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Life, Achievement
Lead the life that
will make you kindly and friendly to everyone about you, and you
will be surprised what a happy life
you will lead.
Everyone's got it in him, if he'll only
make up his mind and stick at it. None of us is born with a stop-valve
on his powers or with a set limit to his capacities. There's no limit
possible to the expansion of each one of us.
When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on
what he can do.
The man who has
done his best
has done everything.
Entrepreneurship
The first essential in a boy's career is to find out what he's
fitted for, what he's most capable of doing and doing with a relish.
You've got to start
with your gut, with
something you are really passionate
about, for a good reason. You won’t get there by sitting in a closet and
thinking, ‘Boy I know the world must want this.’
A man to carry on a successful business must have
imagination. He must see things as in a
vision, a
dream of the whole thing.
A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited
enthusiasm.
I was once asked if a big business man ever reached his objective. I
replied that if a man ever reached his objective he was not a big
business man.
The fact that I was out here and scrambling around as a little
entrepreneur
with no
resources was fortuitous. I wasn’t encumbered by those old guys
telling me what to do.
I’m sure luck helps every successful
entrepreneur. But
it doesn’t come without a lot of preparation and
hard work.
When I started in this business, it was pretty crude to say the
least. I had little or no resources. I have one favorite example of
a guy who came in to complain about something. He was from Chicago
and had an accounting background. And I said, well, if you’re so
damn smart, come out of accounting and start working here. So he
came around and started helping me out. It was very difficult. We
were mavericks at best.
Creating
Customer Value
I feel good every day about helping people invest; helping them
achieve financial independence.
I can't overemphasize that we have the right kind of
client-relationship people who really have the interests of the
client at hand first – not second, but
first. We are willing to risk
short-term revenue to do the right thing for the customer and ensure
long-term success.
Our organization just has to outfox our larger competitors by really
emphasizing our
value proposition, which is really outstanding
compared to them. The good news is we are a highly flexible
organization. We have a national footprint, we have low costs, we're
efficient, so we can compete at this point with almost anybody and
do a great job for our clients.
My goal is, frankly, to make sure our clients have every confidence
to recommend Schwab to their friends and relatives if they are
thinking about a place to do their saving and investing.
At the end of every day, having a clientele that speaks well of you,
that’s the largest source of business. I don't care what kind of
business you're in. Clients referring us to their friends or
relatives is so much more powerful than any advertising we could
ever do.
Winning Organization and People
All successful employers are stalking men who will do the unusual,
men who think, men who attract attention by performing more than is
expected of them.
I like to think in terms of giving people an understanding of why
they should have the same
passion as I do – why their life has purpose working here and
why they should believe as much as I believe. I want them to seek a
higher level of satisfaction above just making a salary.
I took anybody. They were a full collection of people. They
took risks in their careers. Some were misfits at other places.
I took a lot of misfits in. There were some strange people. Anybody
who was a reasonable person and
communicated well, I hired.
I was one of the first businesses to hire women.
Fast Thinking
Along the way, I’ve frustrated some of my associates because I could
see the end zone of a particular thing quicker than they could, so I
was moving ahead to conclusions. I go straight from step A to Z, and
say: ‘This is the outcome. I can see it.’
When I read, I can feel myself converting the written code into
sounds before I can process it. Fast readers don't go through all
that. |
