Curious Jimbeau

In the late 90’s before the VC’s shut their doors and the bottom fell out of the IPO marketplace, we managed to raise seed money for our entertainment company. We had a crazy idea to build a skateboard park made out of dirt and hold a competition for Motocross riders. That event became the sport of freestyle motocross and our investors did real well in the end. But we had to convince them first.

It’s a tough task to convince anyone, irrespective of their level of success that they should invest in something they just can’t understand. The only way that seems to work is to build it first.

When we wanted to build portable snowboard mountains in 1995, I tried in vain to raise some dollars. Then we got the contract to build one for the NFL Experience in Miami and got funded in a hurry. In 1997, when we hit upon the idea of Freestyle Motocross I had numerous financier meetings and labored to articulate the vision of flying motorcycles selling tickets. So we had to hang it all out. We promoted the first event, got industry and rider support, sold out our event and lost everything I borrowed to put into it. But our future investor attended the event and subsequently funded us.

There really is no experience in life more rewarding than following your dreams. Going for broke, burning the boats in pursuit of something you believe brings rewards far before the dollars flow.

Believing and Be Living are closely entwined.

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The Tao-te Ching was written over 2000 years ago during a period of prolonged civil warfare in China. Taoist lore proposes that invincibility and a level of no conflict can be attained through “deep knowledge and strong action”…

As an entrepreneur, I am often hard pressed to maintain focus on our vision amid financing and economic challenges. In 2008, we battled the beginnings of a market melt-down, high energy prices and a recession that decreased our earnings and increased our operating costs. I have always faced adversity with passion but the Tao-te Ching proposes that we should seek rational, rather than emotional approaches to our problems. This was a tough task for me.

What I found helpful was to…read. I subscribed to every magazine related to our business. I read about the successes and strategies of our competitors and labored thru articles that were unrelated but helpful. My desk is now piled with a tapestry of titles such as, PC Magazine, PC News, Wired, Entrepreneur, Mobile, Scientific American, RCR News. What it has done is given me a broader understanding of our marketplace and increased my knowledge of our business.

In a nutshell by increasing my understanding of the battlefield I have been able to act more decisively and approach business decisions with better vision. Deep knowledge of your person, business, relationship or otherwise will bring more clarity and lessen conflicts.

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In 1792 the NY Stock Exchange was formed by a group of merchants and brokers gathered under a tall tree at 68 Wall Street. The stock market has provided liquidity for our government debts (a year earlier the fledgling US Government sold $80M in bonds to cover its chit on the Revolutionary War) and fueled the growth of industry and invention ever since.

One thing I found interesting is that in 1844 the Morse Telegraph company was funded thru the same exchange. In turn, the Telegraph gave investors faster access to information and sped up the speculative process. Morse eventually morphed into Western Union who launched the first transcontinental telegraph connection in 1866.

During that period, when over half of the telegraph usage was reported to be trades in stocks and bonds, telegraph companies charged around $5 per word and could transmit 15-17 words a minute.

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I just read that Christmas trees are clogging up our landfills and that they take longer to decompose than they do to grow.  Since most landfills are compacted so tightly, there’s usually not enough air for trash (even trees) to biodegrade.

I was curious to know what tree recyclers did with the Christmas trees they recycle and found some interesting uses, such as:

Mulch – The Chipper mascot encourages Georgia citizens to give new life to their Christmas Trees by recycling them for mulch.

Habitat Restoration – Approximately 300 Christmas Trees were used to help rebuild the dunes along the coast following Hurricane Ivan.

Rookery’s:  The Heron Rookery at Baker’s Lake reuses Christmas Trees as nesting materials for the birds, many of which are forced away from their native habitats due to overcrowding.

Fish Habitat – Christmas Trees are used in lakes and ponds all over the United States to help create natural habitats for fish.

Fuel – Once Christmas Trees have been ground up, they can be used to create boiler fuel to power plants and factories.

Medicine – Biolyse Pharma Corp in Toronto, Ontario, makes an influenza medicine with the shikimic acid extracted from the needles of discarded Christmas Trees.

I found a tree recycling center by visiting National Christmas Tree Association – enter your zip to find a nearby recycling program.

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Throughout my life teachers, parents and mentors have all stressed the importance of having clear cut goals and creating a plan to reach them. But, I feel too much focus on a specific business goal can limit your flexibility and cause you to miss out on opportunities that arise. Put too much emphasis on climbing the tree and you miss the fruit growing close to the ground.

Business targets move and you need to be able to alter your course. This is a tough task for most because we like to know, and be able to tell others, where we are going. I’m not proposing that a derivation from a business plan but rather to include a healthy dose of lateral thinking to encourage innovation and accommodate changing business climates.

Being goal free can encourage innovation and invite opportunity.

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I have a (false) sense of confidence in myself that believes that I will work harder, longer and more diligently than anyone around me. I also stand at work. For those of you, who like me, insist upon overcoming our problems ourselves it can be tough to find objective feedback that you can accept, let alone listen to. A few years ago I sustained a back injury that made it very painful to sit down, so I started standing. I built a stand-up work station and nearly 5 years later my back feels great, but then my hip began to hurt. I saw a chiropractor and then a doctor but nothing worked until I found…my mirror…

In the late 1800’s, F. Matthias Alexander was a Tasmania actor specializing in one-man Shakespearean shows of tragedy and comedy. Unfortunately, Alexander was repeatedly sidelined by the loss of his voice and sought out advice from the leading doctors and speech therapists of his time. Nothing seemed to help and he looked inward for another solution. What he hit upon was a technique, now called the Alexander Technique, which to me is the essence of self dependence…Self Observation.

What Alexander did was set up a series of mirrors to observe the patterns of his recitals. He noted that whenever he attempted to recite his neck muscles constricted and compressed his larynx which caused him to gasp for breaths. He noted other tendencies and consistencies and then sought ways to change them. By acknowledging his own actions he was able to modify his behavior and unlearn the patterns that had contributed to loosing his voice.

The Alexander Technique is an ideal exercise for Americans in general. We are brought up believing in our superior intellect and innate knowledge of everything from driving instructions, technical manuals and global policing. No-one is supposed to tell us what to do, how to feel except ourselves and maybe a doctor or two.

What I do know, is that we listen to ourselves. We respect our own opinion, act on our own input and will generally fight for our beliefs. Therein lies what I believe to be the value of the Alexander Technique of self observation because we are more likely to believe, and act on, our own findings. Self Observation is the essence of objective feedback and more likely to provide life-changing value for us.

So, what I did was observe my own actions and noted that throughout a long day I spent and exorbitant amount of time posting on my right leg. Unconsciously, I had developed a standing pattern that placed a lot of stress on my right hip. I set about modifying my posture and have noticed the hip pain diminish.

In Alexander’s case, his recital skills improved so much he found sponsors to send him England, but these funds were short by several hundred pounds. Alexander had a passion for horses and after detailed horse observations at the local race track, he won the balance on a day at the races.

Small Business

The word Corporation is derived from the root corpus, meaning “body.” An ardent entrepreneur, I have always felt that the Corporate style was too rigid, filled with followers who punch the clock in between meetings. Meeting after meeting with decision makers arrayed around a table in starched shirts with tight belts locked into uncomfortable chairs, charged with creating new ideas and solving problems with a big cramp in their…style.

I feel activity is crucial to creativity and corporations could benefit by loosening up a bit. Adding the nap room used to be an aggressive approach but I think the ping pong room works even better. Get your staff outside during their work day, encourage them to work out, run, bike or lift. By instilling an activity ethic in your company and meetings, you encourage active thought and inspire employees to change habitual body-mind positions that lead to stagnancy.

At our core humans we are all about movement, laughter and fun. Increasing the corporate fun factor should increase productivity in kind. Like our bodies, corporations need to stretch once in awhile, put in a good work out and eat a variety of meals to retain good health.

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When I first heard that salt was bad for you I asked my then 85 year old grandmother to cut down on her intake. She replied, “Jimmy, mankind has been building cities alongside salt flats since the dawn of time.” “Do you think I’m going to listen to what these young doctors say when 1000 years of history tells me different?” For a woman who saw the emergence of the automobile, the telephone and watched the first Michelin man walk on the moon, she was attuned to change and had grown immune to hype.

“But, Mimi they didn’t know how bad salt was for you back then and they didn’t have the sophisticated testing techniques to prove it like they do today,” I said. “Don’t get salty with me,” she replied.

What she taught me though was to make sure that new ideas are qualified by practicality and not only by present tense accreditation’s. I think this is a natural tendency of man who is inclined to mistake rhythm for safety and stick with that which is familiar. However, with the emergence of digital delivered expertise from virtually every sector, it’s easy to see how we are being affected by glowing reports of new ideas. Suddenly, expertise that had to be proved to a suspicious publisher, can now be extolled thru infomercials, ads and blogs without standard practices of responsible editorial review.

Now, as I sift thru the projected uses and innovative applications affecting the future of our mobile phone industries I remember to take all their hype with a grain of salt.

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As a human resource manager I often find myself at odds with my own nature. In one of my first business enterprises, at age 19, I bought a franchise from a Scientology based business, Toy Airplane Gliders of America. During the intensive management seminar we were exposed to a number of L. Ron Hubbard’s business principles and one in particular struck me as odd. Don’t let your employees get too close to you…

I remember listening to the instructor warn about keeping a professional distance between your employees, and saying to myself that it’s all about the love in my world and employees that like me will work harder for me. I had never connected with any boss who was too rigid or too cool, and I was intent on being a personable and approachable manager. My management approach failed miserably during my Christmastime Toy Airplane concession at the Willowbrook Mall in Houston. Most of my employees were 16-17 and well versed at manipulating their parents, teachers and me. They soon found out my trusting nature and there was rarely a day that one or more didn’t call in sick, ask to go home early or just basically slack off. Perhaps it was the fact most of them were regularly experimenting with “The Hug Drug” aka Ecstasy that drained their energy as well as their spinal fluids.

From Toy Airplanes to Mobile Entertainment, I continue to maintain a close bond with my employees which I feel is partly responsible for keeping us in business. I believe that employees are empowered by inclusion and the ability to make decisions. The pressure then falls back upon the company to present a clear position statement so that all employee decisions can be made without managerial input.

I believe the sheer volume of information small businesses must absorb and act upon in today’s world remands managers to disavow the general rules of tolerance for independent decision. Instead, managers should embrace ambitious associates with ambiguous skills and place them in decision making positions with oversight that includes a relationship of trust. It’s a We Thing.

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On my first trip to New York in 1994, I needed 2 twelve foot surfboards to augment my trade show exhibit at the Javitz Convention Center. I managed to locate some in Long Island and arranged to have them shipped by bus to Manhattan. I tried in vain to locate a Manhattan based station wagon taxi or van big enough to transport my boards before the bus arrived with my boards. As the driver and I struggled to extricate the heavy boards from his bottom luggage racks I mentioned my task of getting the boards across town. “You’re Fucked,” he said before boarding his bus and busying himself at the controls. A split second later a monster Ford truck pulled up in front of me blaring Bruce Springsteen and trailing half a mullet out an open window. “Hey bro, I have this problem. I can’t get these boards cross town, you wouldn’t happen to be going by the Javitz would you? Oh yah, great!” That was all it took for me to start throwing the boards in the back of his truck. On my last pass in front of the bus I noted the astonished look on the driver’s face and was confident I had reaffirmed his faith in random acts of New Yorker kindness. Over the years I’ve become fairly comfortable navigating in and out of NY but lately traveling there has become a major challenge. Flights out of Long Beach on Jet Blue to Dulles or JFK have been smooth with Continental to Newark proving the best from John Wayne. The biggest hassle I find is locating lodging on Manhattan where they operate at 85%+ occupancy. I now regularly stay in furnished one and two bedroom apartments booked thru www.woogo.com

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