Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life (21 page)

Step Three is all about turning those great ideas into your real-life experiences. This is when it starts to get really exciting. This is when we allow ourselves to be the magicians we were born to be. Enjoy.

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To wrap up the story, the company went on to launch its fifth product. First-year sales amounted to just under $5 million. The company was sold three years later with the share price at its lowest since I first joined the company. As I was writing this, I checked the new company’s SEC filings and saw that sales for the product after ten years on the market have reached nearly $170 million a year.

E
INSTEIN’S PHYSICAL LAW THAT
says energy and matter are equivalents of each other and interchangeable is a clue to the secret of success; it explains how to turn intangible ideas into real things. This conversion of thought energy into things should not be a secret because it is a proven law of physics, but we tend to think of these laws as applying to nature around us, excluding ourselves from our definition of nature. We are, however, made of the same stuff as a plant or the soil. As part of nature, we are subject to its laws as much as a tree or an animal, and E=MC
²
applies as surely to us as to anything else.

After centuries of suppressing intuition in favor of intellectual analysis, most people have unknowingly dammed the natural flow of this equation. This third step is about releasing that conversion process in our lives. With all doubt removed from the process, our minds would be in what I call a
state of knowing
. This is the state of mind we need in order to turn our new, great ideas into reality, and it is what we will work on achieving in Step Three.

If you were a seed, you would not be given to complicating things by analyzing why you are a seed and worrying daily about how you are going to get sufficient nutrients from the soil and the air to be converted into the tree you secretly desire to be. You would simply be in a state of knowing that you will grow, strengthen, and eventually become a tree.

It sounds like magic because nature is magic. Nature is the conversion of one state into another state. The occultist Aleister Crowley defined magic as “the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.” Crowley claimed that “it is theoretically possible to cause in any object any change of which that object is capable by nature.” So, we can plant a seed and, with careful nurturing, help it bloom into a flower. We could also throw some inert ingredients into a bowl, mix them up, and heat them for an hour, then enjoy the magical taste of a freshly baked cake.

Crowley saw magic also as “the essential method for a person to reach true understanding of the self, and to act according to one’s true will, which is the reconciliation between free will and destiny.”

You need be neither a scientific genius nor a mystic to create something from nothing. Einstein and Crowley were
obsessed with the why and how of the process of creation. They were both intellectual analysts. If we presented them with a television set, they surely would study the science of fluorescence. You simply need to know how to use it.

But because so few people today remember that they can create something from nothing, those who do are revered, worshipped, or feared. The truth is that everyone can do it, and it takes you no more effort than it takes a sage, but don’t expect the sage to admit that.

L
YNDA HAD LIVED WITH
a damaged heart since birth, and at age nine, in 1967, open-heart surgery was the last option for her survival. It was pioneering surgery back then, and her parents were prepared for the worst. Prior to the ride down to surgery, Lynda took her father’s shaking hand and, as he told the story for many years after, said, “You have no need to worry, Daddy; I intend to live a long life.”

The surgery lasted ten hours. Fearing she could not survive much more time on the operating table, the doctors closed her wounds before everything could be fully repaired. They warned her parents that because of the incompleteness of the procedure, Lynda’s chances of living beyond a few years more were slim.

Her mother had to choose between letting her daughter live like a normal child, and possibly dying from the exertion, or wrapping her daughter in blankets to try to extend her life as long as possible. Lynda made the decision for her. Not only did she defy the statistics by surviving, she lived life to the fullest. She played soccer with her dad and rode horses with her sister. She made the school basketball team and was the lead scorer every year. As a teenager, she went to crowded concerts and
soccer stadiums and danced at discos like any normal girl in the 1970s.

Every so often, though, her heart did fail to keep pace with her spirit. After a fit of fainting, she would be prescribed bed rest that often lasted weeks and interfered with her schooling. Despite missing much of her basic education, she told everyone that she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up. Fearing her interrupted schooling would lead to disappointment, people tried to talk her out of it.

She responded by telling them that not only would she be a nurse, she would be a great one, specializing in cancer care. Then, she said, she wanted to move to America. No one knew for certain where her fascination for all things American came from. Her father was a cargo ship captain and often traveled to the southern states and Pacific Northwest. No doubt his tales had an impact, but she was also addicted to American television shows that became cult classics in the United Kingdom. She loved the Beach Boys’ music and their vivid imagery of sunshine and sandy beaches. Her dad formed a strong friendship with a Texan. So taken was he with Lynda’s story and her love of the United States that he sent her regular gifts of football uniforms and Texas fashions. Lynda was the only girl in her town that owned a selection of LSU sweatshirts.

During her teens, she volunteered at local hospitals and helped out at a home for mentally challenged children. This work further inspired her desire to be a nurse and increased her belief that she could be a good one.

Lynda scraped through her final high school exams, then jumped at the first opportunity to go on to nursing school. She proved to be a gifted nurse and soon achieved her intention of specializing in the care of cancer patients at a city teaching hospital. Nursing meant working crazy shifts, including nights. She struggled to sleep during the day, and after prolonged spells on
the wards, she would often suffer health setbacks due to an exhausted body that did not get enough oxygenated blood from her heart.

Her heart constantly struggled to keep up with her spirit. By her midtwenties, it was enlarged and the shape of a football. The normal electrical conductivity that manages heart rhythm was challenged. She would suffer arrhythmias that, in the opinion of her cardiologist, were life threatening. Everyone cautioned her to slow down.

Instead she got married . . . to me and started her new life as a working wife. Within a year, we tried for a family. After several traumatic miscarriages, the doctors advised us that, given her heart condition, further attempts could be fatal.

Some of you reading this will know the pain and trauma that goes with this kind of news. No matter how much he may care, no man can fully understand what a woman feels like when she has been denied motherhood. All he can do is to be there for her. Friends and family were well-meaning but of little help because everyone knew about her heart condition. There was a sort of “well, at least she is still alive” mentality.

The media also has little empathy for a childless woman because the situation cannot be used to sell anything. Whether it is a comedy or a drama, whenever the subject is about trying for a family, the plot always ends with a joyful success followed by commercials for diapers or baby food. At certain times of the day, advertisements for baby-related merchandise flood the screen. To protect her mentality, Lynda and I became as proficient as gunslingers at grabbing the remote control and hitting the channel change button.

The hospital had a group for couples going through similar difficulties. Although invited, Lynda attended just one meeting simply because everyone was
against
their situations. No one wanted to get out of the quicksand and be
for
something better.
Later, we learned that of eight couples in the group, no relationship survived the trauma of this experience.

Lynda and I loved to cook and made an effort to eat together as often as our jobs allowed. We would sit at the kitchen table for hours and Lynda would talk about her longing to move to America. Since learning she could not have children, the desire had intensified.

The year was 1990, and we agreed that a fresh start was just what she needed. We were thirty years old, with excellent jobs, and a good lifestyle. Making the decision to move to America was like slamming on the brakes of a car halfway through a journey between two towns at either end of a straight road, then turning off the road to drive into the unpaved landscape.

Most of our friends and family said we were crazy. They pointed out how much we loved England, that I had a fast-tracked career traveling all over Europe, and that I was earning enough for Lynda to quit work if she wanted. They talked up our new house, the high-end company car, and our holidays abroad. The criticism was intense, but we were both comfortable using our mentality shields by then and didn’t let the negative comments affect our plans.

We met with an attorney who was an expert at immigration matters. He struggled to hold back a smile while telling us that we had no trades that were valued in America, and that there was no shortage of sales managers or nurses. The minimum educational requirement for a visa at that time was two degrees, with the second being a higher qualification. Neither of us qualified, and the attorney said it was an impossible dream. America needed software and information technology experts and, at that time, we did not even own a computer.

When we stepped outside his office, we looked at each other and burst out laughing. Lynda said, “I have no idea how, but I just know we are going to do it.”

I felt the same way. “Let life fill in the details,” I said, using one of my catchphrases that annoyed everyone but us.

A few months later, I received an unexpected phone call one evening; it was an old colleague, offering me a new job. The position was with the European life-sciences branch of 3M, the global conglomerate based in Minnesota. We could sense “life filling in some of the details.”

The new job doubled our household income. Lynda reduced her shifts and started to take better care of her health. She could have retired from work, but she loved nursing and was now fortunate enough to choose her own schedule.

In late 1990, 3M started a new program to encourage fast-track managers to expand their knowledge of other areas of the business. They agreed to pay half the cost of tuition for a Master of Business Administration degree, which was exactly what we needed to qualify for the visa to work in America. Although I had not been in a learning environment for years, I recognized the significance of this opportunity and begged my bosses for a place in the program.

Day and night, every weekend, and during vacations, I studied for three years on top of my regular job while Lynda helped me with crib notes and mock tests. One of the subjects in the course that fascinated me was the practice of Kaizen, the Japanese word for
improvement
or
change for the better
. It refers to the philosophy of a focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, and business management. It empowers employees to take responsibility for improvement in their role and function, releasing management to focus on strategy rather than employee management. I championed its introduction in the European division with some success.

Unexpectedly, my boss left the company and was replaced by Steve, an employee from the Minneapolis office. It was his first
assignment abroad. Before long, Steve saw the benefits of the Kaizen program and felt it could transfer across the Atlantic.

Soon, I was on a plane to Minnesota to present the program to senior executives at corporate headquarters. When I checked into my hotel in Minneapolis, there was a curt message informing me that the meeting had been cancelled. No reason or apology was given. I was stranded . . . somewhere on the winding staircase, thousands of miles from home, jet-lagged and confused.

It would have been easy to jump back down off the winding staircase and give up, but Lynda felt that this was all happening for a reason. The synchronicity of the change in job to an American company, the MBA opportunity, and then the arrival of Steve were obvious signs of life filling in the details to get us our goal. Things are not always so obvious, so she encouraged me not to give up, and asked, “How do they know you got their message that the meeting was cancelled? You might as well show up. Who knows what will happen if you do?” With my resolve strengthened, I took a taxi to the corporate campus.

The receptionist was embarrassed and apologetic when I showed up. Feigning disappointment, I asked if I could at least drop off the presentation slides with someone in marketing. The marketing vice president had no idea who this strange Englishman was but graciously accepted the five-minute summary of the material. As I was leaving, I asked her who else would be interested in what I had to say, a sales skill I had often used in my career. People like to be liked, and giving them an opportunity to be helpful usually works. She introduced me to another vice president in a neighboring office. Two hours later, I had met all the senior operational executives in the corporate office, except the person who had cancelled the meeting.

A few weeks later, Steve invited us to dinner. By now, he was aware of our desire to emigrate and the challenges we had to
overcome. He had become an advocate for the goal. Steve told us that a new position had been created in America, and the executives to whom I had pitched my program were intrigued by its relevance. Steve had made a strong recommendation.

After another plane ride, I was offered the job, and when I accepted it, it was just two weeks after I was awarded my MBA in November 1993.

In January 1994, we relocated to our new life in America and our first experience of a -40°F wind chill outside the Minneapolis airport. Even the cold could not wipe the grin off Lynda’s face.