Lewis Schiff Quotes
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When done right, working is a series of decisions that you make which allow you to refine and refine and refine your highest and best use. Ultimately, if you are lucky, you will find out where you belong.
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I did in fact take a couple of classes at my local college here in NYC. But I did it unwillingly and without enthusiasm. That is until a protest broke out in the streets around campus against rising tuition costs.
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I know a lot of great success stories of those who were excellent problem-solvers because they had found a need that they could fill well. As a result, they built organizations around them and those organizations had belief systems that could be described as a form of leadership.
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When I started out, I wanted to have everything solved by the time I was 30. That didn't happen. Instead, I realized that the journey is the destination, that the work.
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As you climb of the organizational ladder, you have to redefine your role in the value chain from player to captain to coach to manager, and for some, to owner. These are different roles and you won't be able to succeed as a manager when you're acting like a player.
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One of the things all entrepreneurs struggle with is where their efforts will have the highest impact. Unfortunately, too many of us continue to do the very same things that led to our initial success because we're good at it and we've created and invested in systems to support them
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I grew up in a modern business environment and did not experience the kind of prejudice that my mother and grandfather experienced.
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Still, it formed one of my basic beliefs about success which is this: most of the time, success can be measured in terms of how much more than others you have of something that's in short supply. This includes money, reputation, respect, etc.
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However, I believe that large groups make markets, so serving the needs of large groups is a simple approach to success in business success. But that's no reflection on whether or not they're making wise moves or good calls. It's just about filling the need.
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CEOs are no different than the guy in the mailroom. They all have to learn how to manage better the risk created by our increasingly risk-shifting world.
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There is a direct line between the communications work I did to protest tuition increases at my school and what I do today. Plus it had one other benefit...it got me kicked out of college!
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In companies, there are three activities that should be labeled better. First there is the "CORE" which is the thing the company does that its customers pay it to do.
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Success doesn’t always look like what we think it looks like.
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I don't know if you hear this often but I would say The Razor's Edge (loosely based on a great W. Somerset Maugham novel). This was Bill Murray's first dramatic role so everyone thought he stunk in this deep character but I thought he and the movie were great. The movie takes place over decades so you see Murray's character go from goofy playboy all the way to wiser, older person. It's basically a movie version of the journey I described.
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Apple made tools that helped people express their creativity and Steve Jobs knew that so he told that story well. But Facebook makes tools that help people connect and Mark Zuckerberg is hardly a story-teller. Nevertheless, he's become a leader because his products do such a good job of solving a problem.
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Because I work with entrepreneurs who own businesses, I have found Doug Tatum's No Man's Land to be a really helpful body of working knowledge. It's very applicable to most businesses that have the usual problems of growing businesses - managing people, capital, markets, etc.
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Apple makes computers and they have to be great at providing the product they promised every individual who wants to purchase from them. This is where they should spend the bulk of their energy.
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Thinking like others is ok for things that are not important to you.
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I've got better things to do than to find my individuality in that particular area. But if it's important to me, I've got to seek my own path.
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I've always wanted to get my share but, due to my tendency to overcompensate (work harder, push for the win more), I've ended up with more than my fair share. These are some of the life lessons I've drawn from watching my mother and grandfather struggle in the world compared to my own struggles.
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That doesn't mean we should be doing it, though. We should always be carving back those things that are comfortable and institutionalized but not necessarily impactful.
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I think small groups have more collective wisdom than an individual.
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My fighting spirit has often seemed out of place.
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If the workers don't keep themselves current - with some assistance and guidance from their employers - then the workers who are in the legacy roles will have to be removed. That's what's so difficult.
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On a personal side, I found Bo Burlingham's Small Giants to be a great window into how business can be an extension of social change and the critical role the entrepreneur plays in creating progress in society.
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By the time I entered this prestigious high school, my interest in formal education had already been exhausted.
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As members of a minority, one that was often persecuted, that entrepreneurial perspective was burnished with a sense of "outsider" status - so not only were we committed to finding our own way of achieving success, we also grew up to believe that we'd have to fight to get whatever we wanted.
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But, to the extent that I cannot solve MY problem with the same thinking I used when I created it, you're right. We need the fresh air that comes from others to see things in other ways.
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Harkening back to a story about my grandfather, I was lucky to attend a great high school in New York, Bronx High School of Science, which has produced more Nobel prize winners than any other high school in America.
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The bottom line: All of your investing decisions should be grounded in your own investment policy statement. By taking a "top-down" look at your finances and writing out a road map, your policy statement will add an important element of discipline to your approach.
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