Seven Critical Things You Must Know To Succeed In Business
There are seven things you need to know to succeed in any business. They are absolutely critical but not always obvious. Here’s the true story about how I learned them.
It’s funny how things that happened years before become valuable later, but that is how I learned so many corporate lessons – in Pop’s basement. The steps to the basement were steep, narrow and lined with an odd assortment of coats, baskets and shotguns. The smell was a heady mixture of coal and cigar smoke.
This striking gentleman is T. L. Shackleford – my grandfather. Everyone called him Pop and he was a world-class tinkerer and storyteller. Have you ever heard the expression “catching lightning in a bottle”? That was Pop – smart, patient, funny and bestowed with a gentle wisdom. T.L. Shackleford was a man who never stopped asking questions and looking for the wonder in everything. He was the single strongest influence on my life.
Seeing The Possibilities
“I’m glad you’re here. What do you think of this?” That was the way most of my childhood afternoons with him began. On the workbench would be a broken “something” or the project de jour. Blessed with insatiable curiosity, Pop was always busy. Every project began with the same step: Thinking. One day, he pointed to a box filled with ancient broken boards. “It looks like junk to me,” was my expert analysis. He picked up a battered leg and handed it to me. “That’s what I thought until I looked it over. That’s a new table … we just have to make it.”
Now you have to admit that was more than enough to hook a 10-year old. Decades later I’m still using what he helped me learn. We spread the parts on the floor and pulled them together like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing. There were two legs, the front of a drawer, two parts of the frame and one small sections of what once was a round top. “How are we going to fix this?” I wondered. “Just put the pieces together in your mind and build what you see.” That’s when I learned about vision.
Figuring Things Out
In the corner of the workshop was a pile of scrap wood. Pop grabbed some odd boards and hammered together a big square. Using a thumbtack, string and the stub of a pencil, he drew a circle that matched the section of the old top. Five minutes on the band saw and it was done. He quickly cut other boards to match the broken frame sections and measured some 2x4s for the legs. Start to finish; we spent less than two hours on the table. It looked terrible!
“Pop, where are going to put that?” I asked. He smiled. “We’re just going to look at it. It’s a plan — sort of a test so we can decide what we like and don’t like. Then we’ll do the real one.” That’s when I learned about planning.
I whispered, “I don’t like it at all.” I didn’t want to hurt my grandfather’s feelings. Pop didn’t answer. He was staring at the table while his cigar waved back and forth. When Pop was in the basement, he usually had a Hav-A-Tampa cigar in his mouth for company. When he was deep in thought, the cigar would … well, it would wiggle from side to side in a tiny arc.
“Are we going to fix it today?” I really didn’t want to. “No, Thursday will be fine. We’re going fishing tomorrow.” This was Monday and for the next couple of days we fished and I ran off to do things kids did during the summer. Still, from time to time, Pop would head back to the basement to contemplate the table. That’s when I Iearned about thinking things through.
Making Things Happen
The telephone rang at 9:00 in the morning. “Send Andy over. I need his help.” By 9:30 we were both sharing a group stare. The cigar was waving quickly in time to some silent tune. “I think it’s too low,” Pop began. “Do you like a round top or an oval one?” I tried to mimic his serious studying. “Oval would be good.” He glanced down at me. “We’ll have to make it smaller.” That sounded important. “Is it okay to make it smaller?” Suddenly the cigar stopped with a decisive chomp. “Smaller will be fine, just fine.”
In a matter of minutes the test table was disassembled. Along the way, measurements were adjusted. Pop used the pieces as templates to cut the oak boards. When it came time for the legs, Pop clamped one of the old, hand-carved legs into the lathe, grabbed a chisel and turned a new one. He meticulously followed the old one. “It took a lot of time to carve these legs by hand. We want to make sure we don’t forget all that work.”
It took a day to build the table and two days to finish it. Sandpaper smoothed the rough parts and steel wool polished it. There was no rushing the process. “If you cheat now, you’ll have to live with it from here on. All you’ll see are the mistakes.” That’s when I learned about patience.
Celebrate The Results
Late Sunday afternoon we invited my grandmother down into the basement to see the final results. Nana was careful with her praise and seldom dispensed it casually. She stood back, looked at our handiwork and ran her fingers across the top. Then she did something I’d never seen her do before — she gave Pop a hug! “Tommy Lester, it’s beautiful. Thank you.” She kneeled and planted a kiss on my cheek. “Your Pop made that old table when we were first married. We didn’t have many tools on the farm so he whittled it out one winter. We ate on it every day for years. I never thought I’d ever see it again.”
Seven Critical Things You Must Know
There are things I learned making that table that I have drawn on countless times during the years that followed. I realized that they are the seven things you have to know to succeed in any business.
1. Vision is seeing the ending as clearly as you see the beginning.
2. Planning is the cheapest time you spend.
3. Things are always easier if you have a blueprint or a template to go by.
4. Take time to think things through.
5. There is a natural direction to all things. Go with the grain and not against it.
6. The same things that can smooth and polish your idea can also grind it down if you aren’t careful and use too much pressure.
7. For something to really matter, you have to put some of yourself into it.
Go Back To The Basement
I guess I’ve been back to Pop’s basement a thousand times over the years. I hope you’ll make the trip whenever you need to get things figured out. So the next time you’re muddling over a project, think about it, envision it, plan it – then “go fishing” for a day. When you return, it will truly be time to clench that mental cigar in your teeth and go to work.
Author’s Note – Pop would have been 115 this year.
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