Harrison Barnes » asphalt business

You Always Need a Backup Plan

Harrison Barnes — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 05:01:22 +0000

Being in the asphalt business in Detroit taught me very early on that things frequently go wrong. In fact, things go wrong so frequently, it is difficult to believe:

Pumps break.
Tanks break.
Trucks break.
People get injured.
Employees do not show up to work.
It rains.
The police give you a hard time for the condition of your equipment.
People do not pay you for the work you have done for them.
Suppliers go out of business.
Customers get incredibly angry with you.
Accidents occur, and materials get spilled on roadways.
People rob you.
People steal your equipment.
You need to “pay off” certain people in order to operate in certain geographic areas.

The list of things that go wrong in the asphalt business is virtually endless. I will mention this again: So many things went wrong when I was in the asphalt business, it was difficult to believe. I noticed all of this during my first month! The stress and number of things that had gone wrong on a regular basis was absolutely unbelievable. I was so stressed out. This was the only time I can remember being physically sick in my entire life. I had bounced a few checks because certain customers did not pay me. Some of my equipment was broken, and I did not have money to fix it. The stress had taken its toll, and one day, I simply could not get out of bed. When I moved, my head just started throbbing. I felt nauseated and sick, but thankfully, not to where I was throwing up; I was just overwhelmed with tremendous stress. I was staying with my father in his apartment, and after work one Friday around 6:00 p.m. he took me to TGI Fridays for dinner. It was a Friday night, and I did not want to eat. The smell of food made my head throb. The more I heard the festive music in the restaurant, the more ill I felt. It was as if all the activity was removing the energy from my body. I had to ask my father to take me back to the apartment. To this day, I do not like loud restaurants because it reminds me of the stress I was feeling back then, on that one day. In fact, even writing about this makes me feel the same pressure in my head that I felt at that time. It was not pleasant at all, because I felt out of control and completely backed into a corner. I just didn’t know what to do. I knew my parents would not give me money, and I knew I had to make do on my own. I had to fight in order to survive, but I did not see any way out:

I only had one truck and it was broken.
I only had one bank account and there was no money in it.
I only had one job and I needed my truck to do the work.

I finally realized one very important thing. That feeling of being cornered, of having no options, was incredibly frightening. It was an awful thing. As I lay in bed–not knowing what to do, my head throbbing, I realized that I never wanted to be in this situation again. I learned that having no options and feeling completely alone without any back up plan, whatsoever was absolutely the worst thing possible. A short time ago, I had a conversation with a woman who did not make enough money after expenses, to eat. She relied on her boyfriend to feed her every single night. I listened to her story, and it brought back memories from when I too felt like I had no options. From what this woman was telling me, unless she relied on her boyfriend, she would never be able to survive. “Never be dependent upon a man, or just one person,” I told her. “If you are dependent upon just one person, you are going to be left with a life that does not fulfill you, and a life that you are not happy with.” Any time we are completely dependent upon one person, one company, or one anything, we are in real danger. In fact, this is among the most dangerous positions you can put yourself in. When I got out of law school, I considered working as an attorney in Detroit. However, in Detroit at the time, there was only one law firm that paid a salary competitive with the firms in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. I knew many of the people working in this Detroit law firm, and probably all worked harder than the attorneys in Chicago, a bigger city, because there were no other options in Detroit. If they wanted to earn a big city salary, this was the only law firm for them in Detroit. For me, having no other options but this law firm, was a terrifying prospect. If I did not like the law firm then I would be in a pretty sorry state. I would be stuck in Detroit with no other options. If I wanted to move to a different state I would need to take the bar exam in that state. These didn’t seem like very good options to me. I did not, of course, take a job in Detroit. I also worked for a year in Bay City, Michigan, which is near Midland, Michigan, where Dow Chemical Company is located. There are hundreds of chemists working at Dow Chemical, and Midland is in the middle of nowhere. Imagine how you would feel if you were a chemist working here and you did not like your job. You would probably have to move. You would have to sell your house. You would have to pull your kids out of school. You would have to leave your friends in the area. You would be without options unless you relocated. This morning I walked into my office and looked at my computer and it had a big error message on the screen. I was understandably a little upset with this and screwed around for about an hour trying to get the computer to start. I do have two computers hooked up near my desk for these sorts of eventualities. In fact, I also keep two Internet connections available at all times, in case one fails. In addition, I also have a laptop that operates with a cellular connection in case my two internet connections fail. Since a lot of my job is done online, it is crucial that I always have a backup plan in case anything goes wrong. You always need backups in case something goes wrong. I operate numerous companies. A couple of years ago my most successful company was a student loan company. In fact, this company was so incredibly successful that at one point, it seemed like a good idea to drop everything and concentrate on just this. However, I never did. In fact, I focused on my other companies at that time period, such as my job search engines. Back then, I would have gotten a much higher return had I plowed all of my profits into student loans. But something incredible happened: The student loan market and credit markets collapsed completely. Almost overnight our entire student loan business lost over 95% of its revenue because the market froze up. Had I relied on this business exclusively, our company might have gone out of business altogether. Fortunately, we had numerous other businesses to pick up the slack. You always need to keep many fish in the water. The existence of back up plans is not just confined to the computers I use, or to my businesses. It is something that I employ in virtually every area of my career. I have back up offices, back up servers, back up employees, backup power, back up this, and back up that, and virtually every form of back up you can think of. I learned from the asphalt business. I learned that I always needed several different backup systems. You too, need to have backup systems in everything you do. They are crucial in all respects. One of my favorite movies is Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. The movie revolves around a group of airplanes headed towards Russia to release nuclear bombs. As one of the airplanes prepares to drop a nuclear bomb, the following exchange occurs between the pilot and the man operating the switches to open the bomb bay:

Kong: Check bomb door circuits one through four. Bombardier: Ah… bomb door circuits, negative function. Lights red. Kong: Switch in backup circuits. Bombardier: Roger. Backup circuits switched in, still negative function. Kong: Engage emergency power. Bombardier: Roger. Emergency power on. Still negative function. Kong: Operate manual override! Bombardier: Roger. Ah… still negative function. The teleflex drive cable must be sheared away. Kong: Fire the explosive bolts! Bombardier: Roger. Um… still negative, sir. The operating circuits are dead, sir. Kong: Stay on the bomb run, Ace. I’m going down below to see what I can do. Copilot: Roger. Kong: (to DSO and Bombardier) Stay on the bomb run boys. I’m goin’ to get them doors open if it hare lips everybody on Bear Creek. (Proceeds through hatch to bomb bay. Kong studies a sparking tangle of wires above a suspended bomb, and then climbs atop, fanning the sparks with his stetson.)

I love this exchange because it shows a number of backup systems on airplanes so that if one system fails, another will be available to replace it. In an airplane, there are multiple backup systems. No backup system means that people will die if everything does not function properly. Backup systems are incredibly important in airplanes. I have been reading about the recent Air France crash over the Atlantic Ocean for the past week or so and I was very interested to see the following story in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal titled Computer Failures are Probed in Jet Crash:

An international team of experts is building a scenario in which it believes a cascade of system failures, seemingly beginning with malfunctioning airspeed sensors, rapidly progressed to what appeared to be sweeping computer outages, according to people familiar with the probe. The Airbus A330, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a storm 26 days ago, killing all 228 aboard. Based on initial physical evidence and information from automatic maintenance messages sent by the aircraft, these people said, the plane bucked through heavy turbulence created by a thunderstorm without the full protection of its flight-control systems — safeguards that experts say pilots now often take for granted. Relying on backup instruments, the Air France pilots apparently struggled to restart flight-management computers even as their plane may have begun breaking up from excessive speed, according to theories developed by investigators. The investigators stress it is too early to pinpoint specific causes. But whatever the eventual findings, the crash already is prompting questions about how thoroughly aviators are trained to cope with widespread computer glitches midflight. If such emergencies do occur on today’s increasingly automated jetliners, many industry safety experts wonder how proficient the average crew may be in trying to rely on less-sophisticated backup systems. The difficulty is, they’re rare enough that pilots can be unprepared, but likely enough to pose a real threat,” according to Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, an industry-supported group based in Alexandria, Va. “We need to examine how to deal with automation anomalies.” Unlike jetliners built in previous decades — which required pilots to frequently manipulate controls and often manually fly the planes for long stretches — newer computer-centric aircraft such as the A330 and Boeing’s 777 are designed to operate almost entirely on automated systems. From choosing engine settings and routes to smoothing out the ride during turbulence and landing in low visibility, pilots essentially monitor instruments and seldom interfere with computerized commands. So when those electronic brains begin to act weirdly at 35,000 feet, the latest crop of aviators may be less comfortable stepping in and grabbing control of the airplane.

Here it looks like there were serious issues with the backup systems on the airplane. The issues with the backup systems are the likely cause of the crash. Just as a backup systems failure can cause a plane to crash, the absence of adequate backup systems in your life can cause tremendous problems. It is crucial that you always have backup systems in your life and, more importantly, in your career. I have dedicated a large part of my career encouraging people to use backup systems and have access to them at all times. You need backup systems in your career and there is nothing more important than this. When stock investors are investing in stocks, they almost never invest their entire savings or portfolio in one stock. Putting an investment in just one stock is usually a real mistake. For example, many people had their entire life savings invested with Bernie Madoff, and they lost everything. Very few investment advisors would ever advise you to invest your entire life savings with just one stock, or just one fund, but this is still what many people do, and the results are often disastrous. Your career is like a stock. There is a real danger in investing in just one person, one location, or one relationship. You need to be aware of where you can invest at all times, and understand the market. A good stock trader is likely going to review the stock pages in the paper on a daily basis to understand what is going on in the market. They want to know what is increasing in value and what is decreasing in value. They want to know which sectors are hot and which sectors are not hot. They want to understand what they should sell and what they should buy. They are always going to have various ideas of where to invest and they are almost always going to be diversified in multiple sectors so if something goes wrong in one area, they can be ready to invest in another. Your career is no different than a stock. You should always be aware of where you can invest and what you can do if things go wrong in any area of your career. I recommend that people be aware of what is going on in the market and keep track of job openings that match their areas of interest– not only within their geographic sector, but also in other locations. You need to know how marketable you are at all times and you should always be mindful of where you can seek employment if things go wrong. I have been reading a lot of stories about attorneys losing their jobs lately in various law firms around the United States. What typically happens is someone shows up at their office door unannounced, walks in, and lays them off. Most of the attorneys never see it coming. The job sites I operate like LawCrossing.com, EmploymentCrossing.com, and Hound.com are sites that consolidate jobs in various industries. Visitors to the websites can see which firms are hiring at different points in time, and can help people keep track of what is going on in the market. The time to start looking for a job, or to become aware of what is going on in the market is not when you have lost a job, or have quit a job. In my opinion, one of the smartest things you can do is to monitor the market at all times. This means using sites like EmploymentCrossing.com even when you are not looking for a job, just to understand what it is going on in the market. This way you can formulate options. You always need options within your career, and a backup system in place. There are numerous advantages to monitoring the market at all times:

You will know if you are being paid fairly.
You will know if you can make more elsewhere.
You will know if there are a lot of openings in your field at present.
You will learn what the job market is like for your geographic area.
You will get a sense of how much job security you may have in your area.
You will be ready to start looking for a job if things get bad or if you lose your job.
You will learn that you might need to develop new skills.
You will learn (it has happened!) if your own employer is trying to replace you, or is hiring in other divisions.

I could list numerous other reasons to constantly monitor the job market. But the main point is that you can learn a tremendous amount from doing so. I meet people who have lost their jobs all the time. Many of these people have had the same employers for 30 years or more. When they lose their jobs, they do not know what to do. They are completely confused, and angry. Remember: you never want to feel trapped by one person, job, or employer. A backup system for your career and an awareness of the market at all times will provide you with the options you need in case something fails. The secret to your success lies in making the most of all available options, and being able to do so, even when things go wrong. And make no mistake; there are always things that will go wrong.

Detroit Car Washes, Cash, Drug Dealers, and the Character of Your Goals

Harrison Barnes — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 05:20:17 +0000

Several years ago, I used to run an asphalt business out of Detroit, Michigan. I use the phrase “out of Detroit” loosely because in the eight years or so I was in the business, I only did a few asphalt jobs in the city of Detroit. Most of my work was in the suburbs. The reason I did so few asphalt jobs in Detroit then is that the city was in ruins and very few people could afford to maintain their asphalt. I did, however, keep my equipment in the city of Detroit because it was much cheaper to keep it there than elsewhere. In the course of storing my equipment in Detroit, I would go through the city each day and stop at gas stations and other locations to fuel up, purchase sodas, and so forth. I would always ask the gas station owners if I could do any work for them and they would always say no. However, I very quickly learned that abandoned or out-of-business gas stations were always a good place to find new work. Once a gas station closed, very often it would be converted into a hand car wash. There were two classes of hand car washes back then. One class was run by working-class men who seemed to have been in the business for decades; the other was run by men who were incredibly flashy and looked like they had never worked a day in their lives. The flashy men were the only ones in the entire city who would allow me to do work for them. They would typically have thousands of dollars in hundred-dollar bills in their wallets, and they would always pay me in cash as soon as the job was done. When I first discovered these hand car washes, I felt like I had discovered a diamond in the rough. The owners were often young men in their 20s who dressed very, very well and had gold watches and drove expensive new German cars. Inside, the men had private offices that were furnished in a palatial sort of style with expensive televisions and furniture. The funny thing about these car washes, though, was that they never appeared all that busy. The challenge of these hand car washes was that they would typically go out of business very quickly. One would open and then a year later it would be closed. I would rarely deal with the same man twice. It was confusing but a worthwhile effort to find these little car washes run by flashy young men, because they paid so well. After being in the asphalt business for several years, I started going out and selling services to various types of customers at different times of the year. For example, I might try to sell to automotive dealerships around Detroit one week and to car washes the next. In one of my last years in the asphalt business, I hired a man to professionally paint lines in parking lots for me. He had a little line-painting company that he ran on his days off from being a Detroit police officer. I had done line painting myself for several years, but I did not enjoy it as much as working on the asphalt itself. This was a serious guy with a big attitude, who wore his uniform even when he was not working. He would often put his line machine in the back of his patrol car and go out and paint lines on a parking lot after ending a shift as a police officer. I would typically call this guy and give him the addresses of the places where he was to work the following week. I usually wound up leaving a message on his answering machine, since he was difficult to reach; as I understood, he was frequently buzzing around in a patrol car. I will never forget when I left him a message about the hand car washes where he was to do lines the following week. I gave him the names of at least five hand car washes all around Detroit. For the next several days he drove around in his squad car with a line machine in the back of it, pulled up to the car washes, and gave them new lines. We finally connected on the phone the next week: “You are probably the most feared asphalt guy in Detroit right now,” he said. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “The list of places you gave me to do line striping was like a Who’s Who of Detroit drug dealers. You got most of the big guys. I pulled up there in my police car and did all of the work. They probably think you are a cop. I’d actually arrested one of them once before, and I told him hello.” The cop then explained to me that the guys who owned the hand car washes used them as a front and often ran cash from their drug-dealing businesses through them. Apparently, the hand car washes were easy to open and since so many people purchased car washes in cash, they were very popular among drug dealers. Drug dealers also liked to convert the abandoned gas stations into car washes because the stations tended to be on corners, which meant the owners could watch all sides of the location at once. In addition, the drug dealers could isolate themselves behind the bulletproof glass with which most of the gas stations were readily equipped. The police officer also explained that the reason the car washes always went out of business was that the guys who ran them usually either got killed or went to prison. “They get killed a lot more often than they go to prison,” he told me. All around Detroit I saw so many people who were suffering and living very difficult lives. The people who managed to rise out of all of this were the drug dealers I came across, running hand car washes, hiding behind bulletproof glass all day. Even the bulletproof glass could not protect them, however, and within a year of my meeting most of them for the first time, they all would end up killed or in jail. The idea that their efforts to grow rich and to become successful could end so quickly really struck me. What is the point reaching an ideal if one cannot stay on top for very long? I have seen countless people I know become successful only to lose everything very quickly. I know of people who have become incredibly wealthy and then lost everything. I know of people who have risen to very important positions, only to lose those positions in shame. I know of people who have done incredible things with their lives, yet the success simply does not last. What is the point of striving toward success and a goal if you cannot hold on to it? In my opinion, growing to a new level in your life and/or career should entail growing and then growing some more–not getting to a point and falling backward to whence you came. The quality of our achievement and the duration of our successes are directly proportional to the character of our goals. The men I met who ran the hand car washes all had goals and desired to be very successful. Their goals, however, revolved around nothing more than making money. These people were not interested in anything other than making money. And in the course of their pursuit of making money, these men were also harming other people. They were harming the people to whom they sold drugs; they were probably harming other drug dealers; they were harming the society at large, and more. A goal that involves harming others, which is more on the side of evil than good, will never take you far in the long run. This is why people who have purely selfish and often nefarious goals never stay on top for long. It comes down to the character of their goals. I have met countless people whose goals are motivated almost exclusively by simply making money. Money is good; however, it is simply a goal related to the accumulation of material things. A monetary goal is something that can help people achieve up to a point; however, this type of goal is, for the most part, very limiting. When you find people who are making an impact on the world and achieving important things that have real staying power, you will generally find people who have goals that are strong and positive in character, not monetary. In the employment arena, companies and organizations are typically motivated by goals as well. The better organizations, the ones with staying power, generally have goals that are good in character. The goal of a company could be to spread happiness, make extremely well-built electronics, or create very good-tasting and inexpensive food. The better defined the goal and the better the character of the goal, the better the organization will do. When you find organizations that exist simply to make money, you find that this goal is not generally enough to sustain them over time. We can point to all sorts of religions based around good character goals, which have lasted for thousands of years. However, how many companies have managed to stay in business for even a hundred years? Companies and salespeople have come and gone for as long as religions have existed, but only religions have had staying power. This all comes back to the character of the goals of religions, which are getting people closer to God, helping people, making the world a better place, and so forth. Goals that are based on high ideals and character are what are able to sustain people and groups. When you look at the history of countries, you can see that goals of good character also survive and prosper in that arena. The United States had goals of allowing independent thought and action, freedom of religion and speech, and other goals of good character. As a consequence of achieving these goals, this country has grown and done very well. In contrast, Nazi Germany had goals that encompassed oppressing various groups of people, inequality and extermination of groups of people. Despite an incredible expansion in a short period of time, these goals of bad character ultimately brought the country and the regime down. What is the character of your goals? When we examine the people who have accomplished the most in the world, who have sustained accomplishment, more often than not we will find that their goals are of excellent character. The goals of a Gandhi or a Mother Teresa are certainly of a different character than the goals of a simple industrialist. The goals of a president seeking to better the country are better than those of a pimp in New York City. The character of our goals will determine our accomplishments, the quality of our lives, and our impact on the world. If your goals have good character, then your life will have good character. It makes me sad when I think about the lives of drug dealers and others who are capable of so much but end up getting killed or going to prison, and hurting so many people. It makes me sad when I see very talented people concerned with nothing more than making money, who oftentimes get very far in their careers and then fail. I am sure you know countless people who had incredible abilities, who could have gotten very far in their careers, but who failed. The world respects people who have goals that are of good character. Having goals of good character will also motivate you to go forward and achieve incredible things. This will also make your job and life more fun. For example, if you were a bank teller, you could say your goal is to make money. If this were your goal, you would probably do okay in the job. However, if your goal were to make the world a better place by making everyone with whom you come into contact smile and glow with happiness, you would get more enjoyment out of your job. Since this goal is motivated by good character, you would probably advance through the bank as your customer service skills improve and you bring in repeat business. Many attorneys I have known are motivated purely by making money. If this is their goal, then they typically have unhappy careers: “I am just doing this for the money!” they will say. Conversely, many attorneys out there might be motivated by things like getting justice for the wrongly accused. When they have goals like this, everything is different. These individuals are more empowered, are happier, and perform better in their careers in all respects. These sorts of goals can make a giant difference in your ultimate success and happiness. The quality of your career and life comes down to the character of your goals.

One of the Most Significant Lessons I Have Ever Learned About Work

Harrison Barnes — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 08:21:19 +0000

When you become detached mentally from yourself and concentrate on helping other people with their difficulties, you will be able to cope with your own more effectively. Somehow, the act of self-giving is a personal power-releasing factor. -Normal Vincent Peale While I am no expert in the laws of the universe, one thing I’ve consistently noticed is when you stop thinking about yourself in business and concentrate on the needs of others, you begin to do well. I’ve seen this rule repeat itself over and over again, and I believe it is one of the most important keys to success. When I was in high school I started an asphalt business to earn money for college. I ran this business as a part-time job during school for about two months, one of which was during summer vacation. My sole objective was to make money. There are many entertaining stories I could tell, but to make a long story short, after several weeks I lost a great deal of money, did very poor work, and failed. Miserably. I’d done shoddy work, and there were a lot of people who were upset with me. The only thing I thought of when I did those early jobs was the money, and getting done with the day’s work so I could go and have some fun with friends. Doing a good job wasn’t my top priority. I was. Because I absolutely had to make money for college, I then began working as a garbage man for $5 per hour. I worked from 5 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday for the remainder of the summer in order to save money for tuition and expenses. It was not a fun job and the people I worked with left a lot to be desired. For example, one day the driver of the garbage truck that I was riding on was pulled over by the police and arrested because he’d assaulted a woman the evening before. I was then relegated to another truck, and the driver of this truck told me one day if I was not careful he would “cut me up.” Even though I’d quit the asphalt business, my phone continued to ring with complaints and demands that I come and repair the poor work I’d done. Towards the end of the summer, I had saved just over $1,000. I had to use that money to buy supplies to fix the jobs I’d botched. I didn’t have to do the repairs, because I’d already been paid, but my sense of integrity won out. I knew I could not enjoy my time at college knowing I’d left shoddy work behind. As I was buying supplies, I noticed an older man asking a hardware store clerk questions about various asphalt products. The clerk did not know the answers. I did, so I approached the man and began talking to him. I was surprised by how much I knew about asphalt. I must have talked to the man for over an hour. Despite the fact I was not a talented asphalt contractor, I was somewhat knowledgeable. As it turned out, this man was the owner of a large apartment complex, and he was planning on having his maintenance man do a large resurfacing project on the property. During our conversation, I told him how much he should be paying for the work, the best materials to buy, and how to ensure his maintenance man did a good job. At the end of the conversation, the man asked me if I would look at his apartment complex to provide him with more tips. Not even thinking about the money (I was actually interested in the process—and helping this man), I went and looked at the complex and called the man with my recommendations. He asked for my phone number in case he had any further questions. When I hung up the phone, I felt good I’d assisted the man with his questions. Throughout my whole exchange with him, I never expected anything in return. A day or two later the phone in my house rang again. I was not in the habit of answering the phone because I was always afraid it would be another complaint. I let my mother get it. She told me it was the man from the hardware store. He wanted me to do the work on the apartment complex for him! I could not believe it. He said something to the effect, “You care about the work. You will look out for me. I want you to do this because I know you will do a better job than anyone else I could find.” To make a long story short, I made over $3,000 on that job, and it was done in just two days. The work turned out perfectly. Over the years, I continued to do a great deal of work for this man, and always delivered top quality. I learned a lesson that summer, one about selflessness and taking pride in your work. Two summers later, at only twenty years old, I was confident about my work. I did more driveway resurfacing than any other contractor in Michigan. I continued in this business throughout college, law school, and even after graduation. I loved it! I owed that success to the realization that, in business, you can never focus on just yourself. While I eventually sold the asphalt business, I never forgot the lessons I learned, and I still share them as career advice. Today, I believe I owe my home and much of my current motivation to the lessons of selflessness and caring about your work, which the man in the hardware store unknowingly taught me.