Absolutely. Unfortunately these threads always devolve into a superficial analysis of the medical profession for some reason.

I read these "what do you do" threads and am far more impressed by the entrepreneurial business owners who started with nothing, learned through failures, and sold company after company and made it big after years of trial and error. That's something I would never have been able to do!

 

Well said. You can certainly learn a lot about life and leadership from entrepreneurs.

One of my favorites which I'm sure many business leaders here on RL know well: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoqohmccTSc

 

yep

 

^ Agreed.

Over 25~ years:

• Toys 'R' Us = like a summer camp for high-school kids @ minimum wage and rightly so
• Costco shipping doc = hard work, good pay (compared to anything similar) from a very good company to work for; still respect the way they treated every employee, and the best manager I ever had was one of theirs
• Excellence = hard but very rewarding in terms of opportunity for growth; went from nice balance @ 8 issues per year to a bit nutty @ 9 issues per year, but good for building endurance
• Panorama = made Excellence look like Club Med, but was able to build up a wonderful team and we had a lot of fun
• 000 = I have gained an enormous amount of respect for anyone who starts a business from scratch; hard to overstate it, in fact

Suspect all of us can look back on pathways and see similar threads/experiences/wisdom gained if we were listening. Thing I've learned most is that it comes down to a willingness to put the hours in, and a lot of them. Any success without the hours can probably be chalked up to luck. Gladwell was exactly right, and if you get the opportunity to get those 10,000 in somewhere you want to work, take it and go.

 

Has anyone heard from ChicagoWhale on this thread? I have always been intrigued by that moniker.

 

I assume some sort of word play on the Chicago Whales baseball team? But yeah, I'm curious too since he likes to snipe CJ and swing his dick around.

 

He's probably a principal at some dealership at a midwest Porsche dealership.

 

Anesthesiologist. I finished my fellowship in 2005. So this is my 13th year in private practice. I enjoy the clinical aspect of my job and I do believe that we make a difference in people's lives. It's everything else that's wearing me down. Unfortunately as doctors we have given up control over our destiny and the welfare of our patients to every pencil pusher our there. Be it an insurance executive, hospital administrator or any other useless bureaucrat. The system grinds you down. But it is what is. I have put way too many years into this to now change paths. Wish I was a good enough driver that someone would actually pay me to drive

 

Very well said. I greatly admire the ability to build a business from ground up, provide a good or service, employ others, generate wealth. Takes guts, talent, persistence, and faith. I thought Pete Stout's first issue of 000 with "out of nothing" on the front cover was superb.

 

 

 

 

I have been following this thread and it is awesome to see how a passion can unite so many different walks of life.

I was already fortunate to go to medical school in my home country (Brazil) and even more fortunate to be awarded a scholarship that sponsored my research here in the US. Now 16 years later I can only look back and proudly remember those interesting times. Back then I used calling cards to call back home. The stupid system would automatically charge 15 cents whenever you attempted a call, even if it did not go through. I would call the company asking for my money back because that meant 3 minutes of call. 15 cents man! Now being able to afford my hobby is a dream come true. I am sure a more sane person would have used the money on a more financially savvy way. But I could not care less.

I wish I was as smart as some of the folks here and be tough enough to build and fail and get up and build again these amazing enterprises. Or even as smart as a radiologist who can have 12 weeks off a year... All I know is to treat cancer. Yes, I make my patients wait, and sometimes quite a lot. But yes, I do care and respect their time. But how can we discuss whether you want to try a fifth line of therapy with a faint chance of working or dying a peaceful death, then take care of all the crap that happens in the background in a 20 minute slot? All I can do is apologize every time I am late and thankfully every single time I apologize I hear "no worries, it is worth the wait."

Every time people ask if I want my daughter to follow my footsteps I say "no way, she needs to be smart and do something else." But deep inside it would be an honor if she did. We are all blessed to be able to afford these beautiful machines. But I can say very few professions will give you the joy of receiving a card as I did this week from a 27 y/o man who I treated a few years ago with a mass the size of a basketball wrapping around his heart. Now 4 years later he sends me a picture of him, his wife, and their newborn thanking me for giving their family the gift of life twice. That is priceless.

 

^ has that avatar machine been tweaked by the Verla guys? and might you be on a roster 9/6?
pardon ot deviation

 

It was a team work! Bob Varela Foreign Affairs guys did most of the job (roll bar, 6-pt harness, side deletes,...) with phenomenal help from Peter Krause with VBox and Apex Pro. NS2 Media and Autosupershield got the stripes together. BBS FI-R from Wheels Boutique. Oh, and Osmar Santana from MSF Designs painted my helmet!

Yep, looking forward to Summerfest next week. Peter's windows up on Thursday, Chin Friday, and PBOC Kids Racing for Life on the weekend. Can't wait.