Axiom 12: You Can Take on Any Company and Win

"If a company's own research does not make its product obsolete, another's will." 

-Theodore Levitt

"There is no growth industry, only growth opportunities." -Theodore Levitt

"The investor of today does not profit from yesterday's growth." -Warren Buffett

When people trash talk big business it is usually because they believe it oppresses the little people. The belief that somehow an average person can never become successful because big business will stomp them out. I don't believe the situation is as hopeless for the little guy as some people make it out to be, and I believe that everyone has a chance to build an empire.

In 1960 Theodore Levitt wrote a paper called Marketing Myopia. The article is about why big businesses fail. Levitt wrote that the problem is a combination of focusing on the product over the customer and then seeing that product as an infinite growth industry.

The case Levitt uses for an example is the railroad industry. For the first half of the 20th century travelling by train was the only way for people to travel long distances comfortably. The problem was that the railroad companies only saw their business in terms of trains (the product) when they should have seen it in terms of transporting people (the customer). So while the railroad companies focused on improving rail travel the airline industry came along and decimated them by fulfilling the customer's travel need with a better product. 

Understand that customers have needs and there are always new and better ways to fill those needs. Entrepreneurs have taken down the biggest companies time after time because they understood this concept. Likewise, huge corporations like IBM, Apple, Amazon, and Netflix have stayed relevant and successful by changing their product and service offerings to match their customer's needs. 

Levitt's writing teaches us that its not as easy being on the top in business as some people think, and that everyone has a shot at overtaking their competition if they focus on the correct things.  

Axiom 11: 10,000 Hours to the Job of Your Dreams

"There is no substitute for hard work." -Thomas Edison

"The daily grind of hard work gets a person polished" -Unkown

There is a book that was published in 2008 called Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcom Gladwell. In the book Gladwell examines an earlier study by Anders Ericsson known as The 10,000 Hour Rule.

The 10,000 hour rule states that people who have become extremely successful in what they do all share one thing in common: 10,000 hours or more of experience in their craft. It is practice, not luck, that distinguishes the best and brightest. (I should also point out that 10,000 hours doesn't guarantee greatness either, it just give you a shot at it.) 

Why the number 10,000? Because that's about how long it takes a person to not only hone their skills but to also work through all possible scenarios and problems. By the time a person reaches 10,000 hours of experience there are very few problems that can occur that they haven't worked through before.

This news may be a depressing realization that your dreams are a little further away than you might have thought. That's why I'm here to help with some suggestions.

Here's how to use the 10,000 hour rule to your advantage:

• Write a summary of all of the skills, hobbies, and experiences you already have. Dig deeper than just job titles you've had. If you were a car salesman, for example, you have experience in negotiations, contracts, etc. You may be able to parlay those skills into other things. You may be closer to 10,000 hours than you think.
• Take up a hobby. 20 hours a week will be 10,000 hours in 10 years. Not a huge commitment if you are having fun in the process.
• If you have worked full time for 5 years you already have 10,000 hours of experience in something. What is it?

Sadly there are no shortcuts when it comes to hard work. I've seen many dreamers give up after exerting minimal effort with no results. Great success comes only after hard work. Rome was not built in a day and neither will your dreams.

September 11th - 10 Years Later

Wow, has it really been 10 years? It seems like just yesterday...

It was a Tuesday morning. I was going to the University of Texas at Arlington at the time. I had just turned 21 a few months prior, and a week before I did my last college radio show. Looking back it seemed like such an innocent time before 9/11.

I had a class from 8am until 9:20 that morning. I was a public relations major and was taking a PR class that day. The class went by just as normal as any other day and no one knew that anything bad was going on.

Class let out and I walked downstairs through the lobby of the communications building. There was a group of 15 people or so gathered around a television that had been wheeled out into the hallway. I could see the smoke coming from the World Trade Center on the TV but I didn't realize what was going on. I thought just a small commuter jet had strayed off course and crashed.

When I had reached my next class someone told me the whole story. My class was in a computer lab so I tried to go to online to see what was happening, but the Internet was jammed with all of the traffic.The campus was closed at 11am and I rushed straight home. I spent the rest of the week glued to the television trying to make sense of what had happened.

Even though it was 10 years ago I'm sure it was a day that you remember vividly. Think about how fast time has gone by since then. I can remember my life on that day so well that sometimes I use it to gauge my personal progress. 

Life is short. Life is fragile. Take this little reminder to set goals for yourself and put a plan into action before it is too late. No matter how rich you are you can never buy more time. Integrate a timetable into your list of goals. If you want to take a certain trip overseas, set a date. If you want to start a business, set a date. Don't let another year slip away into obscurity.