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Become a collector. The first step to achieving greatness is recognizing it in others. When you come across examples that move you, capture them in a way that allows you to revisit, study, and compare them to other items in your collection.
Decoding Greatness
Ron Friedman
I took Michelle to dinner in Port Washington and she told me about her husband, Mike Lunden, an energy broker who loved bow ties and cigars and hockey and weddings and Chicago and fine wines—and her. She described their courtship and happy marriage. Though they lived in a studio apartment with a newborn baby, she said, they never once got sick of each other. As Michelle talked I noticed that she was yet another graduate of the Publicans Storytelling Academy. She had me laughing one minute, swallowing a lump in my throat the next. She asked about me. Had I gotten married? I told her I’d come close once or twice, but I’d had some growing up to do first. Also, it had taken me a long time to get over my first love. “Right,” she said. “What ever happened to—?” “Sidney.” I cleared my throat. “She phoned me out of the blue when she heard I was at Harvard. We met for dinner.” “And?” “She was exactly the same.” “And?” “I’d changed.” Sidney had explained, carefully and honestly, her decision not to choose me years before, saying she’d been apprehensive about a young man so enthralled by a bar. I told Michelle I thought Sidney had been right to be apprehensive. After dinner I took Michelle for a nightcap to the site of the old Publicans. We sat in the booth nearest the door and I could see Michelle’s spirits lift, ever so slightly, as good memories drifted back. But her thoughts quickly returned to her husband. He was such a good man, she told me, repeating those words, “a good man,” several times. And he was thrilled about Matthew, she said. Now Matthew would know Mike only through letters and photos and stories. She worried about her son growing up with no father, how that void would define him. “At least he’ll have his uncles,” she said with a sigh. “And his cousins. He’s crazy about his cousins. And in school he’ll know many other children who lost fathers, so he won’t feel—different.” I slumped against the back of the booth. It hadn’t hit me until then. Manhasset, where I’d once felt like the only boy without a father, was now a town full of fatherless children.
The Tender Bar
J.R. Moehringer
At Amazon, after a brief exchange of greetings and chitchat, everyone sits at the table, and the room goes completely silent. Silent, as in not a word. The reason for the silence? A six-page document that everyone must read before discussion begins. Amazon relies far more on the written word to develop and communicate ideas than most companies, and this difference makes for a huge competitive advantage.
Working Backwards
Colin Bryar and Bill Carr
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