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Ray Zinn에서 제공하는 콘텐츠입니다. 에피소드, 그래픽, 팟캐스트 설명을 포함한 모든 팟캐스트 콘텐츠는 Ray Zinn 또는 해당 팟캐스트 플랫폼 파트너가 직접 업로드하고 제공합니다. 누군가가 귀하의 허락 없이 귀하의 저작물을 사용하고 있다고 생각되는 경우 여기에 설명된 절차를 따르실 수 있습니다 https://ko.player.fm/legal.
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Ray Zinn에서 제공하는 콘텐츠입니다. 에피소드, 그래픽, 팟캐스트 설명을 포함한 모든 팟캐스트 콘텐츠는 Ray Zinn 또는 해당 팟캐스트 플랫폼 파트너가 직접 업로드하고 제공합니다. 누군가가 귀하의 허락 없이 귀하의 저작물을 사용하고 있다고 생각되는 경우 여기에 설명된 절차를 따르실 수 있습니다 https://ko.player.fm/legal.
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Ray Zinn에서 제공하는 콘텐츠입니다. 에피소드, 그래픽, 팟캐스트 설명을 포함한 모든 팟캐스트 콘텐츠는 Ray Zinn 또는 해당 팟캐스트 플랫폼 파트너가 직접 업로드하고 제공합니다. 누군가가 귀하의 허락 없이 귀하의 저작물을 사용하고 있다고 생각되는 경우 여기에 설명된 절차를 따르실 수 있습니다 https://ko.player.fm/legal.
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Failure happens. But is it really a failure if you learn something valuable? In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses how a few business failures paved the way to a massively successful semiconductor company. Rob Artigo: Here with me is Ray Zinn, the longest-serving CEO in Silicon Valley history. Being invited back is always great, Ray. Ray Zinn: Hey, Rob, every day is a good day when I get to do a podcast with you. Rob Artigo: Oh, I appreciate that. Of course, it’s fun and we have great conversations. So you ran a very successful semiconductor business for 37 years, Micrel, but before you did that, you had a couple of failed business ventures that had to be disappointing and emotionally taxing, but you used those experiences as motivation to find something bigger and better. Ray Zinn: Absolutely. Ray Zinn cont: You win by trying. You don’t win by not doing anything. I’m reminded of this fellow that was a marathoner, well, he was trying to be a marathoner. And he was running his race, his marathon, and his dad had recently passed away. And he was running the marathon, but he was having trouble maintaining his pace. And he would stumble and fall, and he was thinking, “Oh, I’m falling so far behind.” He was ready to give up. And then he’d hear his dad saying, “Hey, son, get up and start. Keep going.” He’d get up and start going again. And then again, he’d slow down. He would put his hands on his knees and then just say, “I’m done. I just can’t do it.” And then he’d hear his dad’s voice in his head saying, “Son, keep going. Don’t stop. Keep going.” Anyway, when the race was over, he didn’t finish anywhere near the front. He finished at the back of the pack, but he finished. In other words, he didn’t just say, “I’m done. I can’t do it anymore.” And he kept going. And that’s what it is with any venture you start or attempt, don’t start it if you’re not going to finish it. And so in my case, I had three other businesses that I started before I started Micrel, but they led me to starting my company, Micrel, my more successful business. So they were stepping stones. In other words, it’s kind of like you’re going from point A to point B, and you just draw out a path, and maybe it’s not perfectly straight. You maybe have some deviations, but you keep on the path, as you would. And that’s what I did is, even though I wasn’t successful in three of my businesses, it didn’t prevent me from being successful in my fourth. So as they say, if you at first don’t succeed, try, try again. And that’s what I did. I just kept trying. But I looked back on my work history and the companies I started, and actually motivationally, I learned from each one. Each one that I started helped me. And when I finally got with my fourth one, which was Micrel semiconductor, it really got me to where I am. And so I don’t look at falling down as failure. I look at falling down as a learning process. Even though I was thinking at times, “Hey, I’m going to go get another job. I can’t be starting these companies and failing. It’s been costly to my family and costly to me personally, financially.” So I was ready to just throw in the towel, but I didn’t. I just said, “Let’s move on. Let’s move on.” And so that’s what I call this series of just moving on. Rob Artigo: Looking around on the internet, I found some suggestions on how entrepreneurs who find themselves in this situation, how they should perhaps react to what’s going on, obviously using it as motivation. But let’s see if you agree with these. There’s three points here. But the first one is if you have a failed venture, not get disappointed, but you have to face the situation head on. Is that pretty accurate? Ray Zinn: Yeah, that’s exactly right. You can’t face it on rear on. So that’s rear-facing, not front-facing. Rob Artigo: Right. And then looking back, it should be a matter of drawing from it what you’ve learned from the experience, right? Ray Zinn: Right. Don’t argue yourself into the ground by looking backwards. Face it on. Face it, which means looking forward. Rob Artigo: And here’s one that I figure you might have an issue with because it’s not in your nature to get mad about something, but it says, “If you find yourself in this situation, let it make you angry.” Ray Zinn: Well, that term of anger is what we call righteous anger as opposed to negative anger. So righteous anger is okay. In other words, if you’re saying, “Listen, I think I can do better than this,” and then you get upset with yourself, and you maybe give yourself a good tongue lashing, that’s righteous anger. Don’t be satisfied with mediocrity. Get angry with yourself about that. But don’t get angry with others. Get angry with yourself. That’s what that means. Rob Artigo: The last one here is reframe it as a gap to close. So it says, “Every letdown shows you where you’re not yet good enough.” Maybe it’s skills, network, or whatever, but it shows you where you lack something. Is that true? Ray Zinn: Well, I just talked about that before you started that list that you read off from the internet. I said I started three different businesses before I started Micrel, and each failed business led me to where I succeeded. Failure only becomes failure when you don’t learn from it. So I call it a learning process, not a failing process. Rob Artigo: And also, I want to point out to the listeners that your new book, The Essential Leader, 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader, the first chapter, it’s about try, try again. You mentioned that at the beginning of your comments here, but you modify that to say, “Try, try again, but …” And what you’re saying is make sure that you don’t fail next time the same way you failed this time. Ray Zinn: Well, repeating the same mistake over and over and expecting a different result is stupidity. So don’t be stupid. Don’t make the same mistake over and over thinking you’re learning. You’re not. You have to learn from your mistakes. Rob Artigo: Well, join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. If you have questions for Ray, you can ask him there, and he’ll get back to you. Your questions and comments, of course, are always welcome. You can follow Ray on social media, there’s X, Facebook and LinkedIn. And Ray’s books are out there. I just mentioned The Essential Leader. There’s also Tough Things First and the Zen of Zinn, series one, two, and three. Thanks, Ray. Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.…
Working from home may have seemed like progress over hustle culture, but has it brought on something worse? Un-Hustle culture. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn says one bad work ethic has led to a worse work ethic. Rob Artigo: Let’s talk about hustle culture. One of the soundbites we use in the intro for this podcast is… It’s one of my favorites from you. You say, “If you think you have to work 80 hours a week to be successful, then you’re dead wrong.” So when I was looking for topics for the podcast session, I saw the words hustle culture on the internet, and I immediately thought of that quote. So hustle culture is the belief that you have to grind it out 24/7. And I imagine you’re not a fan of hustle culture. Ray Zinn: No. Not at all. Rob Artigo: Looking at hustle culture, I imagine that you’ve had a lot of experiences of seeing it. Some people would call it A type personalities. Some people say that, “I’ve enjoyed working at this company or this firm,” and other people say, “Look, I don’t like working at that one because the idea is that you’ve got to run like a Mad Man around and continue to work.” I hear about this, like Wall Street is… For young people, there’s this hustle culture where they’re basically working 24/7 and they’re working at 100 miles per hour because they’re trying to outdo everybody else. And I imagine there’s a huge amount of burnout that can go along with that kind of mindset. Ray Zinn: Yeah. I’m not sure everybody suffers from this hustle culture, but certainly they’re getting involved in it. I had a guy who worked for me for four or five years. I didn’t see him get a lot done during the day. In other words, he was there… I mean, he’d come in at 7:00 and he wouldn’t leave until 7:00, so he was working 12 hours, but he didn’t get a lot done. And so I decided I was going to… He didn’t work directly for me. He actually worked for a couple of people below me. But I noticed that he had a lot of magazines on his desk, and so I would just swing by his office periodically just to see what he was doing. And I see him reading these magazines. When he went to lunch one day, I decided just to go in his office and look to see what magazine he was reading because he had a stack of about 10 or 12 magazines. And there were magazines on cars, on sports, on flying, on cooking. I mean, it was all different kinds of magazines that he was looking at. Of course, this is kind of giving away my age because now they just look on the internet and do the same thing. But I asked him. I said, “Gary…” Because he didn’t know I’d looked at his stack of magazines. I said, “Gary, so what is it you’re doing with all these magazines? I mean, you’ve got a stack of them there.” He says, “Oh, I’m getting up-to-date on things that will help our company.” And I said, “Like what?” And he says, “Oh, just take different kind of marketing tools and techniques that are.” And I said, “Would you mind just showing me what magazines it is you’re looking at that are going to help the company?” He’s, “Oh. He said, “Don’t worry about it.” And he grabbed the whole stack of them and put them in his desk. And I said, “Why’d you do that?” He says, “Oh, you’re busy. You’re too busy for this sort of thing, so I don’t want to disrupt what you’re doing.” But he would just turn beet red. He was so embarrassed over it, I’m sure, because he didn’t want me to know what books he was reading or magazines he’s reading. And we have the same darn thing that’s happening with the internet and people looking at stuff that has nothing to do with their job, but they’re spending time, in other words, they’re just wasting time, just because they want people to know they’re working 24/7 when they’re really not, so… Or is the other one, you just say the class A personality where they’re always kissing up to the boss and they’re trying to show that they’re really producing for the company and it’s that hustle thing. So I don’t see much hustling anymore because people work from home and I know darn well they’re not working 24/7 from home. So- Rob Artigo: Yeah. And you got to imagine that the internet and X and other distractions are there and there’s nobody to see that the person is not being productive. So if you got away with it at work when you were in the office before, imagine how much less productive people are because of those distractions. I mean, that magazine story is perfect for this because one of the things is that if you are working 24/7 or you’re trying to put that out there, some studies show productivity actually tanks after 50 to 55 hours each week anyway. If you get to the point where you’re burned out, you’re going to look for distractions. So he’s there all the time. So he gets like, “Oh, I got to fill the time with something else that’ll take my mind off of how much I’m thinking about these other things,” and your productivity goes down. Ray Zinn: Well, I know… Another example of one of my employees is that he would take a two-hour walk. In other words, he would… About 11:30, he’d take off and then I wouldn’t see him again until 1:30 and his car was still there. So I asked him one day. I said, “So where are you between 11:30 and 1:30?” He said, “Well, I take this walk.” And I said, “So why?” “Oh, I get out in the fresh air and I get to do some exercising.” And he said, “I’m still working. Oh, I’m working. Don’t think I’m not working.” And I said, “Well, I didn’t say that. I just wondering what you’re doing.” And he said, “Well, I’m exercising my brain. I’m exercising my legs and my body and the company really benefits from what I’m doing.” But he was literally… Every day he was gone for two hours and he says he was walking. Maybe he was. But that’s another way we’re wasting time. We’re thinking we’re putting in 80 hours a week when we’re only putting in maybe 10. Don’t think you’re productive or you’re busting your butt for your company just because you’re working from 7:00 to 7:00,” as they would. And I think because of COVID and a lot of people are working from home, they’re not working even 20 hours a week. So this hustle thing is just really diminished since people have worked from home doing these… We call them these bubble bath Zooms where they’re in the bathtub doing a Zoom call at the same time. So they call it the bubble bath Zoom, so… Anyway. Rob Artigo: I hadn’t heard that. Hadn’t heard that term. Well, our listeners can join us and the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. If you have questions for Ray, you can just ask them there. He’ll get back to you. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray Zinn on X and Facebook and LinkedIn, and pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First and the Zen of Zinn series, One, Two and Three and on sale now, The Essential Leader, Ray’s new book, 10 Skills, Attributes and Fundamentals that Make Up the Essential Leader. Thanks, Ray. Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.…
The victim mentality is a psychological pattern where someone perceives themselves as a victim of circumstances, other people, or systems, often avoiding personal responsibility. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explains in detail why most people have victim mentality and how to escape the pattern. Ray Zinn: Hi Rob. Good to be with you today. Rob Artigo: Page 89 is what I’m focused on in Zen of Zinn 2, the book you wrote, and it’s about the victim mentality, and you talk about it by sharing a list that you created and you called it the victim mentality list, appropriately named. So I thought we would go through some of these items here on this list of the victim mentality and just talk about why they are associated with the victim mentality. The first one is blame. When it comes to the victim mentality apparently blame tops your list. Tell me about it. Ray Zinn: Well, what’s interesting, Rob, is that the victim mentality, if I were to ask you, “Rob, do you have a victim mentality?” You would probably say what? Rob Artigo: I would say, “No.” Ray Zinn: See. I’ve never talked to anybody, not one single person when I’ve discussed the subject of victim mentality, none of them say, “Oh no, I don’t have a victim mentality. No, not me.” And so it’s ironic and we made up this list. So let’s see. When we finish this podcast, you can rate yourself as to whether or not you have a victim mentality. Rob Artigo: Okay, okay. Ray Zinn: A victim mentality, as I started out, number one is blame. If you blame someone else for a problem you have or had, then that’s one characteristic of a victim mentality. Have you ever blamed anyone for something that impacted you? Have you, Rob? When you’ve had a problem, have you ever blamed someone? Rob Artigo: I’m sure I have. At one point or another I have definitely done that. Number two on the list is rationalize and self-justify. Ray Zinn: Have you ever rationalized something saying, “Well, I’m not perfect. Yeah, I’m not a skilled mechanic, or I’m not a carpenter, so that’s why this project didn’t turn out so well.” Or, “The wood was warped or something else was wrong. The machine broke, my 3D printer made a mess of my project.” So that’s when we start rationalizing, it’s something like blame. We start rationalizing why something didn’t turn out. Again, we’re back to blame again, something else and that, well, the economy, that’s another one. We could say, “Well, the economy, I lost my job. It’s not me, it’s somebody else, something, a piece of equipment broke down or whatever.” And that’s how we rationalize our failure in a particular project. Rob Artigo: And the next one is complain. Ray Zinn: Right. Have you ever complained about the weather? Have you ever complained about your spouse or have you ever complained about your neighbors? Ever complained about somebody who cut you off when you were driving where you said, “Hey, dummy, use your signal,” have you ever done that? Rob Artigo: I hate to admit it, but on the driving part, yes, I mumble under my breath how dumb they are? Ray Zinn: Well, again, see, so we’re complaining. And so if you say, “Oh, man, what a crummy day today is,” or, “Gosh, that guy just pulled in front of me or he cut me off, or he got in front of me in line.” I was shopping the other day with my wife and there’s about four or five lines that we could go into, and of course my wife’s looking for the shortest line to get to the cashier. And she said, “Come hurry over here. This is line’s less people.” And as I started to move over there, this other person who was right next to me took off. It was a woman actually with a cart full of stuff, and she just went right in front of me, actually hit my cart, knocked me sideways a little bit, and boy, I didn’t think very kindly of that. I said, “Oh.” I didn’t say anything to her, but I was not thinking a happy thought. Rob Artigo: Yeah, well, you’re one to make sure that you pause and bite your tongue a little bit when you feel like saying something and you don’t, that moves into make excuses as well, I think it falls in line with that. And then the next one is finding fault and getting angry. Ray Zinn: Well, these are all kind of tied together. Have you ever been angry, Rob? Rob Artigo: Sure. Ray Zinn: Okay. So that’s another victim. In other words, when you are trying to blame someone else for the difficulty or the kerfuffle that you’re in, that’s a clear sign that you’re playing the part of a victim. You just have to know that victims come from different ways and you keep thinking, “Well, I don’t think that’s a victim if I get angry and upset.” I see that now with what’s happening with Tesla because of Elon Musk, they’re getting angry, they’re burning his dealerships or destroying cars, writing graffiti on the cars. That’s a way of saying I’m a victim. In fact, we’ve heard some of the news media excuse the people who are doing damage to these Tesla dealerships and cars because they’re angry and upset, “You’re impacting me. I don’t like you anymore.” And you’re playing a part of a victim when you do that, when you get angry and upset. All of us at some time or another probably have a victim mentality. But again, if I ask you, “Do you play the part of a victim?” You say no because you hate the thought of being called a victim. I’ve heard lots of interviews on TV and radio, people saying, “Oh, you act like a victim.” “Oh, no, no, not me. I’m not a victim.” And they get all irate. So none of us want to be considered a victim, but if we blame others, we look for excuses, we try to rationalize it, are angry and upset, then we are a victim. Rob Artigo: Yeah, the list goes on here. It talks about minimizing and trivializing things, making demands, covering things up. How about doubt and lose hope? Ray Zinn: Right. If you don’t think the future is good enough for you, if you don’t think that the government’s treating you right, if you don’t think that you’re going to have a better life or things are going to get better for you, you’re losing hope, you have doubt, and that’s another sign of a victim. “It ain’t me. I can’t be a victim because somebody else is doing it to me.” Rob Artigo: Yeah, and it sounds like this other one here, having self-pity and being the victim, which is kind of obvious and then abandon, indecision, denying and lying, procrastinating and rebelling. How about rebelling? Ray Zinn: Well, again, as that destroying those Tesla dealerships, that’s rebellion. And so fighting back, getting angry and upset, throwing a tantrum and doing things which are deleterious too is playing the part of the victim. I have a right to get mad, in other words. Rob Artigo: Yeah, you finish this off by saying, “We have a choice. Give up our agency, be a victim, or take control of our life and accept responsibility for our actions.” Ray Zinn: Just be happy. If you’re happy, you’re not going to be a victim. So be grateful, happy, serve others. Do what you can to make this a better place and you will not be a victim. So if you want to avoid the victim mentality, avoid all that list of things that I discussed in that musing and you will be a happier and you won’t be a victim. Rob Artigo: Of course, our listeners can join us at toughthingsfirst.com if they have any questions or comments, you can just leave a message there for Ray. He’ll answer the questions, he’ll help you out if you are confused about something. Please go to toughthingsfirst.com and try that out. Follow Ray on X and Facebook and LinkedIn and pick up the books, Tough Things First and, of course, the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three and on sale now The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader Thank you, Ray. Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.…
We all know change is inevitable, but layoffs can be devastating when you find your once secure job has vanished. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn says don’t panic, just be prepared. Rob Artigo: Here with me again is Ray Zinn, the longest serving CEO in Silicon Valley history. Hi Ray. Ray Zinn: Hello Rob. Rob Artigo: You are always thinking and reflecting on the world around you, and that’s really great for your writing. You recently wrote this and it goes, “Our current economy is in a state of flux. Layoffs are inevitable. Layoffs, they’re terrible and they’re disruptive. Lives are impacted. What’s the resolution,” you say, “to minimize the impact of layoffs? First, don’t panic. You’ll recover. It is just a matter of time before you will have this behind you. Second and most important is to always have yourself prepared for layoffs. You’re basically living within your means. Avoid unnecessary debt. Always looking for other opportunities as a backup plan, and keep your name out there. Bottom line, always assume things are never permanent. Change is always out there and being prepared for change is the best approach.” Very good writing there, Ray. Rob Artigo Cont: It’s important now, because let’s face it, there are people who are losing their federal government jobs as a matter of course. There are people in other areas where there are adjustments going on. Even in California, fast food restaurants with the minimum wage going to $20 an hour, a lot of places have moved to a kiosk instead of a person working a register at the counter to save money on that, so those people end up losing their jobs as well. Across the spectrum and for a variety of reasons, not just what we’re experiencing here in America right now, but there are people who are going to lose their jobs. You’re saying, look, just don’t panic. Ray Zinn: Yeah. Again, these times, well, these are not just new because they’ve been happening for centuries, where changes been taking place. I can remember, not I can even remember, I recall I should say, in Adam Smith’s book Wealth of Nations, when the locomotive came on board and started taking over the wagon trains and Pony Express and other things, they were panicking then because, oh, this is going to ruin my occupation. Stage coach builder, stage coach, driver, horse breeder and trainer and so forth, and the Pony Express. I’m going to lose my job now because the mail is going to be delivered by the trains and then the wagon trains are going to cease to exist because the railroad is going to bring people from east coast to west coast. This is not new. This is just a technology-advancing development. When we think of change, it’s always with us and has been with us for thousands of years, and we’d have to adapt. I know people are worried about AI and the impact that AI will have with robots and other automation, people are going to get displaced. As I wrote in my musing that you just read, you have to be prepared for change. Change is with us and it’s not going to stop unless you stop advancing capability and technology. With the government, DOGE as they call it, shrinking the size of government, there are going to be a lot of people losing their jobs and unemployment is with us. I mean, this is just the nature of an economy is unemployment. Always live within in your means. Absolutely, don’t take on any more debt than you have to. Always assume that a recession is right around the corner. Always assume that you could lose your job at any time. I know I have a lot of friends that work for the government, I mean a lot of friends, and they’re panicked because they’re thinking, “Well, I thought I had a cushy job,” and that’s a problem. Whenever you think you have a cushy job, you don’t. Just bear that in mind. Cushy jobs are just a figment of your imagination. You may have a job that, for example, working from home. I know a lot of people are worried about having to have to go back to work. I predict by the way, that by the end of 2026, all A-L-L, all companies will require the employees to come back to work. That cushy bubble bath Zoom thing you’ve been doing is going to go away and you’re going to have to drive back to work. Are there some negatives associated with driving to work? Yeah, you get more traffic on the freeways and you are going to lose half an hour to two hours traveling to and from work. Yes, you can’t go out and water your garden and be on the Zoom calls at the same time. Yeah, things are going to change. You’re going to have to go back to work. Better get used to it because it will happen, I predict by the end of 2026, which is just a little over a year away, maybe year and a half away. Rob Artigo: Yeah, yeah. Ray Zinn: Just bear in mind change is with us. Live within your means. Always be out there looking for a new job. Stay up to date on what’s happening with technology. Could technology influence your job? Sure. I mean, these cars now that are self-driving, that’s going to impact people who are currently driving like Uber and Lyft and companies like that, that have people driving their clients and customers to and from where they need to go. That’s going to change because these self-driving vehicles don’t require a driver. There’s going to be a point I predict within the next five years where, if you’re an Uber driver or a Lyft driver, you could be out of a job. Same thing with trucking. Trucking will be done self-driving as you would. If you’re a trucker, bear in mind that, that could impact you also. Anyway, the bottom line is be prepared for change because it is there. It’s always going to be with you. You’re going to have to deal with it. Like it or not, change is here. Technology advances that. Remember I talked about the invention of the locomotive, the trains. That impacted a lot of people. A lot of jobs were impacted by the development of locomotion, and that happened back in the late-1700s. You’re going to be influenced by change the rest of your life. Rob Artigo: I spent years in radio and I remember once applying for a job at one point and they had asked me if I’d ever been fired. The answer is, yeah, a couple times in radio. Well at least, if memory serves one time for sure. But I explained to this person, they were very concerned, “Why did you get fired?” I said, “When you get fired in radio, it’s not the same thing as getting fired in other jobs, nine times out of 10.” I suppose some people get fired for being incompetent or doing something, breaking down on the job in some way, shape, or form. But, because shows change and things change and they might want to have a different personality, a different person in that role, then they’ve got to move you out. You just lose your job. I always lived my life in radio with the mindset that I could lose my job at any time. I never felt comfortable in the job, so I take to heart what you’re saying because it makes perfect sense to me just about being prepared and keeping your name out there. I want to underscore that. Well, for the listeners, they can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Ray invites you to ask him questions. You can go to toughthingsfirst.com and leave a message there. He answers questions so you’d be surprised how often he gets back to people. Your questions and comments are certainly always welcome. Follow Ray on X and also Facebook and LinkedIn, and of course Ray’s books are out there, Tough Things First, The Zen of Zinn series as well, one, two, and three. On sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals that Make Up the Essential Leader. Thanks Ray. Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.…
What you need to know now. In this Tough Things First podcast Ray Zinn demystifies the troubled waters so we can all get it and look forward. Call it Part 1. Rob Artigo: Good to be back, Ray. Nice to see you. Thriving amid uncertainty and handling adversity. That’s what we’re talking about here in this podcast. 2025 has been a wild ride so far, and I’m not really overstating that, am I? Ray Zinn: What’s interesting is last week I met with the Montana Secretary of State and her team. I gave this talk on leadership. It went fine except they wanted to ask some questions about uncertainty in the world and especially in the US economy. So, I thought that was interesting and appropriate, why we should cover that and discuss it today because foremost in everybody’s mind is what impact, inflation? Is there a recession pending? What about interest rates? What about tariffs, and what’s going on with the stock market? So let’s talk about them kind of individually, just as I listed the topics that I covered. So, if we look at inflation, what’s happening with inflation? Well, you’re probably getting this on the news, but inflation looks like it’s abating. In other words, it came down some last month. Will it continue to come down? There’s a big speculation regarding the effect of tariffs, so let’s talk about tariffs before we jump into a recession. Tariffs are meant to level the playing field between countries and especially those that sell to the US, so that’s been bandied around and beat up quite a bit over the last week or two. Tariffs are meant to, at least the way that the Trump administration looks at it, it’s meant to bring the other countries to the table and negotiate with them a better term so that we can sell to them. It’ll have a big impact on Ag culture. The Ag culture is the one that’s going to benefit the most from these tariffs released. Now, the other countries which are selling cars, refrigerators, dishwashers, consumer electronics and so forth to us because the labor is cheaper in those countries is the big debate. That’s where everybody is having a proverbial fit over it. Depending on how fast we can bring automation back to the US or automation in the sense of the word of reducing the labor costs, that will help that issue regarding the products that we offshored to reduce the cost of the product and the labor to produce it. So if we get more automation, AI and so forth, that really helps us, and we’re able to produce in this country at the same when we offshored it, then there won’t be any impact on the product that’s coming into the country. If we have multiple countries that produce the same product, then there’s some competition, and that could impact or at least minimize the effect of the prices on the product coming in because of the competition between countries. So, this all depends upon what kind of products that are going to be onshore versus offshored and just how fast we can go to full-blown automation or AI, as some people refer to it. The biggest impact on this is going to be on consumer electronics, clothing and that sort of thing. I think Trump has now backed off on tariffs on consumer electronics, so that’s kind of been settled. Clothing? Again, that’s all a function of automation and what countries will compete with each other. There’s a lot of countries that are producing clothing, so that won’t have as big an impact if they’ll compete with each other. I’m not sure how big of an impact that’s going to be on pricing for clothing because I’m not sure. I don’t believe we’re going to produce much clothing here in the US. We’ve kind of lost that skill, that art as you would, and those other countries have picked up that capability, and there’s a lot of labor involved in making clothing. What impact will that have on our economy as far as interest rates and so forth, and are we looking at a recession? So the Fed, federal banking, looks at things like inflation and whether or not the economy is growing or recessing. Of course, to get the interest rates down, you have to lower spending. In other words, you’ve got to drop demand. So when you drop demand, then of course the GDP will minimize, which you’re going to have less GDP growth, which brings me to really talking about the business cycle. So in Q1, quarter one, which is January through March, that’s our weakest quarter. In fact, it’s coming off of Christmas, and Q1 is a very weak quarter. So, we’ll start seeing the numbers on how Q1 went in another month or so. Not in a month. Let’s say another few weeks, actually, as these companies start reporting their results. Q2 is typically a more upbeat quarter. In other words, you’re coming off of the down Q1, and Q2 which is then April through June should be a better quarter. So, all eyes are on how bad was Q1 and how good does Q2 look? We won’t learn about Q2 until probably August. Well, early August, late July. So, you can see kind of the timing. We’re in a no man’s land because we’re coming off a weak quarter, so we don’t expect great results. If we get decent results off of Q1, that’ll help the stock market. So then Q3, which is July through September, is our strongest quarter. In other words, that’s the best quarter of the year. Again, we don’t get results on Q3 until more like late October, first part of November. Then Q4, which is October through December, is a slower period. Let me back up a minute, going back to Q3, so Q3 is building up for Christmas. Christmas is our strongest season and even worldwide. That’s why Q3 is generally a stronger quarter, and Q4 is more of a flattish quarter. We don’t expect hardly any growth because you’re coming off of Christmas or you’re in Christmas as you would. I’m not sure that you’re going to get a big bump in Q4. Then back to Q1, which is a bad quarter or a weak quarter. So, we’re all looking at the numbers, looking at how the companies report, and that will definitely impact the stock market. Is there going to be a recession? In order for interest rates to come down, GDP has to slow. Okay. When GDP slows, depending upon what political bent you are, you’re going to scream your head off. If the GDP comes down and it’s looking like we’re getting into a recessionary period, and the other side is saying, “Well, look. We’re naturally transitioning from a no tariff to tariff, so that’s having some impact.” What impact will that have on inflation depends again how the government negotiates these tariffs. So, are tariffs good? They can be. Are tariffs bad? They can be. So, it just depends upon how well you manage that. We really didn’t have an income tax in this country. We used tariffs to raise our government spending, and therefore there was no need of income tax until we backed off of the tariffs. Then we had to go to an income tax in order to cover the government spending. I know it’s a lot of information that we’ve beat around, but you can see that it’s kind of a wait and see. We haven’t had big tariffs for many, many years. Probably 40, 50 years since we’ve had any kind of a tariff situation or a tariff issue. We’re marching at a new territory. When will interest rates come down? They’re going to come down when the Fed decides that the economy is in trouble. We need to lower interest rates in order to encourage spending, so you can see it’s kind of a what if type thing, depending upon what the economy does that will decide whether or not interest rates are going to come down. Are we going to have a recession? Well, depending upon what kind of recession we’re talking about. Are we talking about just a reduction or slowing in GDP? Do you call that a recession? Well, if you’re more liberal, you’re going to call that a recession. If you’re more conservative, you’re going to say, “No, that’s just a natural slowing. That happens on normal business cycles, which occurs every three to five years.” So, everybody is going to be painting the picture that they want to make everybody understand what they believe is what’s going on in the economy. I don’t think the recession is going to be terrible. There is going to be a slowdown, if you want to call it a recession. That’s what recess means. Recess means to slow down. Are we going to go into a depression? I don’t think that’s the case because we’ve got too many levers we can pull to prevent a depression. So anyway, that’s a short tutorial on the state of the economy, Rob. Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, you covered a lot of territory there. Very interesting stuff. It’s a time in our history really where that stuff, it’s important today, and it’s going to be important for the rest of the year as things fluctuate. We don’t know what other countries are going to do. We don’t know how the tariffs will change things with some countries and how it will change things with us in some areas. It would be interesting to listen to what your take is throughout this year. We’ll try to do this more often. So, join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions and your comments are always welcome. Ray Zinn: Hit me with an email on toughthingsfirst.com. I’ll be happy to answer them if you have further questions. If you would like to see more detail on this subject, please feel free to let us know. We’re happy to revisit this discussion. In fact, we’ll do it every quarter. So, if you chime in every quarter, we’re going to give an update on the economy. Rob Artigo: Follow Ray Zinn on his X, Facebook and LinkedIn, and of course, Ray’s books. You’ve got to pick them up. Tough Things First is the big one, his first book. As you know, there is the Zen of Zinn Series 1, 2, and 3. On sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up The Essential Leader. Thanks a lot, Ray. Ray Zinn: You’re welcome, Rob. Rob Artigo: Now announcing, The Essential Leader by Ray Zinn. 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up The Essential Leader. Watch for it as it arrives at your favorite retailers in paperback and digital format. It’ll be everywhere by the official launch date, March 12th. That’s The Essential Leader by Ray Zinn. Don’t miss it. Thank you for listening to the Tough Things First podcast.…
Do we live in a culture that promotes comparisons to others? Is it jealously, envy? In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn says keeping up with trends may be healthy, but keeping up with the Jones’s may be a problem. Rob Artigo: I recently read a quote where the writer said he had not met a person on the planet who did not compare themselves to others. He pointed out that we live in a society that perpetuates comparison at every turn, from social media and magazines to commercial ads and perhaps even the car sitting in the driveway at the neighbor’s house. It’s almost impossible not to find a potential trigger of comparison right in front of your eyes. That was authored. Davin Salvagno wrote at length about it. So first, do you agree that we live in a society that perpetuates comparison at a return? Ray Zinn: Yes and no. We look at hairstyles, we look at clothing styles, we look at car styles, whatever. We do kind of follow along with the trend, and so that’s a comparison, as you would, because we’re looking at how others are dressing, how others are doing their homes. I remember we used to, when I was early, young, married, we had a shag carpet and no one has a shag carpet today or- Rob Artigo: Yeah, that’s true. I remember those. Ray Zinn: Yeah, or the kind of furniture that we have, we try to stay up-to-date with what’s trendy, as you would. Rob Artigo: That’s Keeping Up with the Joneses’ scenario. Ray Zinn: That’s the other part of the topic. Okay? Rob Artigo: Okay. Ray Zinn: So, we’re talking about now how we do a comparison other than Keeping Up with the Joneses. So it’s not necessarily Keeping Up with the Joneses in the sense of the word that we’re going to talk about next, let’s just talk about comparing ourselves with the trends. In other words- Rob Artigo: Gotcha. Ray Zinn: … we want to make sure we’re not wearing the wide tie if the narrow ties are in or we make sure we’re not doing a pompadour hairdo if more of the short hair or whatever kind of haircut. The big style right now is beards on men. I’ve never had a beard, and so when I do the comparison, I compare myself to myself, this is who I am. I don’t wear a beard, and so I am not a beard-type guy. I’m not mocking at people who do have beards, I’m just saying that’s not my thing, but that’s a comparison again. I’m not comparing me against them. I’m comparing myself against myself. That was my goal. My desire is to not have facial hair, and that gets us into the second part of our topic is how we compare ourselves against the Joneses. So if you’re trying to keep up with the Joneses, that’s a different part. That requires a different view. That’s called envy, E-N-V-Y. Envy that’s the part of it, and that’s the negative part of comparison. If we’re comparing ourselves against the Joneses, then we’re being envious because now we’re just trying to up one, be better than somebody else, the bigger car, the bigger house, the whatever, the fancier this, the fancier, oh, I got this, I got an airplane. You just drive around a little Volkswagen or whatever. Those are the bad kinds of comparisons where we are comparing ourselves against the Joneses. I’m opposed to that. I like to stay up-to-date, but I’m not comparing myself against the Joneses. I’m just looking at the trends and trying to stay within the trends. Now, some of them I like, some of them I don’t like, so I’m not a, what you would say is I’m not necessarily a full-blown trendy. I don’t go along with everything, all the trends that are. I do the ones that I want to go along with. Again, I’m comparing myself to myself. What do I want? What’s my goal? What do I like to be like or look like? So again, the comparison should not be against the Joneses. The comparison should be against who you are and who you want to be. That’s the main goal. Rob Artigo: The style thing is a perfect example, but also if you are one of those people who compares themselves to others’ levels of success, you can say, “Look, that’s what I would like to achieve,” that’s a good kind of comparison in the area that you were talking about versus, “I envy that person because they’re doing it, but yet I’m not doing anything to achieve that level of success.” Right? Ray Zinn: Yeah. If you’re out there trying to impress people and how great and how wonderful you are, how beautiful or handsome or whatever, that’s doing it for the wrong reason. The right reason is comparing yourself to what you want to be, not comparing yourself to others and trying to beat your chest and say how wonderful or great you are, “Oh, I went to Harvard,” or “I went to Stanford,” maybe you went to San Jose State, like I did. I don’t look down on that. I looked at it as great, but I know others, “Yeah, where’d you get your degree?” “Oh, I went to Harvard. I went to Stanford, or I went to Berkeley,” or whatever. That’s the wrong kind of approach. Again, you have to look at where you want to be compared to where you’re going and what you want to accomplish. Rob Artigo: You look at the titles on what people put on their walls behind their desks and that’s one thing that’s establishing your credit, if you will, your credibility and also displaying something that you’re proud of, but it’s a different thing to, in conversation, put somebody else’s degree down because it wasn’t an Ivy League degree or something like that. Just ends up being, it reflects poorly on you. Ray Zinn: Yeah. I think that’s the key is that if you’re hanging your shingle up just to impress others, then you’re doing it for the wrong reason. You were trying to impress yourself, not impressing others. Compare yourself to yourself, here I am, here’s where I want to be, and here’s where I’m going, as opposed to, “Oh, so-and-so is accomplishing this, so-and-so is accomplishing that. Look at this leader or that leader and what they managed to have accomplished” whether you’re the richest man in the world like Elon Musk or whether you’re the President of the United States like Donald Trump, don’t do that comparison. Look at where you are and where you’re going. Maybe you’re just a hairdresser or maybe you work as a clerk in a grocery store. If that’s where you want to be, if that’s where you’re headed, then great, but don’t compare yourself to Donald Trump or to Elon Musk. Try to be who you want to be, not be who you thought somebody else is. Rob Artigo: Yeah. Toughthingsfirst.com, that’s where the listeners need to go if they want to continue the conversation. Comments and questions are welcome there. Follow Ray on X and Facebook and LinkedIn, and of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First, and as you’ve been told, the Zen of Zinn series is also available, and that’s one, two and three on sale now, The Essential Leader by Ray Zinn: 10 Skills, Attributes and fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Thank you, Ray. Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.…
You may have heard that a failure to plan is nothing more than a plan to fail. Ray Zinn puts his hard earned life experience out there and proves what you get if you fail to plan is a pipe-dream and surefire disappointment. Rob Artigo: Good to be back. You have a series of books. You have Zen of Zinn one, two and three, and I picked up Zen of Zinn one and went to page 110, and I found this particular writing, which I thought was interesting. It was thought-provoking and I thought made a worthy podcast. You wrote, “The difference between a goal and a plan is that a goal is what we want to accomplish, and a plan is the way we accomplish the goal. Many of us have goals, but no plan to accomplish their goals. A goal without a plan is just wishful thinking.” And also you’ve said, and you wrote in your book, The Essential Leader, “That a goal without a plan is not a plan.” Ray Zinn: They call it a pipe dream, Rob. Rob Artigo: Yeah. Where does this come from? I mean, we’re in business and various leadership roles and throughout our lives we had to do different things, but the goal changes at times. The way to achieve the goal doesn’t change, right? Ray Zinn: That’s interesting. Let’s just go back to when I started my company. So my goal was to run my own company. That was my goal. I mean, I wanted to start a company to see if I could make it successful, and so that was my goal. But then I said, “Okay, so now what kind of company do I want to found, do I want to start?” And so I tried about three or four different things to start my company. So my plan was then to get it started and to come up with a product. So I did that. That one didn’t work out. So then I scrapped that one and I went to another one and that one didn’t work out. And I said, “Scrap that one.” As I said, I tried four different approaches before I got one that really was successful. You would say, “Well, wow, your goal was to start a company and you did that, but your plan evidently wasn’t all that successful because you had to do four different companies before you got one that worked.” Well, that’s the way sometimes things work. If I married the first girl I dated, I’d be a polygamist today. So we do things by trying. If you just have a goal without an effort to try to do something that becomes, like I said, a pipe dream. In other words, you’re just wishful thinking. Even though it may not be successful, you want to move forward, you want to set forth an effort that will result in you either learning that that’s not a good one or that is a good one, and so that you can build on it. When I started those four companies, I thought each one of them was going to be a success. Just like when I said dating again, I thought my first date, that’s the girl I’m going to marry kind of thing. But I’ve dated hundreds of girls, and so you find out that not necessarily the first girl you date is the one you’re going to marry. And so it’s the same thing with starting a company. You might find out that the first company you start is not necessarily the one you’re going to marry. I kept trying and trying and trying, and then I finally ended up with one that I could bring forth success. Rob Artigo: Well, yeah, you’re talking about in business, in jobs, in life, so in managing your life, goals are everything. And then having a plan, and you had a plan going into, as you were getting older, aging into your late teens and you’re thinking about dating, you’re planning on your future. You had an idea of what you were going to do. You were going to date and find your way, but you were not going to settle for anything but what you really, really wanted. And so your goal was established with your plan, which was to make sure that you didn’t make a mistake and marry the first person that you met. Ray Zinn: Well, I’ve been married for 64 years and so that took some effort to bring it together, but I finally found the right combination and that turned out to be successful. When I started Micrel, same thing. I didn’t know that we were going to last 37 years as a company, but I kept working at it and it became a success over time. Whereas the other three companies that I started, we could call them a divorce actually, as you would because I divorced myself from that idea and moved on to another one. So it doesn’t mean that just because you’re not successful in your first idea, your approach means you’re not going to be successful in the long run. The whole purpose of this podcast is to talk about turning your dreams into a reality. Turn your dreams into a reality, so that becomes a success, whether it’s your first marriage, your second marriage, hopefully not more than two. You want to turn that relationship into a long-lasting one. Thank goodness I only been married once and married for 64 years, so that turned out to be successful, but I wanted it to succeed. Did we have any bumps in the road and any times when we thought we were upside down? Yeah, sure. But we overcome them. We straighten them out and move forward because we’re human and we make mistakes and we have to recover from those mistakes. Rob Artigo: I think that attitude that you just described there is a good thing to have built into any plan, whether it’s for business or in life, is that be ready to expect ups and downs and the things that might help you survive those dips, if you will, right? Ray Zinn: Well, and have the ability, for example, if you started a company that was going to take more money than you had then you obviously didn’t plan very well because you have to look at what you can afford as you move forward, whether it be a wife or a girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever, you got to make sure you can afford what you’re going to do. And so taking off in a business venture without sufficient funds to see it to completion, that’s stupidity. So again, make sure you have the wherewithal to accomplish the goal that you’ve set for yourself. Rob Artigo: Thanks, Ray. Great conversation. And the listeners can join us at toughthingsfirst.com if they have questions or comments. Please follow Ray on X and on Facebook and also LinkedIn and check out Ray’s books, Tough Things First and the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three, and on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader Thanks, Ray. Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.…
A lifetime of leadership experience wrapped in an entertaining and informative read. Join Tough Things First for the official launch of The Essential Leader by Ray Zinn, 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals that Make Up The Essential Leader. ( Watch the Video Podcast ) Rob Artigo: I’m Rob Artigo, former Bay Area Radio Personality and your host for this edition of The Tough Things First podcast. Here with me once again is Ray Zinn, the longest serving CEO in Silicon Valley history. Today we understand the Essential Leader. This is a special podcast in more ways than one, it’s a video podcast. The link is at toughthingsfirst.com. Today is the day we announce Ray Zinn’s newest book, fresh Off the presses, The Essential Leader, 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals that Make Up The Essential Leader. Congratulations, Ray. This book really turned out great. Ray Zinn: I think it’s one of the most important books that I’ve ever written. Rob Artigo: In this podcast I’ll read a couple of excerpts from it. We’ll talk about Greg who did the forward and just sort of discuss the book. But today we understand that this book is available at all retailers. It is available in digital and print form, and we’re happy to have you read it and we hope you will. So what inspired you to write about leadership in this way? I mean, The Essential Leader, that’s promising a lot and it delivers. Ray Zinn: Well, the whole subject of leadership has been written about forever. I mean, going all the way back to the time of Christ. I mean, who is my mind the greatest of all leaders. Unfortunately, leaders are looked upon as being not so good. Other words, they’re looked upon in a negative way. Whether you’re a corporate leader, or a political leader, or international leader, whatever your role is as a leader it’s not necessarily viewed in a positive light. So I decided to write about the essential leader, being not just leading, but what are the essential aspects and attributes of a good leader? So I worked on that. I have spent months looking at and thinking and reading about what is essential to be a good leader. So that’s what prompted me to write the book. Rob Artigo: Also it was a while back, it was a few years ago, but what we did a podcast series a little bit shorter than what’s in this book on being the essential leader. A lot of those ideas came from that. I mean, we culled it from various aspects of things that we’d covered in podcasts and said, why don’t we take one of these and make a chapter out of it? You came up with some really good ideas. I’m just going to flip through to, let’s see, where the chapters are and I’ll just give you a couple of them. So you talk about sound judgment, which I’ll have a quote from here shortly. But you talk about the concept of try, try again and you have a twist on that. How you carry yourself, what you wear is really important and valuable as far as people deciding whether or not they want to follow you. You had some really cool ideas. One of them was on re-thinking micromanagement because that has been something that, like people in leadership not being viewed in high esteem, you have people who have varying attitudes or opinions about micromanagement and you say, hey, look, it’s really about managing by walking around. That’s micromanaging in a way where you’re there but you’re not really micromanaging. Ray Zinn: Well, this whole concept of micromanagement has a negative connotation, it doesn’t need to be. Micromanagement, if you don’t look at the small things, at the details, the large things are going to become a problem. So micro means small. Okay? That’s what micro means, or tiny. So you want to look out for the tiny things because the tiny things are the ones that kill you. Those are the ones we tend to overlook. The things that we tend to not really reflect on or try to do anything about because we’ll say, “Oh, it’s such a small thing, it’ll take care of itself,” but they don’t. Small things become big things. It’s like a leak in your radiator, it’ll become a big thing ultimately. Micro, being small, and managing being managing the small things as well as the large things, it’s often viewed that leaders are looking at the big picture. Well, you got to look at the small picture too, not just the big picture. That keeps you focused on the objectives of the company, what you’re trying to accomplish to become a successful company. I turned the negative aspects of micromanaging into a positive and that was the purpose of that chapter. Rob Artigo: Yeah, I mean you’re really saying when you walk around and find out what are the small things that are happening to the people who are on your staff, you understand what they’re going through and their experiences and you can help them address those things so that they’re more productive and more creative or they’re better sales people or whatever the case may be. You also have here, fortunately, and I want to remind people, this is the book launch video for The Essential Leader and it’s Ray Zinn’s new book out today, everywhere in print and digital if you’d like to grab it. Greg McCown- Ray Zinn: McEwen. Rob Artigo: McEwen, I mispronounce his name all the time. Terrific endorsement from him, “Participating in this is really cool.” He’s written some books himself and widely regarded as a pretty smart guy. That must have been pretty interesting to get him on. Ray Zinn: Oh yeah. I mean, Greg’s a friend of mine, but he’s also a Stanford grad and very knowledgeable in business. Also he’s done podcasts and written extensively. He actually has a book called Essentialism, which is kind of interesting because essentially the same thing as what I’m talking about, the essential, what are the essential aspects of leadership. He talks about what’s the essential aspects of living your life, focusing on the key aspects of existence as opposed just to just let come what may as you would, or reacting to everything rather than only reacting to the things which are essential. That’s kind of where he was headed, and when I wrote about the Essential Leader and doing the same thing, what are the essential aspects of being a good leader? When I became listed as Silicon Valley’s longest serving CEO, I reflected on that. I didn’t know I was going to get that honor. Then when it was put out and published, I reflected on it. I says, that’s interesting. Why am I the longest serving CEO in Silicon Valley? Because Silicon Valley is one of the most well-known places on earth. I mean, I don’t know of anyone in a civilized nation that doesn’t know where Silicon Valley is or what Silicon Valley is. So here I am living and being a CEO in probably the hotbed of technology and probably one of the best known places on earth, and here I am the longest serving CEO. It really boils down to my style of leadership. That’s what we cover in the book is, how do you become a long serving CEO? Most CEOs don’t serve for more than five years, that’s the average. So I’ve served nearly 40, and so that’s like eight times what the average CEO serves. So I said, okay, how do I do that? What allows me then to become the longest serving CEO? That’s what’s covered in the book is my experience and what it takes to be able to have longevity, to be able to have that tenure as a CEO. Rob Artigo: Yeah, you have a way in this book about conveying some stories where you talk about historical figures and how they play into the idea of how people view leadership and there’s good leadership and bad leadership, and you also attribute your success not to just your own ability to get things done, but that you place so much emphasis on the people who work for you, the teams that are there. You have one whole chapter called Inspiring Passion, and it says, “If you do not have passion, you have a hole in your leadership, and that’s specific to the essential leadership of the essential leader. If the essential leader doesn’t have passion, certainly not essential.” You said, “I used to say, if that was the case, you might as well just roll over and bury yourself. That means you can just hang things up right there in business or anywhere else for that matter. If you don’t have passion and you can’t inspire that in your teams, then you might as well forget it.” Ray Zinn: Absolutely. It’s our passion that bleeds over to others that inspires them to want to be the best of the best, of the best. They talk about good, better, best. I mean, to do that you need to be passionate about what you’re doing because that becomes the hallmark of a successful company is the passion of that company. If I look at Intel Semiconductor, who was formed in 1967, I think it was, and I started my company in 1978, Intel was considered the greatest on earth. I mean Bob Noyce, Gordon Moore, and those folks that started Intel were my idols at Fairchild, when I worked at Fairchild. So they put together a very wonderful team of people and a passion like you wouldn’t believe, it was a real passion with the people that worked at Intel. But over the years, Intel has kind of lost their way. I think they’ve lost their passion, honestly, Rob. I mean that passion has disappeared. I saw it happening in the early ’80s is where I saw Intel’s passion kind of drift, and they became less and less of a factor in the semiconductor industry. I’m hoping they’ll find their passion back because that says who they are. We often talk about Steve Jobs and Apple, and I remember how that company started out and it was a nobody. I mean, they had difficulty even getting underway. Then once they got themselves going and Steve Jobs was able to inculcate that passion in Apple, it began to flourish. Then in about 1995, Steve left Apple and Apple began to lose their passion because the passion was Steve Jobs, and then he went off and did something else, and then Apple’s passion drifted and it lost its purpose. It wasn’t until Steve came back several years later that that passion came back to Apple. Now look Apple’s one of the most highest rated companies in the world. So passion has to be from the leader. So that’s why we talk about in that chapter of Essential Leader, of how important passion is, because without passion, you’re nothing. Rob Artigo: Yeah. You talk at length about when we knew that Steve Jobs was going to pass away he created a secession plan so that he could pass things off. He found the right guy and the right guy …. Every step of the way the right guy follows him because he’s inspired passion in them and he knows that they have the ability to inspire passion in others. This book, which again is The Essential Leader by Ray Zinn, terrific book about these aspects of leadership, also areas of knowledge that you need to get your hands on in order to be the essential leader. I mean, everybody wants a good leader. People hope to get a great leader, but the essential leader is he/she is in the realm of a needle in a haystack. I mean, you also talk about women in leadership in this book, and you say sometimes they’re even better and more qualified than their male counterparts to do things. That’s really cool too. We expect women will want … Young women too. I mean people in college age who are in business want to get MBAs or whatever the case may be, or just be entrepreneurs and start businesses. This is a terrific book. There’s no other place where you’re going to get this. Also, it’s not like it’s a big 300, 400, 500 page book. It cuts to the chase. It has really succinct messaging in it and it’s very clear. Ray, is there anything else you’d like to add before we wrap up our special podcast here on the book launch? Ray Zinn: Well, I think if you want to become an essential leader, and I mean that sincerely from the bottom of my heart, you need to get this book. It will help you understand what it takes to be the longest serving CEO. Rob Artigo: Great way of ending it right there, Ray. So that’s The Essential Leader by Ray Zinn available on all major book platforms. It’s in paperback, but also digital if you want to get it. Check it out on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other platforms, we hope you will. Ray, you’re fond of telling people to make sure, at each one of these platform, wherever they buy the book, they should rate the book so that we understand how their reaction to it and we can gauge what to do in the future. Ray Zinn: Exactly. Thank you very much, Rob.…
The question often heard is who will pick our produce under tighter immigration enforcement? Maybe the question that aught to be asked is when will humanoid robots be doing that job? In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn tells us the one constant is change. Ray Zinn: Hi, Rob. Rob Artigo: Well, I’ve heard this repeated frequently, and maybe you have as well, the often heard quote, “Who will pick our crops if migrants are sent home?” Now, we’re not anti-immigrant or migrant here at Tough Things First. That’s not the point here. The point is, now the replacement of those workers has already been going on for many years, and that’s bound to accelerate, don’t you think? Ray Zinn: Yes. Back in the ’50s when I was working for my father, we had a cattle ranch and a feedlot, I should say cattle feedlot, and we would feed the cattle with hay and grain and so forth. Back in the day, we would hire these migrants. They would come over the border, but they would go home at night, but they would come over and work during the daytime to help take care of the cattle, to clean the corrals and to walk and clean their drinkers and also to feed them. And we used to feed them with pitchforks and bags of grain. That’s the way we used to feed them. But then we wanted to improve the growth of the animal so it would fatten up faster. And so we built a mill and we used to grind the hay and then a mix of feed with the grain with the hay and mix it with a little molasses, which was very tasty for the cattle. And then it would be delivered in a truck with an auger that would dispense the feed into the troughs. And that concerned our migrants because they used to do that by hand. In other words, that was what they did. They would kind of chop up the hay and mix the grain with the hay and so forth. But it was very inefficient and it wasn’t very productive, and the animals didn’t do as well as it did when we improved the automation. And my dad reassured them that, “Oh, we used to love the job. There’s still things to be done.” And we found other ways that we could help employ their efforts rather than feeding the animals. And it was very effective in getting them to understand because to make the feed, we had to have people loading onto the conveyor. We had to have them cut the strings on the bales, and then they had to operate the batcher, which is the weighing device that weighed the hay and then dispenses the grain and somebody had to load the bins. And I said, “So you didn’t lose your job. Your job changed. So it’s a job change rather than losing it.” And so when we talk about the who’s going to pick our fruit, if it is automated, somebody’s going to have to operate those automated systems. Granted, they’re going to have to change. The migrants that were working at my dad’s feedlot, they had to learn how to run the hay grinder or chopper and how to operate the mixers and so forth. They had to learn how to do that. And they didn’t have that skill set before, but they had to be taught. So when you talk about who’s going to pick our crops, if it’s automated, somebody’s going to have to manage that. You’re not going to get rid of humans just because you automate. Rob Artigo: That’s a fascinating story because we had talked about how much automation is going on with running cattle in Mexico right now. Very large cattle organizations that are being almost entirely run by some kind of machine. So harvest automation has been going on for a long time. In the Central Valley of California, for example, they have machines that run up and down and pick grapes and nuts off of trees and fruit and all kinds of things now, which is something that used to be done by hand. But now we have humanoid robots that are coming online, and so they’re working in warehouses and they’re doing other things. These are, I’m sure, very expensive. Maybe one day they’ll be less expensive. The headline that caught my attention this week, China Launches center to train 100 plus humanoid robots simultaneously. And it says, “Training its future workforce one robot at a time.” And that caught my attention because I thought, “Well, wait a minute, if you have to… I don’t know if you’d ever get to where if a robot does the work of 10 people because it never needs to take a break. Does that cost end up being the replacement of somebody who is a low skilled sort of manual labor type of position?” Ray Zinn: Well, China is the most populous nation, either that or India is the most populous nation in the world. And most of those people are doing manual type labor and not operating sophisticated computers and so forth. Just like in the case of my father’s place, it costs a fortune to put in that mill that ground the hay and the batchers and the mixtures and all that stuff we had to put in. And that was to help reduce the cost of fattening up an animal. There’s no way a human could do that task. And so we had to use machinery to do it, but then there are half the people operate the machinery. And the same thing in the case of when we go from people doing it manually to humanoids robots. Back in the day, Adam Smith was a well-known author. He talked about the differentiation of labor. I don’t know if that’s the exact title, but it’s something like that. Divisional labor, that’s what it’s called. Divisional labor. And that was back in the 1700s when the locomotive became into being. And we had other things that were automated back in the 1700s. And that was a big concern that Adam Smith talked about was the division of labor. And you can read about that. This has been a concern of humans since the beginning of time is having humanoids or robotic or mechanical ways of accomplishing tasks. And as I said, you can read about that. You can pick up the book. It’s been written… It’s been one of the most read books in history is The Wealth of Nations, I guess that’s the title of it. And so this is nothing new. We’ve been talking about this in our country since the 1600s. We just have to live with the fact that automation is to improve our lives. It’s not to take away jobs or to eliminate labor. It is to help us improve. We improve through automation. And so I look at this as being a godsend to the average employee and not something where they’re going to cause them to lose their job. They may change the way they do their work. In other words, they’ll have to be taught as China does with somebody’s got to teach those humanoid robots. But it’s to make it more efficient. It’s not to eliminate people’s jobs. It’s to make the process more efficient and make it more available to more people. Rob Artigo: You’re talking about China’s workforce is because of the one child policy in China, you have a shrinking… You have an aging workforce and no replacement for them. And that’s happening in a lot of places like in the US where you’re going to need those extra workers to get things done because you’re not having people have a lot of kids unfortunately. I think that’s really unfortunate that we’re not replacing ourselves. But that’s a story for another day. Ray Zinn: But again, manual labor. Manual labor is a misnomer. It’s kind of like in computers, manual labor, I used to write my emails with my hand and a pen and a piece of paper, but now I type on a keyboard, so that’s still manual. Granted, I’m not long handing my emails and I’m not sending them out through the postal service. And now I typing them on a keyboard and then getting them sent out via the internet, but that’s still manual. I’m still having to do something manually. And so you’re not going to get rid of manual labor. There’s going to be manual… There’s no such a thing as total elimination of manual effort. So manual effort, you may change the way you do it, but it’s still manual. Rob Artigo: Interesting topic, Ray. Very, very interesting topic. I’d invite the listeners to go to toughthingsfirst.com to check out more podcasts. You can also offer your questions there. If you have comments, those are welcome as well. Follow Ray on X and on Facebook and LinkedIn and of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First, the original, and as you heard, Zen of Zinn I, II, and III. On sale now, the Essential Leader by Ray Zen, 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals that Make Up the Essential Leader. Thank you, Ray. Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.…
Competition is a wonderful and important aspect of success, but some people recoil in horror over how it forces them to be proactive. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explores the reasons why we need to embrace our competitive nature. ( Video Podcast ) Rob Artigo: Good to be back. This is a special edition of the podcast. It’s on video, so if you are listening to it and you want to watch it, you can go to toughthingsfirst.com, find the link to this podcast and then right next to you it’ll say, “Click here if you want to watch the video,” and you can do that. And vice versa. If you happen to be watching it or you found us on YouTube, you can switch back and find the audio-only version. So you can listen or watch. It’s up to you. So Ray, one thing that came up recently was something that you wrote and you’d sent me in an email and it basically laments the idea that competition is a wonderful and important thing. This musing is fantastic because some people are afraid of competition and some people aren’t. So this is what you wrote. “Competition is a wonderful and important aspect of success. The main reason some hate competition is because they have to improve and this takes extra effort.” So you also make the point, “To embrace competition like it… You got to embrace competition,” I’m misreading this, “to embrace competition like it was a loved one.” So if you do that, you’ll be the better for it. So tell me a little bit about why competition helps drive you to success. Ray Zinn: It really is the hallmark of what causes us to become better people is competition. I know that it sounds like a dirty word because we have to compete against someone and that takes effort, but we look at all the sports events that happened, football, basketball, baseball, hockey, whatever, and those are all competitions and we enjoy watching competitions. But how many of us like to participate in it? It’s because it’s tough. I mean, a professional athlete, it’s difficult. They have to prepare, they have to work at it. I remember Jerry Rice when he was a neighbor of mine and played for the 49ers, I mean, he would practice twice as long as other people, other athletes. Because to become the best, you really have to put forth a lot of effort. And I guess basically we’re lazy and we don’t want to have to put out that much effort to become better. We like it to be handed to us. But you can’t refine yourself by accident. I mean, refining takes work. It’s like hardening steel. It’s a process. I mean, when we talk about hardening, you harden steel to strengthen it. So to harden ourselves is to strengthen ourselves, but we have to have a purpose. A competition has to be there to drive us to do that. And that’s why I said you got to love competition, love it like a loved one, and embrace it so that it becomes the hallmark of who you are. You invite competition, you want it. It’s endearing. You just can’t stand to be without it. That’s the way you should look at competition. Rob Artigo: Well, you’ve always recognized the importance of competition here. And in your decades with Micrel as CEO, you seem to always have this policy that if you’re producing a product, it’s being manufactured and it’s going to go to market, it’s on its way, well, you’re already products ahead in development because you know that if you don’t do it, the competition is going to do it and you’ll be behind. Right? Ray Zinn: Well, staying ahead of the competition is, I don’t care what sport you’re in, you don’t want to wait till the fourth quarter to score all your points. You want to get off to a good start. And so you got to look ahead. Don’t be complacent about your competition. I mean, they’re there, they’re real, and they’re going to eat your lunch if you don’t get ready for them. So having that forward-looking view of competition and how if you don’t take care of your customer, somebody else will. You got to be out there. Don’t be complacent about your competition and where you see your product or service. Rob Artigo: Yeah, it’s like the corporate level or the big level there in business is that the best offense is a good offense. It’s different than the thinking in sports. Going back to the individual, the micro level, and you’d see that the status quo is not progress. I mean, if you really want to look at yourself as an individual, if you aren’t performing to compete, you’re going to leave yourself behind and eventually everything will just pass you up. Ray Zinn: It’s called performing at the highest level. I don’t care what you’re doing, whether you’re washing dishes or whether you’re vacuuming the floor or out there designing another product, you want to be at the top of your game. Do everything you do at the highest level with the way you dress, the way you talk, the way you eat, the way you interact with others. You want to be at the highest level and that keeps you at your peak performance. Rob Artigo: And if you’re at your peak performance, we’ll wrap it up with this, if you do all the work, like you were talking about Jerry Rice, he worked twice as hard as everybody else and he was twice as good as most people. So it just stands to reason that you get that result. But Jerry Rice dropped passes. The team lost games sometimes. I believe he was on multiple Super Bowl teams, including when they went to the championship, the 49ers that is, went to the championship game and didn’t make it to the Super Bowl that year. You win some, you lose some, but being the best and accepting the good with the bad, hey, you’re golden right there, right? Ray Zinn: Well, losing is not a loser. Some people say if you lose, you’re a loser. That’s not true. Losing is not necessarily being a loser. Losing is learning. They both start with L. And so I like to learn through losing because I overcome, I change things, I mix things up and so that I learn from my losing. So don’t think of losing as a loser. Losing is part of competition. It’s part of becoming better at what you’re doing. So just because you lose doesn’t mean you’re a loser. Rob Artigo: Thanks, Ray. You can join the conversation, folks, at toughthingsfirst.com. This has been a special edition of the Tough Things First Podcast, which you can find there at toughthingsfirst.com and also on Ray’s YouTube channel. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray Zinn on X-Twit, as I like to call it, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First, and as you know, the Zen of Zinn 1, 2, and 3 and on sale now is The Essential Leader, this one right here behind me, 10 Essential Attributes and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Thank you, Ray. Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.…
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