MOTIVATED TO DO SOMETHING MORE

MALCOLM GLADWELL in DAVID & GOLIATH

From a conversation with ‘one of the most powerful people in Hollywood’.

"The summer of his sixteenth year, he went to work at his father’s scrap – metal business.  It was hard, physical labour. He was treated like any other employee.  “It made me not want to live in Minneapolis.  It made me never want to depend on working for my father.  It was awful . It was dirty. It was hard. It was boring. It was putting scrap metal in barrels.  ….  I think, looking back, my father wanted me to work there because he knew that if I worked there, I would want to escape.  I would be motivated to do something more.”

C and I have been friends now for over 30 years.  We met in our graduation classes when she was around 20 and I was 26.  She became one of  the ‘adopted sisters’ of our family. Through the many phases of our individual lives, we have continued to be in touch and share our joys and sorrows, aches and pains . Her husband  V came from a business family that dealt in spare parts for cars.  He lugged heavy weights around to build his business almost going door to door to deliver the goods and collect payments.  Soon  from a corner of a shop, he grew to two shops of his own  - one for each son.  But the sons ,like the Hollywood star, wanted no part in that business of machine oils and heavy metal parts – one went off to the US, finished his MS and the other got into finance after an MBA. V is quite often sad to shut down his business. I was reminded of V and his sons when I read this. Perhaps, we should be happy that the boys have been motivated to do better !!