Business & Courage go Together
Driving cars all out on a race track taught me something about courage – about operating on constant surges of fear and adrenalin, forcing yourself to the limit and eventually growing to understand it. I came to greatly appreciate Ernest Hemingway’s assertion that “There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.” In those endeavors a man may pay for a mistake with his life. To Hemingway sport was the ultimate test, challenging one’s self to face the prospect of death. It was an intentional substitute for real world tests, like hunting big game to survive, being caught in a storm on open water, or for war. Those “sports” were the ultimate substitutes of choice for man against nature, man against man. Steve McQueen also summed it up, saying “Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting.”
In business, courage is an underrated virtue. I say underrated because people in general have no idea how much of it is required not only to start a business but to keep it running. In the aerospace industry everything is pretty much at risk all of the time. Did I get used to it? Yes, to some extent. But being too comfortable only meant we had become complacent. Essentially, we had to be willing to take calculated risks every day. In my experience nothing scares employees more than a leader who lacks the courage to take decisive action. Many people fall pray to paralysis by analysis, and in this day and age with access to so much information it’s all too easy to wait for more data. We need to be able to see the big picture, look down the road, and divine the implications of making timely do or don’t decisions.
All that said, I am also humbly reminded of Eleanor Roosevelt. She said, “Courage is more exhilarating than fear, and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.” (Roosevelt, Eleanor, You Learn by Living, 50th Ed. Harper Perennial, NY, 2012. Chapter 2)
It was never comfortable risking everything we owned or built, and in this progressive political environment of our time there’s a serious lack of appreciation for those who put themselves on the line like that every day. In fact, it’s not simply a lack of appreciation; there’s an unfounded animosity toward business people. It disappoints me to see how our society castigates and ostracizes business leaders as if they were devoid of moral thought and action. Within them lay so many examples of courage, selflessness, and accomplishment. So many have led lives of significance, pushing mankind forward for the benefit of everyone. If anything, running my own business has greatly increased my respect for all those people who do the same. They are very special people and we need to celebrate their initiative.
Even music rock star Bono (of the group U2) has noticed such things. He reflected, “Capitalism is not immoral, but it is amoral. And it requires our instruction. It’s a wild beast that needs to be tamed, a better servant than master…. Some of the most selfish people I’ve met are artists – I’m one of them – and some of the most selfless people I’ve ever met are in business…. So, I’ve never had that clichéd view of commerce and culture being different.”(‘The 100 Greatest Living Business Minds,’ Forbes 100th Anniversary Edition, Sept 28, 2017, p.117)
Successful business people are often characterized as greedy, manipulative and self-interested. How can that be true if their business has provided products people want to use? If those products did not somehow improve their lives people would not buy them. Still, the broad-swath characterization is that successful business people have gone from decent, hardworking, regular Joes to suddenly selfish and evil. Dan Gilbert, founder of Quicken Loans and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, wrote: “I have never seen anybody create a whole lot of wealth by chasing money. Ironically, those who seem to be motivated by taking a great idea and turning it into reality are the ones who end up acquiring significant wealth.”(‘The 100 Greatest Living Business Minds,’ Forbes 100th Anniversary Edition, Sept 28, 2017, p.124)
I wager successful business people have devoted far more of their time and money to charitable and volunteer causes than any other sector of the population. It is a travesty and a detriment to society at large that business people are so maligned, particularly because free enterprise is chastised right along with them. Even though free markets are far and away the single largest contributor to the advancement and increased well-being of mankind, it still gets a bum rap. Those misguided perceptions contribute to slowing capitalism’s ability to further accelerate the well-being of everyone.
Accelerating capitalism was also a misunderstood concept. People in developed nations often bemoan the working conditions and the pay workers receive in developing countries. They fail to understand economic development is a process. It must pass through essential stages to progress in an orderly fashion so that chaos and collapse do not destroy it. Some Western companies, Nike for one, have tried to raise wages only to be told by the country’s government that to do so would disrupt the entire nation’s economy. How was it right, they were told, that a shoe worker should make more than a doctor? Progress was good, but the structure of fairness and the recognition of accomplishment also need to be maintained. Change can only be accepted and assimilated at a certain rate, and it’s never as quickly as innovators wish it to be.
There are many people from whom I have observed, read or been offered bits of wisdom. I found biographies of famous people very informing. In them I noticed reminders of the same principles at work for accomplishing great things. I never tired of seeing or reading or hearing these affirmations. They are proof we still have people who strive to accomplish things greater than themselves. I admire most those who still embrace the concepts of civility, humility, grace, and courage. Their awe-inspiring stories still provide me great encouragement for the direction of the human race.
On the other hand, I also have come to characterize my baby-boomer generation of ‘progressives’ as one long line of self-righteous, know-it-all, busybodies hell bent on imposing their moral imperatives on the rest of the world, with neither consideration nor recognition of the beliefs or morality of others. They claim to be devoid of racism and the most tolerant of diversity, yet they strangely attempt to prove their virtuosity by protesting and suppressing all those who express contrasting opinions, their acts being the very antithesis of their preaching. They want to make everyone winners, providing supposedly disadvantaged peoples with special rights and privileges, thereby disadvantaging all those not afforded those same considerations.
In attempting to level the playing field they tilt a surface that can never be made equal or level. Opportunity, ability, drive, intelligence, and talent can never be made equal. Life is never going to be made fair or Nature ever completely harnessed. Chance can never be fully eliminated. All this nonsense about making everyone feel good about themselves because we are all equal in every respect is the greatest bit of foolishness and suppression of the advancement of the human race I had ever come across. It is, quite simply, a fascist policy that denies individual freedom, expression and achievement. I am thoroughly disgusted with my generation and their cause celeb. It’s wrong and seriously misdirected, and those espoused to it, to me, are a bunch of candy-assed wimps who don’t want to be responsible for their own successes and failures. Fear rules their days and lives; they want to be cared for and they believe the State is just the ticket to make that possible. Little do they realize how little freedom they will have once they accomplish their experiment in government and social engineering.
I pray we never lose sight of the reward of hard work and personal courage. I believe they are essential to moving humanity forward. The popularized ideas of ‘everyone is great,’ ‘everyone is a success,’ and ‘everyone gets a reward just for showing up’ has no place in a world of progress. Those concepts disrespect the hard work, tremendous sacrifice and tenacity of those who accomplish great things for the benefit of us all. Worse, they reward mediocrity.
Everyone can find a way to be productive in our society. That is first. One’s level of contribution is ultimately up to them. Falling upon complaints when someone else happens to do more is no excuse. A thought from Henry Ford’s little autobiography, My Life and Work, written in 1922: “I cannot pretend to say, because I do not know, whether the man who works always, who never leaves his business, who is absolutely intent upon getting ahead, and who therefore does get ahead – is happier than the man who keeps office hours, both for his brain and his hands. It is not necessary for any one to decide the question. A ten-horsepower engine will not pull as much as a twenty. The man who keeps brain office hours limits his horsepower. If he is satisfied to pull only the load that he has, well and good, that is his affair – but he must not complain if another who has increased his horsepower pulls more than he does. Leisure and work bring different results. If a man wants leisure and gets it – then he has no cause to complain. But he cannot have both leisure and the results of work.”
The point is if we all contribute it makes us all better. Do your best. And, however one manages it, one needs to maintain one’s humility. My father once said to me, “Don’t get a big head. There will always be someone better and smarter than you.”
