Transcript
Introduction
"I can remember the moment in my life changed forever. I had an epiphany one morning, and nearly every detail of that moment is burned into the hard drive of my brain. It was March 1971, and I was at work, managing the parts department at a Toyota dealership in Colorado. I had just taken a parts order over the phone from a body shop, and I was checking to see what parts I had in stock when like a bucket of cold water, it hit me. Here I was 27 years old, married, with two children and one on the way, and I was responsible for raising and supporting those children, providing food and shelter and college and housing and much more, while preparing for old age and retirement. And I realized I had nothing to fall back on. I had no college education, no special training. All I had was my energy and whatever talent I've been blessed with. It scared me.
The feeling was so overwhelming that I stopped what I was doing to ponder the matter. I decided, I had to be extremely good at something. And the thing I was best at was being a Toyota parts manager. That night, I worked until 10 p.m. It was the start of my 90-hour a week work schedule. From that moment on, I began working from 7:30 in the morning until nine, 10 or 11 at night, six days a week. I did this for 20 years. I reasoned that other dealers had the same parts and roughly the same prices to offer. I believe service and hustle were the things that would set me apart. I would simply outwork them. I would become so good that it could not be denied. I was obsessed with doing everything I could and accomplishing as much as I could. It was difficult for me to go home with work undone.
I wanted it to be done for the next day. A lot of people go through the motions with little sense of urgency. I had an extreme sense of urgency, a body shop would call in order 21 parts. If I could only find 19 parts, I was ticked off. If I was five minutes late, I was upset because I had created a system that wasn't more responsive. I became a student of everything, ordering systems, delivery systems, hiring practices, training practices, retention practices. I decided I had to be incredible in all facets so that I could control the outcome. I needed to become the best. I begin my story this way because it is a useful backdrop for any discussion of my life. It colors so much of what I did and so much of what happened to me. It was central to everything, whether it was working as a delivery man or building a private business or growing into an entrepreneur or buying the Utah Jazz or as I'm sorry to say, neglecting my family to do all of the above. I worked and worked and worked day after day, night after night, dawn to bed time. I was driven to succeed."
That is an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is Driven, an autobiography by Larry Miller. And this is another book that was recommended to me by a listener. I was not expecting to read it right away, actually downloaded the sample on Kindle and right away, instead of talking about, hey, I built this multibillion-dollar privately-owned business. Right up front, Larry serves as a cautionary tale. He's like, don't make the mistake that I did. All I did was work and as a result of that, I neglected my wife, my kids, everything came second to my work. So there's a lot of interesting and unique ideas and inspiring ideas in this book, but there's -- it is going to serve as a cautionary tale, both on neglecting his family and neglecting his health. And we'll -- I'll obviously talk to you about that in a little bit.