‘The Beauty of Obstacles’

By Stephen Bean | Feb 10, 2010

I found the early ’80s to be extremely interesting and very challenging. Permit me to set the stage for you. Ronald Reagan was the president, a severe recession was in full force (like now), the prime borrowing rate approached 20 percent during many months, unemployment reached double digits, Oakland beat Philadelphia in the Super Bowl, “Dallas” was the most popular TV program – and I was hired as director of marketing for a Michigan-based chemical engineering firm, owned and operated daily by a very unusual fellow whom I will call Mr. S in order to properly disguise his identifying details. Much more about Mr. S later.

So, you are likely thinking what’s all this got to do with operating a self-service laundry or owning a small business? Well, what I am about to share with you about my experiences working for Mr. S just might permanently change your working life and outlook significantly for the better. It certainly did for me.

If you are a regular reader of my columns, you likely know that I was originally trained as a psychologist. However, shortly after completing my graduate training, I was invited to join the family firm, which was an iron and steel foundry. Because behavioral science was my forte, I was logically put into the sales department and, after three or four years of calling on and selling to a wide variety of accounts, I was elevated to vice president of sales. I was actually a pretty decent salesman, but as you might expect, I did not have to compete very much to get the executive title. I guess that success can be relative in a family-owned business – the closer the relative the greater the success.

Our foundry enterprise was quite substantial, and we did business throughout the country, with sales representatives in most major cities. I was a pretty hard-working sales manager and certainly held up my end, but the bottom line was that I always knew that the job was mine forever, as long as good old dad owned the company. I was in the foundry business for a total of 15 years, until the foundry was sold in 1978 to a much larger international firm. At that point, after staying for three more years under an employment contract, it was time to go off on my own. It was the very early ’80s, and the country was in a significant recession.

I saw an ad for a director of marketing position for a chemical engineering firm and applied for the job. I had taken some chemistry courses in college and knew enough to know that if you combined sodium and chloride in the right proportions you could sprinkle the result on your eggs in the morning, and I could essentially sort of talk the chemical talk; however, I was in competition with other applicants – all of whom were trained chemical engineers. On the surface, it was not a very good situation for me.

At this point, I should mention that the principal activity of this firm was manufacturing chemicals and providing the chemical methodologies for extracting and actually reclaiming cutting oils from the water stream regularly discharged from large manufacturing plants prior to the water being discharged down the drain.

Removing the cutting oils and other pollutants prior to discharging the water into the drains is, of course, mandated by federal law, and this firm had developed unique proprietary methods of reclaiming the oils that could then be sold by the manufacturer at a profit, which would actually mitigate the total cost of the water treatment. Other conventional chemical treatments provided by competitor firms reduced the pollutants to sludge, which had to be disposed of at a significant cost. Quite a unique and impressive selling feature indeed.

During my first interview with Mr. S, the fact that I was not a chemical engineer immediately rose to the top. As I recall, he asked me how on earth I expected to compete with the other 25 applicants (remember, there was a recession at the time and jobs, like now, were mighty scarce), seeing as I essentially “did not know up from down,” as he clearly put it, about chemical engineering.

However, I thought that my advantage was that I had a lot of sales and sales management experience dealing with large manufacturing firms, such as the automobile industry, while the other applicants essentially had chemical engineering experience and the reason he was hiring a director of marketing was to increase his sales by obtaining large accounts that he desperately needed to keep his company healthy. In view of the attractiveness of his products, I wondered why he had a sales problem in the first place. Much more about that later, too.

So, there I was sitting in the office of Mr. S, applying for a job that he apparently felt I was not qualified for; I had to get innovative quickly. I suggested to him that, if he were to provide me with all of his sales and technical literature and give me one week, I would provide him with what I thought to be a very creative marketing strategy that I could administer for him to achieve his sales goals. He went along with my suggestion and all of the materials were provided for me. The last thing he said to me was to put it all in writing and just mail it to him for his perusal.

I worked on my marketing strategy for seven straight days, and when it was completed, I mailed it to his attention. I heard nothing for about two weeks. My follow-up calls to him were not returned. At this point, I was convinced that I had about as much chance of getting this position as mice barking.

Exactly 20 days from the date I mailed him my document, his secretary called to inform me that Mr. S would like to see me again. We met on a Friday afternoon, and he offered me the job, indicating that since he realized his goal was to increase sales and did not have an engineering problem, my marketing plan and strategy hit the spot and won him over. I started work as the director of marketing the following Monday morning at 8 a.m. sharp.

I was impressed that I got the job, and I remember thinking that this event in my life, for some strange reason, serendipitously was meant to be. A short time later, I learned exactly why.

As I mentioned, Mr. S was a very unusual man in many ways, to put it mildly. He was a true chemical genius but lacked essentially all interpersonal skills and was very difficult to deal with on pretty much all levels. Frankly, he did not get along with most people, including employees and customers. He was disrespectful, abrasive, frequently overtly insulting and often misrepresented the truth. And these were his good qualities.

Additionally, he suffered from an advanced medical problem, which caused him significant physical discomfort and absolutely affected his behavior and demeanor. He often arrived at the office wearing an Air Force uniform (complete with medals) and had no problem referring to himself as Colonel S, although never having had an association with any branch of service. Nobody within the company had the nerve to ask him about this curious phenomenon.

The very first thing he did was to provide me with a detailed list of large manufacturing plants that he fully expected me to bring on board as customers for his chemicals, and he didn’t hesitate for a minute to mention that if I did not obtain these accounts expeditiously, my position would most certainly end on that note.

What he did not tell me was that, at one time, all of these accounts actually were his customers but due to the fact that Mr. S did not do well (an understatement) dealing with events in his life that occurred outside of a test tube, he had been summarily dismissed as a supplier by all of them. I learned this in no uncertain terms during my more than unpleasant and embarrassing visits with each of them. His chemical products and methods were extremely appealing financially, but the customers simply could not – and would not – deal with Mr. S on an interpersonal level. It was actually that degree of bad.

Let me summarize: The economy was in a recession, unemployment was rampant, no other jobs were available – and I was between a very large rock and a very hard place. I remember thinking that this was the single worst life scenario I had ever experienced, and I spent a few weeks developing new and innovative ways to feel totally sorry for myself. Having just emerged from a family-owned business, I was particularly uncomfortable because, at this point in my career, I was truly in an arm’s length relationship with a boss, and my boss was a more than difficult guy.

Not being able to quit since no jobs were readily available to me due to the recession and certainly not wanting to be without an income, I decided that I needed to get practical and innovative quickly in order to create a way to regain these accounts and keep my job, despite the severe damage Mr. S had done to our relationship with these companies. My answer, after much thought and a number of glasses of red wine, was to approach each target account and freely admit that, while Mr. S was truly a chemical genius and could definitely provide the answer to their water treatment responsibilities, he had substantially no people skills and, frankly, was very irritating, tedious and disruptive (my exact words) – and if they would permit us to regain our supplier status and benefit from his chemical genius, I would be the only person from our company they would ever deal with, and I would somehow figure a way to keep Mr. S in his lab… and far away from humanity.

This seemed to be the answer, and I actually managed to acquire the accounts back one by one. The trick, however, was to actually be able to keep Mr. S away from the customers without ever telling him why. Not an easy task. Explaining this to him would have had dire consequences for me even though I was just the messenger, because he liked nothing better than to visit customers and not hesitate to point out to them that his level of intelligence far surpassed theirs. As I mentioned, Mr. S was a most unusual man.

My job as director of marketing essentially became diverting Mr. S from having contact with his customers. This was not easy to do, but it had to be done. Now the rock was getting bigger and the hard place was getting harder - most certainly the early forerunner of the “Maalox moment” for me.

Fortunately, I somehow managed to invent a number of believable reasons why the customers were not available to meet with Mr. S, despite his great interest in doing so. This activity became my full-time job. I invented every reason possible and imaginable to keep things in working order and preserve my paychecks. For some reason, Mr. S liked me to report the week’s activities in the field to him on Friday afternoons, so I always managed to be out of the office at that time and always called him from a payphone (hey, it was the ’80s) on a very busy highway with a lot of truck traffic, which made hearing me difficult. Since one of Mr. S’s qualities was extreme impatience, he would simply say (scream, actually) that he could not hear me, and he would just talk with me on Monday. This gave me the weekend to figure out what to do next. Weekends seemed to pass very quickly for me back then.

So what has all of this possibly got to do with you and making you a more capable business owner and marketer? Plenty. It’s all about how psychological growth occurs in human beings. In my view, no mental growth of any kind can occur without tolerating some form of discomfort. Only by dealing with and overcoming difficulty can you achieve your full potential.

It seems that people are programmed to avoid discomfort and ambiguity and, when faced with this dynamic duo, they generally go in the direction of least resistance by leaving the scene. For example, if something or someone bothers you or makes you uncomfortable, do you simply avoid that circumstance or individual? If something becomes too difficult, do you stop doing it and just rationalize the reasons for your actions to make yourself feel better? College students drop courses and change their majors, people quit jobs and drop out of organizations, etc. for just this reason – and they rationalize their way out of it by saying things like, “I lost interest,” “It didn’t make sense to me,” “The professor was no good,” “I didn’t want to do business with that customer anyway” and “It’s too hard getting commercial laundry accounts.”

Rationalization is a psychological defense mechanism, and its purpose is to protect our egos. However, it can do us a great injustice by justifying our leaving the scene when, had we stayed and toughed it out, we likely would have grown mentally. Unfortunately, many people don’t develop mental maturity as they get older – they simply get taller.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I simply could not get away from the infamous Mr. S. I truly believe that this was somehow meant to be. I had spent the past 15 years in the business world, but working in a totally accepting environment because the firm was owned by my family. It was not an arm’s length situation for sure and, although I did what I considered to be a very good job, I was not living in the real world of real employer/employee relationships. Granted, Mr. S. was an extreme case, but perhaps being exposed to him for the four years that I was his employee was exactly what I needed to grow mentally and develop psychological toughness and sharpen my business, entrepreneurial, marketing and sales skills.

Because of my four years of working for Mr. S. I believe I am able to accept virtually any sales challenge, am able to solve complex business problems, welcome ambiguity as an exhilarating opportunity and know that in the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.” Fred was correct.

If you truly want to grow, do something every week that frightens you – and, in six months, you will be a better, stronger, and more confident and capable person. Winston Churchill said, “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” Winston also was correct.

And Diana Nyad, at one time the greatest long-distance swimmer in the world, said, “I am willing to put myself through anything; temporary pain or discomfort means nothing to me, as long as I can see that the experience will take me to a new level.” Diana didn’t graduate from college Phi Beta Kappa for no reason.

These folks accomplished great things because they were fortunate enough to know the secret.

It is often a serendipitous happening, so I urge you to be on the lookout for these wonderful opportunities in disguise. Growth comes from dealing effectively with discomfort, and since we as human beings are essentially programmed to avoid discomfort, most of us don’t reach our full potential.

What I learned from exposure to Mr. S for four years was invaluable and changed me as an individual in an extraordinarily positive way. Would I have left his company after the first 30 days if I could? You bet I would have, and likely so fast that I would have created a vacuum in the process. But conditions beyond my control prevented that from happening. As I mentioned, I believe strongly in serendipity. Perhaps it was a higher power acting anonymously that created circumstances from which I simply could not escape.

I urge you to not be so quick to avoid uncomfortable situations. Know that we use only a small part of our mental resources and live far within our limits. We possess potential that we habitually fail to call upon, largely because we so often avoid the uncomfortable and ambiguous situations that literally force us to develop a significant wealth of abilities and depth of character.

More people fail in life by not beginning than in any other way. Therefore, begin to almost welcome discomfort so that you can use the experience. The beauty of obstacles lies in the personal growth and potential financial opportunities they often so cleverly disguise. Our minds can truly only grow from encountering and overcoming resistance.

Mr. S was a very difficult man to genuinely like and appreciate. I worked for him for approximately four years, and I was totally changed by it for the better. It was an invaluable educational experience, and I am a smarter, more capable person today because of it. Did I enjoy it at the time? Absolutely not. Did I realize the benefits of working for this type of an individual at the time? Absolutely not. In retrospect, am I fortunate to have worked for Mr. S? Absolutely!

I resigned my position at the chemical engineering company in 1984 so that I could purchase my laundry machinery distributorship. A number of years later, I read in the newspaper that Mr. S had passed away. He was never very nice to me, never treated me respectfully, made me feel extremely uncomfortable and often threatened to relieve me of my job. Yet, his passing saddened me greatly, because without his influence I would not be the person I am today. He taught without intending to teach, and I was just fortunate enough to serendipitously have crossed his path.

I’ve heard it said that “life is a cobweb, not an organization chart,” so you will never know when a mental growth opportunity will come your way carefully disguised as a bad experience. I hope you will keep your eye out for these opportunities, because there is no significant success in life without some form of dues-paying hardship.

Here’s the dilemma: People are essentially programmed to avoid discomfort, which they do quite well (more often than not) – but only by encountering, tolerating and properly dealing with discomfort can we develop the skills and mental disciplines with which to become successful.

Although you may not have viewed life events like this in the past, you can begin doing so immediately. It’s never too late. Start now – procrastination is the thief of time.