We strivers are Heaven bent on securing wealth and wisdom. No or yes?
Big Red Car here still under the glow of an excellent sermon yesterday at church. The sermon giver (not the regular guy) was dynamic and entertaining. He left me with a very good lesson — which is why I go to church in the first place, right?
So, here it is — in the game of life, there is nothing wrong with accumulating wealth, wisdom. We are supposed to do just that. With me so far?
What is also true is that we are supposed to share it thereafter. That’s it. All there is. Right there.
First, we accumulate wealth and wisdom.
Then, we share it with our families and the world.
This message is of great comfort to me as it pertains to the obvious implications, but it also explains why I like being a CEO coach.
Having been a entrepreneurial CEO of public and private companies for 33 years and an Army officer for 5 years before that, it is gratifying to be able to assist CEOs on their own journeys.
And, the Big Red Car has had a lot of extraordinary CEOs to work with in the last five years. Oh, yes!
My vehicle is something called The Wisdom of the Campfire. [I do no marketing and do not have a website for The Wisdom, but maybe I will change that.]
I imagine a campfire with my tired and cold feet at its edge. We, me and a brilliant CEO, are drinking a beer and talking. I am lending to you my thirty-three years of CEOing. We are eating pistachio nuts as we speak and throwing the shells into the fire. [Sorry, got away from myself for a second there. OK, back to reality. The pistachios come in a ten pound bag from California and they are big ones. Very salty which enhances the beer. Miller Genuine Draft or Corona in bottles, sweating bottles.]
In some of the relationships, the outcome has been spectacular. In others, the outcome has not been favorable — meaning the company was shut down for whatever reason.
More than half (some will say three quarters, 75%) of all venture capital funded companies do not make it. It is a hard thing to disrupt the world. And, it is not always a successful endeavor.
What does happen is that everybody involved learns something and failure is neither final nor fatal. As you may not know the Big Red Car is also a writer. Here is a story about the nature of failure. Read and critique.
Pulling the Plug, a Hank Cates Story
So, dear reader, there you have it for the last day of July 2017. But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Have a great week and be kind to somebody even if it is only yourself.
