The 4 Essentials of Entrepreneurial Thinking: What Successful People Didn't Learn in School

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The 4 ESSENTIALS of Entrepreneurial Thinking

Greenleaf Book Group Press

Chapter One

"I was too naïve to know what I couldn't do, so most of the time I just did it." Reflection

Midnight — Summer, Santa Monica, 2011

It's been twenty years since I conceived this book. Final draft is in sight. Friends say my favorite Oscar Wilde quote should go right here:

"Be yourself — everyone else is taken."

Okay, Here Goes Nothing:

• I'm a semi-dyslexic insomniac.

• I wasn't a born entrepreneur; just a misfit.

• Sometimes I talk too much — I could listen more.

• I might be attention deficit. Did you see that squirrel moonwalk?

• My best-kept secret? I don't own a suit. A jacket over jeans has to pass for reluctantly fashionable. All things being equal, I'd rather be naked.

Somehow, with all my foibles, I found success and never regretted failures along the way. That said, if 30-something Cliff could chat with 20-something Cliff, ohhh the conversations we'd have ...

Tales of a Soccer Kid

I was born in New York City, 1967, the baby brother of two sisters, Gigi and Eve. I was a short, scrawny kid with a gift for gab. Gift for gab is kid-speak for occasionally witty and hard to shut up.

My parents are Jewish, originally from Brooklyn. Mom and Dad divorced as early as I can remember and rarely spoke again. Mom is a retired nurse who enjoys live theater. Dad is a psychiatrist and neurologist who fancies himself a renaissance man, but with a Groucho Marx complex. I didn't live with my dad but we enjoyed tons of Dodger baseball games. Those hours at the ballpark gave us a common vocabulary for sports, books, and dirty jokes.

We moved to Tenafly, New Jersey when I was a baby, then Southern California when I was 5. We moved eight more times before I was 12, mostly downsizing middle-class neighborhoods from Encino to Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley. My childhood was neither privileged nor underprivileged, but home life was a bit dysfunctional. As the youngest, I was oblivious to family squabbles and tuned out most of the noise. My sisters and I lived with my mom but we were years apart and didn't hang out much. Like many siblings, we became closer as adults and always shared a special bond.

Both parents were too busy to watch over us kids, so we had no family structure. To the contrary, Gigi, Eve, and I were left to our own devices. The girls moved out early, Gigi at 15 and Eve at 17. I love my sisters madly. They always checked in on little Cliffy and for that, I'm eternally grateful. As for me, most of the time anyway, I was a home-alone kid, starved for attention.

In spite of a disjointed upbringing and nine different schools from kindergarten to high school, I was a good student. On occasion, I played hooky to hang out at beaches, libraries, and local arcades. That was the extent of my shenanigans. Wild kid, huh? With no parental supervision, it's amazing I didn't get into trouble, but I was fortunate to be a bookworm (a gift from both parents I suppose). I often escaped to my favorite novelists; among them Twain, Dickens, and Salinger. These early mentors taught me about humor and hope, good versus evil, and the inequities of life. They also inspired me to write.

It's fair to say I'm a movie buff, music maven, and comedy nut. My earliest influences were Steven Spielberg, The Beatles, and George Carlin. I'm also nostalgic for classic cartoons like Bugs Bunny, Charlie Brown, and Winnie the Pooh. If you're too cool for cartoons, you're too cool for me.

At the heart of my DNA, I was a sports junkie. I played everything from tennis to baseball, but soccer was my year-round passion. At 9, I was selected to play for a club team called the Junior Aztecs. We were sponsored by the Los Angeles Aztecs, a professional club of the former North American Soccer League. We even got to train a bit with the pros and play a few games at the Rose Bowl in front of live crowds — quite a trip for a soccer kid.

At the time, Brazilian soccer legend, Pelé, came out of retirement to play for the New York Cosmos, a cross-country rival of the Aztecs. My first memory of Pelé was watching him fly through the air, scoring on a bicycle kick. Dreams of a professional career soon danced in my head. For those who don't know his story, Pelé was so poor his neighborhood team was known as The Shoeless Ones. At 16 however, he was selected to Brazil's national team. At 17, he scored six goals in the 1958 World Cup, skyrocketing to international fame. He would ultimately lead Brazil to three World Cup Championships from 1958 to 1970 and the Cosmos to a championship in 1977. By career's end, Pelé was the indisputable King of Soccer with a mind-boggling 1,281 goals in 1,363 games.

The Love Speech

In 1977, Pelé played his farewell game at Giants Stadium, New York; one half for the Cosmos, the other for Santos, his native club from Brazil. I was 10 years old. Before the game, in front of 75,000 screaming fans and a TV audience in 38 countries, Pelé delivered a short speech I would never forget:

"I want to take this opportunity to ask you, in this moment when the world looks to me ... to take more attention to kids all over the world ... I want to ask you ... because I believe love is more important than anything we can take from life ... because everything else passes ... to say with me three times, LOVE."

With each cry of "LOVE" from Pelé, a jubilant crowd echoed, "LOVE." After the game, 3-Time World Heavyweight Champ, Muhammad Ali, embraced Pelé and said, "There are now two of The Greatest." I was too young to appreciate the moment but considering I had no formal mentors growing up, Pelé was a pretty good choice. It's been said he's done more goodwill with his message of "LOVE" than most world leaders. Deservedly, TIME Magazine included Pelé on their list of "100 Most Important People of the 20th Century."

Months after his farewell game, I was seeking an autograph from Pelé. Among a swarm of kids at a soccer clinic, I shouted, "What does it take to be a champion?" Pelé flashed his famous smile and said three words, "Practice. Teamwork. Love."

My Soccer Journey

By the time I was 11, our Junior Aztecs had won league titles and played matches in far-off lands from England to Israel. I had a knack for scoring goals and was a fairly good playmaker. At 12, I transferred to a new club, West Valley United. We were the first American team to win one of the largest youth tournaments in the world (The 1981 Robbie), played annually in Canada. I scored two goals in the championship final, the game-winner on a diving header. I was 14 and my confidence couldn't be higher.

Unfortunately, by the time high school rolled around, ankle twists and physical therapy were routine. I played out my senior year but knew I had lost my edge. By 17, ligaments in both ankles were shredded. Although college scouts showed interest, athletic scholarships went down the drain.

By 18, the physical damage was irreparable. Any hopes of a soccer career were crushed. Maybe I was never good enough anyway? I spent half my senior year on crutches, the other half wondering what I would do with the rest of my life. I was emotionally lost.

Fortunately, Pelé's words never escaped my soul. "Practice. Teamwork. Love ..."

Chapter Two

"If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril ... Know your enemy and know yourself ... and you can !ght a hundred battles without disaster." Sun Tzu ( Est. 6th Century BC ) Chinese Military Strategist - The Art of War

Life 101

I left home a few months before high school ended. I was a double threat, clueless and penniless. I couldn't afford my own place so I crashed on the couch of whatever friend would have me. The idea of college weighed heavy on my mind but my father offered to help with a few semesters of tuition. I still had to navigate the world on my own (food, rent). There's a Life 101 manual, right?

I soon immersed in entrepreneur magazines and self-help books, assuming answers were a page away. Unfortunately, books were usually too dry or full of hype. There were inspirational stories but nothing tangible. Business books were worse. Unless you were a math wiz or card-carrying member of Wall Street, the complex graphs and acronyms were enough to depress anyone, even an ambitious kid like me.

Then one night, I picked up a bit of life wisdom watching a favorite movie ...

"How About a Nice Game of Chess?"

In 1983, Matthew Broderick played a computer wiz-kid named David Lightman in the blockbuster film, War Games. In the story, Lightman begins what he thinks is a harmless video game. He soon discovers he's inadvertently hacked into a military computer and nearly triggered the United States into launching a nuclear attack against Russia. The computer is an artificial intelligence system designed to simulate war games — code name: WOPR; short for War Operation Plan Response. WOPR's programming included chess, poker, and tic-tac-toe. In theory, the practice of these strategic games would enable military commanders to learn from mistakes in wartime.

The countdown has begun. Lightman must now save the planet from World War III. Fast-forward to the movie's final scene. War generals and computer gurus at the NORAD Command Center are attempting to stop WOPR from launching a first strike. Just minutes from an apocalypse, Lightman programs the computer to accelerate the learning curve by playing tic-tac-toe against itself. Exhausted from playing futile war games and a tireless loop of tic-tac-toe that always ends in a draw, the computer blows a fuse and shuts down. In the darkness of a quiet war room, a simulated voice addresses the computer's designer. "Greetings Professor Falken - a strange game - the only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"

Suspending disbelief as a movie critic, what I took away from War Games was the idea of a system that teaches us to learn from mistakes. Wouldn't it be cool if we all had a real-world war plan to fight life's battles?

I decided to hit the library and check out a few books on chess. I was fascinated by War Games since I played chess but was never very good. My basic curiosity was how many moves a great player can see ahead. What I learned is that Grandmasters, the highest rank a chess player can attain, are never pigeonholed a few moves ahead. They visualize entire game scenarios, adjusting on the fly to a bank of tactics they've practiced for years. They also rely on their knowledge of an adversary as much as textbook strategy. In other words, Grandmasters are as nimble as they are forward-thinking.

A few books later, I connected chess to life skills and brain development. Here's where research got interesting. To become an exceptional chess player, you have to learn six pieces, each with unique shapes, sizes, and abilities. There are literally billions of potential scenarios after an opening move. Risk assessment is constant. Such complexities make chess one of the best games to develop memory and reasoning skills. In turn, these enhanced brain functions make us better in math, reading, and spatial learning. We even develop patience and social intelligence by reading an opponent's body language or facial expressions. Listen up poker players and would-be negotiators — games of chance like Monopoly or one-dimensional video games can't compete for life-skill development.

When I looked back at my childhood, I realized how lucky I was to have developed a few real-world battle skills. Reading provided vocabulary and knowledge; writing instilled creativity and imagination; chess improved memory, logic, and problem solving; soccer provided teamwork, coordination, and disciplined practice — perhaps these Essentials would serve me well as an adult?

Back in 1985 however, I had little perspective beyond the classroom or soccer field. Like most teenagers, I was insecure and life was a mystery. How would I earn a living, make time for a girlfriend, or even balance a checkbook? I had moved so many times as a kid that loyal friends were hard to come by. The few friends I had were moving away to different colleges. There were no e-mails or cell phones; no online social networks to make communication easy. I was 18 with no guidance. In my mind, I was alone.

War games? !e real world? I knew nothing. I was in survival mode ...

Chapter Three

"On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain ... either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers ... to climb higher tomorrow." Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher

Street Practice

Once high school was over, I detailed cars for a little cash but what I really needed was a future game plan. After reading all those business books, I considered real estate. At the time, no-money-down investments were all the rage. Unfortunately, books didn't provide experience and those late-night evangelists with money-maker infomercials struck me as charlatans. So with no such thing as a real-estate boot camp, I hit the housing jungle of Encino, California, my pockets full of nothing but curiosity.

For weeks, I strolled into open houses and real estate offices, asking brokers and homeowners how to buy properties. In time, I met experienced investors who let me tag along. After driving them nuts with endless questions, a few guys shut me up and put me to work as a gopher. My tasks consisted of cold-calls, paperwork, property search, and the proud title of "lunch boy" — fetch Cliff, fetch. Whatever they needed, I listened and learned. Working for pocket money ($100/week), I got one hell of an education. It was nothing like the spare-time riches promised in cheesy seminars. The real world was a boatload of work.

A typical workday began at 7:00 a.m. The guys I worked with specialized in auctions and foreclosures. My job was to follow leads and scope classified ads for new bargains, then make calls to owners, agents, and banks. I did this every morning for hours on end. Then I organized a road map of all the properties. After a quick lunch, I was out knocking on doors and analyzing homes. It was a great way to learn property prices and design.

I usually worked into the night, seven days a week. I must have seen a thousand homes that Summer. By Fall, I had knowledge of loans, contracts, negotiations, and cash-flow analysis. I studied dozens of neighborhoods and kept a property journal. When it came time to make offers, I could recite numbers cold (amenities, square footage, sale comparisons). My hard work also made an impression on the investors I hung out with. I soon realized the big dogs needed little bloodhounds like me. Money they had. Time and energy to sniff out all the deals they didn't.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The 4 ESSENTIALS of Entrepreneurial Thinking by Cliff Michaels Copyright © 2011 by Cliff Michaels. Excerpted by permission of Greenleaf Book Group Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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