To Succeed in Life: Be a Weed, Not a Flower

Whenever I walk the dog along our gravel driveway I make it a point to bend down and pluck out a little weed here or there between the rocks. No matter how many times I do this, though, I can always find another weed sprouting. Tulips and daffodils may need care and attention, but weeds just never give up.

After one of my three sons graduated college he asked me for a loan to start a new business. Specifically, he needed $6000 to open a tanning salon. That was his big idea. I asked him if he had a business plan, or if he'd thought about how to get customers, or what would make a good location, and so forth. He hadn't.

But at this time I was the founder of Peppers & Rogers Group, which had become a successful consulting firm with offices around the world. And my son looked at me, and said, "But Dad, YOU started a successful business." (Like, "how hard can it be?")

So I asked him if he knew how many other businesses I had started. No? Six. I started six different new businesses prior to the successful launch of our consulting firm. I pioneered a group legal services company, an all first-class airline, a fax-based interactive advertising firm... 

Oh? He said. What happened to all those businesses?

That's the point, son, they all failed. 

When I was a young college graduate, just out of the Air Force Academy, I had absolutely no idea that this would be the shape of my future. Not a clue. I wanted to be an astronaut, and I had the astronautical engineering credentials to prove it. But my eyes went bad, I couldn't go to flight school, and I didn't like the "real" Air Force that much, anyway.

What I do remember about my twenties was that I was consumed with my desire to make a mark, to do something important. I was all ambition and no plan. And like my son, I wanted to do something on my own. I wanted to leave a mark.

All my previous ventures failed, either overtaken by events or unable to raise enough start-up capital. The One to One Future wasn’t even the first book I tried to write. By the time Martha Rogers and I wrote that book (1993), I had already had discussions with two different publishers about three previous book proposals, including a mystery novel and a business book about the airline industry. (None of these ideas went anywhere.)

Of course Martha and I were also incredibly lucky, because our book discussing the impact interactive technology would have on sales and marketing came at exactly the right time for businesses – almost simultaneously with the arrival of the worldwide web. Much of the future we imagined for interactivity was based on the business plan I had already put together for my unsuccessful fax-based interactive advertising company. In the end, the book became a huge success, and it kick-started a business that has lasted for more than two decades now. But it wasn’t my first try. Not by a long shot.

And as a business, Peppers & Rogers Group hasn’t had completely smooth sailing over the years, either. We’ve had our ups and downs, but somehow our people have always bounced back, to the point that today I’m confident we can add value to nearly anything a client does on the customer-facing side of its business, anywhere in the world.

So looking back, the most important factor in my own success turns out not to have been brilliant thinking, creativity, good looks, or a winning smile.

It was persistence, pure and simple. 

And my son? He's become a highly successful sales executive with terrific entrepreneurial instincts.

So if you're a youthful adult just now starting out, my advice is:

Be a weed, not a flower.

This post is revised and edited, but was originally part of a series in which Influencers share lessons from their youth. Read all the stories here.