The industry would not develop if the current boom-and-bust cycle continued to play out, as every discovery would force the price down. Rockefeller knew that the product must be standardised and the supply better controlled. With this idea in mind, he co-founded Standard Oil of Ohio.

Rockefeller focused first and foremost on the refining side of the business. It was the choke point of the industry; crude oil needed to be refined to become a viable product.

One of his key realisations was that there were economies of scale to be had. The larger and more efficient his factories, the better and cheaper he would be able to refine oil.

He began to horizontally integrate as he systematically consolidated that side of the industry through mergers and acquisitions. As he scaled, he was able to create greater efficiency in his business, allowing him to refine oil at a lower and lower cost.

Soon, he was able to make a profit at a price that his less efficient competitors could not, and he started pushing his advantage, engaging in price wars with competitors to either force them to sell to him or drive them out of business, at which time, he could pick up the pieces.

This allowed him to stabilise prices and margins in the industry, and Standard Oil soon began to vertically integrate as he started moving into other aspects on which the business depended, such as storage, transport, and distribution.

Standard Oil became known as “the Octopus” as its power and influence stretched out across all aspects of the oil industry and related industries like tentacles, and there was no business that could compete with it. It would take the U.S. Federal government stepping in to finally do that.

Lessons

Horizontal & Vertical Integration allows a business to have more control over its costs and reduce its overheads, which in turn can be used to reduce the cost per unit of what it supplies.

Standard Oil did this better than anyone at the time; they could make profits at prices where no other could, eliminating their competition.

Andrew Carnegie - Carnegie Steel

Carnegie worked many jobs from the ages of 12 to his mid-thirties: Bobbin Boy, Boiler Tender, Office Clerk, Telegraph Messenger, Telegraph Operator, Railroad Assistant, Railroad Superintendent, and War Superintendent for a period during the Civil War.

He was a sponge for information and had no problem with taking on responsibility. His interest in learning was no secret; he would spend many of the hours that he wasn’t either working or sleeping with a book in his hands.

Yet, even though he ended up being very well paid, he was earning a wage at his job. If he stopped working, so too did the wage.

A defining moment in his life was how he felt after opening his first dividend check. He would have a very different way of looking at money from that day on, and making it work when he wasn’t.

It was while working as the personal secretary and telegrapher to Thomas A. Scott (Pennsylvania Railroad) at the age of 20 that Scott offered Andrew the chance to invest $500 in ten shares of the Adams Express Company. He agreed, but the reality was that he didn’t have that kind of money; it was 75% his annual wage.

Yet, his mother trusted in her son implicitly and mortgaged the family home to get it. At that, Andrew Carnegie became a business owner.

That dividend check was the first time that he received money simply for owning capital and not having to do any extra work. It was a life-changing realisation.

Over the next decade, he would invest in many more companies and develop a portfolio of businesses that would pay him much more than his annual salary, and he would eventually leave the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to focus on his investments and live a more leisure-oriented life.

Carnegie was involved in Iron through his Keystone Bridge Company, but on a trip to England in 1872, he visited the steelworks of Sir Henry Bessemer. After seeing his process for refining steel (the Bessemer process), Andrew realised the days of iron were over, and steel was going to become the building block of the next century.

After he returned to America and soon began work on his own massive steel plant. He soon realised that he needed to focus all of his attention on this industry, selling his shares in all other interests and focusing solely on what would become Carnegie Steel.

He famously wrote in his autobiography:

“Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.”

He would grow this to become the largest steel company in the world before selling to JP Morgan and a group of investors for $400 Million and becoming the richest man in the world for a time (Rockefeller passed him again after the breakup of Standard Oil).

Lessons

Capital, if used correctly, can work for us when we are not working. That is known as leverage. Owning shares in productive businesses or outright owning a business.

Carnegie also teaches us a second, crucial lesson. That is the importance of focus. He decided to remove all distractions and go all in on the business that he believed (and correctly so) had the most potential.

Henry Ford - Ford Motor Company

Henry Ford was voted the “Businessman of the Century” in 1999 by Fortune magazine, and it is a more than fitting title.

Although a deeply flawed man, it cannot be denied that his drive to reduce the price per unit of each car that he sold had a defining impact on the creation of the middle class in the US and Western Europe.

The U.S economy to this day is still very motor-reliant, and unlike the cities of Europe, which are very pedestrian-friendly, the U.S cities are very different, and the need for a car is very evident.

To understand Ford, you must understand his goal, or some might say mission.

It was to produce an affordable motor vehicle for the masses. He did not believe in creating a lavish plaything for the rich, but instead wanted everyone to have that opportunity and freedom to drive.

He did not achieve his goal on the first try. In fact, it would be his third company that saw success and truly benefited.

This would be the “Ford Motor Company”, in which Henry owned 25.5%, which he would later increase to 58.5%. This is where the true development of the company took place; it became a behemoth and came to dominate the market.

Henry’s ideas started to conflict with those of the other shareholders in the company (which also included the Dodge Brothers) as the company grew and became more successful. Ford believed that most of the business’s profits should be reinvested in the business, whereas his other shareholders believed they should receive more of the profits as dividends.

Things eventually came to a head when the Dodge Brothers brought him to court and won the case, and Ford was forced to pay out huge dividends to its shareholders.

The outcome of this appeared to wound Ford, and he did something no one expected: he retired and handed the reins of the presidency to his son, Edsel.

Rumours started to circulate about Ford starting a new company which would produce cars to compete with and even better than the Model T.

Shareholders of the Ford Motor Company became nervous, and the stock price started to drop as a result. The next move was genius, but wouldn’t be possible today.

Several outside agents started buying up shares from the nervous investors, but what they didn’t know was that they were secretly acting on behalf of Ford. It wasn’t until it was too late that this became evident.

Now, 100% of the Ford Motor Company was owned by Henry, his wife Clara, and his son Edsel. He no longer had any outside dissenters in the company and could move forward with his mission on his terms.

Lessons

Without full control of your business, you will have to answer to others, and if they have a different view of how the business should be run, it can be very difficult and will limit the success of the business or cause it to fail altogether.

It is, however, a double-edged sword. Ford ended up living in an echo chamber; he had no one to question his decisions or the direction of the company, and as a result, they didn’t move into other segments of the market as it grew. As a result, General Motors ended up taking market share from Ford and eventually passed them out as the market leader.

Henry Singleton - Teledyne

Until maybe a year or eighteen months ago, I had never heard of Henry Singleton.

However, once you hear about him and his story, you cannot believe you didn’t know about him. Two of history’s greatest investors, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger, rate him as one, if not the best, capital allocators in history.

Each person on this list had different ways of running a business, but shared a belief in both financial discipline and the importance of investing capital where it could be most productive.

Henry was no different. His approach to building Teledyne began with acquisitions. He bought companies across several industries, but they shared clear traits: strong cash flow, capable managers, and attractive returns on capital.

Teledyne’s stock price mirrored a company that was very competently run. One of his earlier initiatives was leveraging that high stock price to make acquisitions without having to go into debt.

He followed this model for years. Buying companies that he felt added to the portfolio of Teledyne, regardless of how the market felt about it. He would buy 130 companies throughout the 1960s.

Each subsidiary was independently run, and there were strict standards of fiscal responsibility that they had to adhere to. Singleton believed in the importance of cash flow and return on capital.

Revenue growth was important, but only if it meant the other metrics were improving too.

Profits of each subsidiary would be fed back to the parent company, and Singleton would decide how best to allocate that capital for maximum return.

Henry was described as having a singular focus, and that was Teledyne. By the end of the 1960s, he realised things had changed. He could no longer find suitable value in the market through acquisitions; the companies that would have previously interested him were now too overpriced.

He decided to make a shift in his strategy. It was a decision that had many questioning him, but would turn out to be an incredible business move and one that many businesses would replicate years later.

Teledyne started purchasing its own stock, which Singleton believed had become undervalued. He realised that it was the best place to allocate the capital and even fired his whole acquisitions team as he correctly believed they would no longer be needed. He wouldn’t acquire another business.

Lessons

Singleton was not swayed easily by the opinions of others; he would make decisions because he felt they were the right ones to make. He trusted himself fully; it is a crucial trait in any business leader.

Every business has to decide where best to allocate its capital. For Teledyne, that was first through acquisitions and then through share buybacks. For Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford, it was likely on new factories, machinery and vertical integration.

Conclusion

Each of these founders had a few things in common, as well as bringing different skills to the table.

They were all incredibly disciplined about where capital was put. They did not suffer waste but were not afraid to invest in the newest technologies, which in turn would work to create more efficiency and, in time, make savings.

Each one of them also had a knack for finding very talented individuals to work alongside. They would hire the best people and then give them the freedom to run divisions or even whole companies.

They were not without flaws. Some more glaring than others.

Ford ended up operating in an echo chamber, and I’ll not get into his personal and political views, as it’s beyond the scope of this article.

Rockefeller and Carnegie benefited from tactics that are illegal today.

The point of this article and the whole series is that, even though we are operating in a different period of time, the principles that these people used are just as important today. That is why we read about them, so we can learn what we should and shouldn’t do.

To finish, I will leave you with some wise words from the late Charlie Munger:

“It’s remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. Invert, always invert… If you don’t learn from the mistakes of others, you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

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{Maxfield Parrish, 1910}

"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Isaac Newton

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This is my first article in a 5-part series about standing on the shoulders of Titans. The theme that runs through each article is that we can look to the stories of others and take what they learned and use it in our own lives and work.

Each article will focus on a certain business theme, and I will then use several well-known business leaders as examples of that theme.

I feel that the best place to start is at the beginning. → The idea. The guiding principle on which a business is based. There is no business without it.

A business, at its simplest form, is offering something that makes life easier for someone else, and because of that, they are willing to pay for it.

Where then does the idea come from?

“Aha” moments are rarely that! It is usually much smaller, more of a sense or a feeling that begins to take shape. Not something that hits you smack on the face, even though on occasion it can be like a lightning bolt to the brain, but I think that is much more rare.

The process usually begins with awareness. Noticing how something is done and thinking there must be an easier way of doing it.

Or noticing a gap in the market and believing that you could fill it.

That is where the entrepreneurial wheels start turning. You realise there is a need and you believe you are capable of filling it and reaping the rewards.

But it all starts with an idea.

Phil Knight - Nike

In the opening chapter of his memoir, “Shoe Dog,” Phil recounts a memory. He is out for a run as a young man. In that piece, he describes the formation of an idea.

“Which led, as always, to my Crazy Idea. Maybe, I thought, just maybe, I need to take one more look at my Crazy Idea. Maybe my Crazy Idea just might… work? Maybe.

No, no, I thought, running faster, faster, running as if I were chasing someone and being chased all at the same time. It will work. By God I’ll make it work. No maybes about it.”

Phil had written a research paper about running shoes as a college assignment. Phil was an avid runner, and in that world, what you have on your feet matters. Running shoes need to be reliable and consistent. He needed comfortable running shoes, which offered support and allowed him to put in the miles.

As a self-proclaimed “business buff,” he knew that the Japanese had disrupted the camera market, which had been dominated by German brands, and had taken a large share of it.

He had a theory that the same could happen in the shoe market. The German brands of Adidas and Puma dominated the running shoe market, but Phil believed there was a space waiting to be filled.

While travelling around the world after finishing college, he made a stop in Japan. His goal was to follow up on his crazy idea.

He was aware of the “Tiger brand” running shoes manufactured by Onitsuka Co. (modern-day Asics), and he somehow managed to talk his way into a meeting with the company’s founder, Kihachiro Onitsuka. It was in this meeting that Phil made his pitch and convinced Onitsuka that his company (which did not yet exist) should be their distributor in the United States. Onitsuka agreed.

His “crazy Idea” was now in motion.

His company, “Blue Ribbon Sports,” would go on to make massive inroads for “Tiger Brand” in the U.S. market, with Phil’s cofounder and old running coach Bill Bowerman contributing to the design of their running shoes.

It would be a fruitful, if not fraught, relationship for seven years, and it would eventually sour. The writing was on the wall; so, Phil and his team would make a crucial pivot and begin designing and creating their own running shoes under the “Nike” brand. The company that we all know today.

It all began with a single idea.

Sam Walton - Walmart

I have already covered Sam in my “Titans Series,” so if you want a more detailed look at the founder of Wal-Mart, then give that a read. For this article, I am focusing more specifically on the ideas that led this small-town boy to become one of the world’s greatest retailers.

Sam was most definitely not what we would call an overnight success. He started his retail career working for JCPenney, and it became clear that Sam was a natural salesman and very good with customers. However, he wasn’t as proficient on the administrative side of the job, and because of this, a store auditor who worked for the company once famously commented:

“I’d fire you if you weren’t such a good salesman. Maybe you’re just not cut out for retail.”

Considering the passing of time and all that was to follow, that is up there with one of the most outrageously bad calls in all of business.

It can be seen as something of a beacon of hope. If Sam Walton could be considered that bad at one stage in his career, there should be hope for any of us.

Sam knew that retail was the right thing for him after his time in JCPenney’s. There was something about the industry that called to him and felt natural.

He and his wife, Helen, would eventually open a store in Newport, Arkansas, running a little variety store that was part of the Ben Franklin franchise. It was here that he learned how to become a retailer and some of the hardest and most important lessons of his career.

The “aha” moment didn’t come to Sam either; it happened more by accident. As he expanded his small retail enterprise, he realised that people living in small towns wanted more options and lower prices just as much as those in cities, and he knew he could provide them.

The larger retail outfits avoided the small towns, seeing them as a waste of time due to the much lower population density.

Sam picked up on something different. People in these small towns wanted choice and low prices just as much as people in the cities and would be willing to travel a greater distance in the name of value.

In fact, avoiding the large cities and focusing on the small towns allowed Walmart to make mistakes and learn from them for almost a decade before any of the bigger players took notice.

It wasn’t an “aha” moment either; it was an idea he stumbled on (mainly due to an ultimatum from his wife), but it would sow the seeds of an expansion that would allow Walmart to become the world’s largest retailer.

Ingvar Kamprad - IKEA

Ingvar began his career selling matches to his neighbours before moving on to other items such as fish, Christmas decorations and fountain pens.

To him, selling was a passion.

At 17 years of age in 1943, just before he went off to college, he officially started IKEA as a mail-order business selling mostly small household items.

The idea to sell furniture didn’t come to him until 1948, and it was most likely because his competitors were doing it.

Ingvar was effectively drop shipping long before the concept even existed. He would work with a supplier, advertise and sell the item via his catalogue and then the supplier would ship the item to the customer.

The so-called “aha” moments didn’t take place for Ingvar either; it was an accumulation of little decisions and ideas. Four ideas in particular birthed the modern concept when they came together.

First, he decided to create a catalogue of the goods he was selling. It wasn’t a new concept; it was being done in other parts of the world, but it was a very practical way of advertising his goods.

Second, came the addition of furniture. The very thing we know IKEA for today. Once he added that to his catalogue, it quickly became the main focus of the business. It made sense, furniture items were larger and higher-priced than his other products, so even thin margins still accounted for meaningful revenue on each sale.

Third, the idea of the showroom came as a result of the increasing competition in the market. The showroom was an opportunity for people to come, look and feel the furniture.

Fourth and the final piece of the puzzle came in the form of an idea that he didn’t invent either, but IKEA would be the first company to go all in on. This was the idea to flat-pack the furniture. Gillis Lundgren, an IKEA designer, suggested the idea to Ingvar after he had removed the legs of a table to fit it into his car. From there, it took off.

A few simple yet crucial ideas would morph into the world’s largest furniture retailer.

Reed Hastings - Netflix

Reed didn’t have an “aha” moment, per se. Still, as he tells the story, there was a single experience that made him aware of the inconvenience of the video rental system as it currently existed.

He encountered a large late fee after returning a video cassette 6 weeks late to a Blockbuster store. It brought to mind the inconvenience of the rental industry. It wasn’t the dawning of the idea, but it was an incident that played a part along the way.

It was while carpooling to work that Reed and his friend Marc Randolph started brainstorming business ideas, when the idea of mailing DVD’s was discussed and seen as a viable business. After a simple test, they decided it could work.

As it was the early days of the internet, the technology was still in its infancy, and Reed has stated in interviews that the long-term goal was always to create a business model that involved online streaming, hence the company name: Net Flix.

To get there, though, they needed to build a company that could survive and thrive in the rental market while the internet technology improved.

Initially, it was a of pay per rental system, the same as the existing model, but via online orders and postage to customers who, when finished, would post the DVD back to Netflix.

It wasn’t until a few years in that the subscription model was implemented, and late fees were done away with.

It was a much more convenient model for the customers, and it gave Netflix a stable and predictable income.

These two ideas paved the way. The first: removing the physical stores and operating over the internet, and the second: the implementation of the subscription model.

It would be these two ideas that would lay the foundation of what would become the world’s largest streaming company.

Conclusion

There are very few “aha” moments, but there are many in which an idea can begin to form. It doesn’t usually form all at once, but through trial and error.

What’s important is being on the lookout for how things are done. —> The good, the bad and the ugly.

It doesn’t have to be a revolutionary idea; in fact, it could be as simple as posting out a DVD or sending out a catalogue to potential customers.

What’s important is that we don’t ignore these thoughts when they come to us. Not every idea is great, but if we immediately dismiss it, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to think through it, to allow it to simmer.

If we have ten ideas in a year, one may be valuable. It may not be possible or practical, but the exercise of thinking through how it might work is a creative exercise that encourages out-of-the-box thinking.

What tends to happen over time is that your subconscious starts to look out for these opportunities without you even knowing it. You habitually think through the pros and cons. Eventually, something appears that is too good to ignore, and you take a chance.

You then embark on a whole new journey.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article!

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“Time, as he grows old, teaches all things.” - Aeschylus

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The world is moving at a near-impossible pace, and it feels like doing nothing means you are being left behind. There is a lot of noise taking place.

The speed of progress has accelerated over the past few decades, as the birth and growth of the internet has led to an ever-accelerating pace of development.

Now, AI has begun what we can only imagine is an evolution into a very different future.

There appears to be a mix of both excitement and fear in the air, and both are competing for the collective attention.

Are we heading to a Matrix-like future of control and subjugation or a Star Trek-like one in which technology allows us the freedom and ability to explore?

I cannot answer these questions; no one can. We can only observe and speculate. I, for one, hope for a world that sees AI use become a net positive in which we can still create, build, and find purpose in the world.

So, where does that leave us when it comes to our work and the pursuit of an income and hopefully something that we can derive a purpose from?

In a world of AI, start-ups, and major technological advancements, do we need to create something that hasn’t existed before to generate significant value? Do we need to build a business or find a job in a new, fast-moving industry or risk being left behind?

The tech world is full of flash and potential, and it is where the majority of the attention and interest is focused.

Yet, certain things persist, and countless other industries exist that service many other aspects of life; these, too, are changing, but in many ways, they are staying the same.

This is by no means an investment thesis, but a few thoughts. It is about being aware of the traps and hidden potential that exists in the world.

What should we be on the lookout for?

What options are out there?

The Traps of Novelty

“People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.” - Edmund Burke

Innovation moves us forward as a society, but it has its limitations.

There is so much attention focused on the future and technology that old notions are immediately treated as disposable and simply scrapped.

What we should always consider is the fact that tradition exists for a reason, and things that have stood the test of time have done so because they have made it through the stress testing of multiple generations.

I am not trying to downplay or ignore the fact that it is truly amazing the opportunity that’s available to us at this moment in time, or that we should consider regressing to a simpler time.

We are witnessing a colossal expansion of tech companies’ valuations into the trillions at the moment, something never before witnessed.

Investors (or wannabe investors) are flooding into the markets in higher numbers, as online platforms have allowed us the capacity to trade with the tap of a button.

I am no expert, and I do not claim to be, but I’m wary. There is a Tulipmania or Dot-Com bubble feel to the market at the moment, but time will tell on that one; there is no way of truly knowing, other than in hindsight.

If this is the case, there will be many losers, and those who win will likely do so by scooping up what’s left over when the dust settles for much lower prices than what is now being paid.

I am only speculating, but history has appeared to have many examples of this.

Joseph Kennedy Snr is an example of someone who recognised the mania taking place running up to 1929 and decided to protect himself, first by deleveraging any speculative stocks or margin risk and buying cash-flowing, hard assets such as real estate.

He is one of numerous stories, but there are many more cases of people who lost out by being on the wrong side of these market forces.

Novelty wears off; being first to the newest thing is not the best place to be. It is rarely the pioneers of new ideas or technology who benefit from them, but those who come after.

It isn’t always about being first, but who does it better.

Google was not the first web browser, but it did it better. Spotify was not the first streaming service, but it did it better. Henry Ford did not invent the assembly line, but he perfected it and did it better. History is full of such examples.

You may be the next Steve Jobs or Thomas Edison, but the odds of being one of those people are low for the vast majority of people. However, you can take something that already exists and improve on it, make it better, do it better, improve its efficiency.

Toyota took an industry that was extremely heavily centred in the U.S.A and improved how they carried out the process; they invented what would be known as the Toyota Production System (TPS). It was the practice of lean manufacturing, improving efficiencies in the existing production model, which allowed them to turn the car industry upside down. They invented smaller, more efficient cars that were more reliable than anyone else. They began to outpace the bigger, less efficient U.S car manufacturers.

The concept existed; they simply approached it with an eye for improvement.

Southwest Airlines did something similar in the airline industry, the streamlined how things were run, simplified it, removed waste and inefficiencies and used it to reduce fares, which started to reshape the industry (In the Republic of Ireland, Michael O’Leary has had similar success with that model in growing Ryanair).

Embrace Change; Respect Tradition

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” - Heraclitus

Study the past, it has many lessons to teach us.

Large industries exist in the background that may not receive the same level of media attention as others, and may not appear to be keeping pace with the times, but are growing stronger every day and are also utilising technological advances to evolve.

Food processing, for example, is a massive global industry that is constantly evolving, yet one in which stability prevails, as the global population’s need to eat remains constant.

Yes, these are industries with large global players and ones that are seeing changing behaviours and ideas of how and what we eat, but offer opportunities to begin, grow and develop careers and businesses.

John Bragg is a Canadian Billionaire who currently controls a large part of the world’s Blueberry market through his company, Oxford Frozen Foods.

An industry that isn’t flashy, it doesn’t experience the immense growth potential of the tech sectors or the crazy business valuations that go along with it.

What it does provide is consistency. Long term investment is approached with a long-term timeline in mind, and industries such as this are much less likely to disappear overnight when a new technological advance comes out.

Hermès, the famous French fashion house, is a great example of a company that has respected tradition but at the same time embraced the modern world.

The company was first established in 1837 by Thierry Hermès to make saddles and harnesses for the equestrian industry.

Today, it has a market capitalisation of over €230 Billion at the time of writing, and it is now a massive French Fashion house that, unlike many competitors, still handcrafts its own goods. It has been able to move forward with technology, but still holds on to the traditional aspects that make it what it is.

It is a publicly traded company, but due to a unique ownership structure is still family-controlled, which allows decisions to be made with a much more long term focus in mind.

The changing global dynamic also means that these large industries are ripe for disruption.

An example in the U.S.A is Vital Farms, established in 2007 in Austin, Texas. Its founder, Matt O’Hayer, had a simple idea: to produce and sell pasture-raised eggs to the U.S. market for consumers who truly cared about where their eggs came from and how the animals and farmers were treated. The company went public in 2020 and has gone from strength to strength

Many old-established industries can offer similar potential for those willing to look hard enough.

Closing Thoughts

I am in no way trying to make an argument against innovation; I am a massive believer in it, but like anything, it has to be taken as part of the whole.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to life and business; what works now may not have worked in the past and vice versa. What is consistent is the fact that opportunities are out there if we can avoid all the noise that comes our way.

The future is unknown, but that was always the case; technology has always been moving forward, and people were never able to predict exactly where it was going.

Those who benefited from it were able to see the larger trends and aimed their efforts in that general direction, allowing themselves the flexibility to make moves as needed.

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Play

“The maturity of man—that means, to have reacquired the seriousness that one had as a child at play”. - Friedrich Nietzsche

The legendary founder of Nike, Phil Knight, begins his book “Shoe Dog” by describing a morning run at 24 years old in which he decides to pursue his idea.

Whether or not the run really happened (Phil wasn’t certain), it was a starting point, the spark that ignited the journey he would undertake.

In that moment, he realised what it was that he wanted his life to be: Play.

In another book that I read a page from recently, “The Daily Laws” by Robert Greene, his message on that day was to “reconnect with your childhood obsession”, and these two pieces struck a chord with me.

It caught my attention on just the right day.

It is a rarity that someone can tell you just what they see themselves doing for the rest of their lives, and most of us end up falling into roles by chance or circumstance.

This is not a piece about following your dreams. I love that idea and do believe it is a possibility for many, but it is less so for many, too.

What I believe is important is that we remain connected to these dreams or obsessions that live inside us.

In life, responsibility can sweep us away like the current of a roaring river that we have no control over, and we can lose ourselves.

Life has its seasons, like everything else and at times we have to prioritise those responsibilities, but we must not get totally lost in them and return to those things that light a fire inside us.

Phil knew what he liked doing, and that was running, running fast. What did you need to be able to run fast? Running shoes.

He let this be his guiding light, and with an idea in hand - a college paper that he wrote - he embarked on a journey that would eventually lead to the founding of Nike.

Environment

“We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.” - Winston Churchill

Churchill is referencing how our environment shapes us.

This is a powerful idea, especially since we have the power to shape our own environment, which in turn shapes us.

We are a culmination of those with whom we spend time, the things we see and read, what we consume, but also what we choose to ignore. Something that in this day and age is nearly more of a skill than knowing what to consume.

In his highly successful book, “Atomic Habits”, James Clear referred to our environment as “the invisible hand that shapes human behaviour.”

The idea being that our habits dictate how we behave daily, as these are the small actions that we take from moment to moment that compound into how we act in our everyday lives.

For example, if a person wants to read more before bed, they are more likely to read a book that is sitting on their bedside table than if the book was stored on a bookshelf downstairs.

Will alone is not strong enough to force us into better ways of living; we need to cultivate an environment that encourages it.

It is the same with the places we go and the people we spend our time with. If you want to cut down on alcohol but spend every weekend in the pub, you will fail!

A person who visits the gym three times a week and follows a simple, consistent plan is more likely to be in better physical shape than another who spends their time designing the perfect workout plan yet only goes to the gym in fits and spurts.

Think about what it is you want from life and tailor your environment as best you can to help you move towards this.

Spend time in the right places, around the right people, engaged in the right activities, and you will find that over time, you will become more of what you surround yourself with.

Wander

“Not all those who wander are lost” - Bilbo Baggins

Robert Greene was almost 40 (39) when his first book, “The 48 Laws of Power”, was released. He would have approximately 60 jobs in his 20s and 30s as he searched for his true path.

He wandered but trusted the process and his intuition.

That book alone at the time of writing has sold over 5 million copies worldwide, and Robert, as an author, has sold over 10 million books.

His story is a testament to trusting the process and believing that he would find his calling.

However, many who wander are also lost. I am not referring to the act of consuming and feeling frustrated and angry with the world as wandering.

I refer to the idea of following your interests when you can, not allowing life to discourage you or remove your passion for those things.

Sometimes the pursuit of a passion can lead to commercial success, but along the way, the pressure of maintaining that success can erode the passion. You mustn’t sell out on what you feel or believe to reach a financial goal; go with what feels right, not with what you think will ‘sell’.

In the short run, it may seem like the wrong idea, but in the long run, it will deliver far more than financial success.

As Einstein (may have) put it, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” I believe it is in pursuit of that curiosity that we find ourselves, where we are shaped.

Wander, but do so with curiosity and purpose.

“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.” - Matsuo Bashō

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“The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an inner scorecard or an outer scorecard. It helps to be judged by your own scorecard.”

- Warren Buffett

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Do the opinions of others rule you?

Do you filter all your decisions through a sieve of how others might view your actions, or do you decide to proceed regardless of others’ opinions?

Humans are social creatures; it is what has allowed us to develop as we have and reach the top of the food chain.

It is only natural that we would have developed a need to fit in and be liked to some degree. Deep within our genes is the memory of a time when not doing so meant death.

It isn’t universal; there is a spectrum to which we all sit, and there are varying degrees of this basic need inside of people.

Some people care deeply about what others think of them, and it affects everything they do; others care much less and proceed as they see fit.

Warren Buffett is famous for referencing the inner and outer scorecard in relation to both business and life. It is the means by which he has made decisions throughout his life, both with his investing philosophy and how he has tried to live.

It is by no means a perfect system; Warren himself is a good example of someone who has made mistakes in various aspects of his life. Although it appears that he has decided not to let those mistakes define him, he has simply aimed to move forward.

Using an inner scorecard has been a major part of Warren’s investing strategy throughout his lifetime, and I believe there are lessons we can all learn from this concept.

No individual falls squarely into one camp and not the other; most of us have a foot or maybe even a toe in the other camp.

A person driven by an outer scorecard will make decisions based on how it will make them appear to others. Their actions will have the underlying intention of gaining recognition. It is a flawed model.

Yet, someone who is driven by an inner scorecard cares only about how they view themselves. It is more about an inner feeling of validation and contentment than any external feeling of value the world gives them. It is a much more sustainable and healthy model.

Below are two examples when a person of note was being driven by the outer and inner scorecards.

Outer Scorecard

Napoleon Bonaparte was the Emperor of the French Empire in the early 1800s. His military genius had been unmatched for years, and his power allowed him to hold influence over most of mainland Europe.

He dominated the political policy of his state and also of his neighbours, who feared his wrath if they dared break ranks. What he was enforcing was a European-wide ban on British goods (The Continental System) to subdue the neighbour that he had been unable to best, due to their powerful Navy and its ability to protect their island fortress.

Russia decided to break from this, and a furious Napoleon chose to teach the behemoth a lesson. The result was a disaster that wiped out most of his army and eventually led to the collapse of his regime. - A mistake that would be made again 129 years later by Adolf Hitler, who did not learn from the lessons of the past.

Bonaparte was very concerned about how others saw him. He wanted to be viewed as prestigious, capable and as equal to, if not better than, the other aristocrats of France and Europe. He let that drive him, and it overshadowed any good he did (unlike Adolf Hitler, Napoleon implemented legal and administrative reforms that are still the bedrock of the French legal system today) and led to his exile - twice.

Inner Scorecard

Michael Burry is best known for betting against the U.S housing market between 2005 and 2007. Michel trained as a medical doctor (neurologist) but never practised medicine and instead moved into the investment world, where he was self-taught.

He opened his investment fund, Scion Capital, in the year 2000 and performed well for his investors at a time when the S&P 500 was still recovering from the Dot-Com Crash.

It wasn’t until 2005 that Michael took an interest in the subprime residential mortgage market. It was during his research that he came upon a discovery: the mortgage-backed securities that the banks were not what the market believed them to be, and the housing market rested on a foundation of sand.

Burry decided to short (bet against) the housing market by purchasing Credit Default Swaps (these did not exist before this, and the banks had to create a new product specifically for him). He would have to pay out annual premiums on these swaps, and if the loans failed, the banks would be required to pay out to him.

The reaction of the market was dismissive; the general feeling was that he was eccentric and was making a bad play as the housing market was safe.

The real trouble came from the investors within his own fund. They started to put immense pressure on Burry to backtrack on his bet, attempting to take their money out of the fund (which Michael put a freeze on to protect it) and going as far as to threaten legal action.

He had to hold strong to his convictions at a time when all others were telling him he was wrong, but he was firm in what he believed.

In time, he was proven correct with the fund seeing a 489% gross return.

Conclusion

Living by an inner scorecard is in many ways a more difficult path to embark on. The decisions we make may not be popular or appear common.

Others may judge our decisions or even outright laugh at them. They may even hate us for what we believe.

Yet, someone who can live a life true to who they are and do what they believe to be right or at least right for them, will be able to sleep better at night knowing that fact and will have peace within themselves.

It is usually these people who have the largest effect on the lives of others and, in some cases, change the world.

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” - Michel de Montaigne

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“Difficulties show what men are. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. Why? So that you may become an Olympic victor; but it is not accomplished without sweat.” - Epictetus, (Discourses I.24)

Most readers will be aware of the image of Sisyphus labouring to push the giant boulder up the mountain, but maybe fewer are aware of his name or his story.

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a King (likely of the city-state that would become Corinth). His kingdom would prosper and grow as a direct result of his cunning and guile.

It is this same cunning and guile that would lead to his ruin. He would eventually take things too far and invoke the anger of the Gods.

In the interest of his kingdom, he would pass on information about Zeus to another god; in return, his people would receive a spring of water, but it would cost him everything.

Zeus, as gods do, wanted his revenge. So, he sent Thanatos (Death) to claim the soul of Sisyphus. However, the crafty king outwitted even Death and, for a time, conquered it, not once but on two occasions.

Fate would eventually catch up with him, and as punishment, he would be condemned to spend eternity pushing a boulder up a mountain. Each time, just before he reached the top, the boulder would roll back down to the bottom, and he would be forced to start again. This cycle would continue endlessly.

And so, Sisyphus was doomed to relive this fate, day in and day out, coming close but never quite getting there.

Persist, No Matter the Obstacle

“I fully realised the value of tenacity. I just had to assume there was a way through any obstacle, and then I’d find it. This is perhaps my most fundamental principle of entrepreneurialism, and to success in general.” - Sam Zell

I am not so much interested in the crimes that brought him to the mountain but in what his labour symbolises. To me and maybe to others, today, that may differ from what the Greeks felt during Antiquity.

I believe that today, the image resonates with many as an example of the journey, the struggle in pursuit of a worthy goal or purpose.

A process of failure after failure on the road to the achievement of an ultimate goal.

What becomes evident to those who undertake that journey is that it isn’t as much about the destination but more about what is learned and who you become while getting there.

History and the present day are full of individuals from all backgrounds who have suffered and had to persevere. Both inspiring and cautionary tales.

Below are four such examples from history. Although they come from different backgrounds, they all faced immense resistance in their lives (of differing natures and intensity), all of which they would overcome.

Hetty Green was a famous financier of the late 1800s and early 1900s. A woman who would die the richest woman in America (and maybe in the world). The fact that she died four years before women would even have the right to vote makes her story even more impressive.

Hetty would grow up around wealth, taking an interest in finance from a young age and proving herself time and again to be incredibly capable.

However, no matter how capable she was, when her father died, his will was evidence that he hadn’t trusted her to manage the family’s wealth. Instead, the money was placed in a trust. Hetty would receive an annual income from that trust but had neither access to nor control over it.

A similar situation repeated itself after the death of her Aunt in the same year as her father.

She would spend her life fighting against prejudice in a world dominated by men in order to control her money and make her own decisions. She would become a colossus of stability and fiscal responsibility.

Hetty was so successful that she personally would come to the rescue of New York City on two occasions, loaning the city her own money until the panic subsided.

Estimates vary, but at the time of her death, it appears she was worth anywhere from $100 - $200 million, depending on the source, which today would be anywhere between $2-5 billion.

Ernest Shackleton was born in Kildare, Ireland, to a family of modest means.

He joined the merchant navy at 16 and would begin a lifetime of exploration.

He would take part in the Discovery Expedition to Antarctica from 1901-1903, the Nimrod Expedition from 1907–1909, after which he would receive a Knighthood.

But it was on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition from 1914–1917 that he would really make his name.

A failed mission would become one of the most inspiring stories of leadership, teamwork and survival ever told.

The book “Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage” by Alfred Lansing gives a detailed description of the story. It is the account of how, after failure and disaster, Shackleton’s team were left stranded when their ship, “The Endurance”, was crushed by the ice.

It would be as a direct result of the leadership of Shackleton that every member of that team made it home alive after the most harrowing of experiences.

The following quote to me is the best description of the type of leader Shackleton was:

“For scientific discovery give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”

Jackie Cochran’s (born Bessie Lee Pittman) background is uncertain. She claimed to have been adopted, but after her death, many sources disputed this.

What seems to be a fact is where she grew up and the environment in which she grew up. She was born in Florida and, by all accounts, was brought up surrounded by poverty.

She would grow up with an intense desire to become self-sufficient and wealthy, never again having to worry about going to bed cold or hungry.

Jackie would endure hardship many times throughout her life. She would marry very young and then lose her infant child while practically still a child herself. This led to divorce, but she would decide to hold on to her ex-husband’s name and reinvent herself by changing her first name to Jackie.

She would train to be a hairdresser in Pensacola, Florida and become successful in her career before moving to New York to take on a much more prestigious role in a salon on Fifth Avenue.

That would never be enough to satisfy her, and she would eventually go on to start and run her own successful cosmetics company under her own name.

It would be in aviation that she would make her name.

She wouldn't learn to fly until her mid twenties, but once she tasted them first moments of being airborne, it was clear she had found something that would become a part of her.

Within three weeks of deciding she wanted to become a pilot, she would pass her test and receive her licence.

Jackie would fly many exploits around the world, becoming a founding member of an all-women’s flying division in WW2, in which they would fly non-combat and domestic missions to allow more male pilots to be available for combat. It would eventually become known as the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).

Jackie would break and hold countless flying records throughout her life and become the first female pilot to break the sound barrier.

Chung Ju Yung grew up in what would be seen today as abject poverty as he and his family struggled for survival, even going so far as eating tree bark during the winter months to survive in what is present-day North Korea.

He wanted more from life and ran away from home on three occasions in order to start a life for himself. His father would catch up with him on two of those occasions and take him home, but the third time was the charm.

Finally making his way to the city was what kick-started him along the path to building a business empire.

The beginning was humble; he began working in a rice shop. He would end up running, then owning that shop, before it was shut down by external forces. He would move on to start his own auto repair shop, followed by a construction company, ship building enterprise, automotive manufacturer and much more as the years went by.

He managed to do this in a country ravaged by not one but two wars (WW2 and the Korean War), all the while dealing with one authoritarian government after another. Yet, he kept moving, effectively starting from scratch on more than one occasion but doing so with the knowledge he had gained from his previous experience.

Chung would become the richest man in South Korea, creating the conglomerate, Hyundai

Conclusion

The commonality between the four individuals I have given above (other than the fact, all were alive at the same time for a short period: 1915-1916) was the fact that no matter the obstacle, they pushed through. When they were knocked back, they started pushing again. Never losing spirit or feeling sorry for themselves. They had a single goal: to win.

In mythology, Sisyphus never reaches his goal; he constantly falls short.

There are a few ways to look at that.

An excruciating experience where he constantly comes up short, never able to reach his destination, yet constantly getting within touching distance.

Or, maybe the task could become more than that, less about the outcome and more about the journey. As Albert Camus put it,

“The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

It is a matter of perspective.

Who’s to say that his persistence will not one day take him to the summit? He will have achieved what he wanted. At that moment, he may even start to miss the struggle.

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Some individuals possess a magnetic quality about them; they draw people in.

It could be, the way they shake your hand, ask your name, give you their full attention.

When you next meet, they remember the names of your spouse and children, what you do for work or your hobbies.

They can refer to details from your previous conversations with ease.

Familiarity and comfort quickly set in with people like this; you build a rapport with them and a level of trust.

Building rapport is about making others feel at ease around. The best way to do it is to take a genuine interest. The best place to start is in your relationships and with the people you care about the most.

“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what you will, is the great high-road to his reason.” - Abraham Lincoln

In Practice

The idea for this post came while reading Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business by Danny Meyer.

It is a fantastic read centred around Danny’s years in the food service industry. The book details his rise as a restaurateur of some of the best restaurants in New York.

It is a goldmine of practical ideas, one of which is the idea of Turning Over Rocks, something he encourages his staff to do when dealing with customers.

The concept is simple; he encourages his staff to constantly be on the lookout for little pieces of information about their customers. The ones that can make a difference to a person’s experience.

Maybe they notice a customer shiver slightly, so they come back with a blanket before they even have to be asked. Maybe they notice a slight gaze up from the table and around the room, which may signal that someone may require help, so the staff move towards the table quickly.

It is about being perceptive of others. A great starting point is simply asking people how they are and engaging in a friendly interaction with them.

Within this framework, Danny introduced us to his idea of ABCD (Always Be Connecting Dots).

Connecting dots is the gathering of information about someone, piece by piece, from each interaction. The hope is that over time, this will accumulate into something valuable, their favourite sports team, regular food or drink order or even their favourite type of cuisine.

As you accumulate these dots, you can begin connecting them and creating a unique experience for your guests.

Creating Loyalty

Connecting dots isn’t simply a tactic to use on your customers, but it can be useful in every walk of life. It is essential for engendering loyalty among your team.

Julius Caesar and, centuries later, Napoleon Bonaparte were deeply loved by their soldiers. They would walk among their men, learn their names, ask about their families and remember important details.

They were turning over rocks and connecting dots.

They could recall details about an individual soldier many months after first meeting him. Having their leader stop and ask a personal question or make a personal comment would be a huge source of pride for these men.

Napoleon was known to promote men on the spot, having witnessed acts of bravery, intelligence or ingenuity. Both he and Caesar valued merit rather than pedigree and familial status and would promote and reward soldiers accordingly.

It wasn’t simply about learning to remember a few names, but about actively engaging with the men and using that information to make decisions that benefited the army.

It also opened up a world of possibilities for the normal soldier; they knew that if they were willing to work, they could progress. It developed a culture of hard work, persistence and fierce loyalty.

Be Authentic

Eleanor Roosevelt is one of the most famous first ladies and one of the most influential Americans of the 20th century.

She was known to have travelled extensively and spoke to the common people, enquiring about their hardships and their needs.

Having gathered this information, she would return to Washington and challenge her husband and his advisors on what exactly they were doing to help these people.

During the Great Depression, one of the most difficult times in American history, Eleanor became a champion for those in need and actively worked to help them. She lobbied for more support from the government, and her daily newspaper column gave a voice to those who didn’t have one.

Her work wasn’t simply an act; she believed in what she was doing and saw it as her duty.

The American people fell in love with this woman, someone who was willing to hear them and fight for them on a national stage.

Her travelling involved turning over rocks as she met people, asked questions and worked to understand them.

Proceed with Caution

Although building rapport in many ways is a teachable skill, it can be used under false pretences.

In the world of sales, the trope of the slimy salesman is universal.

Those people who learn how to create a false sense of rapport with a nefarious goal in mind. They learn to manipulate people into buying things they don’t need at prices they can’t afford.

Ensure that what you do, you do it for the right reasons.

On some level, we are all salespeople and are always selling ourselves or what we do, and there is nothing wrong with that when the intentions are pure and honest.

Leonardo DiCaprio played an onscreen version of Jordan Belfort in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street. His character was energetic, magnetic and likeable. He knew how to pull people in.

I’ve even watched a sales training course by Jordan himself, and he has selling down to an art.

However, what he was selling and how he was going about it were the problem. He and his team would artificially inflate the prices of penny stocks by selling them in high volumes to the public, only to sell their own holdings at a very high price. The stock price, which was based on artificial manipulation, would then crash, and the investors would be left with nothing while Jordan and his team became rich.

Eventually, Belfort ended up in prison for his crime and lost everything.

It is important that in all you do, it comes from a place of a strong moral belief in doing what is right. Building rapport with others can be a skill, and with that comes responsibility. Be sure you are doing it for the right reasons.

“One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

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Today, we will continue in that vein with Part 2. A further deep dive into lessons that were learned in the most extreme of human environments and which can be translated into everyday life whether you who want to improve in business, in your marriage and relationships, or for simply improve your quality of life.

Let’s dig in.

7. Prioritise and Execute

Leif and his platoon ventured out in the early morning on patrol, their goal: to clear as much of the enemy from the area as possible. They chose a tall building that offered a commanding view of the area. It would allow them the greatest chance to inflict as much havoc on the enemy as possible.

However, the building had its weak points: a single entrance that couldn’t be observed from the outside without leaving soldiers exposed to the enemy, which meant they had vulnerabilities such as a potential ambush or an increased IED threat.

The day progressed with spurts of intense action and periods of calm as the enemy regrouped. After night had fallen, it came time to leave.

Now, the shortcomings of their position became more of a factor. An unknown device now lay outside against a wall; a likely IED. The exit was likely a no-go, so the team moved into action, and the soldiers pulled out a sledgehammer and began to break down a wall that lay on a different side of the building. 20 minutes later, they had a new exit. As they were on the first floor, this exit led the team out onto a flat roof of the adjoining building.

The team moved out. One SEAL, in his attempt to move forward, fell through a tarp to the ground below. It had appeared in the darkness to be a solid surface. He fell hard.

Adding to the chaos, they could not reach him without breaking through a locked gate to gain access to the street below.

Leif had to make a decision and do so quickly. He had a fallen soldier, alone and maybe badly injured, they were in the open and had to make sure no one else was left unaccounted for in the darkness and left behind, they had to gain access to the street to help their comrade and then make their way back to base.

Leif realised that panicking would solve nothing. He had to Prioritise and Execute - choose the most important step, complete it and move on to the next.

He got to work, and the team made it back to base. The soldier who suffered the fall, luckily, had only sustained minimal injuries.

Key takeaways:

• It is crucial in moments of high stress to take a step back, take a breath, prioritise what step needs to be taken and then take the most important step first. Once that is complete, take the next most important step next and so on.

• Effective multitasking is an illusion. The leaders must decide on the team’s main priority. Once this is established, the team’s energy should be focused solely on that until it is complete before moving on to the next priority.

• The inability to prioritise and execute allows problems to build up, the issues start to compound, and your role quickly becomes that of an inefficient firefighter, running from blaze to blaze, never truly putting out the main fire.

• The job of the leader is to ensure the team focus on that which is most important and doesn’t get sidetracked by things of lesser importance. They need to Prioritise and Execute.

8. Decentralised Command

The U.S Navy SEALs train in extremely high-stress situations. They do this so that when they face high-stress situations on the battlefield, they can remain calm and allow their training to kick in. This allows them the presence of mind to do what they need to do.

Carrying out military operations against hostile enemies involves high levels of planning and organisation; there are so many moving parts that it wouldn’t be possible for an individual to oversee every detail.

To operate under Decentralised Command, there must be leaders at each level of the command chain. The number of people who answer to them must be minimal, and the number of people they answer to even more so. As a result, any one individual has to supervise a maximum of 4-6 people, who in turn have people that report to them. The leaders set the goals and the parameters, and then they trust their men to lead.

This structure of commands allows leaders time and space to focus on the task, with the understanding that their subordinate leaders will do their job.

On one large operation involving two U.S Army battalions, this became evident. Jocko knew that his two platoon leaders and their subordinate leaders were overseeing their men and ensuring that the job was under control. It allowed him the space to step back and take a bird’s-eye view of operations.

As a result, he was able to navigate a situation that could have tragically resulted in a blue-on-blue situation where some U.S soldiers had been mistaken for the enemy due to the incorrect identification of a building.

Jocko, having the freedom to assess the battlefield as a whole, was able to recognise that something wasn’t quite right. H gathered further information and soon they realised that someone had misidentified the building. The mistake had almost caused a grave error.

Key takeaways:

• It is crucial that the team is trained and fully understands what is expected of them.

• Trust the leaders on your team to make their own decisions. Let them know what the objective is and the parameters within which they must operate, and allow them to achieve it in the best way they see fit.

• As the leader, your job is to view the big picture and not get lost in the weeds. Your job is the oversee the whole operation, to take a step back and analyse the situation correctly.

• An individual can only manage so much at a time. Whether it’s people, departments, tasks, etc. Delegation is crucial if a team intends to be high-functioning or a company intends to grow.

• The team must know clearly the chain of command and what they are responsible for within that chain; uncertainty leads to mistakes.

9. Plan

A young Iraqi teen, the son of a police colonel, had been kidnapped, and a ransom of $50,000 was demanded, or the boy’s life would be forfeit. Beheading was the method of choice in that part of the world.

With the intel that had been gathered, the team began to put together a plan of action. They were going to concentrate on stealth on the route to the target location, and once the door was breached, speed would be what mattered.

The team would receive cover via sniper overwatch, and in the planning process, they aimed to cover every eventuality and mitigate any risk as best they could.

At the final moment, just prior to the team moving out, fresh intel arrived stating there may be potential IEDs hidden in the yard and potential bunkered machine gun positions in the house. The team reacted as was expected, they took in the information, added it to their knowledge and moved on.

The mission went off successfully without a hitch, and the teenage boy was rescued and returned to his family safe.

Key takeaways:

• Planning is crucial in the pursuit of a goal. A plan must be designed with clear objectives, account for potential roadblocks, discuss alternative solutions and be clear about the role that each member of the team. It must then be broken down into smaller, more manageable steps.

• No plan is perfect. Even the best laid plans cannot account for every potential variable. The best laid plans account for as many of these variables as possible, but offer the team a level of flexibility to operate should it be needed. As Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

• New information may come to light at any stage in the process, maybe just as the plan is about to be implemented. This needs to be accounted for so that it can be considered without potentially derailing the whole plan. Contingency planning must be done and included in the plan to account for all eventualities.

• Delegation is a crucial step in the planning stage. Leaders at each level of the team must be given ownership of their own portion of the plan and the trust to see it through.

• Effective plans are simple and communicated to the team as such. There must be no doubt about who does what.

• Leaders must ask questions of their subordinates to ensure the plan is fully understood. Sometimes, more junior members may be afraid to ask questions or look foolish; it is the leader’s job to ensure they get their say.

• A good plan is like a living organism; it moves with the outcome of events and must be treated as so.

• Each team will benefit from having a planning procedure, a standard of design that can be implemented throughout an organisation and can be understood by anyone in the organisation.

10. Leading Up and Down the Chain of Command

1. The act of Leading Down the Chain of Command is when a leader effectively guides and develops their subordinates in such a way that leads to positive results. This process also has the bonus of creating and revealing leaders.

   After returning home from their deployment, Jocko was tasked with creating a presentation for the Chief of Naval Operations to brief them on their time in Ramadi, Iraq.

   As he put the presentation together, he used a map of the city and highlighted the areas that had been under the enemy’s control when they arrived. In the presentation, he showed the results of their efforts and the work they had done as part of their Seize, Clear, Hold, Build strategy. On seeing the presentation, Leif was shocked by the results and was surprised that even though he had been directly involved in the planning of most of the missions, he hadn’t really understood the scope of the work they had done.

   They both had a realisation. They hadn’t fully conveyed the full strategic plan to their subordinates. They realised that they should have given their troops more ownership of the process and involved them more, especially those who had become negative and jaded with what was being done. If they had been able to realise the full picture, they likely would have had a different view of things.

   In this, they had both fallen short, but lessons had been learned.

2. Leading up the chain of command is the opposite, and something considered far less, but can be equally important. It may seem counterintuitive, but it’s every bit as important.

   To conduct any missions, Task Unit Bruiser would need the sign-off from their Commanding Officer and the higher headquarters staff. What had become a thorn in their side had been the additional questions and requirements that would come back from their CO’s office. The two men believed that many of the questions were foolish and did nothing but waste their time.

   Jocko came to a realisation and shared it with Leif. It was that leading not only occurs down the chain of command but up it too. They realised that they would need to do a better job of informing their superiors of the who, what, where, when and why of their plans. They would start giving as much detail as possible in the initial brief. They even decided to bring them to invite their CO to the base and show them the work they were doing, and how they went about planning an operation

   The reality was, their superiors weren’t trying to sabotage or frustrate them. They simply wanted to understand exactly what they would be sanctioning. People’s lives would be at risk, and that was not something to be taken lightly. They needed to be sure that every consideration was made in the planning process.

   They increased the detail of their mission planning reports and their post operational reports, and even had their Command Master Chief accompany them on a few missions. The result was that their CO and his staff developed trust in them and understood how important they treated every aspect of the process.

Key takeaways:

• Whether it be your subordinates or your superiors, they must understand what it is you are trying to achieve and how you intend to go about it.

• The more ownership of the plan that can be shared among the team, the more people can feel like a crucial part of the process and that buy-in means that they will be willing to go further and give more towards achieving that goal.

• As a leader, it can be easy to get immersed in the planning process and, as a result, miss the forest for the trees. To lead down the chain, you must take a step back and view the whole picture and then relay that picture to your team.

• It is the leader’s job to create a clear image of what it is that you are trying to achieve, make sure your subordinates know this, know their roles clearly and have an input in the design of the plan.

• Leading doesn’t just involve those subordinate to you. In many cases, superiors need to be led, too. Supply them with a full, clear picture of what you intend to do and how you intend to go about it. In turn, they will be able to make better decisions that can aid you and your team. If you aren’t receiving the help or support that you require, ask yourself, “Have I provided enough information so that they can make the right decision or support me and my team in the way we need them to?”

• If you don’t understand why your superiors are making certain decisions or asking certain questions, then it is your job to ask them for more information and how you can do more to make that process easier for them.

11. Decisiveness amid Uncertainty

The job of the sniper overwatch team is a very important one. They watch over the forces on the ground. It is their job to look out for potential threats and eliminate them before they can injure or kill any U.S. military personnel.

Leif was overseeing a sniper overwatch team, and Chris Kyle (the late sniper who was betrayed by Bradley Cooper in the movie American Sniper) spotted movement in a building and could make out a shadow, and it appeared to be holding a rifle.

Numerous times, the shadow moved past the window, but as Chris could not positively ID them as an enemy, he turned to his superior, Leif, for guidance.

A U.S. Army company unit was operating in that area at that time, so Leif checked in with their leader to see if they had any men currently within that building. He replied in the negative and instructed them to take the shot.

Leif didn’t feel comfortable with that; they could not get a positive ID. Not taking action was also a risk; there were U.S. soldiers active in the area, and an armed enemy could result in soldiers being injured or killed.

The Army commander was frustrated with their stalling and did not hide it; he wanted Chris to take the shot. Leif decided to go through some further steps to ensure they made the right decision. He asked the Army commander to have his men come back and clear the building, and that they would provide overwatch. The commander was not happy, but he had no choice and instructed his men to do so.

As soon as the men broke from their position, Leif realised the mistake, and he communicated with the commander to cancel the clear-out. Leif and Chris had miscounted the building and relayed the wrong instructions to the commander. It was friendly soldiers in that building, and the decision not to engage had saved the life of a U.S. soldier and ensured Chris wouldn’t have to live with knowing he had killed one of his brothers in arms.

Key takeaways:

• There will be instances where you are presented with a situation where you aren’t sure what the right choice is. The first thing to consider is whether this decision can be reversed or not.

• It is crucial as a leader that you are aware of the consequences of a decision and gather as much information as possible about the circumstances before making your decision.

• A leader needs to be able to stand their ground and not allow others to pressure them into a decision; they must make the choice that they think is correct.

• 100% confidence in a decision or understanding of a situation is rare, and most decisions are made with more uncertainty than anyone would like. Being able to make a decision based on the best possible information and then course-correct as the circumstances warrant is what distinguishes good leaders.

• You must be aware that not making a decision is one by default, and that too has consequences that you will have to deal with.

• When you decide on a course of action and truly believe it to be the right one, act fast and act decisively.

12. Discipline Equals Freedom - The Dichotomy of Leadership

A part of the SEAL team’s responsibilities was carrying out raids to locate and capture or eliminate terrorists.

As such, evidence needed to be gathered for presentation in court. The SEALs had never been properly trained in the art of collecting evidence, and their ransacking approach was slow, inefficient and usually meant valuable evidence was missed or accidentally damaged or destroyed.

A new Iraqi court system was set up, and stricter evidence collection requirements were introduced. The current approach was not going to work.

Jocko tasked a young SEAL with the task of creating a new search and collection routine, and he did not disappoint. He created a system that was equally fast, efficient and ensured valuable evidence would not be missed.

The SEALs hated the idea. It seemed complicated, and they assumed it would take too long on target, meaning the risk would increase of them being exposed to a potential counterattack.

Jocko encouraged them to carry out some training on the new system, and after three attempts and an ever-increasing speed, they became believers in the process.

The new disciplined approach had not just ensured better evidence collection, but it had also dramatically reduced the time spent in each location, increased the number of raids they were able to do on a night and ensured that terrorists would be convicted for the crimes they had committed.

Discipline had given them more freedom.

Key takeaways:

• Discipline is a practice that must be undertaken and worked on every single day, all year-round.

• Whenever we need more time to work on other projects or to improve at what we are doing, it is up to us to make the time; it will not magically become available for us. Parkinson’s Law states: “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” That means, if you don’t make the time, you will never find it.

• Discipline is the means by which we create more freedom in our lives. If we get up earlier, that allows us more time to work on our projects. If we work out regularly, that allows us the freedom to move and use our bodies. If we are disciplined with our finances, we are better able to provide for our families.

• It permeates everything we do. More disciplined sports teams can grind out wins against more talented teams when the going gets tough. A writer can use discipline to become more creative when she ensures she is at the laptop, at a certain time, day after day, her brain knows it’s time to go to work, and the muse tends to arrive.

• There is, however, a dichotomy. In some instances, discipline can be an excuse to remain rigid and hold on to outdated beliefs. Alongside it, the ability to adapt is crucial. Having a disciplined plan is great, but plans need to be able to change when they come up against reality. As General and then President Dwight D. Eisenhower put it: “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”

• Leadership is about learning to walk this tightrope and remain balanced and able to move and adapt as the situation requires.

• Great leaders are also great followers when they recognise that someone else has a better idea or executes it better. They remain humble.

• A leader’s job is to look out for the good of the whole team, and they must be able to make hard decisions if they are needed. Sometimes positions or people have to be removed in order to ensure the good of the overall team or company.

Closing Thoughts

The book is a must-read for any aspiring leader, regardless of their walk of life. However, I’d go a step further and say that it should be read by anyone who wants to create a better life for themselves.

We aren’t at fault for much of what life throws at us; we aren’t included in the conversation, but what we can control and what we have a say over is how we react to such challenges.

What about this post made you think?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments!! 💬

This has been done at scale through the medium of books since the invention of the Gutenberg press.

On “The Reading List” tab of the Helyos Newsletter, the first book you can find is “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win” by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin.

Both men are highly decorated Navy Seals, with their most famous deployment coming during the war in Iraq in the 2006 Battle of Ramadi.

Below, we will delve into their experiences and the lessons they learned.

The core idea of the book is “Extreme Ownership”.

The premise is that we are responsible for everything that happens to us, and we alone can forge our own path.

Of course, the authors use hyperbole to make a point, but the message is clear.

The real idea is that “shit happens”, and sometimes we are the reason it happens, and other times, we aren’t.

The question is, will we wallow in self-pity about it, or will we take practical steps and take action?

The lessons in the book are conveyed creatively through the stories of the two men’s experiences in combat, with each chapter addressing a specific lesson.

I have split the post into two parts as I feel having two opportunities to digest the ideas in the book would be more beneficial to the reader.

1. Extreme Ownership

While on tour, an incident of friendly fire occurred. A soldier’s worst nightmare!

As a result of a cumulation of errors and miscommunications, a friendly Iraqi soldier was killed, and several US soldiers were injured.

Jocko, as the Commander of Task Unit Bruiser, SEAL Team 3, had to deal with the fallout and provide his superiors with someone to blame.

While putting together the brief and searching for the person, or persons at fault, he came to a realisation. The blame lay with one person only: him.

Regardless of the myriad of mistakes that were made or people responsible, in the end, he was in charge. If his subordinates made mistakes, it was because he didn’t train them well enough. Inform them enough. Give responsibility to the right people. Remove the wrong people, etc. Ultimately, he was responsible for the mistake.

Key takeaways:

• Taking Ownership is not pick and choose; we must deal with the hand we are dealt and accept what we are left to deal with.

• Mistakes are made, people are difficult to deal with, and circumstances are outside our control. All true but irrelevant. Things must be dealt with; someone must right the ship.

• Blaming others may shift the responsibility, but it doesn’t solve the problem and those who can assume responsibility when others won’t will become much more effective leaders.

• Respect tends to follow those who can take Extreme Ownership. Whether it be by your superiors or subordinates, people respect those who are willing to assume responsibility.

2. No Bad Teams, Only Bad Leaders

One individual can be enough to turn the tide of a team’s performance.

During SEAL Team BUD/S training, the next crop of potential SEAL’s are vetted. This has a very high dropout rate and is one of the toughest selection processes of any special operations unit in any military in the world.

The story in the book focuses on two teams competing in a gruelling challenge; one team is excelling, and the other is the poorest performing of the bunch. A huge shift occurs when one of the overseers decides to swap the team leaders. Almost immediately, the worst team starts to outperform the rest.

It is a very effective example of the importance of strong leadership and how the right person can contribute to a total shift in a team’s fortunes.

Key takeaways:

• Leadership is everything when it relates to the performance of a team. A bad leader will have an effect on the performance of even the high-performing team members.

• Effective leaders take responsibility for the performance of the group, ensuring the right people are performing the right tasks and that they do their part.

• The leader sets the tone of the group, whether it’s the work ethic or the culture. Effective leaders ensure that the tone they are setting is beneficial to the group and the aim they are pursuing, and they remove any obstacle to that goal.

3. Believe

When Jocko was first informed that, going forward, his team were going to have to involve more conventional Iraqi soldiers on each of their missions, he wasn’t happy.

This was not welcome news, as these soldiers had the lowest quality training and equipment imaginable. They were nothing in comparison to the high level of training and expertise of the US Armed Forces, and especially not the Navy SEALs.

The presence of the Iraqi soldiers alongside the US troops on these missions could be a serious threat to the soldiers’ safety and their success in the field.

What eventually changed Jocko’s perspective was the understanding that if they did not train the Iraqi soldiers to defend their own country, then the USA would not be able to leave it any time soon.

It then became his job to convince his team of that same belief.

Key takeaways:

• A leader must first and foremost understand and believe in their stated goal, and then they must also make their team believe in the mission.

• Teams follow strong leaders, and if they see any doubt in the leader about the goal, that doubt will spread like an infection through the rest of the team.

• Advantage can be found in buying into an idea. The Iraqi soldiers turned out to have unexpected benefits, such as local knowledge and an ability to spot things that were out of place. Things the US soldier wouldn’t be able to recognise.

• The leader may not always agree with his superiors, but if he can see what it is they are trying to achieve, then he can believe in the goal and create and implement the best possible plan to achieve that.

• To fully understand this, the leader “must be able to detach from the immediate tactical mission and understand how it fits into strategic goals.”

• The senior leaders must take the time to listen to and understand their junior leaders’ concerns and then answer any questions they have. If junior leaders don’t understand the end goal correctly, they will not be capable of implementing the plan. It is the senior leader’s job to ensure that everyone understands this.

4. Check the Ego

The arrival of a new unit of American Army advisors and their team of highly trained Iraqi soldiers at the forward operating base was not a welcome one.

This group of Iraqi soldiers were by far the best trained and equipped that the American soldiers had come in contact with since arriving in the country. Alongside their US advisors, they had the potential to take over from the current SEAL platoon that was operating in that area.

The platoon commander brought his concerns to Jocko, clearly indicating that he was intimidated by the idea. Ho he thought he might just let the new arrivals figure things out for themselves. It was self-preservation, but it was a dangerous precedent to set.

Jocko reminded him why they were there: to defeat their enemy, and they needed to make sure they did so as a team. The commander immediately saw the errors of his ways and understood. He checked his ego, and instead, they decided to aid the new arrivals.

However, the new team showed a total lack of respect for their brethren in the Army and the SEALs. Their lack of respect for soldiers that they believed were “below” them in the pecking order, as well as their refusal to follow the grooming and dressing practices of the rest of the soldiers, did nothing but infuriate the other soldiers in the base.

Unwilling to listen to the advice of their experienced colleagues, it soon ended with this unit being directed to leave the base. Their behaviour presented far too much of a risk to the soldiers they would be working with. As a result, they had to watch the main action from afar.

Key takeaways:

• The inability of a team or members of that team to remain humble will eventually lead to mistakes.

• Higher-ranking executives or team members must understand how important their subordinates are to the overall goal and must treat them with the respect that they deserve.

• The removal of certain privileges that those of higher rank possess can help foster a sense of shared experience with those of lower rank. The opposite can create an “us and them” environment.

• Disciplined actions and routines help foster an atmosphere of responsibility, which enables a team to function effectively without allowing egos to run rampant.

• Don’t allow ego to cloud judgment. If there are new team members who operate at a high level and you fear they may outshine you, realise that they are an extra asset to the team. Forget about the individual accolades and think of the overall team performance in search of achieving the goal. Help them use their talents to the best of their ability.

5. Cover and Move

U.S forces were involved in a team offensive that involved several units operating separately but as moving parts of the whole, each supporting the other.

Two sniper teams were active, and Leif was leading one of them. The sniper teams were present to provide overwatch and support to the ground forces involved in the offensive.

Leif’s team took up their position in their building they had selected during planning, as it seemed to be the best suited for their needs.

However, it turned out that when they arrived, the building wasn’t what they thought, and it wasn’t an ideal location for ensuring a solid defence, but it still appeared to be the best of some bad options, and they made it work.

The issue came as the offensive came to an end and the ground forces moved back to base. Leif’s team were in a poor defensive position, and enemy units were aware they were there. Standard Operating Procedure was to hold position and wait until nightfall before making their way back under the cover of darkness. However, Leif felt this would be much too risky as their position was known by the enemy and hard to defend; if given the time to mount a coordinated attack, it could mean disaster for the sniper team.

Leif decided to move back to camp now, before the enemy had a real chance to attack. They did so, and although they faced engagement, they managed to cover their backs and made their way back to base.

After arriving back, Leif was confronted by a senior SEAL Chief for not using the first sniper team to cover their return to the base. At first defensive, this quickly passed as he realised the truth in the statement. He had made an error, and he was lucky it hadn’t ended badly.

Key takeaways:

• In any team or enterprise, there may be individuals within a team or multiple separate teams who like to move at a faster pace or work independently, but doing so can hamper the progress of the team. It can also render the team much less effective.

• Each group can either hinder the overall group’s progress or they can work together to forward it, but communication is key between the different groups so that each can add its own element and contribute to the overall goal.

• When teams within a business aren’t working together or are actively working against each other, they are creating silos in the business that are operating separately and not looking out for one another or the overall team. The business cannot function optimally and may even start to decline as a result.

6. Simple

A U.S Army officer who was working in an advisory role with a team of Iraqi soldiers had arrived at the newly erected base. He had a plan for the group’s first patrol; to him, it was a simple patrol.

However, he had no experience patrolling these areas, and his plan turned out to be much more complicated than he realised. When Jocko heard the plan, he realised many different variables had not been considered, and it was a much larger undertaking than the officer realised.

Jocko asked him to do a much simpler, shorter route for his first foray. He didn’t like the idea but agreed to take his advice.

The patrol went as Jock expected: chaotic and dangerous. Upon their return, the officer admitted his ignorance and that he had learned a valuable lesson.

It is not always beneficial to move fast out of the gate; sometimes it is much more important to move slowly and get to know the terrain better.

Key takeaways:

• Motivation and excitement can get the better of us; we want to pursue a goal that involves a lot of work, and we intend to do it in record time. Yet, we have no experience of what it takes and no idea of what lies ahead.

• Planning is crucial, but only the first step in a process. Small, simple steps are needed at first to find your footing and establish some experience in this area.

• Obstacles will arise, and if you enter an area outside your circle of competence, the accumulation of obstacles can be your undoing. However, if you take a simpler approach, you can meet fewer obstacles initially and learn how to master them.

• The more complicated a scenario, the more steps needed to complete it, the more likely it is that you will fail. Simply the objective, break it down over time into smaller, more achievable steps.

• When you have people working alongside you, above you or below you, they need to know what it is you are offering them and what you want from them. An incentive scheme in the company must be simple and easy to organise, a project must be clearly broken down into its component parts, and every participant must know what part they are responsible for.

This has been a look at the first half of the book, “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win”.

My next article will be Part 2, and it will focus on the second half of the book and the lessons within it.

What about this post made you think?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments!! 💬

The assumption is that it takes uncommon individuals to accomplish uncommon things in the world! Sam Walton turned that notion on its head during his lifetime.

Sam was a common man, yet he managed to do uncommon things throughout his career and become the greatest retailer in the world.

In this article, I will go through some of the best lessons that I took from his autobiography: Sam Walton: Made In America

“If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly the opposite direction.” - Sam Walton

Introduction

Sam was born in 1918 in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, the oldest of two boys - he and his younger brother, Bud, would work alongside each other for most of their lives.

He lived there until he was about five, but it was after the family moved to Springfield, Missouri, that Sam started school.

Like many people born in the USA around this time, the Great Depression and WW2 would have a profound impact on their lives and the lives of their families.

Sam would take on multiple odd jobs while attending school to help the family make ends meet. His mother had started a small milk business, and Sam would arise early, milk the cows, and his mother would bottle the milk. Sam would then deliver it after football practice in the afternoon.

Like many of the greatest entrepreneurs of the 20th century, Sam had a paper route as a young man and also found the time to sell magazine subscriptions.

He would spend his youth excelling at anything he tried. He would become the youngest Eagle Scout in the history of the state of Missouri at that time, save the life of a drowning friend, become student body president, and also be a successful American football player at both the high school and college levels. He even had a record of never playing in a losing football match.

To read all that, you would get the impression that Sam Walton was blessed with natural ability and skill, but he has disputed that, claiming he wasn’t gifted but very competitive and hard working.

After college, Sam went to work in the JCPenney store in Des Moines, Iowa. It was his first taste of retail and the beginning of a life spent in the sector.

In 1942, Sam was ready to do his part for the Allies in WW2, but due to a minor heart irregularity that came to light during the physical, he was classified for limited duty. Probably the first real time that Sam’s way forward was truly impeded.

In a state of low energy, he decided to quit his job at JCPenney’s and move to Tulsa, Oklahoma, as he awaited being called up for service. He had intentions of seeing what the oil business would involve, but ended up working at a DuPont gunpowder plant in the town of Pryor, outside Tulsa.

This change of course would be the best decision made by Sam Walton, as it would be where he met the woman he would marry, have four children and spend his life with: Helen Robson.

Sam would play his part during the war when he was called up for active duty, but due to his heart irregularity, he couldn’t see combat. He would become a second lieutenant and would spend his time supervising security at aircraft plants and POW camps.

He married Helen in 1943, and after the war, they decided they wanted to settle down and raise their family. In doing so, they would end up in Newport, Arkansas, running a little variety store that was part of the Ben Franklin franchise. This would be the beginning of a life spent working for himself in the retail industry.

This isn’t a life story about Sam, simply a short backstory of his early years and into manhood, the years that would lay the foundation for a man who would come from nothing to create the greatest retail company in the world.

What follows are some of the lessons that I took from Sam’s autobiography, based on an almost 50 year retail career.

Believe In Yourself

“It never occurred to me that I might lose; to me, it was almost as if I had a right to win. Thinking like that often seems to turn into sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.” - Sam Walton

Sam had an unusual sense of self-belief. It seemed to work in tandem with his competitive drive.

It is one of the most crucial ingredients needed to create or build something of value.

Sam characterised that attitude throughout his life and career. It was what led him on his initial step of setting up a retail empire, running his first Ben Franklin variety store.

He required the help of his father-in-law by way of a $20,000 loan (as well as $5,000 of his own money) to run that first store, which at the time was quite the risk, yet that didn’t deter Sam.

That Ben Franklin was the only store that Sam and Helen ran for the initial five years of their time in the retail business, and they managed to turn what was a struggling store into a very successful one.

Sam had set himself a goal of becoming the most profitable variety store in Arkansas within five years. He achieved that goal.

At the end of year one, they had a revenue of $105,000, which represented an increase from $72,000 the previous year under the previous owner. By the end of year five, the store’s revenue was over $250,000 with a profit of between $30,000 - $40,000.

Self-belief is infectious; others can sense it and, in turn, become more confident in you and your ability. They believe that you will do what you say you will. Sam’s father-in-law was more than willing to loan him the money to start his first store because he also believed in Sam.

Always Remain Curious

“Sam, of course, stopped to look at a store—he always stopped to look in stores wherever we went—anywhere in the world, it didn’t matter.” - Helen Walton

Sam was endlessly curious, experimenting with ideas, looking for something that would get more feet in through the door of his stores.

When not in his own stores, he would spend his time researching his competitors.

H could be found jotting things down in his notebook (he would eventually replace this with a tape recorder). He was open to learning, he wanted to see what others were doing, what was working and what wasn’t.

Even family holidays weren’t sacred. Once, while holidaying in Italy, their car was broken into after Sam dragged them into a local retailer to have a look around.

This would be a trait that he carried throughout his lifetime. In one particularly famous story, Sam was arrested in Brazil by the local police as he was found measuring the space between aisles in one of the local retailers. They weren’t sure what this suspicious American was doing.

Curiosity is crucial for anyone who wants to learn and develop. No business can grow without it.

Care For Your Customers

“Everything we've done since we started Wal‑Mart has been devoted to this idea that the customer is our boss.” - Sam Walton

In the early days of what would come to be known as Walmart, especially after having gone down the route of discounting, the store’s priority was having the lowest prices. The quality of the merchandise or how they presented it may not have been as high a priority.

They would source whatever they could get and display it out front for as low a price as possible.

This idea of looking after the customer was to become their guiding principle, and it would allow Walmart time and space for its quality and managerial capacity to catch up.

As time went on, Sam began to recruit talent into the business, which in turn led to an increase in the quality of their stores, their merchandising, their buying principles and their management structures, which would later help them to expand across the country at a rapid pace.

He developed a simple philosophy in the early years of his retail career: he wanted it to be Walmart that customers thought of whenever they thought of low prices and high-quality customer service.

It is a simple idea yet a crucial one, a happy customer will be one who comes back again and again. Jeff Bezos used this same philosophy to fuel the growth of Amazon into the global goliath it is today.

The most crucial aspect of any business is having customers who buy from you and who return, again and again.

Share Your Success With Your Partners

“Speak to people coming down the sidewalk before they speak to you.” - Sam Walton

There is a common saying that people will forget what you said or what you did, but they won’t forget how you made them feel. Sam Walton, by all accounts, made people feel good.

He was viewed in a very positive light by those who worked with him, for him and even by those who competed against him.

Whether it was their admiration for his hard work or his friendly tone, there seemed to be a genuine warmth towards the Walmart founder.

“Our relationship with the associates is a partnership in the truest sense. It’s the only reason our company has been able to consistently outperform the competition—and even our own expectations.” - Sam Walton

A large part of the company’s success was due to Sam’s ability to hand over trust of the stores and then the departments within the company to capable people and allow them to do their job.

Sam gave his managers a lot of freedom to run their stores and room to try things, even running their own merchandising promotions which encouraged competition between store managers. Anything that worked could then be rolled out to the rest of the stores, so it was a win-win.

Humans in general want to feel valuable, to feel like they are adding something to their lives and the lives of others. Sam was comfortable in trusting his staff to take on a lot of responsibility. Whether it was Ferold Arend or Ron Mayer in the early days, or David Glass, Jack Shewmaker or Tom Coughlin as the company really started to generate speed and rapidly expand.

One truly great move they made was their profit-sharing system set up in 1971. This allowed the staff (associates as they would come to be known) to own a portion of the company.

Prior to this, any new store managers were brought in as limited partners for the store they ran, so they would own a small stake in the store. This would encourage them to work harder, to see their efforts as beneficial not just for the company but for themselves.

However, one major problem was that the general staff didn’t receive anything from this system.

Helen Walton first brought this fact to Sam’s attention, and although he may have been slightly defensive in the moment, he soon realised just how right she was. This single step was maybe the most important in the history of the company.

Not every business can go public, so it may not always be possible to take the same approach as Sam did. However, the principle is the same. Make your staff feel appreciated, give them responsibility within the business and show them that you take what they say seriously and make sure to incentivise and reward them for what they do, however that may look in your business.

Remain Humble

“Two things about Sam Walton distinguish him from almost everyone else I know. First, he gets up every day bound and determined to improve something. Second, he is less afraid of being wrong than anyone I’ve ever known. And once he sees he’s wrong, he just shakes it off and heads in another direction.” - David Glass

There are countless stories about Sam Walton spending his time wandering around competitors’ stores in order to take some form of lesson from the experience.

It didn’t matter to him if they were a large retailer or a smaller business of just a couple of stores; he knew there was always an opportunity to learn something.

In life and in business, it is those people who aren’t afraid to be wrong that will ask questions and learn that bit faster than those who aren’t willing to ask. Those who are afraid to look silly refrain from asking questions, so they continue to live in ignorance.

It wasn’t just an approach he took in how he handled his business, but a way in which he lived his life. Sam drove around in an old pickup truck with cages in the back for his bird dogs, even when he was worth multiple billions of dollars.

To Sam and his family, it wasn’t about the money so much as doing something that meant something to them. Building a company that could stand the test of time, that would bring value to their family, their customers and the wider community.

In order to learn from our mistakes, we must first be willing to acknowledge that we make them. Sam had no issue in doing this; his ability to hand off responsibility to others in areas they were better suited to run ensured the right people ended up in the right positions within the business.

It wasn’t all simple, though; they had to take risks and prove the viability of their ideas to Sam many times before they had the opportunity to move ahead with them. This ensured that ideas were well thought out before they were ever implemented.

Being humble isn’t a tactic; it is a way of being, a way of life. It encourages a culture of hard work and honest effort. It also encourages the behaviour in others and leads to better organisations.

Learn From Your Mistakes

“My naïveté about contracts and such would later come back to haunt me in a big way.” - Sam Walton

In my previous article (read it here), I used Sam as an example of how a problem can become an opportunity if you are willing to look at it from a different perspective.

Sam learned from his mistakes and then could move on to the next situation without a loss of enthusiasm or purpose.

David Glass, who would eventually become the CEO of Walmart, remembers the first time he was introduced to Sam Walton. It was an early store opening, and he had heard about Sam and went to check it out. To say it was a disaster is an understatement. To cut straight to the point, it consisted of burst watermelons mixed with donkey droppings in scorching hot weather that all combined to create a chaotic cocktail.

The interesting thing is, anyone who met Sam in those early days liked him, but none really foresaw just how much he could learn, how he could adapt and prosper as a result.

Sam was no doubt an intelligent man, but I think his ability to learn from mistakes may have been his most important quality. Not just his own, but by studying what others did well, he was able to leverage the lessons that they may have learned the hard way, too.

It is for this purpose that we read books and Substack articles related to people like Sam. He asked questions, saw what worked for others and what didn’t work, then implemented what worked.

The goal of this newsletter is the same: find good ideas or principles and take action on them, or avoid those things that need to be avoided.

Charlie Munger may have said it best:

“It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”

Control Your Expenses

“You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you're too inefficient.” - Sam Walton

One lesson that consistently emerges time after time in the history of successful business founders or managers is their understanding that expenses have to be controlled as a principle.

I’ve even seen this experience first-hand with my father in a family business.

Mistakes are going to happen, costs are going to increase, and things will not pan out as expected. These are all things that are out of your control, and it is in these moments that a business which has stretched itself too much will stumble and maybe fall.

There have been few expectations of this rule; in order to ensure the survival and growth of a business, there must be a culture of controlling expenses.

In the early days of a company, waste will sink a company before it even gets off the ground and larger, more successful companies regularly collapse if expenses haven’t been managed and bloat starts to develop. When the time comes for decisive action, the business isn’t able to move fast enough and likely fails as a result.

Sam and his brother Bud both grew up in the depression, and it engendered a belief that every penny should be made to count.

Sam and his early Walmart team would travel to New York on buying trips to gather valuable merchandise. He wanted to ensure they were there for as short a period as possible and, in that time, would get as much value as possible.

He would organise to meet buyers very early in the morning and continue until very late at night; most of the time, it would involve finding people willing to arrive early and stay late to keep their warehouses open.

The next morning, they would be up for breakfast at 6 a.m., even though it would be hours until anywhere opened. He would insist that they walk everywhere to save on transport, and of course, they would have to share their rooms.

Being conscious of the money a company spends is not just a way of thinking or acting; it is a culture that permeates a company. It becomes the standard operating procedure.

As the Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie said:

“Watch the costs, and the profits will take care of themselves.”

Swim Against The Tide

“Sam, we’ve been married two years and we’ve moved sixteen times. Now, I’ll go with you any place you want so long as you don’t ask me to live in a big city. Ten thousand people is enough for me.” - Helen Walton

Great ideas aren’t always obvious, and they don’t always come from a spark of inspiration.

One of the ideas that would shape the development and growth potential of Walmart into the future didn’t appear as an obvious idea at all; it came as a result of an ultimatum.

Helen Walton let Sam know, very early in their marriage, that she had no interest in living and raising a family in a big city. This led them to Newport, Arkansas, where they opened their first variety store, and it would be in towns of a similar size in which their retail empire would be built.

They would discover, as time went on, that these towns that were ignored by the larger retail chains were crying out for a variety of options and prices they could afford and that people would be willing to come from miles away to shop if the store offered this.

If they had been the offshoot of a corporation, then they may have never located in the small towns when, in fact, it was these towns that gave them the room to grow and expand, mostly unnoticed in the early days. By the time any of the larger retailers started to take notice, they had developed so much momentum that they couldn’t be stopped.

Having to be creative out of necessity is what helped drive the growth of the company in those early days. Sam and his team liked to try things out, to experiment, and this led to some of the greatest innovations within the industry.

An early example of this happened in his Bentonville store. Sam adopted the self-service layout (it was only the third of its kind in the whole country), which today is the standard layout of all retailers.

It was also this way of thinking that led Sam to open his first “family centre” under the Ben Franklin franchise, which taught him that people would come to larger stores to shop and that these stores could be very financially successful.

It was not simply one out-of-the-box idea that turned Walmart into the behemoth it is today, but a culture of thinking like this. Looking to others for inspiration, experimenting, asking questions and trusting associates to offer up their ideas and implement them over the stores too.

There is truth in the idea that if you do what others do, you will get the results that others get. It is in swimming upstream, against the current, where the real groundbreaking opportunities arise.

Final Thoughts

The book was jam-packed with lessons and ideas, and in truth, I could write multiple articles delving into them, so I‘ve no doubt I will revisit Sam Walton on many more occasions.

One of the main lessons that I took from the book but didn’t write about above was Sam’s ability to initially move slowly, before moving with speed.

In his case, he focused on a single store (5 years in his first store) until he thoroughly knew the business, knew how to make that store a success and how to maximise its potential, then when the time came, he started scaling the business at a faster and faster pace after he learned more about the business and industry and how to expand within it.

Great business icons such as Sam create ripples that expand out and end up having a much larger effect than they or anyone else could ever expect. Jeff Bezos would famously carry a copy of Sam’s autobiography around in the early days of Amazon and refer to it for inspiration. A lot of his ideas came from those he learned indirectly from Sam.

I will leave you with a final quote from Sam:

“There’s absolutely no limit to what plain, ordinary, working people can accomplish if they’re given the opportunity and encouragement to do their best.”

What about this post made you think?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments!! 💬

There are three types of business owners:

1. Those who hide from problems.

2. Those who solve problems.

3. Those who don’t just solve them but who can flip the script, creating an opportunity others couldn’t recognise.

Not The End Of The Road

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” - Marcus Aurelius (Meditations, Book 5)

It was through the work of Ryan Holiday in his book The Obstacle is the Way that I first realised that difficulty could be more than what it appeared to be.

Over the preceding years, it has become more and more evident in what I have read about, heard about, witnessed or personally experienced.

I have also read about and listened to many stories about the founders of great companies over this period. There have been many stories, different people, circumstances, scenarios, and industries.

There has been but one constant, regardless of the story or its subject: problems arise.

I’ve also noticed that the more I research the topic that the same lessons tend to repeat themselves, again and again, through time and across all industries, and there are many different ways in which the people in question solve these problems.

One such example I used in my last article related to Brad Jacobs, how he turned a problem into an opportunity when a short seller decided to target his company (here).

So for this week’s article, I wanted to spend a bit more time on this.

If you are making your way in the world, no matter the arena, you will come up against problems.

There is no avoiding them, and those people who try and avoid them end up getting sideswiped when problems eventually surface, and they are usually so caught off guard that they struggle to recover.

Those of us who expect problems and know they are an unavoidable part of the human experience are then able to use them as a means of forward progress.

Below are 4 examples of successful business owners who decided to take control of their destiny and turned something negative into something immensely positive.

“I just had to assume there was a way through any obstacle, and then I’d find it. This is perhaps my most fundamental principle of entrepreneurialism, and to success in general.” - Sam Zell

Sam Walton

“I had to pick myself up and get on with it, do it all over again, only even better this time.” - Sam Walton

In 1945, a 27-year-old Sam opened his Ben Franklin store in Newport, Arkansas. This was his first foray into the world of retailing. He took over the store (part of the Butler Brothers chain of stores), the man who had been running the store was losing money, and he wanted out, as Sam said, “He was losing money and he wanted to unload the store as fast as he could. I realise now that I was the sucker Butler Brothers sent to save him.”

Sam and his wife, Helen, decided to make a go of the store and bought it for $25,000 (including a $20,000 loan from Helen’s father). Sam was full of enthusiasm and ideas, but this experience would teach him a crucial lesson.

The store would go on to become a major success that first year of business, with sales of $105,000 as compared to $72,000 the year before under the old management. Year 2 would see the sales increase to $140,000 and $ 175,000 by year 3. Sam’s Ben Franklin store was doing $250,000 in sales by year 5 with around $30,000 to $40,000 in profit.

It was this year that Sam was taught a valuable lesson. When agreeing to the lease at the beginning of the project, he didn’t think to include a clause in his lease that would give him the option to renew it after the first five years.

As it happened, the landlord of the building was a department store owner too, and having watched the success of Sam, he saw an opportunity to take over a strong premises and remove a competitor at the same time, as there was nowhere else in town to move the store.

So after 5 years of running his variety store and a majorly successful one at that, Sam Walton was back to square one because of a silly oversight. He had no one else to blame. This lesson, although a tough one, was one he would never repeat. Sam (and then Walmart) would always own his real estate from that day forward.

Henry J. Kaiser

“Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.” - Henry J. Kaiser

Henry J. Kaiser has been compared to Elon Musk, a modern-day titan of industry.

This was due to the scale of industry that he ran and the pace at which he worked and lived. He operated across many different industries: construction, shipbuilding, steel production, automobile production, aluminium production and even healthcare.

Henry experienced major success in the construction industry and was one of the main contractors in projects such as the Hoover Dam, the Bonneville Dam and Grand Coulee Dam.

In the 1940’s he unexpectedly ended up in the shipbuilding industry (Liberty Ships) as part of a consortium that had the aim of building more ships, at first as a means of supplying the UK in its efforts in World War 2 and then for the USA itself after the attack on Pearl Harbour brought them into the war.

Kaiser quickly brought his organisational powers to bear, ones that he had developed through the growth and management of his construction company and its major projects.

In effect, Kaiser was a talented project manager, delegator and team builder. He would find the best people and put them to work in the right place, under the right management and then trust them to do their job.

Kaiser used these powers alongside innovative techniques to start churning out ships at a speed and scale never before seen, reducing the time it took to construct the ships from months to weeks or even days.

It was here that he ran into a major bottleneck - steel supply.

Steel was a major ingredient in shipbuilding, and due to the war and the reluctance of the existing steel companies to work with him, his shipyards faced delays as they were at the mercy of their suppliers.

Never one to be at the mercy of others, Kaiser decided to take matters into his own hands and cut out the bottleneck. He founded Kaiser Steel, building his mill in 1942 beside his shipyard. He linked them via trainline (as well as with his Iron ore mine in the Eagle Mountains), creating a fully vertically integrated business and rapidly increasing the rate at which he could produce ships.

Before this, most of the steel production was focused on the East Coast and the Midwest, and now, because of Kaiser, the West Coast has easier access to steel.

Post-war, the company boomed as it moved into other industries and helped power the West Coast’s building boom after WW2.

Sam Zemurray

“If you know your business from A to Z, there's no problem you can't solve.” - Sam Zemurray

Sam, known as the banana king back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, was a young emigrant to the US from the Russian Empire (modern-day Moldova). He settled in Selma, Alabama, where his uncle owned a general store.

It was in these early years that Sam first came into contact with bananas, and he soon noticed a potential business opportunity where others saw only waste. Sam decided to take this opportunity and thus began the early days of what would be known as Cuyamel Fruit.

Over the next two decades, Sam would build it into one of the biggest banana companies in the world, competing with United Fruit (The largest Banana company in the world).

Sam encountered numerous roadblocks, one of which occurred in Honduras, where his company owned extensive tracts of land.

Sam’s company, Cuyamel Fruit, needed to build a bridge across the Ulúa River (referred to as the Utila in the book about Sam’s life, “The Fish that ate the Whale”) to transport their bananas to Puerto Cortés, so they approached the Honduran government to request permission to do so - they were denied. The president of Honduras at the time favoured United Fruit, Sam’s main competitor.

At this stage, many people would have accepted defeat and source another means of transport, but Sam was not one to take things lying down.

He decided to build abnormally long docks on both sides of the river and had his engineers create a temporary bridge (which couldn’t be called that) that could be assembled and disassembled in a matter of hours. It allowed the train to carry its cargo across the river and to the port.

When United Fruit complained to the Honduran government, Zemurray simply said, “Why, that’s no bridge. It’s just a couple of little old wharfs.”

Zemurray had so many instances of creativity that I had to add in this second example.

This took place in 1917 when both Cuyamel Fruit and United Fruit were pursuing a single 5,000-acre piece of land on the border between Honduras and Guatemala that both countries claimed ownership of.

As it happened, the dispute meant that the piece of land was owned by two different parties.

United Fruit decided they wanted the land and brought their massive weight to bear, and engaged their impressive legal teams to search through every document and deed to discover the true owner of the land.

Sam was much more practical; he simply approached both parties and bought the land from each of them, removing any doubt about who owned the land. He paid twice for it, yes, but what he likely saved in time and opportunity cost would have likely been much more expensive, let alone the massive legal fees that United Fruit incurred.

Phil Knight

“When you see only problems, you're not seeing clearly.” – Phil Knight

Phil Knight set up Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) alongside his previous track and field coach, Bill Bowerman, in 1964, based on an idea he came up with on a college paper that was written as part of his Stanford MBA in 1962.

At the time, the German company Adidas dominated the US market when it came to running shoes.

Phil’s paper investigated the idea that Japanese manufacturing could do to the shoe market what they had done to the camera market, produce a higher quality, lower-priced good that wouldn’t just compete but could dominate the market.

Through some graft and plenty of bluffing, Phil secures the exclusive US rights to sell the Tiger brand running shoes created by Onitsuka Co.(now known as Asics).

He quickly got to work, initially selling the shoes out of the back of his car at track and field events.

The first year was a modest success, selling approximately 1,300 pairs and earning $8,000. They more than doubled this by the end of year 2, and at this stage, they began to hire some help.

In 1966, they opened their first store in California and a year later, they expanded to the East Coast.

It wasn’t until 1969 that the company looked set to hit the $300,000 mark that Phil finally felt the time was right to quit his job as an Accounting Professor at Portland State University and pay himself a modest salary.

It was also in 1969 that Phil met Carolyn Davidson, who was a graphic designer and who would end up designing the famous Nike swoosh for $35.

That same year, Phil began to hear rumblings (from a trusted inside executive) that Onitsuka Co. were potentially courting other suppliers in the US.

Soon deliveries began to arrive late or incomplete. Phil tried to lock his supplier into a 5-year contract to steady the ship, but they would only agree to three years. Something didn’t feel right.

In 1971, Onitsuka Co. made an offer to buy 51% of BRS, which would have effectively made Phil an employee in his own company; he declined.

Over the next few months, Phil and Bill decided to design their own shoe and covertly made contact with a manufacturing plant in Guadalajara, Mexico, that had previously manufactured running shoes for Adidas for a period of time.

Then, Onitsuka Co. abruptly ended the contract; a massive blow to BRS, as they weren’t in a position yet to move away from selling the Tiger Brand. The company was in danger of folding.

This could have been an insurmountable obstacle for Phil.

BRS sued for breach of contract, and Onitsuka Co. countersued for trademark infringement, as BRS was selling their Cortez design. The judge ruled in favour of BRS (now becoming Nike) as Bill Bowerman had played a large part in the design of the shoe.

It was in this period that Nike was born, and the company began its development into its own self-sustaining entity.

Having had the foresight to design their own running shoe and source production, they now had to fully commit. They ramped up production of their first shoe, and in the meantime, sold through their remaining stock of Tiger brand running shoes, allowing them crucial breathing space until the production of their shoe was ready.

Nike - Phil and his team (including Bill, who was beginning to step further into the background) went from strength to strength, eventually becoming the sports apparel titan they are today.

Problems Are the Only Constant

There is no doubt that whatever you undertake in your life, you will be greeted by problems of varying degrees.

Those people who can best handle a problem, or even better, turn it into an opportunity, are the ones who will become successful in any endeavour they undertake.

“The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled.” - Stanley Marcus

What about this post made you think the most?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments!! 💬

In this post, I’ll break down how he did it and the lessons he has learned over a 40+ year career.

I recently came across Brad Jacobs on the Invest Like The Best podcast, and listening to him pushed me to purchase his book, “How To Make a Few Billion Dollars”. In the book, he shares his business philosophy along with the lessons he’s learned over the last 40+ years of his career, during which he started and built multiple billion-dollar businesses. The most recent of which he started in 2024.

In today’s post, I will share some background on Brad’s career, followed by some of the key insights he shares in the book and through listening to him speak across a number of podcasts.

Biography

Born in 1958 in Providence, Rhode Island, Brad would attend both Bennington College and Brown University to study math and music, but would drop out before completing his education.

The 68-year-old Billionaire has founded 8 billion-dollar companies throughout his career. His first two companies were set up as private entities, the first, an oil brokerage, Amerex Oil Associates, in 1979, which became one of the largest oil brokerage firms in the world. He sold the business in 1983.

The second, Hamilton Resources, an oil trading company, he set up in 1984 in London and grew to over $1 billion in annual revenue. He sold it in 1989.

In 1989, he moved onto his next venture and in a different industry - waste collection - when he set up United Waste Systems, which he took public in 1992, eventually selling it in 1997 for $2.5 billion.

In 1997, he set up United Rentals with the goal of renting out construction equipment to contractors across North America. He took the company public that same year, and within 13 months, they were the largest construction rental company in the world. He then sold the business to Cerberus Capital Management in August 2007 for $6.6 billion.

The next step in his business journey was a further foray into the public markets when he acquired Express-1 Expedited Solutions via his private equity firm for $150 million, which he rebranded as XPO Logistics and over the next four years, he grew it from an annual revenue of $175 million to over $15 billion.

In 2021 and 2022, he was able to add even more value when he spun off two segments within XPO into two standalone public companies. First, it was their contract logistics segment, which became GXO Logistics, followed by RXO, a freight brokerage platform based on the platform they created in-house.

In June 2024, Brad founded QXO, which provides roofing, waterproofing, and complementary building products to the construction sector and is currently the company's Chairman and CEO.

Get the Major Trend Right

“You can mess up a lot of things in business and still do well as long as you get the big trend right” - Ludwig Jesselson

Brad was taught this lesson in the early years of his career by his mentor, Ludwig Jesselson, who at the time was the CEO of Philipp Brothers, the commodities trading firm, and he has tried to live by it ever since.

The idea is simple - you can do everything right, find the perfect company name, design a sleek and stylish logo, have the perfect website, you can hire the best people and raise money to run the business and offer a great product or service. However, if the market isn’t there, you will fail. Imagine if Nokia’s 3310 phone were released onto the current market today, when everyone has smartphones; it wouldn’t matter how cheap or durable the product is, it would be a total failure!

On the other hand, if you get the trend right, even if your execution isn’t perfect, you will be gifted the time and space by the market to learn and adapt your product as needed. Many of today's tech giants began without a fully finished product, but as they were surfing the right trend, it afforded them room to develop their product.

Always be on the lookout for that major trend. Research various industries, consult with experts, and stay informed about the latest news related to these industries. Don’t just look at what is popular; take a broader approach and look for what others might be missing.

When you think you have a clear path or industry in mind, take a step back and try to visualise the future of that industry and what effects new technologies, such as AI, might have on it. The last thing you want is to invest your time and/or money in an industry, only for it to disappear in several years. Don’t be like the person who invests in the horse-drawn carriages industry in the early 1900s, just as the automobile was about to take off.

Learn to Love Problems

“Look, Brad, if you want to make money in the business world, you need to get used to problems, because that’s what business is. It’s actually about finding problems, embracing and even enjoying them—because each problem is an opportunity to remove an obstacle and get closer to success.” - Ludwig Jesselson

In 2018, XPO faced a crisis, an analyst working for a capital management firm released a “short report” claiming that he felt the share price of the company was bound to drop based on his analysis of the company and its performance. In reality, he had secured a short position on XPO stock and knew that when he released his report, the internet would do its work and spread the message widely, causing many investors to sell their stock based emotion and not on the actual value of the company; as a result, the share price fell 26% in one day.

The story does not end here. When this occurs, companies take varied approaches, and most of the time, they are reactionary and filled with emotion. Brad and his team decided to accept the situation for what it was and approach it head-on.

By a stroke of good luck, there were a group of fund managers due to attend Brad’s house for dinner that evening as he was set to introduce his new Chief Strategy Officer, Matt, to the group. Instead, Matt and Brad’s “C-suite” team spent the day going over the short report, page by page, in order to break it down and prove its total lack of validity. Brad and Matt spent the evening with the fund managers, and as the topic arose, Matt was able to speak in detail about the report, highlighting just how baseless the conclusions were; as a result, they were able to ease any misgivings the fund managers had about XPO.

The real sign of the company’s ability to handle the setback was the opportunity they saw within the chaos. Brad and his team realised that the XPO stock was now very cheap, and they knew this would only be temporary. They bought back $2 billion worth of stock, against the advice of their bankers - a few years later, their shares have appreciated to $6 billion, a $4 billion return.

The world will always present problems, especially when you venture down a path of growth. It is how you learn to view and deal with these problems that helps set you up for great jumps in development.

"Problems are only opportunities in work clothes." - Henry J. Kaiser

Cultivating a Strong Business

“I’ve got a bias towards industries that are ripe for consolidation.” - Brad Jacobs

Brad is famous for spotting industries that have great growth potential, but that are also fragmented and are full of inefficiencies.

His approach, once he finds that industry, is to move fast at consolidation via mergers and acquisitions. Then he quickly moves to integrate all the businesses, streamline their systems by removing unnecessary bloat, reorganise and strengthen their teams.

Deciding on the right industry is the first step. It needs to offer scale because having a small corner of a large, growing pie is better than a large chunk of a smaller or even shrinking pie. The best way to take advantage of that is by finding a fragmented industry with businesses that can be bought for lower multiples than what your own business will trade at.

Brad usually completes multiple M&A’s in short succession, and what he is looking for is to create a synergy of businesses.

“I look for industries where there's synergy as you get bigger, there's economies of scale, there's benefits of size that as you buy things and get bigger, you just don't get bigger. You get better.”

Sometimes something as simple as reorganising the organisational chart can make an impact straight away and set the business on a path towards profitable growth. Brad saw this to be true when he purchased Con-way Inc., a freight logistics company. When he was assessing the business, he realised very quickly through viewing the business’s organisational chart that there was a lot of cost-out opportunity immediately apparent. As he described it:

“It was like someone just took spaghetti and threw it against the wall. It was three different HR organisations, three different IT organisations, three different operating divisions.”

You need to be able to run the numbers and make your best estimations of the business and its potential.

Finally, one of the most important aspects of any acquisition is who you buy from. Brad believes you should only buy from a seller that you respect and believe has integrity; you don’t want any unexpected surprises down the line. Don’t play games either, be honest about what you want from the deal and listen to what they want, then work on finding a place where you can both leave satisfied.

Build a Winning Team

“No man is an island”, John Donne once wrote. Although his context may have been more spiritual than business, it still stands up in that regard.

No business exists in a vacuum, not even small, one-person outfits. When it comes to creating large organisations like Brad, the only way to reach such heights is to surround yourself with the right people. Those who help take you to the next level. Brad believes there are a number of steps in this process.

1. You must assess the current members of your team and decide whether they are A, B or C players.

   “Imagine someone walks into your office and says, ‘I’m quitting.’ Your immediate reaction reveals their category.” - Brad Jacobs

   Once you are sure whether someone is an A, B or C player, then your next step is clearer. If someone is an A player, make sure you do what you need to in order to keep them. Ensure they know and feel they are valued, and pay them well. Money is not the only thing that makes a job worthwhile for someone, but it is an important aspect. As well as that, create an environment where they can feel they have an opportunity to grow and develop while doing work that fulfils them.

2. C players need to be removed from the team.

   “Fire your C Players, but be nice” - Wayland Hicks

   Brad received advice from his previous COO named Wayland Hicks, when he ran United Rentals. That advice was to be decisive when removing poor performers from the team, but to do so with compassion and kindness and ensure they receive a generous severance package.

3. When hiring new team members, you want to aim for A players, and there are four things that Brad looks for in a new employee:- Intelligence, Hunger, Integrity and Collegiality.

• Intelligence

  Intelligent people are generally those who are adaptable and can solve problems. There are many forms of intelligence, and it is your job to know what exactly you need in your business and find the right person for the job.

• Hunger

  These people have tenacity; they have a drive to make progress. Those who take a great interest in their job and who want to perform at the highest level. - They also want the rewards that come along with that.

• Integrity

  There are many people out there who have the first two traits, but without integrity, they can be like toxic waste in an organisation and cause a lot of damage. The 2008 banking crisis had countless examples of bankers who possessed hunger and intelligence but were lacking in integrity, and it led to record levels of economic pain and suffering for many people.

• Collegiality

  A business, in ways, takes on the life of a family, and when team members can build trusting, cooperative relationships with their colleagues, the business will run better.

When you come across individuals that you feel tick all these boxes, hire them. If they are genuine, they will add immensely to your organisation. If not, their true colours will shine through relatively quickly, and you will have to take decisive action and remove them from the team.

Running Great Meetings

Most meetings tend to be either a waste of time or an inefficient use of time.

They are either too long, too frequent, or there is no clear goal. It tends to be a group of people see-sawing between topics, half the people are engaged, and half may as well be asleep.

First, we need to be clear on what constitutes an effective meeting.

To Brad, these are:

“There are three ingredients for electric meetings: the right people, a crowdsourced agenda, and an atmosphere where everyone feels safe to respectfully disagree.”

Having the right people also means not having too many people, so the size of the group must make sense. Too large and there is a lack of engagement; people can hide and zone out. Too small, and there is no true variety of ideas. Brad believes in a smaller group of 15-20 people.

The best meetings are those that aren’t scripted but where the team sets the agenda and the tone.

At these meetings, each department has its turn to present to the group via a slide deck. All slide decks are to be concise and clear about the “what, when and why of each takeaway”. The slide decks are all put together in a presentation, and each member in attendance must read this in its entirety before the meeting, then send Brad their top one or two most important takeaways and their top one or two questions.

All questions are reviewed and either added to a list, starting with the most important or removed if it isn’t worth talking about. An assigned moderator handles how the team goes through the questions and how long they spend on each question, depending on its level of importance and whether a meaningful solution is being discussed.

In his companies, there are two main meetings that he focuses on. Monthly Operating Reviews (MORs) and Quarterly Operating Reviews (QORs). He likes for there to be a mix of senior management in attendance at his meetings so that they can be aware of what is going on across the company and not just in their little fiefdoms.

Dive in on, rather than ignore conflicting opinions. In a team of highly capable and opinionated people, there will be conflict and using this to get to the most effective solution benefits everyone. The environment Brad aims to create is one where colleagues can respectfully and effectively disagree so that the best decisions can be made for the business.

Each participant must both listen and speak during the meeting, and it is up to the moderator to ensure that everyone gets asked questions and chimes in with their remarks. Sitting there passively will add nothing to the team.

For those topics that are slightly more specialised and only a few key individuals can deal with, it’s fine to leave them out of the meeting and deal with them separately.

Brad believes that rules must be kept to a minimum, but the ones that are there must be followed to the letter; turn off all devices, no conversing, one person speaks at a time, disagree with respect, and give the speaker your full attention.

Understand what it is that a person is trying to get across. Sometimes people say silly things or get something wrong. In order to keep the meeting flowing as smoothly as possible is to politely disagree while also pairing that with validation. This can help to soften the blow and ensure people don’t feel they are being personally attacked or patronised.

Learning to run effective meetings can ensure high-level communication and decision-making across a business.

Enabling Your People to Thrive

Brad believes in creating a culture that encourages unity, in which a group can work together to produce some truly great results. Yet, still encourage individuality to shine through and add that creative spark that we are all capable of.

In order for this to work, communication is critical, and it begins at the top - the CEO must set the standard. This only works if the communication is honest, and this means that during good times as well as bad, employees (and the board if the company is public) deserve to know what’s in front of them. It will mean that even when the news that’s being shared isn’t positive, it will be heard from a place of trust and respect.

Maybe the most important aspect of communication is the ability to effectively listen, and it is a skill that many of us do not possess, or maybe a better way to look at it is like a muscle that we don’t exercise frequently; therefore, it is weak. The act of listening to what people are saying enables you to better understand them and the situation, and it will allow you to make more effective decisions.

“Give the person you’re with your entire attention while listening to them non-judgmentally. This is the greatest gift you can give anybody.” - Brad Jacobs

As a company grows in size and scale, its leadership become much more dependent on its employees throughout each level of the company. The environment must be one in which the employees feel like they can share their thoughts about the business and know they are being listened to, even if the management doesn’t necessarily agree. The ability to be candid is a crucial aspect of a company’s culture, and Brad tries to encourage it at every level of the business, up and down the chain, including with himself; the CEO should never be free from or protected from honest feedback.

Final Thoughts

There are very few people in the world who have created value on the scale he has, and the fact that he has so openly shared what he has learned over his career is hugely beneficial to anyone who reads his book or listens to one of the many podcast episodes in which he offers his sage-level advice.

I will leave you with one final quote from Brad:

“Problems are an asset—not something to avoid but something to run toward. Big ambitions often beget even bigger problems. If your initial reaction to a major setback is overwhelming frustration, that’s understandable, but it’s also counterproductive. Once you’re over that moment, pivot toward success: “Great! This is an opportunity for me to create a lot of value. If I can just figure out how to solve this problem, I’ll be much closer to my goal.”

P.S

Brad has been meditating every day for 3o minutes - 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening - and has done so since he was sixteen years of age. He believes it to be an immensely beneficial practice, and it has likely contributed to the means by which he has dealt with some of his major setbacks.

“Meditation has been my main hobby since I was a teenager. It’s helped me stay calm and think creatively in challenging circumstances.” - Brad Jacobs

What about this post made you think?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments!! 💬

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that, after years of reading books of all sorts (I’m 33 at the time of writing), it’s only recently that I’ve realised how important it is to take notes as you read—and to have an easy way of finding them later.

I came across a post online (don’t ask me where, I was doom scrolling) showing two books lying flat. Each had a little stick figure along its fore-edge. One book was full of sticky tabs marking pages where the reader had found something noteworthy and made a note. The other book was blank.

The first stick man was climbing to the top of the book using the tabs—presumably towards knowledge or enlightenment. The second was jumping, trying to grab hold of the cover to pull himself up, with little success.

A simple image, but it stuck with me. It encouraged me to follow the first stick man’s example. The picture above is my version; it may not be pretty, but it certainly is effective.

Combined with my Audiobooks, Kindle and the Readwise app, this small shift has already shown me just how much more I retain when I engage with what I’m reading.

“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.” – Albert Szent-Györgyi

Henry Ford was one of the key figures behind America’s industrial rise in the early 1900s.

He had a simple goal: build more cars, build them more efficiently, build them faster and at a lower cost.

But to do that, he needed fresh ideas, so he began looking for them. The automobile industry was in its infancy so the ideas may need to come from elsewhere.

So, Ford started looking outward.

He visited grain mills, breweries, meatpacking plants—any place doing large-scale production. He was in search of inspiration!

The meatpacking industry especially caught his eye. Their disassembly lines—where workers each had one job and repeated it with precision—stood out for their efficiency and flow.

Ford had a lightbulb moment. If meat factories could break down animals step by step, could he reverse that logic and build cars in a similar fashion? Piece by piece, step by step, with each worker focused on a single task?

That spark of inspiration became the moving assembly line.

This innovation would allow for the mass production of vehicles and over time the radical drop in the price giving ordinary people a chance of entering the market.

Ford’s idea would aid in the major development of industry in the U.S.A over the next century allowing it to become the foremost economic and military power in the world.

This week…

Tim Ferriss’ “Muse Business” Idea

At its core, Tim Ferriss’ concept of the “muse business” is about reclaiming your time and building true freedom.

The idea is this: create a small, low-maintenance online business that generates consistent, predictable income without demanding your full attention or constant involvement.

This isn’t about chasing rapid growth, managing a big team, or preparing for a high-stakes exit. The goal isn’t to scale it into a start-up empire or eventually sell it for millions. Instead, it’s about designing a business that quietly runs in the background of your life - efficient, simple, and reliable.

The focus is on creating something that supports your lifestyle rather than takes over your life. A muse business gives you the freedom to spend your time how you actually want to—travelling, exploring new interests, working on passion projects, or just slowing down. It’s a deliberate shift away from the typical hustle mindset, favouring autonomy over ambition for its own sake.

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The Ikea Effect

This cognitive bias refers to a deeper feeling of ownership over something when we are involved in some part or all of its creation.

Think of the satisfaction that washes over you when you stand up that IKEA bookshelf you put together yourself and start to add your books. The fact that you not only invested your time in choosing the bookshelf but in its actual assembly helped you foster a more emotional connection to it.

There are examples of this everywhere, business owners feel it about their company, homeowners about the house they helped design and put together, writers about the characters in the books they write as well as countless other examples.

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The Acquired Podcasts episode on IKEA

Another fine episode by Ben and David. I’ve listened to quite a few episodes since stumbling across the podcast a few months ago!

“If you avoid conflict to keep the peace, you start a war inside yourself.” – Cheryl Richardson

We’ve all dodged a conversation we knew needed to happen.

Something uncomfortable. Something that wouldn’t go away on its own.

Maybe a colleague crossed a line or your boss was unreasonable. Maybe your partner brought up a past issue you thought was settled. You knew you should say something—but didn’t.

We always have a reason not to speak up. We rationalise it to ourselves yet delay or avoid it. But all we’re really doing is kicking the can down the road—and giving the problem more room to grow.

There’s that old saying: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

The same goes for tough conversations. Yesterday was ideal. But today is the next best option—don’t let it sit until tomorrow.

The Power of One Conversation

In October 1962, the US discovered Soviet missiles secretly installed in Cuba—just 90 miles from Florida. The world edged towards nuclear war.

For 13 tense days, leaders scrambled for a way out. Formal talks went nowhere.

Then came a quiet meeting between US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. Behind closed doors, RFK offered a deal: if the Soviets pulled their missiles from Cuba, the US would quietly remove its missiles from Turkey.

The Soviets wanted those missiles gone. The US didn’t want to be seen as backing down. So the deal remained private.

One quiet conversation averted global catastrophe—and a war like none seen before.

Making the Hard Call

In the early 2000s, Netflix founder Reed Hastings faced a tough choice: have a painful conversation that could end a friendship—or risk the future of his company.

Netflix was struggling. Streaming hadn’t started yet. His co-founder and friend, Marc Randolph, had been key in launching the company—but didn’t have the leadership skills to steer it forward.

Reed told Marc it was time to step down as CEO. He believed he could lead better.

Marc stepped aside. Reed took over. Today, Netflix is the largest streaming platform in the world, with over 300 million subscribers as of January 2025.

And the two men were able to remain friends as Marc respected Reed for what he did.

Take the Long-Term View

Being willing to have a hard conversation shows maturity. It shows you can zoom out, look at the big picture, and prioritise the long-term over short-term discomfort.

It’s not just about speaking up. It’s about how you do it—saying what’s true, in a way that helps, not harms.

“You don't have a right to say whatever you want. You have a responsibility to say what is true, in a manner that is helpful.” – Jordan Peterson

This week…

“People are trying to be smart—all I am trying to do is not to be idiotic, but it’s harder than most people think.” - Charlie Munger

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The latest post by Justin Welsh for his weekly newsletter: The Saturday Solopreneur

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An X post (here) by George Mack to remind us that we need not place anyone on a pedestal, in the end, there are no real adults around.

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For any Fantasy Lovers, I’ve just started “Wind and Truth: The Stormlight Archive Book Five by Brandon Sanderson.

I hadn’t realised it had come out so I’m a bit behind but I cannot recommend this series enough.

"A blatant but often accurate generalization: people who are curious and passionate read, people who are apathetic and indifferent don't." - Nolan Bushnell

I don’t believe it to be an understatement to say that reading can change lives.

The course of history has been altered or shaped by the fact that an individual happened to stumble on a book that struck a chord with them.

Nowadays we have unlimited access to the world's knowledge, all we have to do is reach into our pockets.

Yet, that is only a recent phenomenon.

Prior to that, there were only books.

For most of written human history, only the wealthy had access and the required education in order to read them.

The invention of the Gutenberg press in the 15th century was the gateway into large-scale printing of books, which before that had to be copied by hand.

Literacy levels would slowly increase over the next few hundred years, and around the time of the industrial revolution, when more compulsory schooling was introduced, did these numbers start to increase in the western world.

Books help shape the world

Many if not all of the most influential people in the world read in some capacity.

Some of the best ideas come from a seed that is planted while reading a book. The greatest business, thought, and world leaders developed their ideas through the books they read.

For some, it completely changed the trajectory of their life and the lives of the millions they would affect.

Frederick Douglass, born into slavery, learned to read at 12, thanks to his enslaver’s wife. That knowledge changed his life—and ultimately helped free millions.

Patrick Kavanagh, a farmhand from rural Monaghan, had little formal education. Borrowing a book of poetry set him on the path to becoming one of Ireland’s most influential poets.

Andrew Carnegie, a poor Scottish immigrant, had no formal education. But when a local businessman, Colonel James Anderson, opened his library to working boys, Carnegie found the key to changing his life—books.

Helen Keller, deaf and blind from infancy, had almost no prospects in the late 1800s. But with the help of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, she learned to read and write via braille. Books became her bridge to the world, leading her to write, speak, and champion numerous causes.

A Changing World

Technology is advancing at an exponential rate. Video and audio learning are growing fast, offering convenient ways to absorb information.

Still, I believe reading remains the most powerful form of learning. Video and audio can be consumed passively, but reading demands focus. A fully engaged mind absorbs more.

The future is unknown, the forms of learning not certain, but humans will always need and crave knowledge, and books are windows into the minds of the great, the past and in my opinion, the future.

Quotes that resonated…

"People praise you in public for what you practice in private" - Tony Robbins

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"When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear." - Thomas Sowell

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“Victory belongs to the most persevering.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

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“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once” - Julius Caesar

"The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him." - Niccolò Machiavelli

History is littered with the stories of powerful rulers who surrounded themselves with sycophants. Those ‘yes’ men and women who pander to everything they say!

Examples can be found in all walks of life, surrounding anyone with a position of power or perceived power, whether it's world leaders, business owners, spiritual teachers, or even a local committee.

Weak people and potential sociopaths (maybe even psychopaths) alike have fallen victim to the same thing. One being too afraid to stand up and say “enough”, the other only too happy to have their ego stroked.

This is not to spare these people from blame by any means, Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin may have been surrounded by ‘yes’ men bent on their own progress, but we cannot use that to excuse the atrocities these men instigated. They were not innocent bystanders. Hitler, for one, wrote a book about his intentions years before coming to power.

The business world is not without its characters who have caused large-scale harm.

In recent times, we have watched the fall of swindlers like Sam Bankman-Fried, Elizabeth Holmes and Bernie Madoff.

These people committed fraud on a massive scale but did not do so alone.

No one was either willing to call them out or they benefited too much, choosing to stay quiet out of self-interest.

Either way, people suffered as a result.

It is not only at a large scale that these things happen, in everyday life there are examples that cause much less harm.

Yet, as a business owner or a leader in any arena, it is up to you to surround yourself with capable people. Those who will question your ideas and motives. That will bring out and expect more from you.

It is up to you to bring these people into your life.

Abraham Lincoln had his famous “team of rivals”.

Here was a strong man of principle who believed that he should be challenged daily in order to achieve the best outcome for the people.

Marcus Aurelius, who is believed to be one of the best Roman Emperors, ensured he was surrounded by honest advisors, men not afraid to question or challenge him.

In Northern Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement brought peace to a place that had suffered with violence for decades. It was the coming together of leaders from different backgrounds, with vastly different world views that finally made it possible.

You must be selective about those you spend your time with.

Whether it's your relationship, your circle of friends, business associates, family members, etc., it doesn't matter.

If the group consists of strong people who aren’t afraid to question and challenge one another then the group as a whole grows stronger.

The values and ideas that the group produces are then more likely to be stress tested and much more robust.

It is those whom we surround ourselves with that help create who we become. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe put it:

“Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.”

This week…

I want to share a post I wrote before but it’s something I think is crucial to understand.

When it comes to work, there is being busy and there is being effective.

Many make the mistake of confusing one with the other when in fact busyness is not necessarily a sign of being effective, in many cases it may just be a sign of being busy.

I hope you enjoy the read!

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Productivity as procrastination…

We all know that feeling, as we sit down to write that article, attempt that assignment, edit that PowerPoint for tomorrow's work meeting. All of a sudden there is dusting that needs to be done, the dishwasher that's been sitting full for 4 hours all of a sudden needs to be emptied, the clothes need to be hung out to dry.

These are all tasks that need to be done but do they need to be done now at that exact moment or are we just using them as a means of procrastinating further?

When I first became aware of the idea that productive work could also be another form of procrastination, it was like I had been blind and now I could see. I suddenly gained enlightenment and looked back differently on the many many times when I had done just such a thing.

I even feel the urge to do it now as I write this very post.

Productive work feels great. It’s a win, a task started and completed. A boost to the ego and a license to now take a break. While you sit down to watch tv and drink a well earned cup of tea, you can do so in the knowledge that you have completed something.

Yet, what about that task that you avoided doing and which is probably more important? It still likely has to be done. You may have been able to push the thought aside for a little while but it will slowly start to creep back to the forefront of your mind. Then the cycle begins again and you feel none the better.

There is a simple solution. I didn’t say easy because you still have to do the hard part. You have to decide what your highest priority task is and we all usually know what it is we should be doing, and just get straight to it. The other work can be done later. It will get done.

I am someone who gets a lot done. I’m productive in many ways but I am not nearly as effective as I would like to be. I know there are many others out there who feel the same and maybe if we just “eat the frog” as Brian Tracey would say more often and do our most difficult but important tasks first, we would be much more effective as opposed to just productive.