Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. This is Episode Number 375 of that show about people that make business happen; that create companies that have jobs.
John: That's right and you can't have a job that means anything without a strong financial basis behind it and there's no better financial basis than our free enterprise system.
Russ: Absolutely.
John: Which generates a lot of innovation, products that people want, innovation and helps champion what we hold near and dear to us, and those are the athletes and the artists of the free enterprise system, the entrepreneur.
Russ: That's right. Absolutely.
John: Yeah.
Russ: All right and here's our lineup for today. First up, the topic is leadership and the guest is John Hofmeister -
John: Oh yeah.
Russ: - the former president of Shell Oil Company; the founder and CEO of Citizens for Affordable Energy, and he is kind of on a mission to bring us back to our senses. He's got a book. It's still maybe a year away called Coherent Leaders -
John: Okay.
Russ: - but he's gonna talk about it.
John: It's a year away.
Russ: Yes, a year away.
John: All right, well. Okay.
Russ: But you get this early preview, here at The BusinessMakers Show.
John: Oh, it's an early preview.
Russ: Right.
John: Okay.
Russ: But I will tell you, John.
John: Must be a long book if he's already got some of it written.
Russ: Well, he has. I'll tell you. I have heard him speak on this and man, does he hit the ball out of the ballpark. He is a -
John: He's a great guy, no question.
Russ: Extremely critical of our leaderless society that we're in today.
John: Yeah.
Russ: But that's not all. That's gonna be followed -
John: And that's not all. You mean there's more?
Russ: That's not all.
John: There's more?
Russ: There's more. Absolutely.
John: Oh wow, oh my.
Russ: I'm gonna be able to sit down and talk to Marie Guillot, the founder and CEO of ABACO, International.
John: All right. She's a 40, under 40.
Russ: Absolutely.
John: Fast-tech 50 type. Yeah, right.
Russ: And she is also a graduate of the Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Houston.
John: The Wolff, yes. Right.
Russ: Which we champion all the time. More people need to know about that place because they are making it happen out there.
John: Oh yeah.
Russ: And she demonstrates it. She's a graduate and became an entrepreneur and is very successful.
John: Right.
Russ: But first.
Russ: That's right; it's time for the very important BusinessMakers School of Business.
John: That's right.
Russ: And it's not your business as usual school.
John: No, of course not. And we're still trying to define it many years after we had our inaugural class and session.
Russ: Yeah.
John: But it's real-world, ground-level education.
Russ: Right.
John: And that's probably the best thing I can ever say about it.
Russ: Right.
John: Because you know, it's not pie in the sky, theoretical gibberish. This is pretty much of a what you hear us talk about is information and stuff that you can use right away to either further your career, dazzle your friends at cocktail parties, or just help you feel even more smug and self-assured as you go into your business career.
Russ: That's right and we guarantee.
John: Wow, that was a mouthful.
Russ: It was great, though.
John: Okay.
Russ: And it's true -
John: Yeah.
Russ: - and we kick it off each week with the Quote of the Day.
John: The Quote of the Day, yes.
Russ: And, you know, there are oftentimes when we we've picked up real knowledge here on the show by -
John: That's because knowledge is good.
Russ: Yeah it is good.
John: It's good.
Russ: We've picked it up from movie stars and -
John: Movie stars.
Russ: - and movie parts because we know if it was in a movie, it's true.
John: That's right.
Russ: So today's quote comes from John Wayne.
John: John Wayne.
Russ: Now he's no longer with us but his words are.
John: He's here in spirit.
Russ: That's right.
John: Yeah.
Russ: And here it is: "Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway."
John: That's right.
Russ: Pretty good, isn't he?
John: Absolutely.
Russ: And for those of you who don't know who John Wayne is, go look it up.
John: Go look it up and watch a couple of his movies.
Russ: Well I'm sure, nowadays that we've got people listening to the show who don't know who he is. I mean even though they're into movies, they're not into old classics.
John: Well, there's probably a lot of people listen to this that don't know anything about -
Russ: Anything.
John: - who anybody is.
Russ: That's right. All right -
John: They don't even know who we are.
Russ: That's right.
John: They just happened across the dial and heard us.
Russ: And if they pay attention now, they'll probably learn more about business history than they've ever learned in their lives.
John: Oh, what do you know?
Russ: All right.
John: What a great segue that was.
Russ: This week in August in business history what happened?
John: This week in business history in 1841, former Whig ally President John Tyler vetoes a bill that would have established the Second Bank of the United States, which causes some huge riot out in front of the White House. If that riot were held today, there'd be blood on the streets, probably.
Russ: Well I think I remember that you covering this story not last year - I think you skipped it last year.
John: Skipped it.
Russ: I think two years ago you did it.
John: Yeah.
Russ: But it was more, almost, about the riot.
John: Yeah.
Russ: Because I mean they were shooting guns and stuff.
John: Yeah, I mean presidents veto bills all the time. This was -
Russ: Right and nobody pulls out their guns.
John: This was the reaction to the veto, which was a - they didn't even have a district police department.
Russ: Right, they didn't?
John: No, it was founded because of this.
Russ: Okay.
John: Yeah.
Russ: This is what caused -
John: That's right.
Russ: - the DC police force.
John: That's right. If it hadn't have been for this, I wouldn't have gotten my car booted in front of the National Geographic Society Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Russ: 'Cause there still wouldn't be a police force.
John: There wouldn't have been a police force to do it.
Russ: Well I love how you connect the stories to actual life experiences.
John: That's right. This week in business history in 1851, Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine. His machine - the patent really helped make the machine work in, I guess, a practical way for normal people to be able to sew, you know, buttons on their underwear and stuff like that.
Russ: Yeah, yeah, well I - I still don't understand how they work.
John: I don't -
Russ: I don't understand how that needle - it pushes through and it has thread in it but then the thread kinda doesn't come back out the same hole that the needle comes out.
John: Yeah.
Russ: Now how did they do that?
John: I -
Russ: So I think it's -
John: You'd have to watch it in slow motion.
Russ: I think there's some trickery going on there.
John: Skullduggery.
Russ: I think that, too. All right.
John: I think it's all a ruse.
Russ: All right.
John: Okay, this week in business history in 1877, inventor Thomas Edison makes his first ever recording. Guess he's saying, "Mary had a little lamb," or something like that.
Russ: I wonder if he had to pay royalties on it.
John: I don't know. Well who made, who wrote that?
Russ: I'm not sure. I know, I know the guitar player, Stevie Ray Vaughn, did a version of it -
John: Yeah.
Russ: - but that was even after Thomas Edison saying it.
John: Well now, if he had played Mary - I mean "Happy Birthday," he would have to pay.
Russ: He would've had to pay.
John: But I don't think "Happy Birthday" was around back in those days.
Russ: I don't think they had birthdays back then.
John: Speaking of birthdays, this week in business history in 1902 is the birthday of Felix Wankel the inventor of the Wankel engine, which gained some popularity back in the '70s.
Russ: Yeah, it was the first rotary engine, wasn't it?
John: Yeah a rotary engine and the Mazda -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - Car Company put a lot of those engines in there but it never really caught on.
Russ: I wonder why. You know there was even one -
John: A lot less moving parts.
Russ: Yeah.
John: It was more efficient and -
Russ: There was even one in one of the Indianapolis 500s and I think they ruled it out.
John: They ruled it out.
Russ: They had to go back to the piston-driven internal combustion engine.
John: Yeah.
Russ: Which is far less efficient.
John: Far less efficient but popular.
Russ: Yeah, right.
John: Okay, this week in business history in 1911, the millionth patent is filed in the US Patent Office by Francis Holton for a tubeless vehicle tire.
Russ: I think there's about a million patented every month nowadays.
John: I know.
Russ: Yeah.
John: I know.
Russ: And then there are a million lawsuits that follow up.
John: And about half of those are pirated by the Chinese government.
Russ: Too, right?
John: Yeah.
Russ: All right.
John: This week in business history in 1911 is the birth of Crisco -
Russ: Oh.
John: - hydrogenated shortening. Extremely fattening.
Russ: Yeah.
John: You can use it for other things. You can - if you run out of motor oil, you can grease your pistons with it or your rotary engine, if you still happen to have one.
Russ: I beg your pardon?
John: You're pardoned, but anyway Procter & Gamble -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - unveils it. By the way, they're a big sponsor of the Olympics -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - Procter & Gamble.
Russ: Wonder if they're giving out free Crisco there.
John: I don't know, maybe. If it were the winter Olympics with the ice skating, I would really check the skates out, you know?
Russ: Yes, 'cause they might have some Crisco on them?
John: Crisco to make them go faster.
Russ: Now I'm not an expert on diet but -
John: I know.
Russ: - is Crisco, does Crisco include trans fats or polymonosaturated fats?
John: It's got all those hydrogenated shortening.
Russ: All of them, all right.
John: Yeah, it's got all of that.
Russ: Okay. We didn't do a disclaimer at the beginning of the show. Some of the stuff that we say, we're not real sure about, right?
John: No, we kinda make it up.
Russ: Okay.
John: 'Cause it sounds funny if you do it.
Russ: But sometimes we make it up, it turns out to be right.
John: Yeah, later on.
Russ: Yeah, yeah.
John: Yeah. This week in business history 1913, the invention of stainless steel by Harry Brearly. This was in the United Kingdom, back when Great Britain was still a power -
Russ: Oh.
John: - powerful industrial nation.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Stainless steel, you know, isn't - you don't really think about stainless steel. I mean it just, seems like everything's made out of it.
Russ: Yeah, well I just - when I'm used to -
John: Including that car.
Russ: DeLorean.
John: The DeLorean.
Russ: The DeLorean. That's what I think of when I think of stainless steel.
John: Yeah, unfortunately, the owner didn't have a stainless character.
Russ: No he didn't. John DeLorean got a in a little trouble.
John: Yeah, yeah he got nailed for -
Russ: Cocaine.
John: - cocaine distribution.
Russ: Yeah.
John: To help finance his car.
Russ: And he was distributing cocaine in a country where it was illegal to do.
John: It was illegal to - well, it's illegal in most countries.
Russ: I think it is.
John: Yes, yes.
Russ: All right.
John: This week in business history in 1935 the Social Security Act becomes law, creating a government Ponzi scheme system for the retired, which is now starting to catch up with us.
Russ: Yes, it is.
John: 'Cause when they started it, they had like 100 people -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - contributing for every retiree or something like that.
Russ: Well if -
John: Give or take 50 people. I forget what the exact number was.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Now it's down to like one person.
Russ: Yeah.
John: So who you supporting?
Russ: Yeah, well -
John: So have you figured out who the person is you're supporting?
Russ: No, but this whole thing -
John: I have. We're pen pals.
Russ: You're - so you tell the government, "Hey, y'all just stay out of it. I'm just gonna give my money directly to him"?
John: Yeah. I hope you have a short retirement.
Russ: Right.
John: Followed by a quick death.
Russ: Death.
John: That's what I keep writing my guy.
Russ: Well all we need is just, you know, just a buncha people having babies but you need to have them stretched out, you know, a consistent growing population.
John: That'd be awful for the baby if you stretched it out.
Russ: Right, yeah. You have to have a consistently growing population for it.
John: I know we don't.
Russ: Yeah.
John: I mean, it's growing but it barely is enough to -
Russ: 'Cause there's all of them that were born when you and I were born. All those baby boomers.
John: I know. Okay, this week in business history in 1950 is the birthday of Steve Wozniak, American computer pioneer -
Russ: And former guest on The BusinessMakers Show.
John: - and former - that's right. And -
Russ: So he is 62.
John: Yeah and he's warning everybody about the cloud, you know, don't put all your information on the cloud because you don't own it.
Russ: Yeah.
John: You may own it.
Russ: I didn't -
John: You may think you own it.
Russ: - has he been saying that?
John: Yeah, he has. Yeah.
Russ: Oh. Huh.
John: Yeah.
Russ: Well I learn stuff here, too.
John: And very, could be very prescient.
Russ: Yeah.
John: We'll find out.
Russ: Yep.
John: This week in business history in 1962 the Beatles fire their original drummer Pete Best and bring on the new guy Ringo Starr, former customer of The BusinessMakers guest, Herb Brochstein founder of Pro-Mark.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Makes drumsticks.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Okay, this week in business history in 1969 the Woodstock Musical and Arts Festival, also known as New York's premier cultural and pharmaceutical event begins - I stole that line from John McCain.
Russ: Yeah. It's good.
John: It's classic. Okay, Max Yazgur's dairy farm near Bethel, New York - 450,000 people attended.
Russ: Which was huge back then.
John: I don't think - thing is, how do they know it was 450,000 people? Everybody was stoned out of their gourd.
Russ: I think there was the CIA flew over in helicopters and took pictures and they did one of those things.
John: Oh, okay. This week in business history in 1977 Elvis Presley dies in Memphis. He's found in the, in his toilet room.
Russ: Yeah?
John: Yeah and he was 42 and I mean, some people just find very inglorious ways to die.
Russ: Yes.
John: They lead very heroic lives. No, he appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, many adults were appalled by his gyrations on the Ed Sullivan Show -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - and after that he was televised only from the waist up.
Russ: Yeah.
John: And but he was a -
Russ: Well gyrations weren't done much back then. He was like a leading gyrator.
John: Yeah, most of those guys look like wooden Indians up there.
Russ: Yeah, well you're -
John: But he was quite the - he could keep up with the rhythm.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Very rhythmatic motions.
Russ: Well, now remember now there's another -
John: Herb Brochstein's -
Russ: Yeah, another BusinessMakers connection.
John: Okay.
Russ: That's Elvis Presley.
John: That's right 'cause of the drum set.
Russ: Yeah.
John: He picked up the drum set and it's on, you see it on the -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - one of the broad-
Russ: Herb Brochstein sold Elvis Presley the drum set that he used on Ed Sullivan, the one that has still the cow pattern cowhide on the front of it.
John: Cowhide, yeah.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Mm-hm, okay this week in business history in 1981 the IBM Personal Computer is released for sale and -
Russ: Which was a huge event.
John: I remember the commercials for it.
Russ: Yeah?
John: And I -
Russ: Yeah?
John: - everybody wondered what they would do with a personal computer.
Russ: Right, well -
John: According what's his name -
Russ: Me.
John: No. Well you - but I'm talking about somebody really famous, now.
Russ: Bill Gates.
John: Bill Gates, yeah.
Russ: Yeah.
John: He thought why would anybody wanna have a personal computer.
Russ: But -
John: Even he didn't understand the power he was unleashing.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
Russ: And in the very beginning there was IBM DOS, which is - we really, it was Bill Gates' DOS that he sold IBM and let them put their name on it.
John: Right.
Russ: And that's just a heck of a story how that came about because -
John: Right, well they're privy to that because of Rod Canyon, also -
Russ: Well, yeah.
John: - a BusinessMakers guest.
Russ: Yeah, yeah.
John: Kinda gave us the inside skinny on how that all happened.
Russ: Yeah. Really big day. Now it's also Rod Canyon says, when it came out, the IBM Personal Computer came out, that's when they realized, "Whoa, this space is gonna be big," -
John: Yeah.
Russ: - which caused him to, with his partners, to decide to reverse engineer, to legally reverse engineer the IBM PC and launch the biggest, most successful high-tech start-up in the history of business, Compaq Computer Corporation.
John: There you go. There you go. There's a wide-scale black out this week in business history in 2003 in the - at the Northeast United States and -
Russ: This has a BusinessMakers connection too.
John: 'Cause you were in that blackout.
Russ: Yes I was.
John: Well I was in the - there was a big blackout in the '70s -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - in the '70s, you know.
Russ: Well I think we're gonna start having them a whole lot, now with the way they talk about the infrastructure.
John: I think they're - well they're decommissioning what, about 40 coal-fired power plants?
Russ: Yeah but they're bringing on a lot of coal ones but it's just the whole -
John: No, no. They're decommissioning them.
Russ: Oh no.
John: I mean they're not using them anymore.
Russ: But they're -
John: They're not building any new ones.
Russ: Yeah, they are.
John: Are they?
Russ: They're gas, natural gas.
John: Okay.
Russ: And they're replacing coal with that and that's all fine -
John: Yeah.
Russ: - but still.
John: Yeah.
Russ: But still we're probably gonna have blackouts.
John: But they're getting rid of them. I mean they're not gonna say, "Okay, now we have a gas fired, you can shut down one of the goal ones now."
Russ: No, they don't do that, no.
John: Okay, they're not doing that. They're just shut -
Russ: Yeah.
John: And you know tough luck.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Yeah. Right, tough luck.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Buy yourself a -
Russ: Get out your flashlights.
John: And here we go, finally. This week in history, business history, in 2008 Usain Bolt sets a new 100 meter dash record, 9.69 seconds of 100 meters. That's a lot longer than 100 yards, by the way.
Russ: It's about - it's almost 10 yards longer.
John: Yeah, right yeah. At the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics.
Russ: Yeah and he's obviously won gold again and was close to that again, I think. I think he did like a 9.72 but 9.96. If you convert that to the old-fashioned 100 meters it would've been about an 8.7 second 100 yard dash.
John: Yeah, right.
Russ: I remember forever it was 9.3 back in, when you and I were young and it took forever to go down to 9.2, then 9.1 and I think before it went below 9.1, they converted to 100 meters but that is moving on.
John: Yeah, that really is.
Russ: Now I've heard people say he is so fast and has this huge advantage 'cause he has such long legs. Well if that were the case, why wouldn't we always have had six-foot nine, seven foot - it's not just because he has long legs.
John: Well he's a freak of nature is what he is.
Russ: He - and he is fast.
John: That's right.
Russ: And he's fast.
John: Yes, he's like Phelps, you know -
Russ: Yeah.
John: - he's got that long arm - no one has arms that long.
Russ: Yeah.
John: You know. I mean it's just - a lot of these great athletes are kinda like mutants in a way.
Russ: Right. They should make those two guys have it out. Usain and Phelps.
John: Yeah like steel cage death match.
Russ: Right.
John: Full of - about three foot high of water.
Russ: All right. Waters, yeah, to help Phelps out. All right. So that wraps up the history lesson.
John: And what do you want for free?
Russ: Well I know, I meant it was a, it was an entertaining one.
John: An entertaining one.
Russ: And we learned something.
John: And I'd say 80 percent of it was truth.
Russ: Yeah?
John: Stuff we talked about.
Russ: That's probably - we just don't know which 80 percent, all right.
John: Take your pick.
Russ: All right and that brings us to Navigating Business Jargon.
John: Oh yes.
Russ: Also known as our Jargon Challenge Round.
John: A quiz.
Russ: Also known as our vocabulary lesson.
John: Where you become the quiz master.
Russ: That's right.
John: That's right.
Russ: I like that how many names we have for this section. Essentially it's a contest -
John: Yes it is.
Russ: - where I get to pick out kind of a new-fangled jargon, techno speak -
John: And I should say this, you know, these words are new, you know, practice them by yourself before you, you know, use them in public for your own -
Russ: Yeah, you could get in some trouble, right?
John: - yeah, for your own safety.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Okay, all right.
Russ: That's good advice. All right today's word is a double word noun.
John: Oh, double word nouns. I hate those.
Russ: And when you -
John: Arrgh. Right.
Russ: And when you hear the meaning, you're gonna go sure that make sense but before you hear it, it's kinda hard to figure this one out. Here it is - you ready? Digital dieting.
John: Digital dieting.
Russ: Yes.
John: Okay. Digital dieting. Okay that's when you're - there's people out there that are like, they're online all the time and they can't stop it. They need to go on a digital diet so they can get some of their sanity back and that's - which, means they need to cut back -
Russ: That's an excellent guess.
John: So if you do digital dieting -
Russ: But it's wrong.
John: Okay, all right.
Russ: It's wrong.
John: Okay.
Russ: And when you hear this, you'll like it. Digital dieting is the photographers euphemism for the digital retouching techniques used to make subjects look younger and thinner.
John: Oh. Oh, right yeah.
Russ: Yeah.
John: Yeah. I see it done all the time.
Russ: Well I know and now we all know that professional photographers do it all the time.
John: Yeah, right.
Russ: And the people look at the pictures and they go, "Gah, you're really good," thinking, "Man you made me look good."
John: Well it all started with the Glamour Shot people.
Russ: Well yeah.
John: You know.
Russ: Yeah but in just professional stuff but -
John: Then they get these real estate agents, get their picture taken at Glamour Shot, I mean what they, well look at it, how come they don't -
Russ: Well Glamour Shot probably -
John: - they ought to be in Hollywood. They shouldn't be out there selling houses to people.
Russ: That's right. But I have a good friend that's a real good digital photographer and he will take friends' weddings and he'll touch them up to see if the people acknowledge them and they -
John: Will he enhance part of it -
Russ: - and they never do.
John: - will he enhance body parts and things like that?
Russ: Yes, oh he's pulled in waistlines and, you know, and giving a lift here and there and what the impact - it's really interesting because -
John: Yeah.
Russ: - we all have this different self-image. They just think, "Man, you're a great photographer." Yeah. So there's a key out there for all you young photographers. Just spruce them up before you turn them over to your customer.
John: Right. Okay.
Russ: All right but before we wrap up -
John: Before.
Russ: - today's School of Business -
John: And that's not all.
Russ: That's right; it's time for the very popular PKF Texas Entrepreneur's Playbook.
John: With Greg Price.
Russ: All right and that wraps up today's School of Business. Stay tuned in for our interview with John Hofmeister on the subject of leadership, followed by an interview with Marie Guillot, the founder and CEO of ABACO, International. This is the BusinessMakers Show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com.
