Driven to Business with Eddie Mayfield

Einstein famously said, “I have no special talent, I’m just passionately curious.”   Children are incredibly curious, and adults that are great learners retain this childhood trait.   Einstein said a number of times, that he had a childlike passion to know how things work.

Erika Anderson wrote “Learning to Learn” in the March 2016 issue of the Harvard Business Review.   She lists four traits that lifelong learners exhibit.

1. Aspiration
2. Self Awareness
3. Curiosity
4. Vulnerability

Aspiration simply means to aspire, or want to learn.  First step to learning guitar?  You must aspire to play.  The good news is, you can raise your aspiration level.

Think of the last time you were asked to adapt to something new.  Were you happy about it?  For most of us, the answer is “no.”  That’s because, according to Anderson, we focus on the negative.  When we do want to learn something, we focus on the positive, and therein is the key to raising your aspiration level.

Focus on the benefits, and envision the rewards that will come once you’ve mastered the change.  Picturing yourself as successful at this will go a long  way toward motivating your aspiration for it.

Self Awareness is something that most of us understand.   We get the value of soliciting feedback and understanding how others view us.  But the majority of us are woefully poor at it.

A Cornell University study found that 94% of professors reported doing “above average” work.   At least half of them, by any reasonable assessment; were wrong.

Let’s face it, all of us have a hard time seeing our own weaknesses, and it takes effort and commitment to overcome.

The New Testament admonishes to “let a man examine himself.”  That ancient advice remains relevant.  Arrogant people do not learn, it’s only when we are able to see ourselves truly, that we become teachable.

How to improve?  First of all, start talking to yourself.  My wife often kids me about doing this, but start by admitting- to yourself – that your opinion of yourself is biased.  Jim Collins says the first step to failure of an organization or its leader is “hubris born of success.”  In other words, arrogance.. even arrogance that comes from being successful.   I once heard Zig Ziglar say that while “we judge others by their actions, we judge ourselves by our intentions.”

Strive to become more self aware.

Curiosity:  I got interested in electronics as a kid, and was eager to learn everything about it.  I remember after reading a book about how television worked, laying in my bed that night thinking what genius it took to come up with that circuitry.

We should never lose the wonder of all  that’s around us.

Want to get old?  Stop being curious.

People that retain a passionate curiosity not only tend to be more successful, they tend to be happier.

And finally, the trait of vulnerability.  Everyone knows the discomfort of not being good at something.  I remember learning to fly.  I was a reasonably successful businessman at the time and it seemed everything I did was wrong and awkward.  That wasn’t true in many other aspects of my life, but in that area, I was not good.

Eventually, I learned the skills, and even had the chance of coaching some others as they learned.

But here’s the point;  anything you begin to learn requires that you become vulnerable.  Refusing to be vulnerable just means you can’t learn.

So to recap what Erika Anderson’s HBR article says..  in order to learn to learn, you must aspire, be self aware, be curious, and be vulnerable.

Here’s the good news, you CAN improve in every area.  In my experience, people that exhibit those traits are the kind of people others enjoy being around.

Most success in business and life flows from relationships.  People that cannot learn, tend to be poor at building deep relationships.

Back to the curiosity trait for a moment. (After all, it is the title of this blog)

Columbia Professor Tomas Chamorrow-Premuzic makes the startling claim that curiosity is as important as intelligence as a determinant of success.

He talks about IQ (intelligence quotient) of which all of us are aware.  IQ is essentially the brain you were born with.  There are some things you can do to boost IQ, but in general, you have what you have.  IQ alone doesn’t mean you’ll be successful.  All of us know intelligent losers.

EQ (emotional quotient) is the ability to perceive, control, and express emotions. EQ is key to the interpersonal skills that are so important in success.  You CAN improve your EQ.

Then he talks about CQ or curiosity quotient.  Basically,  people with high CQ have a hungry mind.  I’ve been in the electronic motor drive business for decades.  I got hired into the field following a period of unemployment.  In the first place I was so thrilled to have a job, that I was “hungry” to learn the skills necessary to ensure my success.  But, along the way, I became fascinated with the technology and my CQ (although I never used that term) went through the roof as I became passionate about learning everything I could.

Want to increase your CQ ? (you should, its a great way to keep your mind viable)..

Start by looking at the world around through the eyes of a child.  How does water get to my kitchen sink?  How does a refrigerator work?  How did that company know I was interested in that product?

Try it..  life is a lot more fun for the curious.

Eddie

You’ve heard the saying that men don’t really care what’s on TV, they just want to know what else is on TV.  Most of us have developed the skill where we channel surf like there was a reward for it.

Unfortunately, many of us bring that mentality into our business life.   Per University of San Francisco professor Dr. Jim Taylor, research shows that those who claim they are great at multitasking (which applies to most business people) are in fact, worse than others at it.

Per Taylor, there is in fact no such thing as multitasking, at least when it comes to work.  The best thing to do when you need something done, is turn off everything else, and work on the job in front of you.

Think about this for a moment, since when is starting anything an accomplishment?  It’s fairly easy to start anything.  I could get up from my chair right now and start a marathon, never leaving  the room.  It’s finishing that matters, not starting. And finishing requires focus.

There’s an old saying that the hunter trying to shoot two rabbits at once will get neither.

Country music star and record producer Vince Gill said that the title “producer” should really be “reducer,” because his job is to determine what will NOT be on the album.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the hardest decision in business was what NOT to work on.

It’s the same with us.  Who are your customers and prospects?  If you say “everyone” you are dooming yourself to frustration and failure.

Focusing is hard work.  Bain and Company published a white paper in 2012 called “The Focused Company.”  They contend that complexity is a natural trait of any large organization, and requires concentrated efforts to combat.   A focused company does not invest to win in every element of its business; rather it invests primarily in its core, the business in which it can outperform everyone else.

How does one go about this?  First, identify your core.  I find that many business leaders cannot do this.  If it takes more than a few sentences to describe what your company does, then YOU don’t really understand what you’re about.

Once you do identify it, focus on it like there’s no tomorrow.  When deciding how to spend your time, just ask, does this help strengthen our core business?  If the answer is “no.”  Then don’t do it.

I love what the character Dwight from the television series “The Office” said:  “I just ask myself, ‘would an idiot do this?’ If the answer is ‘yes’ then I do not do that thing.”

Here’s other hard part, your core may need to adjust and change over time.  If you’re selling sliderules, maybe it’s time you changed your core competency.

Focus.. and be successful.

Eddie

Where do business ideas come from? My observation is they often come from what you already know. At least in my experience, the genesis of the opportunity rarely comes from a disciplined search process, rather it emerges from experience, background, and attitude.

The most successful ideas come from recognizing an opportunity while it’s in the process of forming.  Entrepreneurship University notes that this often springs from an observation of:

• A process that can be more efficiently performed
• An attractive new service or improvement in an existing service
• A business or geographic niche that is presently underserved

Opportunities can even spring from failure.  Perhaps the most famous example of this is from 1968 when 3M chemist Spencer Silver was attempting to develop a better, stronger  adhesive.

During his experimentation, he came up with microspheres, which allowed attached surfaces to be separated easily without tearing either surface.  Hardly the new strong adhesive he was searching for.

Several years later, one of his colleagues. Art Fry approached him about a possible use.  Fry sang in his church choir, and found it frustrating that the pieces of paper upon which he made notations about the songs fell out of his music folder.  He’d heard Silver talk about his microsphere adhesive and wanted to see if it would make his notes stick a little better.

From that came the now ubiquitous Post It Notes.  One of the most profitable and well known products ever developed by 3M. And it came from a failure.

Seeing opportunity in a field: Some years ago my good friend and colleague Larry was driving through North Georgia when he noticed a number of mobile homes parked in a field.  Most people would have just driven by, but Larry pulled over and determined who owned them and why.  Turned out they were left over from a government relief project.  Larry bought them at a great price, put them in a mobile home park, and began renting them.  Larry, who had a background in property management, saw opportunity where others just saw abandoned mobile homes.

John D. Rockefeller grew up in poverty, and never forgot his roots, even after acquiring great wealth.  He had a lifelong aversion to waste, and one of the things he hated wasting was a noxious by product of his kerosene refinery, known as gasoline.

Most refiners simply dumped the volatile and highly flammable liquid, some into rivers.  It is said that at one time, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio was so polluted with gasoline, that coals dumped from a passing steamship could set the river on fire.

Rockefeller began using gasoline to provide heat for his refining process, and developed methods of storage and processing.  When the automobile era began, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil was there to provide the fuel.  As the worldwide market for Kerosene declined, Standard Oil developed even more products such as paraffin and plastics from oil, as additions to his now burgeoning gasoline business.  A great example of spotting an opportunity all of his competitors missed.

We’ve seen this time and time again at our company, EMA Inc.  Where noticing opportunities to provide better service, led to new business opportunities, and in some cases, a completely new revenue stream.

What about you?  As Zig Ziglar used to say, “no one stumbles over anything sitting down.”  So, first of all, be engaged, and pay attention to the world around you.

When you see an inefficiency in your market, ask yourself “is there any way I can resolve that?”  Is there some niche that’s under served in your business category?

Be alert, stay positive, and seize opportunities.   If you don’t, your competitors will.

Eddie

The first sales school I ever attended was in Nashville, Tn, and the job was selling Bibles door to door.  That’s a great way to learn humility by the way.

They taught us a technique called “the Friendly Act.”  It went like this; when a person answered the door and was rude, you’d turn to leave, and then ask “is there anyway I can get a drink of water from you?”

IF they got you the water, a remarkable change took place in their attitude.  They became noticeably more friendly.

It’s how God wired us up as humans; it’s almost impossible to do something kind for a person and not feel kinder toward them.

Try it.  The next time you are angry with someone, do something physically nice (it must be an action, not just a thought).  You’ll note a change in your attitude.

Joshua Becker writes that  many people view life as a pyramid with those at the bottom serving those on top.  The ones on bottom assume that joy and happiness is obtained by being served. But  life is actually more fulfilling down below.

Becker says that real joy is found not in being served, but in choosing to serve.  Is he right?

I have a friend who runs a ministry to homeless people in Atlanta.  Often when feeding them meals, he has the homeless serving food to each other.  He explained to me that many of these guys had never learned the art and joy of serving others.  My observation was that those serving did in fact gain satisfaction from the act of service.

So, how does that apply to us in business?

John Maxwell in his book “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership talks about positional leadership.  This is the leadership role that happens when you are given a supervisory job or position.  It does indeed come with leadership responsibilities, but many wrongly assume that simply having the title makes them a great leader.  All of us have seen examples of this.

Maxwell suggests that while the title may be a starting place, its nowhere near the desired finish. Almost all of his suggestions about becoming a great leader have to do with serving and caring about others.

Jim Collins in “Good to Great” says the common characteristic of leaders that took their organizations from being good to great, was humility.  Yep, that’s right, humility.

The older I get, the more I realize the importance of relationships in business.  In fact, sans meaningful relationships, business success is almost impossible.

Meaningful relationships are never built on a “what can I get out of this” attitude.  No one likes being used.

Want better employees in your company? Build good relationships  by serving them.  Want to improve your company’s brand?  Serve the market.

Build meaningful relationships, not by seeing what you can get out of it, but by what you put into them.  Zig Ziglar said that you can have almost everything you want in this life, IF, you’ll help enough other people get what they want.

Try it and see, success will follow.

Eddie Mayfield

All of us recognize a great company culture when we see it.  There are companies and organizations where you sense an ambiance that makes you feel welcome and wanted.   That’s a sign of a great company culture.

Conversely, we’ve all walked into far different circumstances, and that’s a sign of that company’s culture as well; a bad sign.

A good company culture, over time, is almost always intentional.  Otherwise you are depending on what could be widely varying cultural norms, somehow coalescing, and forming a great shared culture.  I suppose that’s possible, but it’s not likely.

Look up the definition of culture, and you’ll find something like beliefs, values, and basic underlying assumptions.

Per a Lifeway article, an organization’s behavior includes “all that you would see, hear, and feel as you first encounter” the organization.   As they say, if culture were an apple, then behavior is the skin of that apple.

A “value” is a “belief” that is actually lived out, as opposed to just a mental belief which may not actually manifest itself.

However, lasting cultural change does in fact involve beliefs, in fact it involves deeply held assumptions.   If you simply address behavioral change, without addressing the underlying beliefs, you will be fighting an uphill battle.

This isn’t to imply that companies should not have strictly enforced behaviors not only in regard to customer treatment, but how employees treat each other.  As an extreme example, you should not permit sexual harassment within your organization; a behavior that you must strictly control.

Culture, tends to flow from the top down.  When I was in field service in Texas some years ago, one of our industrial clients was a very difficult, perpetually angry individual. I can’t recall even a mildly friendly encounter with him.  All of our conversations involved him waving his arms and yelling; he dealt with everyone like that.

I dreaded going there, as did everyone in our organization. What I came to realize, was that his employees hated coming there as bad me.  What I also came to realize, was that his rude and boorish behavior was reflected in the way his employees treated each other, and their customers.

Think about this example for a moment.  Imagine a business owner that’s a crook.  He cheats his customers and his vendors whenever possible.  After a time, what kind of employee will be working there?  An honest principled one?  No, only those that have no issue with unethical and dishonest behavior.

So what will the culture be like there?  You figure it out.

Here are a few steps for establishing a positive company culture.

• Hire wisely:  If you want your company culture to be friendly and outgoing, then hire friendly people to start with.
• Establish and publish your company values.  You can find my company’s published values here.
• Reiterate those values regularly; be sure every new employee is familiar with them.
• Demonstrate those values yourself, and insist that your leadership team do the same.
• Develop specific policies in line with them.
• DO NOT permit people to violate your values without repercussion.

I often tell our folks that I don’t like playing the role of policeman, and in fact, if we have a team member that makes me play that role very often, he/she will not be a team member long. Life is better for everyone, if you develop a company culture that will alleviate your cop duties.

Here’s a quick way to assess your company’s culture:  Ask your employees what your customers would say is your company’s greatest strength.  WHY do they do business with you, and not a competitor?

This can be a cathartic exercise for two reasons.  It may point out a real strength, that’s very likely an ingrained part of your company’s culture. (and by the way, your organization DOES have a culture).  You can strategize on ways to build on that strength.

Or, it may point out an underlying weakness, that you can address with your team.

Peter Druker said “culture eats strategy for breakfast.”  Druker was absolute correct.

Eddie

I can’t think of a single business that isn’t threatened in some manner by a changing business environment.  This has always been the case; technology is just making the changes faster for most of us.

In 1967 Scientific Instrument manufacturer Keuffel & Esser interviewed a number of scientists as part of a study to gain an understanding of what the future might look like.

Some of their findings were startlingly prophetic.  They predicted 3 D TV, electric cars, automatic controlled traffic lanes, and other innovations.

One thing they didn’t uncover however, was what was about to happen to their business.  Keuffel & Esser was the country’s largest producer of slide rules.  Somehow, they failed to take into account what the electronic calculator would do to their business.

I first heard that story many years ago.  There’s a certain nostalgia to it, because I went to school using a slide rule.  But, the business lesson here is unmistakable, and is repeated all too often: you MUST stay atop changes and innovations in your market. You cannot sell slide rules in a calculator marketplace.

My own experience might prove helpful. When I first started Electronic Maintenance Associates (EMA Inc) I had a pretty clear and simple business model. Namely:

Become the warranty service center in the Southeast for a number of electronic motor drive manufactures.

Do an excellent job for them.

Use the warranty service as an entre’ into the facility, and expand the business.

It worked very well..  I picked up good and profitable business.

BUT..  that market changed.  We still to this day do warranty service for manufacturers, but with the motor drives becoming less expensive and more reliable, that business model began to lose its appeal.  IF we were still depending on that, I think we’d be out of business.   Everyone has to roll with the punches.

Stanford Professor Charles O’Reilly says that companies and organizations need to have organizational ambidexterity.  Defined, as the ability to keep your existing business going, while adapting to new opportunities and challenges.

That’s not as easy as it sounds.  Abrupt change can destroy a company for a number of reasons.   You can run off loyal customers, demoralize your people, and lose all economies of scale with your systems.  I didn’t tell all of my warranty customers to get lost, we continued to serve that market, even as it was declining.  We gradually moved into a different model.

That’s what O’Reilly means..  by organizational ambidexterity. Your successful strategy in the past, may in fact be the wrong thing to do in the future, but if you’re still getting business from it now, you have to keep it going for the present.  Your other hand has to work on the future.

Innovation is often perceived as a threat to an existing organization.  I’ve seen this not only in business, but in churches.  Within your organization employees are likely to feel threatened.

That means that as the leader, you have to do what most of you hate most..    process.   You must communicate the need for the change. (and by the way, don’t make this up, do your homework)

Shoving change down people’s throats is a recipe for disaster. Change may be completely necessary; just be sure your folks understand and embrace it.

There are many examples of companies that lost their edge by failing to respond to change.

Blockbuster was the ubiquitous video rental company. You saw them everywhere, and most people you knew used them.  They had a great business.  But, they misunderstood the threat that Netflix, Redbox, and video on demand posed.   Had they understood it, they were well positioned to respond and keep their market.

But that’s the trick isn’t it?  They didn’t roll with the punch and change; they stood flat footed and got knocked out.

How about companies that did change?  Did you know, for instance, that Nokia is the world’s largest cell phone manufacturer?  Did you know that Nokia was founded as a pulp and paper company?  Talk about changing!

Dupont began manufacturing gun powder, but they rightly saw themselves as a chemical company.  Because of that we have polyester, teflon, and many other great products.

Paypal began as a cryptography company. After years of trial and error, they emerged as the default online payment system for millions of people.  Stanford’s O’Reilly encourages companies to do small “experiments” as a response to market changes.  Not everything works.   But, had Paypal continued as a cryptography company, probably none of you would know their name.

Changes come in many ways.  If you’re in a maturing market, then you should expect the market to provide lower margins.  As a general rule of business, hi volume markets  = low margins, and low volume markets  = high margins.  The guy selling Fords will sell more units than the guy selling Lamborghini cars, but the latter will have much higher margins.

If you are in a hi volume low margin business, and intend to stay there, then you must adapt your business model.

Roll with the punches!

Eddie

Eddie Mayfield is the host of Driven to Business, heard 11 AM every Saturday on Atlanta’s business radio, Biz 1190.  The show is streamed live on biz1190.com and podcast on eddiemayfield.com and Itunes. 

All of us have heard the mantra, “you’re either growing or dying.”  But, is that always true?

I have a good friend, a very successful businessman, who recently turned down a big order he’d been offered.  When I asked “why,” he said  an order of that size would completely change the culture of his business, and he wasn’t going to allow it.

This individual has started two high technology businesses.  One grew into a large public company.  After leaving there, he formed another smaller but highly successful company, which he wants to keep relatively small.  Having tasted the world of running a large company, he’s determined that it’s not what he wants from life.

Another friend started a successful business from his home, and has purposely not hired anyone else, despite the fact that he could do more business if he did.

Both of these gentlemen have clear visions of what they want their businesses to be, are successful and respected people in their fields, and have built impressive businesses.  So, are they dying by not growing?

I used to pay close attention to the famous “Inc 500” listed companies.  But, I noticed something odd; many of the companies listed, were bankrupt or out of business shortly afterwards.  Keep in mind, that the Inc 500 is a listing of the most rapidly growing privately held businesses in the United States.

So how, could a rapidly growing business go broke?  The answer..  very easily.

Edward D. Hess, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business says that the idea of “grow or die” is just not supported by research.  In fact, he says that growth can kill a business.

Professor Hess is not against growth, but says that growth should be approached as a well considered decision, not as an automatic assumption.

Rapid growth can overwhelm processes, people, and controls.  Hess recommends staged growth, where you accelerate, and then let off the pedal while the company catches up.   This is especially true for small businesses that lack a safety net to survive unanticipated problems.

Early in my career, I worked for a rapidly growing company where we were actually told NOT to accept any additional customers.   Think about that for a moment, do NOT accept new customers!

I was not in management at that time, but the company had expanded so rapidly, that we were doing a terrible job servicing the customers we had. So much so, that our reputation in the market was being damaged.  Additionally, employees were so overworked and stressed that turnover rates were horrible . The owners decided to take bold action to pause the growth.

The company survived , and became quite large and successful.

Hess says there are four methods of business growth for a small company.  You can improve, innovate, scale, or acquire.  Innovation and acquisitions are relatively high risk methods.

He suggests scaling, which simply means doing more of what you’re already doing.  For any of you that run businesses, you’re already thinking that’s easier said than done.  And, you’re right.

It means that you must improve your processes, hire the right people, and train them well. All of which takes considerable energy and time.

I always tell people to play the “what if we’re successful” game.  You want to double your business; so visualize what the business will look like  if you’re successful.   It probably means you need more people, right?  Do you enjoy hiring and managing people?  Better think that through.

It may mean incurring debt to finance the growth; are you comfortable with that?  It could well mean that the vacations you’re taking, the golf you enjoy, and the relaxed atmosphere at the office will all go  away.   You up for that?

Larger companies require that controls be pushed away from just one person.  Can you delegate authority to others?  Really?

I’m not discouraging growth.  I’ve been fortunate enough to both work for, and own a rapidly growing business.  What I do suggest, is that you take a hard look at what you really want from life, and make growth a rational decision, not an assumption.

Speaking of growth, the Harvard Business Review in 1983 published “The Five Stages of Business Growth,” which I’ve found helpful.

The stages are:

1. Existence
2. Survival
3. Success
4. Take Off
5. Resource Maturity

The Existence Stage is just that.  “Hey, we’re in business.” The problem you face is finding customers and delivering.  The big question is: “can we get enough customers to be viable?”

The strategy is to.. well, exist.  Not much more than that.  Anyone that’s been through founding a small business understands this stage.  Some make it out, some do not.

The Survival Stage is where the business has proven that it’s viable. It has enough customers and does good enough work to keep them.  The key problem has shifted from just existing, to  keeping revenues and expenses in order.  One question asked during this phase is “can we generate enough cash flow to stay in business, and finance growth to a more comfortable stage?”   Some businesses  remain in this stage their entire life.  These are  the Mom and Pop type stores.

The Success stage is more comfortable, but even here the owner has some strategic decisions to make.  Do they use the company’s success as a platform to greater growth, or simply maintain it in a comfortable level?  I’ve seen people do both successfully.

The Take OFF stage is the high growth stage.  The problems are maintaining enough cash to run and grow, and for some people, this means taking on considerable debt.  Many people find that very uncomfortable.

This is also where some hard decisions come up regarding leadership and management.  What got you here, isn’t necessarily going to get you higher.  Many founders find themselves pushed out by creditors at this stage, or face the hard reality and remove themselves from management.

Companies either make it higher, or fall back to either the success or survival stage.  Life is risky here.

The final Resource Maturity level is the big company level.  This is where my friend found himself, and he didn’t like it.  His experience is not uncommon.

One of the challenges at this level is to maintain an entrepreneurial spirit, while consolidating gains, and adding personnel and leadership levels.

So, what’s the bottom line… grow or not?

The good news is- you get to decide.  Just make it a rational decision, not an automatic assumption.

Eddie Mayfield

When our daughter Rebecca was a little girl, she used to say she wanted to be either a waitress at Sonic, or a Doctor.  While the career choices for most of us aren’t quite that disparate, they rarely follow a straight line either.

Steve Jobs gave the commencement address at Stanford in 2005.  In the audience was author Cal Newport, who wrote about it later in his book “So Good they can’t ignore you.”

Per Newport, Jobs offered the following advice:  “You’ve got to find what you love.  The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle.”  Jobs received a standing ovation.

Upon examination of Jobs’ early career however, Newport found that he had not followed the  advice he gave the Stanford graduates.   Newport concluded that “follow your passion” might in fact, be terrible advice.

Back to Steve Jobs for a bit.  Jobs started his collegiate education at Reed College in Oregon.  Hardly a great student, he was not especially interested in either business or technology.  He studied Western history and dance.

He dropped out after his first year, but stayed on campus, more or less living the life of a bum.  He finally moved back home to California  with his parents, and took a job with Atari.  After becoming preoccupied with a nearby commune, he left that job, spent several months wandering through India, and upon his return, started training at the Los Altos Zen Center.

Jobs’ techie friend, Steve Wozniak was hired by a computer time sharing company to design an interface for clients.  Wozniak talked them into hiring his friend Steve to assist. Shortly afterwards, Jobs left for a season to spend time at a commune, not telling his boss that he was going.   Evidently, Jobs was surprised upon his return to learn that he’d been fired.

This is hardly the picture of the intensely passionate, driven business guru that is Jobs’ legacy.  In fact, it’s a picture of a distracted, undisciplined,  unmotivated and directionless individual.

Things changed later that year when Jobs noticed that the local techies were buying computer kits and assembling them at home.  He and Wozniak decided that Wozniak could build the circuit boards for $25, and they could sell them for $50.  They figured they could net a thousand bucks doing this.   They viewed this strictly as a short term way to land some cash.

When Jobs talked to the store owner however,  he wasn’t interested in the circuit boards, but told them IF they could build an assembled computer, he’d pay $500 each.  Jobs and Wozniak jumped at this chance to make a few more bucks. Neither of them saw it as a long term venture.

But, from that was birthed Apple Computer.

Had Steve Jobs followed the advice he gave at Stanford, he would probably have become an instructor at the Zen Center, because as best anyone can tell, that was his passion and love.

Few of us have been as materially successful as Steve Jobs, but like him, most of our career paths have unexpected and even irrational turns.  And most of us have become passionate about our career and business, only after being in it. 

It’s fair to say, that Steve Jobs had no passion for business and technology until he was in the business of technology.

I have enjoyed some success in business, most of it in the electronic motor drive business.   Until in my late twenties, I didn’t even know such a career existed.  In the late seventies I found myself unemployed, and grabbing at every job straw I could find.

A young and growing electronic motor drive company in Texas hired me from Alabama, because during the oil boom of that time,  they had a difficult time hiring anyone in Texas.  It was an ideal training ground for later founding my own company in Georgia.   It wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

Seemingly disconnected events like that are more common in successful careers than one may expect.   As a Christian, I actually view these events as God’s hand on my life.

Newport laments that what he terms the “passion hypothesis” has permeated career advice and perceptions.  The problem is, once you get past the bumper sticker slogans about “follow your dreams” the research indicates that success, job satisfaction and happiness often have little to do with that.

One reason is that we, perhaps inadvertently, assign some career paths higher scores than others.  Stanford Professor John Krumboltz notes that when he meets people, they immediately respect him because he is a Stanford professor.  They have no idea if he does a good job or not, just the fact that he’s a professor carries great weight.

This mindset works against job satisfaction and happiness. I have a friend, who is a physician.  He confided in me years ago that he hated his job.  I was taken aback, and questioned him.  “There are people that would die to have your job, how can you possibly hate it?”

But Doctor carries great respect doesn’t it?

Most people, unfortunately, spend more time deciding which smart phone to purchase, than they do planning their career.  Truthfully, most of us, at the young age we face these decisions, are poorly equipped to make them. Therefore, career dreams and aspirations can be not only illogical, but actually detrimental to success and occupational satisfaction.

There’s great advice in the Bible about this, “whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”  That applies whether picking apples or performing surgery.

And if the studies are correct, the surgeon isn’t necessarily any more fulfilled in his work than the apple picker.

So, what about your career?

First of all, pay attention.  Many of us work in careers that didn’t exist a few years ago.  Simply being engaged in the workplace economy, can open your eyes to opportunities you will never see otherwise.

Second, try to ignore what others think about the profession you’ve chosen. Taking a prestigious job you hate is a trap into which many have stumbled. At one time I considered becoming a lawyer, even to the point of taking the entrance exam to law school.

But as I became friends with attorneys and more acquainted with what they actually did, the less attractive it looked to me.  Consequently, I abandoned that as a career option.

I talked to a young man once planning to major in journalism.  I asked if he enjoyed reading and writing, and his answer was “no, I don’t,”  He saw journalist as a prestigious title, and that swayed his decision. I don’t know if he ever completed his degree or not, but I doubt it.

Do your work with passion, whatever it is.  Remember the bible quote from earlier?  Working hard and well is a virtue. That alone will open up career opportunities you will never see otherwise.

Embrace the trials. Most of us have learned that it was the difficult times that that taught us the most, and shaped our success. A great deal of my early success was my expertise in electronic motor drive technology. I had a bit of a national reputation in this new and emerging field but although I persistently studied it, most of the deep knowledge I gained came from  long stressful days and nights spent trying to resolve  difficult application issues.  This time was often in an industrial plant under extreme pressure.

I can’t say it was fun, but it was beneficial, in fact, sans those times, I wouldn’t have developed the expertise that made me successful later.

Enjoy the ride. I’m sometimes amazed at how much time we humans spend waiting for happiness and satisfaction.  We always see it around the corner.  “IF only I can land that big job.”  “When I get that big raise.” “Once my business takes off, I’ll be so happy.”

And because we are so forward focused, we fail to enjoy the only time over which we exert any control, and that’s the here and now.

Dreaming and planning about the future is great. But, enjoy the now.  It’s really the only thing you can be certain of.

And I’ll conclude with this; there undoubtedly are people who seem to have the ability to see the future path of their lives clearly.  Most of us however, simply see the path a bit at a time, walking in the light we have. It’s sometimes a little nerve wracking to be sure, but it’s also exciting.

And you can be happy and fulfilled all along the way.

Eddie

In 1859, a salt miner known locally as “Uncle Billy” found oil at a depth of 69 feet in Titusville, PA.  The well was owned by Edwin L Drake, and their find revolutionized the world.

The properties of oil were not unknown prior to Uncle Billy’s discovery.  People found oil floating on top of water, seeping out of the ground, and sometimes in the form of tarballs drifting ashore.  It was used for heating, illumination, and for various medicinal purposes.

In fact, what prompted Drake to drill a well near Titusville in the first place was oil floating on water there.  After Drake’s well, hundreds of companies rushed to stake their claims.  The majority, as is often the case, went bankrupt.

But, not everyone.   John Rockefeller  being one of the more notable exceptions. Within a decade of Drake’s discovery, the Standard Oil Company founded by him was one of the largest companies in the world.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of oil to modern life, and to the economic well being of everyone.  Per Forbes Magazine, oil is directly responsible for about 2.5% of world GDP, but that’s nowhere near the whole story.  Oil and natural gas account for over half of humanities primary energy supply.

Oil and Gas power 100% of modern transportation which is responsible for 17% of world wide GDP, and is deeply involved in all other economic activity.

Think about this..  IF oil and gas suddenly stopped flowing, civilization would collapse in a matter of months.

The same Forbes article has another interesting tidbit; at any given time, there is more oil seaborn, than there are fish in the sea.  Oil is a huge part of modern life.

There is much talk about “renewables” as a replacement for oil and gas, but it’s only talk, no science.  Oil alone, not even including natural gas, powers the world at about a 1500 X 1 ratio over renewables, and there is nothing on the horizon that is going to change that.  Nothing.

The efficiency of solar, or wind, or biomass, or just about anything else you can think of pales next to oil.  Again, if oil and gas stops flowing, renewables aren’t going to save you.  World wide starvation and misery are the sure result.

Here’s the good news…  the “peak oil” theory that was pushed a few years ago has proven wrong.   We have more known natural gas reserves in the United States, for instance, than anytime since we started looking at it.

Advanced technologies can find and recover oil and gas in places and at rates hitherto thought impossible.   And, there’s much more down there than we thought.

All of you remember the BP Oil spill, and all the news it got. The spill was terrible, but ironically, the bad news covered up some incredibly good news.

When the Macondo wellhead first blew, it was estimated that maybe 1000 barrels a day was leaking.  Then upon further investigation, they raised that to 12,000 barrels, then to 25,000, and finally the best research from Woods Hole estimated that 60,000 barrels a day was blowing into the Gulf.

A terrible ecological problem, but overlooked was this fact..  BP had found a virtual river of oil.  Very few people previously thought it possible.

Bottom line..  we have a LOT of oil and gas.

Interestingly, there are two theories about the origins of what we term fossil fuel.  One is that it indeed does come from untold amounts of biological material mixing with clay over long periods of time.  That’s the prevailing theory.  But, there is another.

Pushed mainly by the late Cornell Astrophysicist Thomas Gold, these folks think that oil comes from the planet itself, and is being made today. Gold and his team actually made a hydrocarbon molecule in a lab experiment, and he later dared anyone to do the same with a “pot of ferns.”

Proponents of this theory point to long produced oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico, and which by all calculation should now be exhausted, seemingly refilling.

Tune in and  hear more about it.

Driven to Business, hosted by Eddie Mayfield airs every Saturday at 11 AM on Atlanta’s Business radio, Biz 1190 AM.  The show is streamed live on Biz1190.com and podcast on eddiemayfield.com and itunes.

Simply the best business radio in Atlanta..  Driven to Business.