Grinding It Out vs. Gaming the System

Almost a quarter of a century ago there was a darling energy company in Houston called Enron whose motto was “we’re the smartest guys in the room”. When it turned out to be a mirage of water out in the desert, thousands had lost their jobs and hundreds of thousands of investors in their stock had been wiped out. Anyone that ever questioned the value of the company before it collapsed was intimidated into silence. Just as today you rarely hear what I consider the most important economic question “what do you really do to earn money”. A better motto to follow today is “just don’t be the dumbest guy in the room”. I noticed on the news that Elon Musk’s company is considering paying him a trillion dollar compensation and it made me wonder what he does to earn that kind of money. It would appear an investor should question putting money into a company that would do this. The founder of McDonald’s, Ray Croc wrote a book about how the company was created called “Grinding It Out”. It described a method that was emblematic of how successful lives are created by building on principles that are followed day after day leading into year after year. When travelling around the world and you need a quick meal and can’t find a place, one can go into a McDonald’s and you will find no unpleasant surprises. This because every store adheres to basic procedures in order to keep their franchise. I saw the same principles at work remembering the men in the fifties gathered around the Cotton Gin Store. I’m sure when they got up before dawn each morning, they had aches and pains from the previous day’s work, but they always reported for duty and ground out another day. I’m not sure they would have understood influencers who make millions, like the Kardashian sisters, just by breathing.