Whenever I hear or read about mentors I think of my father.

I come from a *very* entrepreneurial family.  My father was always a risk taker, from the time he was a boy and he and his brothers ran away from home and joined the circus.  Really.  Then they started their own circus. ( It traveled backwoods towns in another era, and some of the animals were not really that exotic. The brothers were the acrobats and tight rope walkers.)  But it was a start that ultimately took him on to success in business.

Once as an 18 or 20 year old he got down to his last quarter.  His reaction to that was to be so disgusted with himself he pitched the quarter over a fence, borrowed some money and had some circus tickets printed. He took a train to the next town and sold the tickets, then went back and pulled together a circus to go back and perform before all the very delighted ticket holders.  He was on the road again!  Ultimately, in true entrepreneurial fashion, after a number of businesses,  he became a pioneer in the oil business and a huge success.

When I was 5 years old he used to take me out and point to a building.  “How much is that building worth?” he would ask. “As much as you can get for it” was the correct answer.

I have to admit I’m not as much of a buccaneer as my father and I didn’t care so much for the oil business… or at least how business was done in the oil business… so I got out of it.  Yes, yes I know.  You can make a lot of money in the oil business. And I did that for awhile.  But I also think it matters how you make money and it’s good for your soul to really love what you do.

None-the-less many of my business life lessons came from my father.  As I’ve mentioned, he taught me to play poker so I would  understand risk, how to size up my competition and how much money to bet on the hand I held.  I have since been a serial entrepreneur, putting (almost) all my chips in many times.  I started the first commercial Vinifera ( fine European and California wine grape) vineyard in Texas, wrote, found sponsors for and passed the legislation which enabled and launched the now billion dollar wine industry in Texas. I have launched a number of businesses in diverse industries but all were, in one way or another, grounded in advice my father had given me.

That’s why I could really identify with Norm Brodsky who talks about lessons learned from his father, who was his first mentor although he didn’t realize it at the time. In The Knack… and How to Get It –Norm Brodsky discusses lessons from his father like the importance of maintaining high gross margin;  “Always make a good sale with a big markup,” he’d say. “Make sure your customer is someone you can collect from.” “Don’t take advantage of people.” “Be fair.” Those are fabulous business lessons embedded in my mind,” he says “and they came straight from my father.”

Norm makes the case that most successful people have developed certain habits and ways of looking at things and that is what accounts for their success. He points out there are no “silver bullets” but one can pick up a way of breaking down problems and analyzing them, a bent towards action and taking advantage of opportunities.  Having a certain mind-set “doesn’t guarantee that you’ll succeed at everything you do, but it does improve your chances significantly. You win more than you lose, and the longer you stay in the game, the more often you come out on top.”

You can’t hit a home run if you don’t step up to the plate and take a swing at the ball. The famous baseball players who hit the most home runs also probably had the most strikes, but they kept on swinging.  And, eventually, they would connect with the ball and sometimes it would fly out of the park.  In business, you don’t have to hit a home run that often.  You just have to get in the game, stay in the game and keep swinging.  As Norm says, “the longer you stay in the game, the more often you come out on top.”

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