Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.
Going against the grain, leaving your comfort zone, changing for the sake of change, shaking things up—all these familiar phrases describe fearless and crazy moments when a person or a business does a 180 and makes a decision contrary to what that person or business seems to be about. The only responses are “WTF?!” “How could that happen?!” “He/she/it would never do that! But he/she/it did!”
Applying these fearless and crazy strategies in your business can pay off. Just when they think they know you, just when they think they’re comfortable with everything you are and do, you pitch them a sweeping curveball that knocks their socks off. And you can reap the rewards; you can do just what you want to do. They’ll never look at you the same again.
The headlines had jaws dropping everywhere: NIXON IN CHINA screamed the large black type on just about every newspaper in just about every country in the world. Richard M. Nixon?! Thirty-seventh president of the United States? The conservative politician who had made his name and his fame as a Commie-basher, an enemy of all things Red? In China? Chairman Mao Zedong’s China? The secretive, violent Middle Kingdom of the Cultural Revolution? The Communist cohort of our current battlefield adversary, North Vietnam? That China? That Nixon? Had the planet spun off of its axis?
Well, yes, in a way. It was February 1972, and President Richard M. Nixon had just made a fearless and crazy decision: he would pay a visit to his country’s Cold War enemy, the People’s Republic of China, the very same nation he’d been railing about since it went Communist in 1949 and the United States cut all diplomatic ties.
But Nixon didn’t just wake up one morning and tell his staff to roll Air Force One out of the hangar, we’re going to China. His fearless and crazy decision was methodically and meticulously planned. And—incredibly—in an era of almost steady leaks from government insiders to the press, Nixon and his inner circle pulled off the surprise. They made those jaws hit the floor.
It began in 1969, shortly after Nixon moved into the White House. Sure, he was still a staunch anti-Communist, but he was also a realist, especially when it came to foreign affairs. He recognized that the People’s Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were more and more in disagreement over just about everything, including their shared, contested border. There was no such thing as a giant Communist monolith ready to take over the world. Instead, there were two major camps, each suspicious of the other. Nixon felt he could successfully play one off of the other, even as we continued our war in Vietnam. The era of détente was at hand.
The president decided to work the diplomatic back channels through Warsaw, Poland, with Henry Kissinger, his national security advisor, as his point man. Walter Stoessel Jr., our ambassador to Poland, made the initial contact with his Chinese counterparts at a fashion show at the Yugoslavian embassy in Warsaw.21
Stoessel was a State Department employee, of course, and when his superiors back in Washington got wind of the Nixon/Kissinger-ordered overture, they expressed their concerns to the White House. Nixon responded in typical Nixonian fashion: he got mad and cut them out of the loop, keeping even Secretary of State William Rogers on the outside.22 Kissinger would handle the intrigue and the secret diplomacy. And he loved it.
Next, Pakistan president Yahya Khan passed along personal greetings from Nixon to Chinese premier Zhou Enlai, the country’s most powerful man now that Mao was in his final years. Zhou replied through Khan that he would “consider” Nixon’s visit proposal and let him know later.23
It was Chairman Mao himself who kept the initiative alive with an April 1971 invitation to the U.S. table tennis team to visit China after its tour in Japan. Thus ping-pong diplomacy was born. Like Nixon, Mao was eager to play power politics. By extending a hand to America, he would make his Soviet adversaries nervous. Plus, he could continue his ongoing push for the return of Taiwan to the People’s Republic, where he felt it rightfully belonged.
About six months after the successful table tennis team visit, Mao sent a secret message to Nixon, inviting the U.S. president to visit. But first the United States must quietly send a special envoy to make the arrangements and plan the details. The special envoy? Kissinger, of course.
On July 1, 1971, Kissinger embarked on a routine tour of Asia, with the first stop in Pakistan. President Khan was in on the ruse. The secret plan was code-named Marco Polo. At an embassy dinner, Kissinger feigned illness and temporarily excused himself. He and his small entourage of assistants and bodyguards secretly headed for the airport (though even his entourage wasn’t fully apprised of the plan). When they got on the unmarked airplane, they were greeted by four Chinese soldiers in Mao jackets. Kissinger’s guards at first thought they were being kidnapped.24
Kissinger flew to China, made the arrangements in less than 48 hours, and returned to Pakistan, now feeling much better and ready to continue his scheduled Asian tour.
More secret messages followed, ironing out more details. Both sides knew that the symbolism of the visit was more important than any substantive agreements. Those, hopefully, could come in due time. Later Nixon wrote, “We were embarking on a voyage of philosophical discovery as uncertain, and in some ways as perilous, as the voyages of geographical discovery of an earlier time.”25
Nixon landed in Beijing on February 17, 1972. He met with Chairman Mao, a moment televised around the world. But Nixon’s most important sessions were with Zhou Enlai. Vietnam (China wanted the United States out) and Taiwan (China wanted it back) were the two major contentious issues, and neither side was expecting resolution. The final agreement—the Shanghai Communiqué—signed at the end of the visit was in many ways a typical diplomatic document with language vague enough to allow each side to smile and both to declare progress.
At the final banquet, a triumphant and slightly tipsy Nixon raised his glass in salute: “This has been the week that changed the world!” 26
Indeed it had. After Nixon’s fearless and crazy decision, nothing would be the same again. China was brought onto the world stage, and the USSR was forced to rethink its own geopolitical strategy. In fact, within a few weeks, Nixon was in Moscow negotiating the beginning of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). From then on, the world superpowers would look to discussion, diplomacy, and accommodation when dealing with each other. The decades-long tensions of the Cold War were easing.
As for Nixon himself, the rest of his story is familiar. But despite the Watergate debacle and the resignation and fall from grace, not even Nixon’s fiercest enemies could ever deny his expertise in foreign affairs. He was savvy enough to sense the opening, and he made it happen. He knew that who he was and what he stood for made the initiative that much more dramatic, that much more significant.
Fearless and crazy, yes. And the world is better for it.
It wasn’t that long ago that being a millionaire was a big deal. There was a black-and-white TV series called The Millionaire, and Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall starred in a 1953 movie, How to Marry a Millionaire, showing women how to do just that. No question about it: back then, having a million dollars meant you were rich.
Well, millionaires are no big deal anymore, especially when you count assets and investments. Millionaires are sprinkled throughout society. You may be one yourself. I am.
It’s the billionaires who get our attention these days. And the man at the top of the billionaire list, the richest man in the world at $74 billion and counting, is an unassuming Mexican citizen of Lebanese descent named Carlos Slim. He’s so unassuming that, despite his wealth and fame, he still drives his own car to work every day—in a country notorious for violence and kidnappings.27
His business empire is vast. In fact, some sources say it’s impossible to go through a day in Mexico without interacting with a Carlos Slim enterprise. That’s primarily because of telecommunications, the foundation of his wealth. He is chairman and CEO of Telmex and América Móvil and has extensive holdings in other Mexican companies through his conglomerate Grupo Carso SAB. And of course, he has various holdings throughout the world.
Telmex is the big one, however. It’s Mexico’s dominant telephone company, controlling 90 percent of the country’s landlines. So yes, it’s difficult not to interact with a Carlos Slim company in the course of a day. Slim and his family own 49.1 percent of Telmex.
Slim takes some heat for being so rich in a country that is anything but. The per capita income in Mexico is about $14,500 a year, with almost 17 percent of the population living in poverty. Slim’s incredible wealth is about 5 percent of Mexico’s annual economic output. But Slim doesn’t give much heed to the critics. “When you live for others’ opinions, you are dead,” he says. “I don’t want to live thinking about how I’ll be remembered.”28
It’s this approach to his legacy that has recently set Carlos Slim on a different path from his fellow famous billionaires. Slim, in his calm and considered way, is going fearlessly against type and taking a unique stance.
Bill Gates (the world’s second-richest person) and Warren Buffett (the third) have received much acclaim—deservedly so—for their campaign to get the super rich of the world to pledge at least half of their accumulated fortunes to charity upon their deaths. They call it the Giving Pledge. Gates and Buffett have spread their message of goodwill and good deeds throughout the world, even to China. Hundreds of the über-wealthy have signed the pledge, and more do so every day. It’s the kind of noble effort and do-the-right-thing campaign that elicits smiles and nods and makes us all feel there may yet be hope for the planet. Nobody could be against the billionaires’ pledge.
Nobody except Carlos Slim. He thinks it’s well-meaning but wrongheaded. “What we need to do as businessmen is to help to solve the problems, the social problems,” he explains. “To fight poverty, but not by charity.” Corporations and businesses do that best, says Slim, when they run successful, expanding companies that provide jobs for thousands, improve infrastructure, develop new facilities, and generate dynamic markets. The billionaires’ money needs to be reinvested in the various enterprises and societies from which it was generated in the first place. Don’t wait for death; do it now. Put more back in, and even more will come back out. And so many more people will benefit. Besides, donating the pledged money to charity will result in huge tax deductions, depriving governments of much-needed tax revenue.29
Slim is clearly marching to a different drummer than Gates, Buffett, and the others who’ve signed the pledge. But is he just being a tightwad? Is he hoarding his wealth so he can be number one forever? Hardly.
In fact, Carlos Slim does give; he does provide for others. But he does it his way, demanding realistic, measurable results. He doesn’t hand out big checks. He finances boots-on-the-ground programs and initiatives, similar, ironically, to the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The focus of his Carlos Slim Foundation is education and health care. Current projects include a $100 million medical initiative to perform 50,000 cataract surgeries in Peru, the creation of a $20 million fund to strengthen small and medium-size businesses in Colombia, and a digital education program for youth in Mexico. His foundation is also spending $150 million on programs in nutrition and disease prevention in Central America. He has donated $50 million to work with the World Wildlife Fund to restore six areas for endangered species in Mexico, including the monarch butterfly. The Carlos Slim Foundation has also pledged $100 million to Colombian singer Shakira’s ALAS Foundation, which creates education programs for young people.30
Slim believes in charitable giving that creates productive, working citizens. And so he targets cataract operations that will allow the recipients to return to gainful employment and digital education programs that will create a generation of computer-savvy Mexican youth.
Maybe Carlos Slim’s ideas about charity aren’t really so crazy and different after all. They sound a lot like that oft-quoted Chinese proverb: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Don’t expect Carlos Slim to give you a fish.
She certainly didn’t realize it at the time, but in 1832, at the age of 11, Clara Barton had found her life’s calling. Her older brother, David, fell from the rafters of the family’s unfinished barn and injured himself severely. Young Clara attended to him for three years, eventually nursing him back to health. She even administered his “great, crawling, loathsome leeches,” as she called them, a standard treatment at the time.31
As she began an adult life of her own, she became first a teacher, when few in that profession were female. She then found employment with the government, again when few bureaucratic posts were held by women.
She was working as a clerk in the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C., in April 1861, when the Civil War began. On April 19, a week after the firing on Fort Sumter had started it all, troops from the Sixth Massachusetts arrived in Washington in disarray, having been attacked by secessionists in Baltimore. Barton herself was born and raised in Massachusetts, and she knew many of these men and their families. She and her sister, Sally, went to the station to meet the soldiers but were dismayed to learn that the city had nowhere to billet the troops or care for the wounded among them. Many were housed in the Capitol building itself. Barton took the most seriously wounded to her sister’s house and nursed them; she collected donated food and supplies from local merchants. The frantic work inspired her. “The patriot blood of my fathers was warm in my veins,” she wrote later.
More troops soon arrived in the chaotic city, this time from upstate New York and New Jersey. She visited the men camped in and around the city. “I don’t know how long it has been since my ear has been free from the roll of a drum,” she wrote her father. “It is the music I sleep by, and I love it.”32
Again, and from then on, there was the need for supplies—everything from blankets to bandages. Barton became the recipient of supplies sent to Washington in response to letters the men wrote home. When floods of the wounded filled the city after the first battle of Manassas (Bull Run), she began soliciting supplies from various civic groups and relief committees. “I will remain here while anyone remains,” she wrote. “I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them.”33
All that good and necessary work would have been plenty for most women or men, but Clara Barton had a fearless and crazy desire to do even more, to work where her nursing and organizational skills were most needed and could be most effective: at the battlefield.
She pleaded and petitioned every decision maker she could find, from politicians to military officers. She wanted to be out there where the bullets were flying and the blood was flowing. She would even bring her own medical supplies. She was turned down again and again. We appreciate your nursing and your supplies, of course, they said. Continue to roll bandages; continue to contact families. Our nation is grateful. But don’t go where you don’t belong. War is a man’s horror show. It is no place for a lady.
Finally in August 1862, she somehow obtained a quartermaster’s pass and six wagons with teamsters to carry her supplies to the front lines. A few days after the battle of Cedar Mountain in northern Virginia, she appeared at a field hospital at midnight with a wagonload of supplies drawn by a four-mule team. The surgeon on duty, overwhelmed by the human disaster surrounding him, wrote later, “I thought that night if heaven ever sent out an angel, she must be one—her assistance was so timely.”34
She and her two helpers worked among the Cedar Mountain wounded for two days and nights without food or sleep, even tending to wounded Confederate prisoners.
From then on she was known as “The Angel of the Battlefield.” Clara Barton nursed the troops at the battles of Fairfax Station, Chantilly, Harpers Ferry, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Charleston, Petersburg, and Cold Harbor. She never hung back with the medical units, waiting for the wounded to be brought to her. Instead, she pressed forward, fearless and a little crazy, to the scene of the carnage.
At Antietam, she ordered the drivers of her supply wagons to follow the cannon and traveled all night, pulling ahead of military medical units. While the battle raged, she and her associates dashed about bringing relief and hope to the field. She nursed, comforted, and cooked for the wounded. She later wrote that in the face of danger, “I always tried … to succor the wounded until medical aid and supplies could come up. I could run the risk; it made no difference to anyone if I were shot or taken prisoner.”35
In April 1865, four years after the war had begun, it ended. Surrender. Peace.
But for Barton, the war left much still to be done. First on that long list was to account for the missing. She had already begun that task during the fighting by writing letters, asking questions, and keeping records. A few weeks before his assassination, President Abraham Lincoln acknowledged her work on behalf of the missing and their families. Lincoln wrote, “To the Friends of Missing Persons: Miss Clara Barton has kindly offered to search for the missing prisoners of war. Please address her … giving her the name, regiment, and company of any missing prisoner.”36
Barton established the Office of Correspondence with Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army and operated it out of her rooms in Washington for the next four years. She and her assistants received and answered more than 63,000 letters and identified more than 22,000 missing men.37
She didn’t know it then, but her tireless labor during and after the war was foreshadowing what would later be her most lasting legacy: the American Red Cross. She founded the organization, modeled on the International Red Cross, in May 1881 and became its first president.
But perhaps none of this would have occurred, and certainly not for Clara Barton, had she not fearlessly insisted on moving toward the heat of battle, not away from it. As she wrote later, “The door that nobody else will go in seems always to open widely for me.”38
MY TAKEGoing against type is a little bit like using the element of surprise (discussed in Chapter 2). They can both mean fearless and crazy moments that put people back on their heels and give that fearless and crazy person a decided advantage. But there’s a major difference between the two. As described in Chapter 2, General Douglas MacArthur executed a startling strategic maneuver in warfare; Groupon surprises us with its unexpected business decisions; and Muhammad Ali pulled off a terrific tactical surprise during his battle in the ring. But these three were not going against type. MacArthur was a general, Groupon is an online business enterprise, and Ali was a boxer. They were and are practicing their professions, doing what they always do, and staying true to their calling—finding and fighting a way to victory.
But as discussed in this chapter, Nixon, Slim, and Barton all went against what they and others like them had always stood for. The Cold Warrior hobnobbing with Commies. The unassuming billionaire rejecting the praiseworthy initiative of his fellow billionaires. The genteel woman showing up at the front line.
All three were being contrarian, going against the grain, against the conventional wisdom. They were questioned about it and criticized for it, but they stood their ground. And the world is a better, more interesting place because they did.
Even though I’m still a young man, I have frequently gone against type, against the grain, in my professional and business life. For example, I decided early on to carry a minimum of debt, using cash instead of credit cards whenever possible. Conventional wisdom for business says you should use someone else’s money, not your own, whenever possible. Conventional wisdom says that leverage and credit are good things. When used properly and prudently, leverage and credit can allow you to start and expand a business. They can help you make that next big leap; they can be the difference between success and failure. That’s what banks, investors, bonds—just about every financial facet of capitalism—are all about. Borrow money today so you can flourish; then pay it back tomorrow.
A credit card, of course, is leverage at its most basic. We frequently hear stories of folks using their credit cards to jump-start their restaurant, finance their movie, or lease that first office. And as you’ll recall from this book’s introduction, that’s exactly how I got started in the 1990s—using credit card debt. It was one of my first fearless and crazy decisions.
But I have since contradicted my own history and success and come out against type, against the conventional wisdom for leverage and borrowing. I’m against credit cards. You’ll read more about my thinking on this in Chapter 10.
My most significant against-the-grain decision came after I had completed my financial industry training and internship and was ready to step out into the big, bad world. Friends and family members assumed I would get a salaried position with a reputable investment firm and gradually work my way up the corporate ladder. I would earn my salary and commissions, build seniority at the firm, and settle into a slow, satisfying career. That’s what having a career means, everyone said.
But I had a different plan, one I’d researched for hours in libraries and bookstores and in meetings with respected professionals. Even though I was an untested, wet-behind-the-ears rookie, I decided to go to work as an independent contractor financial advisor for a small boutique financial services firm called The Griffin Agency. No traditional career path for me. “Arthur, are you crazy?” asked my friends from college.
Yes, I guess I was. Fearless and crazy. And though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was setting the foundation for my own life-wealth plan.
At first it looked like those college friends were right. I seemed to be in free fall to failure. In my first five months as an independent advisor, I didn’t make more than $500. My friends, on the other hand, were in the early stages of their traditional career paths and considering new SUVs and new homes in the suburbs. They seemed to have figured things out and would live the American Dream.
Rather than be envious of them and doubt my own plan, I saw the beginnings of their success as an opportunity for me. I would create investment opportunities for them and their friends and relatives. I would help them attain their financial goals and thereby attain my own along the way. I would be their financial advisor.
My plan was simple and powerful, and you’ll hear about it frequently in these pages: short-term, mid-term, and long-term goal planning. I developed specific, customized strategies for my friends and clients that would make their great dreams come true by building wealth and protecting their assets. For example, short-term savings strategies could help them buy that new car; mid-term plans could get them that gated-community house; and long-term savings/investment strategies (IRA, 401(k)) could ensure a comfortable, secure retirement not dependent on Social Security (which is far from a sure thing for my generation). I combined these wealth accumulation plans with a solid, systematic debt elimination strategy, including minimizing the use of credit, as mentioned above.
And you know what? It worked. My clients liked what I did and the results I brought in. Word spread. I got referrals and recommendations. I decided to take my independent status one fearless and crazy step further: I started my own company, Arthur Wylie Financial Services. I was going against the grain in a big way, even though I was still in my mid-twenties.
From then on, things happened fast. I moved into a large facility, hired personnel, and began a brand-marketing campaign that quickly got the attention of Charlotte’s wealth management profession. Charlotte was second only to New York as the country’s premier financial industry city. Being a success there meant something. Consequently, business boomed; we could barely keep up with it.
With so much success, I decided to get my real estate license, start a real estate company to better serve my clients’ property investment needs, and of course, keep a greater share of the profits for Arthur Wylie Financial Services. Later I hired a team of real estate brokers to run the operation and expand it into several southeastern states.
We brought in attorneys and accountants to do even more in-depth financial planning and offer more professional services. To the client, it was added value; we were becoming almost a one-stop shop. Clients are the key, of course, and we continually found ways to let them know how much we appreciated them. We had more than 1,200 clients across the country and had facilitated more than $400 million in financial transactions, brokered deals, and managed assets. You name it, we did it.
And Arthur Wylie, this against-type go-getter from North Carolina, was named Young Alumnus of the Year at UNC–Charlotte, featured in numerous national and local publications and broadcasts, and listed in the Charlotte Business Journal’s top “40 Under 40” in Charlotte. Not bad for starting with zero dollars. I had a small but thought-out plan that allowed me to grow efficiently. I went from college student to entrepreneur. I was working and living my life-wealth plan, even though that’s not what I called it back then. My wealth management company and its ancillary businesses brought success and wealth to me and the people who worked for me and, most important, to our many clients.
Incidentally, some of those friends who told me I was crazy for not setting out on the traditional path and working my way up some corporate ladder ended up abandoning that path themselves and working for me—the fearless and crazy guy.
It all happened because I went against type. And that’s my simple advice to you: zig when everyone tells you to zag.
____________________
21“Foreign Affairs, February 21-28, 1972,” United States History, http://www.us-history.com/pages/h1877.html.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Harriet Alexander, “Carlos Slim: At Home with the World’s Richest Man,” The Telegraph, February 19, 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/8335604/Carlos-Slim-At-home-with-the-worlds-richest-man.html.
28 Helen Coster, “Carlos Slim Helu Now World’s Second-Richest Man,” forbes. com, April 11, 2007, http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/11/billionaires-helu-telecom-biz-cz_hc_0411helu.html.
29 Keerthikasingaravel, “Carlos Slim and the Giving Pledge,” Wealthymatters, August 1, 2011, http://wealthymatters.com/2011/08/01/carlos-slim-and-the-giving-pledge/.
30 “Slim’s Big Giveaway,” March 5, 2007, Bloomberg Businessweek, March 5, 2007, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_10/b4024065.htm?campaign_id=rss_magzn.
31 Percy Harold Epler, The Life of Clara Barton (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1915), 12, http://books.google.com/books?id=LC5x31cCf_sC&pg=PA12&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false.
32 Joan Goodwin, “Clara Barton,” Unitarian Universalist Association, http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/clarabarton.html.
33 Ibid.
34 “Clara Barton: Founder of the American Red Cross,” American Red Cross, redcross.org, http://www.redcross.org/museum/history/claraBarton.asp.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Ishbel Ross, Angel of the Battlefield (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), http://quotes.dictionary.com/the_door_that_nobody_else_will_go.
