"PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESSFUL LIVING"
PETROLEUM EQUIPMENT INSTITUTE CONVEX OCTOBER 1991

People are my business, interviewing people without any script. Talking to people who aren’t known. The best interviews are people who are under 10 or over 65 — the only two groups who say exactly what they think. The children don’t know what they’re saying and the old people don’t care.

I’ve been in 74 different businesses as a partner, with a controlling interest or principal. I am a wildcatter. Being an independent operator takes a lot of guts and a lot of disappointments. At the present time, I’m still deeply in the business in Los Angeles, Kansas, Louisiana. We’re just about to drill under the city of Paris, France. There is supposed to be oil underneath in the Paris basin. We thought we’ve save a lot of money using the Eiffel Tower as a rig. But they didn’t like that.

At least 1/3 of the businesses have failed.

In seeking for success — it is very elusive. It is not really defined in the dictionary. It couldn’t be. It means so many different things to different people. There is money-based success, money made, kept and have. I have been quite poor and I have been rich. Rich is better but money does not buy success. But it does buy a Rolls Royce to drive around in while you’re looking for it. There is power-based success. There is fame-based success and there’s celebrity — somebody who’s famous for being well-known.

I think success is being able to look back and you’re not only not ashamed but you feel happy. We’ve all overstepped some lines but just being happy about what you do. I am astounded at the number of people doing things they don’t like. And some even hate what they do. But think how much happier this 75 percent or 80 percent of the population would be if they could get up in the morning and say "Oh, good, I get to go to work." Have enthusiasm for what you do in life.

Too often life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans.

If you spend most of your life doing what you don’t care about, you’re not a success.

Success is not a destination. It is what you’re doing. If you think you’re going to be a success after years, you’re missing the point. Life is the trip, not the destination.

Thinking, dreaming and doing are the three essentials in every entrepreneurial decision.

I am deeply wounded today at the news about the lack of morality in the business community in this great nation of ours. Every day there is some great former advisor to a president who is considered a collaborator. Hundreds of congressmen have bounced checks in Congressional banks and never paid them back. Coaches are walking out on contracts. We need to go back to old fashioned ideas that our word means something. We need to get rid of "me" and return to quality, produce and service to customers.

The people who are most successful and most happy are honest.