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Benjamin Franklin had this tenacity of purpose in a wonderful degree. When he started in the printing business in Philadelphia, he carried his material through the streets on a wheelbarrow. He hired one room for his office, work-room, and sleeping-room. He found a formidable rival in the city and invited him to his room. Pointing to a piece of bread from which he had just eaten his dinner, he said:"Unless you can live cheaper than I can, you cannot starve me out."
When James Gordon Bennett was forty years old he collected all his property, three hundred dollars, and in a cellar with a board upon two barrels for a desk, himself his own typesetter, office boy, publisher, newsboy, clerk, editor, proofreader, and printer's devil, he started the "New York Herald." He did this, after many attempts and defeats in trying to follow the routine, instead of doing his own way. Never was any man's early career a better illustration of Wendell Phillips' dictum: "What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first steps to something better."
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Some additional books on my reading list
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| [image credit: jrmrt on pixabay.com] |
2001-09-11
It was a Tuesday. My 2nd day, after having arrived in Warsaw Poland over the weekend. I had just started a new client engagement engagement with third largest bank in the country.
The first hint of trouble was the Polish staff wheeling a TV into the room.
The U.S. expats in the room with me were whispering of a rumor about a plane, NY, one of the Twin Towers. We all assumed it must have been a small commuter plane.
Every news site on the internet that we tried to access was overwhelmed.
As the true magnitude of the attack became clear - we were in shock.
When we left the office that day, we walked to a nearby T.G.I.F. restaurant - in grief, finding some solace in each other's company - and that small touchstone of familiarity- being so far from home - and loved ones.
My eyes constantly scanning the faces of the people entering and leaving the restaurant - monitoring for possible threats.
It would be months before I would be back in Seattle. When I did return - it was a cold rainy December day. I sat outside, on the sidewalk, of a Starbucks.
Finally, the tears came.
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There are many complex layers in the "chess games" that I play.
[I tend to think of my use of the term "play" here, not in the traditional Western sense, but play as in the Japanese sense of "practice" - as in a Dojo]
Some pieces are beyond my reach.
To move those pieces, I may need to introduce a new piece on the board.
Through the indirect moves of that piece - it may reach a piece that I cannot touch.
In so doing, it moves the piece - or opens a line of attack that was previously closed.
Although
the phrase "line of attack" is not meant in the sense of doing harm,
taking, or diminishing another player. It is meant as a metaphor for how
new relationships may be created, in how information may flow in new ways, in how threads of energy that connect
the pieces on the board may shift in new ways - that may be advantageous to my own position - as well as to the players/pieces for whom I am
seeking to help - by orchestrating movements.
There are games, within the games - within two dimensions, three dimensions, and even four dimensions.
This is the rich tapestry within which I see the business that I do.
Relationships - not transactions.
With each movement - seeking to create a value that is greater than the mere sum of the individual pieces.
This is my life's true work.
Updates:
2023-08-19 Saturday:
I thank David Reed, for bringing to my attention some of the possible similarities to what I have written here, and the Cluetrain Manifest (circa 1999-2000), by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger. (re: "markets are conversations")
