Abbey Road
It is simply amazing how some things endure.
I have not seen my first love for a lifetime, but that moment of transition from every girl I ever knew to the first one I loved, well it has proven to be indelible. In some looking-back-through-the-fog way, it has endured.
Indelible is a word we don’t use much anymore. But we should. In business and in life in general, it has a power and a permanence that presides over the buzz words and concepts of the moment that roll in and out like the waves at Coney Island. (Which, if you have ever been there, you know is indelible.)
I can’t recall what I did July 20 of this past summer. Or August 20. Or even a week ago.
But I do remember when I first heard Abbey Road. Not that it was the best the Beatles ever created, but I recall we all knew it was the end. The end of a brief era of a band of middle class mutts who would actually rise above the British caste system and would wind up having knights among them.
It was the end of a collaboration but hardly the end of a product set, an artistic achievement, that would prove to be indelible. “Something in the way it moves us” is timeless.
As I listen to Abbey Road now, it reminds me of the fact that we can go through life whistling through checklists of “to dos,” or hopefully, seeking a way to achieve something that endures way beyond the momentary satisfaction of — what a miserable 21st century term –”getting it off our plate.”
Abbey Road begs a question that is not always comfortable to contemplate: do we live just to die? Or do we live to create ideas/concepts/products that survive us? That change the order of things?
Mozart, Van Gogh and Einstein are presumed to be dead. Are they?
Or are they indelible?
Mark Stevens
CEO
The Tableau In The Abyss
In the film “Wall Street,” a broker who is about to lose his job and perhaps his freedom, is advised that when a person stares into the abyss he takes a true measure of his strength.
Today, I read an article about an entrepreneur who poured his life savings into a home furnishings outlet in a rapidly growing village in the southwest, only to see the economy tank, houses foreclosed and a mass exodus from the town timed almost exactly to the opening of his shop.
In the article, he stands alone in a deserted parking lot surrounding a ghost town strip small, a black hole of sorts sucking in his dreams and all that he has worked for to this point.
The shop is his abyss. What does he see as he stares vacantly at it?
Some years ago, my mother’s common law husband told me a story of his days as an alcoholic, roaming the mean streets of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. On one nightmare of a day in a broken life marked by chaos, he hit bottom, alone and bleeding on the steps of a church. Rescued by a stranger, he was taken to a hospital to be treated, yes, but more than that, to stare into the abyss.
What did he see?
I am reading now about FDR’s first 100 days and the character traits that guided him to navigate through the second darkest period in US history. His most improbable trait was born years before when as a vibrant and athletic young man of wealth and power, he was stricken overnight with polio. Staring at the ceiling, struggling with the idea of himself as a “cripple,” he looked into the abyss.
What did he see?
In every single human life, there is an abyss. Or two. Or more. It comes in business. In family. In our own sense of who we are, who we are not, the options in front of us, the opportunities we cultivated and those we let slip by.
In a sense, staring into the abyss is often the darkest hour. It cannot be belittled. It cannot be romanticized. It is a true and painful test.
I believe, however, that there are only two visions we can see when we stare into the abyss: endless and hopeless darkness or a tableau of what we will paint with our future once the terror passes.
My mother’s soul mate built a loving life with one of the kindest women in the world. Franklin Delano Roosevelt found a blueprint for becoming President of the United States.
What we see and what we do with the vision, shapes us more than anything in life.
Mark Stevens
CEO
Everyone Hates Conrad Black……Except Conrad Black
Black is a Canadian media mogul now behind bars after his conviction on charges of mail and wire fraud by US courts.
To the world he is rich, imperious, unethical: a walking, talking symbol of greed in the raw.
And he may be just that. The media hates him, many former employees hate him, shareholders too, as well as the man and woman on the street. They all hate him…..and perhaps for good reason.
It’s a hate fest. Everyone, it seems, has piled on. Except, well, except Conrad Black.
I just read a jailhouse interview with “the devil” himself and I was stunned by it. I will paraphrase some of the highlights:
* Black says prison is quite civilized, he has adapted to it and met a number of interesting people.
* He proclaims his innocence but is not bitter, holds that he can take anything life throws at him and treat it as a learning experience.
* The accomodations are not what he was used to in the splendor of his pre-incarceration days, but it’s all just fine for now.
I don’t know the precise nature of Black’s crimes and given my faith in the legal system, I assume he belongs where he is. But there is an important subtext here. All of us are, at times, on the outside of mainstream thinking. Or we are viewed as being wrong or negligent or stupid or selfish. Black is viewed as worse, as a criminal and a Robber Baron, but the subtext remains the same:
You must always have faith in yourself.
You must always know how to adapt.
You must remain flexible in a life that constantly changes.
You must be tough enough to take the curve balls, without whining, and find a way to toss them back at the fates.
You must look at failure with naked eyes- bankruptcy, red ink, failed plans, loss of a job, death of a marriage, removal from an executive position – and like Black, right or wrong as he may have been in business, find a way to view it as a path to redemption. To future success.
We can never, ever abandon ourselves. It is true that no matter how much we are loved by others, we are born alone and we die alone. If we are to make major changes in business, politics, science, art – we will do it against the wind. Alone. Ask Van Gogh. Ask Copernicus. Ask Lincoln.
When Jonas Salk created his cure for polio, jealousy in the scientific community denied him of a Nobel prize. The man saved millions of children from lives of misery and he was treated like a villain. But he went on, presiding over the Salk Institute and working toward a cure for AIDS.
Salk and Black are in vastly different categories. Salk is a hero of mankind. Black is just another seeker of wealth. But both had to dip into that well of self confidence, that reservoir of personal faith, that failure to abandon themselves.
Next time you are in the cross hairs, remember you always have yourself. And that is your most powerful ally and most potent weapon.
Mark Stevens
CEO
Watching JFK, From A School Bus
It was the late fall of 1960 and John Fitzgerald Kennedy was about to be anointed by the American people as President of the United States.
I was a kid on a school bus, too young and preoccupied with an out of control family, academia and a budding fascination with girls to care a whit about politics. Yes, I had watched Ike talk on TV from the Oval Office now and then, and pretended to listen dutifully in front of my father, but the Supreme Allied Commander and all of his peers could hardly hold a candle to the strains of rock and roll starting to blast through the windows of the older kids’ Corvettes.
And then, in a second, my world changed in a way I would never forget. Through that school bus window I caught a glimpse of JFK on television, through the window of a tiny Queens cape in Bayside, New York.
Somehow, the soon-to-be president and rock and roll were suddenly one and the same. There was an epiphany, a lesson that applies to this day; that still resonates!
Some people, some select few, are not merely people. They are magic in a bottle. Canned heat. Fire and ice. We can’t try to be like this; we are either born with it or not, but we can learn from it.
Last year, I spoke at the annual Siemens’ CEO conference, Ascent, in Berlin. When I would talk to Berliners — cab drivers, executives, waiters, anyone of every age–they spoke with pride of JFK’s glorious Berlin speech.
This year, when Barack Obama needed a rocket power boost for his primary run against Hillary, Caroline Kennedy evoked the name of The Rocket Man, her father, our JFK, and Obama’s trajectory shot skyward.
God makes very few JFK’s. But he makes millions who can study him and Thatcher and the handful of men and women who set the bar.
So many of us fall short because we make excuses. Families to tend to; no money to start with; illnesses to overcome; lovers to appease. But it’s all noise. I was asked to talk about the Oprah\Palin mini-bout by Fox News the other day. And as I prepared my thoughts, it struck me how both had much more in common than that which divides them.
* Both fought like hell for success.
* Both rejected the standard excuses.
* Both would not settle for mediocre.
* Both are making a mark on the world.
* Both reject conventional thinking as “crowd control” designed to keep them in place by threatened also – rans.
When you see greatness from a bus, refuse to get off when it stops. Take the wheel and drive yourself to the finish line. No one else will.
Mark Stevens
CEO
6 Techniques I’ve Used To Challenge Conventional Thinking
by guest blogger Regis Hadiaris
Throughout his life, my Dad taught me that I truly could be whatever I decided to be. His confidence in me gave me the strength to believe in my ideas, challenge conventional thinking, and take risks.
Below are 6 techniques I’ve used to successfully challenge conventional thinking in my life.Unconventional Thinking:
1. Identify and ignore “noise” in your life.
Noise is the unnecessary stuff that distracts your attention and limits your effectiveness: naysayers, gossip, opinions of news media, fear, etc. If you are determined to challenge conventional thinking, you have to train yourself to ignore noise.
I work for Quicken Loans, one of the nation’s largest direct mortgage lenders, in arguably the most challenging time for the financial industry in 20 years. If I listened to all the noise about how bad the mortgage crisis is, I would become paralyzed by negativity and fear. Instead of focusing on the constraints around me, I consciously look for opportunities. Don’t let yourself become a product of your environment; let your environment become a product of you!
2. Don’t recreate the wheel.
I’ve seen companies launch huge new initiatives without ever stopping to ask themselves: “has someone done this already?” Be curious! Instead of blindly jumping into a project, take a step back and think “someone must have run into this situation before, what did they do?”
We recently decided to focus on a particular marketing strategy at Quicken Loans. Instead of starting from scratch, we flew several key people to another, non-competitive company to discuss our plan. Because that company had already executed this strategy really well, the day we spent with them saved us months of trial-and-error.
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
- Albert Einstein
3. Take a stand.
A couple of years ago, I was leading a project that a senior executive didn’t agree with. He didn’t think the project could make an impact on the business. I believed that it would. We compromised, and he gave me 90 days to prove it. I did, and the executive was proud of the accomplishment.
It can be hard to challenge consensus. But if you truly believe in what you are doing, you can’t be afraid to voice an opinion or do things that others don’t understand. Remember: the thinking that got you where you are will seldom get you where you want to go.
4. Get excited when people tell you “no.”
So many people let others dictate what they can and cannot do. Before they know it, they have lost the ability to be effective. When people tell me “no, we can’t do that,” I immediately think “how can we?”
Every day, I have conversations about ideas that are too hard to do, solutions that are too complicated, and costs that are too expensive. If you attack these situations by creatively brainstorming alternatives, you can inevitably find ways to turn these “no’s” into “yes’s.”
5. Keep it simple like Forrest Gump.
“When I got tired, I slept. When I got hungry, I ate. When I had to go… you know… I went.” Forrest kept life simple. Do you?
At Quicken Loans, we have a “no big projects” rule. Why? Big projects usually mean lots of over-complicated ideas that simply aren’t needed to solve the problem at hand. You can have big visions but still execute them in small chunks. Doing this encourages constant improvement, and helps prevent marketing projects that are out of sync with current business needs.
6. Be effective, not busy.
My team completed over 1,100 internet marketing projects last year alone. While that’s an impressive accomplishment, I’m most proud of the impact those projects made. Every single thing we do has a legitimate business reason, or we don’t do it. And every morning we meet to discuss the thing we can do that day to be the most effective.
Every person on my team has (literally) hundreds of things on their to-do list. Our concern is not getting them all done. Instead, we ask ourselves, are we working on the right things, right now? Once we focus on being effective, instead of being busy, we automatically get into
a mental mode of challenging conventional wisdom.
Try one of these techniques, and you can take an ordinary day and make it great! Try them all, and you will hone your ability to challenge conventional thinking.
Regis Hadiaris is a marketer, blogger, speaker and innovator known for unconventional ideas and impressive results. He is the “Leader of Leaders and Pursuer of WOW!” on the marketing team at Quicken Loans, the nation’s largest online mortgage lender. His blog, Dot Connector, is a popular destination for ideas on being more successful at work.
