Randy Jones | October 12, 2009

A universal trait of RMITs is the ability to execute, to get across the goal line without dropping the ball. What also sets RMITs apart, however, is the ability to adapt to new circumstances, and even change the goal when necessary. Dan Duncan, the richest man in Houston, told me that he runs his businesses, Enterprise Products Partners and Duncan Energy Partners—not to mention his five-thousand-acre Double D Ranch and his considerable philanthropic contributions—according to one piece of advice his grandmother gave him: “Just get up every day and do the best you can that day.”

Category: #6: Execute or Be Executed, Business and Entrepreneurship, The Richest Man in Town book, The Twelve Commandments | No Comments »
Tags: Dan Duncan, David Rubenstein, Enterprise Products Partners, Magna Carta, Ross Perot

Randy Jones | August 18, 2009

Commandment #5, “Wake Up Early—Be Early,” means making the most of the time you’ve got. That means starting your career early, starting your day early—and showing up for your meetings early. Fully 98 percent of the RMITs cited the ability to show up, and show up on time, as integral to their success. I saw this first-hand: Dennis Albaugh, famous within his company for saying, “Nothing is beneath me or beyond me,” was a typical example. When we set a phone appointment for our first interview, he called two minutes early. He respects his time and he respects the time of others. And having wrangled multiple interviews with a hundred RMITs in the course of researching and writing The Richest Man in Town, I can tell you emphatically—I really, really respect that. Perhaps the most important lesson to be taken from the fifth commandment is this: Your time is precious—and so is everybody else’s.

Category: #5: Wake Up Early, The Richest Man in Town book, The Twelve Commandments | No Comments »
Tags: Dennis Albaugh, Guha Bala, Karthik Bala, time, Vicarious Visions

Randy Jones | August 11, 2009

Every morning in my youth, my late father used to wake me by saying, “Get up, boy—you can’t make a crop lying in bed!” As a father now myself, I rouse my sons with the same saying. My parents instilled the importance of hard work in me from an early age, and it’s one of the most powerful advantages they could have given me. Virtually every RMIT told me that the biggest factor in their success was neither education—only ten of the 100 RMITs attended an Ivy League school, three dropped out of college (including Bill Gates), one went to community college, and fourteen didn’t go to college at all—nor a secure financial basis to start a business. The biggest success factor they all pointed to was the fact that they started early and hit the ground running.

Category: #5: Wake Up Early, The Richest Man in Town book, The Twelve Commandments | No Comments »
Tags: Bill Gates, George Valliant, Harvard University, Thomas Jefferson, work ethic

Randy Jones | July 28, 2009

In my last post, I said that addiction to ambition is a good thing: Find your perfect pitch, a great idea, believe in yourself, and work, work, work. That’s all well and good, but it can’t be that simple, can it? What if you don’t have that brilliant, category-killing idea? Not all of us can be business geniuses. David Rubenstein, who became the richest man in the nation’s capital through his investments in private equity, is widely considered one of the smartest people in Washington. Not so, he told me: “When you get older in life, you realize there are very few geniuses in this world. Most likely, you will never meet one, and Randy, you did not meet one today.” Rubenstein is certainly no dummy, but just as there are brilliant successes who are less than brilliant, there are also plenty of smart, unsuccessful people. Brains is part of the equation, but it’s not the determining factor in becoming an RMIT.

Category: #4: Get Addicted to Ambition, Business and Entrepreneurship, The Richest Man in Town book, The Twelve Commandments | No Comments »
Tags: ambition addiction, Blockbuster Video, Bob Garren, D.C., David Rubenstein, Florida, Fort Lauderdale, genius, persistence, Washington, Wayne Huizenga, Woody Allen, work ethic