我把雪佛兰56卖了来凑大学的学费。我的父母都没有上大学，所以对于他们来说我上大学是一件大事。我用卖车的钱和我平时的储蓄来支付大学的学费。从我开始工作，我父母一直要求我工资的10%存入他们的账户。
1961年，我被加利福尼亚大学录取。当时州法律规定如果你毕业于肯塔基州认可的高中，那么你将被接受到英国。但是难的是你到了那里之后怎么留下来。因为他们没有多余的房间给肯塔基州的高中毕业生，他们会在前两个学期尽量多得剔除不需要的学生。新生英语课是剔除学生的课程。在我的第一个学期初，有人告诉我这个课程只是一个“游戏”，但是我不能失败，我必须确定我不会被学校剔除，因为从大学毕业是我唯一一条能进入乡村俱乐部的路，而且是以“Mr. Paul”尊称的身份。所以我努力学习，甩掉了我末尾排名并且在新生英语拿到了一个B。我第一个学期拿到2.5的G点，并且G点2.0是所有人留下来的分数线。已经在第一个关键的学期生存下来，我把我的注意力转向社会生活上。
生活部分
我是个小男孩的时候，为了给自己带来更多惊喜，就尝试接触社会。我周围所有的人都有比我更多的钱。他们都有Bass Weejuns。我甚至不知道Bass Weejuns是什么（它是一种鞋）。每一个在Lexington的人都穿Bass Weejuns。我没钱，没好的衣服，没Bass Weejuns。我甚至没有一个正装。我第一次买正装是在大三大四的时候。我的室友Tommy
Kron借我钱买的。我的父母每周寄给我$10，这些钱是从我以前每周存进他们的账户中取的。在我离开Elsmere的时候，我已经有一个漂亮的轿车，我成为了社交达人，我是学生会的主席等等。我已经可以算是一个乡绅男孩了，但是当我成为Kentucky大学的新生的时候，我又变得是一个“饥荒者”。
我只是Kincaid Hall一个新生，一个一无所有的人。通常的，在大学区间没有什么比大学新生更加可怜。你完全没有价值。那些女新生全都在看着高年纪男孩，因为这些男孩经常机会，喝啤酒，讲他们高中的故事。
六个月之后，我决定我去参加联谊。我有一种联谊的冲动，但是我没有漂亮的衣裳，没有高富帅朋友，最重要是没钱。我的室友Jim Hersha，他也和我差不多，有着相同的背景，同样联谊的冲动。第一联谊派对是在Sigma Nu的房子里面。这些人是疯的。那里是野兽的群居地。我向上帝发誓，电影里面每一件事都会在Sigma Nu出现。当我成为高年级学生的时候，那些毕业的校友开了一个新的联谊俱乐部。为了进门，你可能需要从窗口丢一个砖头，因为他们沉醉在温柔乡。Hersha和我都觉得Sigma Nus对于我们来说有点疯狂了。
在我们加入Kappa Sigs俱乐部之前，我们很少知道我们不应该是决定的人。我们让Chutzpah邀请自己成为KappaSigs而不是邀请我们。我们根本就不了解，我们违反规则，甚至不知道。
IS GIN A DRINK OR A CARD GAME?
当你加入一个俱乐部时，他们会让你做一些愚蠢的事情。这是一种仪式。他们让你擦鞋，擦窗，倒垃圾，只是一点点骚扰的恶作剧。有一天，我在房内坐在地板上的擦鞋，两个家伙，Johnny Cox和Pat Greer，都在玩Gin。在他们的一场比赛的中，格里尔不得不去某个地方。Johnny Cox看了看，说：
“嘿，伙计。你知道Gin吗？”
“我知道，如果你像昨天晚上喝那么多Gin，你第二天会头疼。”
“不是酒那个Gin，你是白痴吗？我说的是纸牌游戏的Gin，你知道怎么玩吗？
“不，先生，我不会。但我一直想学习。”
现在才想起，我十岁的时候，我就在Summit Hills乡村俱乐部学会了如何打牌。我已经玩Gin八年了。
“好吧，停止那个擦那狗屎，过来这里。”
所以，我去了桌子，他说：“好吧，我们要玩Gin。而且先说好，伙计，你输了得给钱。”
“是的，先生，我明白了。但我没有钱。我的意思是我真的没有钱。”
事实真相是我没有钱。但我也不担心我没有钱。
Cox说：“我明白，我明白。我们赌得非常，非常小。不过你还是要压钱，但我们不会玩任何真正的钱。我们只能打5美分一点。”
如果你不知道玩Gin的任何事情，你不会知道五分钱是真实的钱。一个五分镍币一点，一美元一盒，五美元一个游戏意味着你可能在一个游戏的十到十五美元附近玩的地方。那不便宜一个150分的游戏可能需要10手，15个手上。有二十三十分钟左右的人要达到150点。所以现在你每小时玩三十块钱。现在这是真正的钱。
Cox解释了规则，并告诉我如何保持得分等等。然后他分牌。我会Gin，我问：“对不起，先生，我忘了。当我没有牌出的时候，我该怎么办？他们都不匹配？”他快疯了。“放下，伙计。好的，好的，你赢了。”他真的不认为我知道发生了什么。
我们玩了十七个小时，他说：“就这样！我退出了！”我赢了612美元，在1962年是一大笔钱。一个学期的学费是81美元，所以612美元是大钱。他没有612美元，但他给了我50美元，欠我剩下的。对于我当小弟的剩余时间，我不必再擦鞋，倒垃圾桶或做任何东西。他会得到其他小弟来擦鞋，然后我会给他二十五美分一双。无论何时其他活动要我做某事，我会说：“好，写下来。Johnny，我应该清理垃圾桶。你认为这是值得的？两美元？好的，罚款，减去两美元。”有人会倒垃圾桶，我会坐在那里和Cox玩Gin。这是另外一种课堂：聪明地工作，而不是努力地工作。
不必再做任何小弟的工作，作为一种特例，使我脱离了其他的小弟。我也开始认为自己跟大多数人有点不同；我几乎能完成任何事情。我按照大一新英语的游戏规则考试，成功了。然后我不知不觉中打破了进入俱乐部要当两年小弟的规则，但仍然成功。我有点不同。
非常小的差别
我开始比别人更加多得思考自己该干啥。我整整一个学期，我没有买过一本书，而且很少去上课。我十点左右起床，到教学楼的栅栏那里。那是每个人上课之间的地方。我坐那里和交朋友，玩hearts（另一个纸牌游戏），撩妹子，约会，读Kentucky Colonel（学校报纸）。
我们不仅在那里搭讪女孩，在那里约会，甚至我们中的一些人也遇到了我们的妻子。我打破了规则，在这个舞台上也取得了成功。当我遇到Pat时，我和另外两个女孩Sandra和Debbie约会。刚刚读完John Steinbeck的“Tortilla Flat”。这本书的主角是一个名叫丹尼的人。他和他的朋友很穷，住在加利福尼亚州蒙特里以外的山丘上。这本书的主题之一是人们可以使任何事物合理化。例如，当一个朋友有钱的时候，丹尼偷了它，理性化了，他实际上是通过窃取给朋友做一个好事。“如果我不把钱从我的朋友那里拿走，他将用它来买一些酒，喝醉，甚至可能烧他的房子。他有这样的钱真是太可怕了。身为他的朋友，我从他身上偷钱，救他。”
我很喜欢这本书，所以我买了三本，给了Pat，一个给Sandra，一个给Debbie。这是一个错误——一个大错误。尽管她们在不同的姐妹团体，他们经常在栅栏那里与几个其他女孩见面，并吃午饭。一个命运的一天，三个女孩都坐在那里读着同样的书：“嗨，你读这本书很有趣。”“是的，我男朋友给我的。”“哦，真的”“我也是。”“我也是。”“可能是谁？”我这方面没有多少经验，如果你要与不止一个女人在同一时间约会，那么和女人相处时，你不应该使用同样的手法。为什么？因为女人互相交谈，如果她们发现你对待她们每一个人都一样，那么没有人会感到特别，她们都不会倾倒你。幸运的是，Pat没有把我丢弃。
我只是用这个诀窍做“错”的方式，但仍然成功。我的第一个兄弟会室友是JimDillon的名字。他也逃了很多课，但他已经退学了。Hersha退学了，Dillon退学了，Dirken退学了，很多人都退学了，但是我没有。这更说明了我的观点：我有点不同，不知何故比其他人都好一点。其他几个人试图和Dillon、我一起生活，但没有人能够搞清楚为什么。他们不能与我们生活到一块的原因是我们没有做学生应该做的事情：去上学。我们通宵聊天，喝啤酒。在我们约完妹子之后，我们回到房间已经是十一点左右，然后我们坐下来聊天喝啤酒，直到清晨。嗯，所有人都很难三点不睡觉，然后八点去上课。所以我们不经常上课。
当然你不常常上课，自然老师不喜欢你。如果你从来没去过，迟早有问题。我住在关爱院的第一学期，我结束了Kentucky的每个学科。在Kentucky学科的评分有A，B，C，D，E（E是肯塔基州的F），W（退学）和I（不完整），我A到I都有。虽然我很少去经济学课，都是我拿到了一个A。我知道所谓的经济学是怎么回事，教授讲边际消费倾向（边际消费倾向（MPC）是消费曲线的斜率，它的数值通常是大于0而小于1的正数，这表明，消费是随收入增加而相应增加的，但消费增加的幅度低于收入增加的幅度）的时候，我对自己说：“我明白了，这是我可以理解的一个概念”。我可以看看这些供求曲线的时候我对自己说：“是的，我明白了。这就说得通了。好的，我们要在这里提供供应，是的，价格会下降，我明白了”。甚至我没有一本经济学的书，我只是在经济学考试前借了一本书，然后坐下来读了整本书，然后得了A，我都理解是怎么回事。然后我进考场，然后得了个A，因为我理解它。我可以用记问题的方式来记住这些东西，“好的，那个问题...他正在谈论MPC...我可以看到它...好的，图表看起来像这样...它在页面的左侧，它应该在第250页左右，它说什么？”我能精确的记住它在哪个位置，长什么样子，它说什么，然后我写下来。我没有摄影式记忆，但经济课，我有这种记忆力。教授讨厌我，因为我很少去上课，却总是在他的测试中拿A。这让他备受打击。虽然在学校我没有做我应该做的事情，但我在学校里表现还算不错。历史课我拿了B，C、D和E我已经不记得是哪些课程了，哲学课拿了W。W是要被从课上退学，没有成绩。这就像你甚至没有修这门课程。天知道为什么我修了哲学。我讨厌它！对我来说根本没有意义。现在我只记得：“你在想什么，你就是什么。”谁在乎？就像棒球对我来说不是很实际。
未来的光辉
这个学期我未完成的课程是统计。虽然我喜欢教授克里斯蒂安博士，我不喜欢统计;这太难了。有一天，Christian博士打电话给我，并说：“这里有一个朋友，你需要见面。我想你以后可能会像他一样。你适合这个游戏。”这个老朋友叫Horace.Jack.Salmon,一个英国毕业生，是位于肯塔基州路易斯维尔的区域商品期货专业经纪公司的销售经理。我没想到要知道他在说什么。我不能根据过去知道未来，但我尊重Christian博士，并认为：“谁知道？也许我会喜欢像他一样的生活方式。”所以我去了Christian博士的办公室和Jack.Salmon会面。杰克坐在那里，谈到大豆价格上涨，下跌，天气，日本，种植面积，收益率，市场的兴奋，以及你赚多少钱或者你输了很多钱。金钱引起了我注意。“你可以赚钱这样做吗？”“你可以赚很多钱。”哎呀，哎呀，哎呀！这就是我想做的：赚很多钱。当我离开学校的时候，有人问我要做什么，我的答案是“赚了很多钱”。“那么你要做什么？”“我要去做生意了。”我不知道我该怎么做，我从来没有想过我会做什么;这不是你为了生活所做的事情，而是为你付出了多少。
离开学校
终于，我在1965年8月毕业了。是的，八月。我为了通过第二学期的新生会计不得不去暑期学校。我讨厌会计。会计对我来说，是“找到缺失的镍（美国最小的货币单位）”的谬论。我的态度是：“我不在乎镍在哪里。支付人找到它。更好的是，我会给你一个镍。只要不要求我找到那个失踪的那一个。”1965年8月，东南亚的战争正在滚滚而来。当时我是一名大一新生，越南刚刚开始，我在1961年报名了ROTC（美国预备军）。我想，如果事态继续扩大，我宁愿去做一个官员的而不是一个炮兵。我试过当炮兵，不喜欢它。官员更好。官员像乡村俱乐部的成员一样;炮兵是拿着包的家伙。我知道我宁愿做一个告诉那个人，把那把迫击炮放在迫击炮上的人那里，所以我报名了空军ROTC。那么一个朋友告诉我，一旦我有大学学位，我可以随时去军官候补学校（OCS）。为什么我要当了四年的这个ROTC的雇员，当我可以只做六个月的OCS，只有当我不得不？所以我退出ROTC。这是一个错误-大错误。的确，OCS只有六个月，但在你进入之前还有四个多月的强化训练，而这十个月的ROTC看起来像是野餐。
毕业后，我进行了几次面试，但无法得到工作机会。我太1－A了，没有人会雇用我的。（1-A是草稿委员会草案的草案）。很明显，我要获得的唯一工作是服务于我的国家。我觉得没有什么问题，我也没有觉得伤自尊，我有20/20的愿景，我没有结婚。草案是完全有效的，这是在彩票之后，所以他们正在带着大家。如果你是1-A，你会去-除非你想出了一些非常棘手的事情。
由于我无法找到真正的工作，所以我不得不和父母一起搬回去，并且在处理进入OCS时尝试兼职。我去了White Horse，这是一个非常好的晚餐俱乐部，我在高中时工作。我向自己介绍了自己，对于一名前公交车男孩来说，这是一种大胆的事情。但是，再一次，我不知道更好。我对业主说，“好的，这是我的问题。我迟早要进军，但在此期间，我想要一份工作。我不想成为一名公交车男孩。我二十二岁，大学毕业，所以我不想成为一名公交车男孩。我真的不想成为一个服务员。我想我想成为一名酒保。”令我吃惊的是他说：“好吧，我答应你。”
在美国还有一个白天睡觉的社会人士来这里。这个社会由“夜人”组成，他们是服务于娱乐和餐饮行业的男服务员，女服务员和所有其他人的人。他们不生活在白天; 他们生活在晚上。在夜晚的人民社会，一名调酒师的地位是非常高的。与日常人一样是医生或律师。随着夜晚的人们，右边餐厅的头酒吧就在那边，靠近顶端。在夜民社会，纽约华尔道夫-阿斯托里亚的调酒师是一个家伙。所有的女服务员，服务员和公交车男孩都认为他很整洁。唯一一个比头部调酒师更冷的家伙就是maitre d'。所以如果你是二号调酒师，那么你并不是很遥远。这就像是晚上人们中的查理·罗伯克一样。突然之间，我发现自己在二十二岁的成熟的年龄，在夜晚的人民社会里非常高。我有三十岁的女服务员，以为我很可爱，当他们发现我要离开战争时，“哦，他”。
With night people, the head
bartender at the right restaurant is right up there near the top. Within the
night people’s society, the head bartender at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York
is a dude. All the waitresses, waiters, and bus boys think he’s neat. The only
guy cooler than the head bartender is the maitre d’. So if you’re the
number-two bartender, you’re not far off the top. This was like being a Charlie
Robkey among the night people. All of a sudden I found myself, at the ripe old
age of twenty-
two, very high up in the night
people’s society. I had thirty-year old waitresses who thought I was cute, and
when they found out that I was going away to war, “Ohhhhhh.”
YOU’RE
IN THE ARMY NOW
Meanwhile I was having a problem
getting into OCS, and the draft board was closing in. Why the problem? Well,
because I had two misdemeanors on my record, both of which were related to
spring breaks in Florida. One misdemeanor was for using a hotel’s wooden deck
chairs as firewood for a bonfire on the beach in Daytona. (It seemed like a
good idea at the time.)
breaking into an outdoor display case in Ft. Lauderdale to try to steal a
mounted sailfish to take back to the frat house. (I can’t even recall if that
seemed like a good idea at the time.)
So when I tried to
get into OCS and a question on the application form asked: “Have you ever been
arrested?” I had to put “Yes.” To get into OCS, I had to go to Washington. My
father knew a federal judge and Pat’s father was best friends with a
congressman from Tennessee. So I went to Washington and met with the judge and
the congressman. The federal judge was nice to put on the application, but it
was the congressman who got the job done. This is when I
hooks works. Knowing the right person to get something done will get it done.
He said to me, “You sure you don’t want to be in the navy? The navy owes me
big. I could do the navy real easy.” (The deal was: in the army’s
college-option OCS, when you graduated and got commissioned, you only had to
serve two years. The navy was three; the air force was four. I was very
interested in doing this in as short a time as possible.) I said, “No sir, I
really want to be in the army.” The congressman just picked up the phone,
called the army, and bingo—I got in the army OCS. Now that’s what I call having
hooks.
Basic
training and OCS are a lot
games in the fraternity. They test you by giving you things to do in impossibly
short time frames. They do it to see what happens to you when you get stressed
out. That’s the game: “Let’s give this guy an impossible situation and see what
happens.” It’s like weeding out students with freshman English. If you don’t
know it’s a game and how to play it, you will stress out. Their game plan is to
get as many people as possible to quit in as short a time as possible. If
you’re focusing on this thing like it’s really serious, then the training is
very stressful. If you’re focusing on it like: “This is a game and all these
clowns are doing is trying to drive me crazy,” it isn’t hard. I had no problem
with it. It
the sense that it was physically demanding, but it wasn’t hard psychologically.
I knew it was a game, and I understood their rules and their motivation.
The top 20 percent
in the class were invited to stay at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, to be
instructors for the new Ordinance OCS Program. Being an instructor is a great
way to learn public speaking because you’re in front of a bunch of officer
candidates who have to be there and you outrank them. You don’t have to be
worried that they’re going be unhappy with the job you’re doing. You’re the
lieutenant, and they’re the candidates. You’re in total control. So if they
make
shoot them. Since then I’ve spoken to audiences of fifty or more people more
than a hundred times, and I love it.
After I graduated
from OCS and became an OCS instructor, I had to go through Military
Occupational Specialty (MOS) school. The first day of MOS school, a general
came in and talked about the course. Then he said that at the end of the course
they would recognize an honor graduate based on the highest academic standing
and the highest this and the highest that.
I went home that
night and said to Pat (we were married by then), “This is it! Everybody has
been giving me this B.S. all my life that I don’t do what I
don’t work to potential. All right, I tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna be
the damn honor graduate. I’m gonna be that man. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do
whatever it takes to be that guy.” At the end of the course I was the honor
graduate. I couldn’t believe it! I had done it, and it wasn’t even that hard!
All I did was figure out what the rules of the game were and then followed
them.
Naturally, I had
accepted the army’s offer to be an instructor at Aberdeen. It was great! I
became well known within the ranks as being a very good instructor. I was good
at it. It’s very easy to be an instructor when you say the same thing every
week and they change the people you’re saying it to.
stuff I can’t do, like math and statistics. But when He was passing out
talents, He said, “And this one gets the gift of gab.”
I was the first
lieutenant at Aberdeen to become a master instructor. It was just another game
to me. You had to do a bunch of B.S., and I did it. It wasn’t hard. Every other
master instructor had been at least a captain, and most were majors or
lieutenant colonels. I was only a second lieutenant, the lowest ranking officer
there is.
The master
instructor title, OCS training, and the MOS honor graduate were the same deal:
“It’s a game. They wrote these rules; I understand these rules. I can follow
these rules and win
big deal. It isn’t hard.” Some of it was aggravating, but I didn’t take it
personally. There was nothing personal about it. They didn’t know I existed
when they wrote the rules so it was totally impersonal. You can either play the
system or you can let the system play you. Pick one. I like playing the system
because it’s more fun and you win more. If you let the system play you, you can
get very frustrated and very beat up.
After thirteen
months at Aberdeen, I received orders sending me to South Korea. My record was
starting to build. I’d just gotten the medal for the job I did as an instructor
and the master instructor honor. The army is very big on that stuff
to first lieutenant. They made me the adjutant, the guy in charge of personnel,
for a battalion. I was the S-1 of the battalion at Camp Humphries, Korea. It
was all paperwork. I had to sign everything. I hated paperwork, but I did it. I
also did the rest of my job with a little more flair than my predecessors. I
came up with ideas and new ways of doing things. I become noticed. I was not
very good at being invisible.
One day I got a
call from the XO (the number-two man) of the brigade, the unit above the
battalion. He wanted to meet me for lunch. I cleared it with my boss (the
military is very big on chain-of-command stuff) and met him for
me the job of S-3, which was the operations officer of the brigade. Now,
understand that this was the equivalent of number-three man in the brigade. The
organizational chart is: the brigade commander, then the brigade XO, then the
S-3.
I was about five
steps away from that S-3 position as the adjutant of the battalion so this guy
wanted to multi-promote me five steps. The S-3 was usually a lieutenant colonel
and I was only a first lieutenant! Realistically, I should have to go through
captain, then major, then lieutenant colonel before I’d even be considered for
this job. I became S-3 of the brigade at the ripe old age of twenty-three. I
had about as much
S-3 as I did being a goalie on the Hartford Whalers. I didn’t have any idea
what I was doing. I was in way over my head; six-foot-three in ten feet of
water.
One of the missions
of this brigade was Eighth Army nuclear weapons storage. I had a sidearm—Top
Secret this, Top Secret that. “Aye yi yi. I’m twenty-three years old! What am I
doing? Are these people nuts? I don’t need this responsibility. Jesus Christ!
This is scary. My only claim to fame is that I was a master instructor back in
Aberdeen, and that was easy. Two years ago I was burning hotel deck chairs for
a bonfire on a beach in Daytona, Florida, and now I’m sitting on World War III!
this!” Someone else should have been doing this nuclear-weapons thing.
Since Vietnam washeating up so much during the 1960s, Korea was kind of in the background—untilthePuebloincident. In 1968 the North Koreans captured the intelligenceship U.S.S.Puebloin international waters. Theworld would havebeen real scared if it had known that I had the position I had during thePuebloaffair.
My experience in the
military reinforced my view that it really was money that was important in
life, not what you did to make it. In the military it’s the other way around.
Your job is more important than money. Sure, I was
lieutenant instead of a lieutenant colonel, but I wasn’t getting a lieutenant
colonel’s pay. I was only too happy to return to the real world again where
money was what counted.
My mother had gotten
me into Xavier University in Cincinnati on probation as a student in their MBA
program. I was on probation because I only had a 2.2 grade-point average coming
out of undergraduate school. Pat and I moved to Cincinnati and got an
apartment. She started teaching, and I started school.
Because of my
experiences in the army and especially because of what I had proved to myself
by being the honor graduate, I wanted to do well in school
I cruised through
the first-semester classes. Most of the other people in the program were
General Electric engineers coming back to school to get their MBAs. There was a
big GE plant outside Cincinnati in Evandale, and these guys were all either
chemical or electrical engineers. They all carried
their belts (this was during the dark ages before hand-held calculators), but
most couldn’t spell marketing or economics.
Then we had to takea course called Quantitative Business Methods. It was a math course. The firstday of class, this geek math teacher (who was atotalmath teacher:dull, dry, and two slide rules on his belt) started out by saying, “To passthis class you will need a working knowledge of calculus.” Oops! I hadn’t takencalculus. I wasn’t going to take calculus. I couldn’t spell calculus. But I hadto have this course to graduate. I sat through the first few classes, but Ididn’t understand any of it. All these geeks I’d been laughing at in all theseother
fine. They understood everything he was talking about. They had their little
slide rules out arguing over the third place decimal to the answer, and I
couldn’t even get the right handle. I studied for two days for the first test
and still only made a thirty-eight; the lowest grade in the class—by a lot.
So I called a buddy
of mine I had gone to high school with who majored in math at Notre Dame.
“Ralph, I need a tutor. I mean, I’m in deep, deep shit here. I’ll pay you. I’ve
got to pass this course. I don’t know what I’m doing. I need somebody who can
talk to me and make sense out of this stuff.” He agreed to help me. The game
was: I didn’t care if I
just had to get me to where I could pass this course. I studied my tail off. I
still didn’t know any of it, but I did pull a C in the course.
The point was: I was
laughing at all those guys in all the other classes because they couldn’t carry
my jock strap in economics and marketing, and all of a sudden I couldn’t carry
their jock straps in math. That taught me that there are people for places,
places for people. You can do some things and you can’t do other things. Don’t
get all upset about the things you can’t do. If you can’t do something, pay
someone else who can and don’t worry about it.
WATCHERS AND THE BUTTERFLY
Since my grand plan was to “go into
business” and “make a lot of money,” becoming a stockbroker seemed like the
perfect job. It’s really just a well respected sales job, but if you’re good at
it the pay is super. I decided to get acquainted with some prospective
employers for when I finished the MBA. I went down to “the street” in
Cincinnati, and I started going to all the brokerage offices: Bache, DuPont,
Hornblower— some of the names don’t even exist anymore. I was looking for a
part-time job that would accommodate my school schedule. The deal I wanted was
this: “I
ten a.m. to three p.m. I don’t care what I do. I don’t care what I get paid, if
I get paid. But when I finish graduate school, I want to go into your training
program and become a registered broker.” At most of the big firms I was a round
peg in their square hole; they wanted full-time or nothing. One major wire
house was the exception.
I walked into this
office on just the right day in 1968. One of the biggest brokers in the office
was primarily a commodities broker, and I happened to walk in the day after his
assistant had quit. This broker was producing $300,000 to $500,000 a year in
gross
commissions—incommodities—in
The office manager’s
secretary said, “You’ll have to talk to the office manager, Mr. Fitzgerald.” I
went in to talk to Larry Fitzgerald and he said,
“What do you know about
commodities?” I didn’t know anything, but I remembered a few of the buzz words
from the meeting I had with Jack Salmon and Dr. Christian in college. I said,
“I’ve always been interested in futures. I’m particularly interested in the
soybeans … and meal … and oil. Trying to figure out how the weather is going to
affect the crop.” I used the buzz words I had heard Salmon use. Fitzgerald
said, “Okay, you’re hired—if Cohan wants you. Go out and meet Ed Cohan.” Cohan
commodities broker. Fitzgerald introduced me to him, and after a very short
interview Cohan said, “Okay, you’re hired.”
On my way out of the
office, Fitzgerald’s secretary told me to come back the next day to fill out an
application and take a test. “Test? What kind of test?” I asked. She said it
was called the Minnesota Study of Values Test. Without knowing it, she had just
let me know that there was a game to be played. This time the game was a test.
I didn’t know anything about this test, but I planned to find out about it.
I went straight toa bookstore and found a book titledThe Brain Watchersthat had threechapters on the Minnesota
Test. I bought the book and read it that night so I’d be ready for the test the
next day. The questions on the MSV Test have five multiple-choice answers that
you rank in their order of importance to you. The five categories of answers
are Money, Politics, Aesthetics, Religion, and Social Significance. For
example, one question I remember was:
When you look at Leonardo Da Vinci’s paintingThe Last
Supper, what do you feel? Rank thefollowing in their order ofimportance, 1 being the most important and 5 being the least important.
The social implications of
the event,
The beauty of the painting,
The value of the painting,
The political impact of the
painting,
The religious ramifications
of the painting.
Depending on what kind of job you
are applying for, there is a right way and a wrong way to rank the answers. If
you want to be a broker, the ranking for the question above is as follows: the
highest ranking is the money answer, followed by the politics answer, social
significance, aesthetics, and finally the religion answer. If you want to go to
work as a parish priest, every right first answer is the religion answer, then
social, and so on, and the money answer is always last. Once you know that’s
how their game is played, the test isn’t hard. It’s very simple. You can see
very quickly which one of the five choices
the categories; then you just rank them the way you believe the employer wants
them ranked.
So the next day, I
took the test and gave them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 money, politics, social significance,
aesthetics, religion on every question. I didn’t even miss one on purpose to
make it look good. That was a small mistake. I should have reversed 1 and 2 a
couple of times, but I didn’t. My test was perfect—absolutely no wrong answers.
Now, when they grade this test, it comes out on a scattergram chart. If you’re
meant to be a
broker, your scattergram looks
something like a butterfly. Well, mine came out a perfect butterfly. Fitzgerald
didn’t care; he was going to hire me
blew the test. But he did say, “You really did well on that test. I haven’t
seen anybody do that well before.” I told him I had studied a little bit before
I took the test. “You’re not really able to study for that test.”
“Well, you are, and
you aren’t,” I said. The next day I started working as Cohan’s assistant.
It was 1968, and
the stock market was booming. It was going straight up, and everything was
wonderful. Everyone in the office was making money. Then suddenly it stopped
going up, and it started going down. When that happened, the only guy in the
office making money was Ed Cohan. He was still doing business, and everyone else
was looking
said to myself, “Self, I think I’m going into futures. I like the idea that I’m
not at the mercy of the market only going up; I like the idea of being able to
make money when the market goes down, too.” I don’t care how good a stockbroker
you are; if the market is going down you’re in trouble. You’ve got to take a
defensive posture, and you’re not going to do as much business.
I finished the MBA
program in September 1969, and, as part of the deal I made with the brokerage
firm, I was off to the three-month broker-training program in New York. I went
to the Big Apple a month before the program started and spent that time in the
futures
elbows with all the biggies. I wanted to know how they did what they did and
why, what worked and what didn’t work. I was on a fast track because I’d been
working for Ed Cohan for a year, so everyone in the futures division in New
York knew who I was. I was the one with the perfect butterfly chart.
Once again, I got
the impression I was better than the others. I was “more equal” than the other
trainees because I knew most of the people in the futures division and I worked
for Cohan. Once we got into the actual training program, I ended up teaching
part of the commodity portion of the program. The regular instructors were from
New York, and
what to say as far as the tests were concerned. But they didn’t really know
futures because the big futures exchanges were in Chicago. They quickly figured
out that I did know what was going on, and they made me an assistant
instructor. When they had questions on commodities, they would come to me. If I
didn’t know the answer, I knew I could get the answer from Cohan. Once again, I
had the Midas touch and a hook.
Someone on the
staff told somebody back in the futures division that I’d been a very big help
teaching the class, and I got a call from Tom O’Hare, the firm’s tax-straddle
expert. He did huge production, $2 million or $3
on referrals from stockbrokers. A broker would call and say, “I’ve got a client
who’s made $2.5 million this year. Can you do a tax trick?” Tom would say,
“Yeah. How big a trick do you want? How much of that is he willing to risk to
try to do it?” Tom O’Hare was a master at it.
Well, Tom called me
and wanted to see me in his office. When I got there, we exchanged
pleasantries, and then he pulled out my file. He said, “I really wanted to meet
the prima donna who actually had the gall to paint a perfect butterfly.”
“I’m sorry sir? I
don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you
do! Nobody could do a
unless he knew exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Well, I
read a book—”
“That book wouldn’tbeThe BrainWatcherswould it?”
“Well, let me see,
as I recall … yes, I think that was the name of the book … and it helped me a
lot on the test.”
He said, “Okay. How
close do you think you would really have come to the butterfly if you hadn’t
read the book?”
“To be honest,
pretty close. If I hadn’t known the game, I still wouldn’t have been far off.”
(I wanted to be part of the country-club set, remember? I already believed
money was important.)
“Okay. This
is what I do.”
Then O’Hare
proceeded to tell me
My alternative was
to go back to Cincinnati as a broker under Cohan, basically as his assistant.
But that
was fifty-two years old, and he had a client book that was massive. He wasn’t
going to be there forever, so whoever went to work for him was going to inherit
the book and make a lot of money. Back in Cincinnati I was probably going to
make $15,000 to $18,000 plus whatever I could produce by getting my own
customers. (At that time a $100,000 producer would have netted about
$25,000—big money in 1968.) And this guy was offering me $23,000.
I said, “Mr. O’Hare,
I’m extremely flattered that you called me in to see you. I think working with
you would be absolutely super. But as flattered as I am, I don’t think I can
take the job.”
immediately it became obvious that this was not the kind of guy who was told
“no” very often— particularly by some twenty-four-year-old who didn’t know
where the washroom was.
“What do you mean,
you can’t take the job?”
“Well, it’s that
number. I really don’t want to live in New York, and neither does my wife. I
could do it. I could open a travel agency in Kabul, Afghanistan, if the numbers
were right. I have a new bride who’s pregnant with our first child, and she
doesn’t want to move to New York. We could deal with it. But there would have
to be some compensation for dealing with it, and,
quite frankly, $23,000 doesn’t do it.” “What do you mean?
What are you
going to make in your first year in
Cincinnati?”
“Well, all I have to
do is $100,000 in gross production and I’ll make at least $25,000. Plus, you
know Larry Fitzgerald is going to give me a bonus if I do $100,000 my first
year. I’ll probably make twenty-six or twenty-seven grand. So why would I want
to come to New York for twenty-three grand when I know the odds are—”
“Wait a minute! You’re going to do a hundred grand your
first year?”
“Well, yeah,
I think so.”
“But
aren’t you going to be working for Cohan?”
sir, but he can’t handle his book. His book is huge. I’ll take what he can’t
get to. I think I can gross $150,000 out of his book in my spare time.”
“Okay.
I’ll offer you $27,000.” “$30,000.”
“Get out of my office.” “I went a little too far?”
“Yep. You went a little too far. Get out of my office.”
“Mr. O’Hare, it’s
been a pleasure. I hope you have considered it a pleasure. I’ll talk to you in
a year, and we’ll see who was right. I won’t forget; please, don’t you forget
because, honest to God, I am flattered that you invited me in here and offered
me the job.”
I did
$162,000 my first year; one of
production figures a rookie at the firm ever did. I called O’Hare and said, “I
am LOS-2 [length of service, two years] as of today. Go over and check your
little machine. You’re going to find I did $162,000. I was right, and you knew
I was right. Plus, Fitzgerald gave me a little kicker; I made 26.7 percent out
of that $162,000. I made $43,000 in Cincinnati, which spends a lot better than
$27,000 in New York. Would you like to reopen negotiations? I’m now $50,000
offer.” He laughed and said, “No. I’ve gotten someone who may not have the
chutzpah you do, but he’ll do just fine for $28,000.”
