The Magic Button

I am a business owner. I wouldn't trade that for the world. Yes, I make decent money but I would like to point out two things. First, I would do this for much less (if I had to). Second, I wouldn't trade this position for a similarly paying position as an employee of a business, golf course, or sports stadium. That's just me. I often make the mistake of thinking that most people would agree with me on this, but I really don't know and it wouldn't be fair to assume.

To become a business owner, it takes a lot of work. Of course, it takes a lot of work to get to any positions of authority and/or responsibility. Most of the successful people I know are not afraid of working hard. That got me to thinking, "why don't more of these men and women start up their own businesses?" In a word, RISK.

To get your own business going, you need to lay it all on the line. Put up cash, forego income for a period of time, work your butt off and hope that it all pays off and results in a company you can call your own. I read a statistic somewhere that 99% of all new business startups do not last 10 years. That's a lot of money and sweat equity down the tubes. It's no wonder many people don't want to take that plunge. I had the dumb luck of having very gracious parents who didn't mind me sleeping in a small studio apartment above their garage for a year after I graduated college. With no expenses, no wife or kids and a bit of cocky self assuredness, I decided to go for it and get a business going. In another piece of random luck, I came into contact with a guy (Peter Teed) who was similarly cocky, had very little to lose, and whose skills balanced my own perfectly. We both figured, "why not?"

Today, I'm married with a big mortgage two great kids and a wife who has me constantly wondering how on earth I got so lucky. If I was currently an employee somewhere and suddenly got the bright idea to get a new business going, just how far do you think I'd get with that idea? Not very. Responsibility calls for reliability. Getting a new business off the ground is ANYTHING but reliable.

I got to wondering something though. What if the risk was removed? Purely hypothetically of course; What if somebody could press a magic button, and suddenly switch career status from "Employee" to "Business Owner?" No stress associated with building the business, no periods of time where income was iffy and/or nonexistent. Just push that button and presto change-o, you now have a company with a handful of valued employees and a steady income that matches your current salary to the penny. In fact, imagine your current employees ARE the employees of your very own business. Would you do it? Would you press that button?

Whether or not YOU would press the button, what percentage of professionals do you think would press it? It's a survey I'd love to see done. Just listening to people talk gives me the impression that the number would be pretty high. Maybe more than 50%, but maybe not. I really don't know, and I'm not a pollster. Still, I think there are a lot of guys & gals out there who are fairly well accomplished, but would love to just open their own business, be their own boss, and have much better control of their own future. Then they think of their wife (or husband), kids and mortgage.

I actually have asked the reverse question from several friends who own their own businesses. Would you trade your business in for a management position paying a salary that equals your current income? The responses range from polite chuckles to negotiations of the terms. "If I was given a guaranteed lifetime contract and could come and go as I please? Sure!" Even with the reported headaches that go with business ownership, the control and freedom is intoxicating. Guys like me won't give that up for just about anything. The truth is though, this is America. We CAN switch career status from one to the other. We just can't do it painlessly with a magic button.

What if you don't already have a career established and are just getting out of school? Well then, you need to decide which path you'd like to go down. You are at the bottom of a "V" and the two options get further away from one another as you move up further toward the top. One line takes you toward business ownership and the other takes you to a career as an employee moving up the ladder in your industry of choice. Both are valid, rock solid choices. Both entail lots of hard work to get to the top. So you have a choice. After you have put in 5 - 10 years of hard work, which pinnacle do you want to be standing on? You don't get a magic button for either, just as you won't get it later if you decide you picked the wrong path.

There's an old saying. "The elevator to health, happiness, and success is out of order. You'll have to take the stairs, one step at a time." Are you going to start climbing, or are you going to wait around in hopes that the elevator gets fixed. If you decide to get climbing, think long and hard about which set of stair you want to take.

Taking on a Sacred Cow

In today's blog post, I'm not only going to take on a sacred cow. I'm going to bludgeon it, butcher it up and serve it for dinner. I hope you like red meat.

We like to think of career success as a product of hard work and determination. Today I'm going to argue that there's more to it than that. Not only do you need to work hard, but you need to make the right choices at the right times, and be in the right places with the right people. No problem right? To further explore this point, consider the following:

1) A large majority of professional Canadian Hockey players were born in January, February, or March. In many European countries, the same pattern holds true for soccer players.

2) A large majority of highly successful New York City lawyers are Jewish children of depression era garment district workers.

3) A hugely disproportionate number of marathon champions are descendants of a small tribe (The Massai) in Kenya, despite people from all over the world following similar training regimens.

4) A hugely disproportionate number of Nobel prizes in mathematical sciences are awarded to Ashkenazi Jews (Jews of Eastern European descent).

What's going on here? These aren't just simple statistical anomalies. These are off the charts results, but they actually all show a similar pattern. Major success is often not just about hard work and dedication. It also requires intangible factors that are usually out of our control. If you were a healthy, athletic young man who was an active long distance runner, and you went to train with the best Kenyan trainers, you'd still probably fall far short of the achievements of your Massai competitors. If you were born and raised in Canada, but your birthday was December 30th, you'd have a far lower chance of hockey success than your best friend would if he was born on January 5th, just a week after you, even if the two of you were essentially evenly skilled.

A simple blog post would not be enough to explain these anomalies, but you can read the explanations if you pick up Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers." Being in the right place at the right time has a LOT to do with how our life moves forward. Typically, you cannot control that. You can only seize the opportunities that arise, and make the most of them. This concept can seem distasteful to many people who relish hard work and take pride in clawing their way to where they are today. Don't misunderstand. Hard work is CRITICAL, but there's a difference between being a good superintendent at a local 9 hole golf course and being the Director of Grounds at Pebble Beach. To hit that ultimate level of success, you need to work brutally hard, but you also need to be in the right place at the right time.

In the golf course business, the top level guys were pushing mowers and fertilizing greens before most of us knew there was a career to be made in golf course management. They were there when the business was evolving. They were there when it boomed, and they were the go-to guys when top level courses needed a battle hardened grounds manager to take the reigns of the course. Did they work hard for it? Hell yes. Were they in the right place at the right time? You'd better believe it.

Nowadays, top level golf course jobs have hundreds of applicants before the previous job holder has left the parking lot. Is there really only 1 good applicant for this position? Must the Greens Committee plod through hundreds of applications in a furious chase to find that 1 magical person who can suitably run the course? OR, are there really many hard working, qualified people, all but 1 of whom will be passed over once again?

People might say that I'm giving excuses to people for failure. I would argue that I'm simply looking at things as they are. To truly succeed in life, you usually need to carve out your own niche, and fill a void that nobody else is filling. To do that, you need to take risks and you need to move in a direction that most people do not. When that area of business then evolves, who do you think will be the top guy standing? Don't be afraid to go your own way. Combine that with diligent, hard work and I'll see you in 20 years in Hawaii.