Tough Things First

Good or bad, a rise in wages results in reaction. The earner may first have more money, but prices follow and can wipe-out the gains. In this Tough Things First reality check, Ray Zinn explores a game that is less than zero sum when it’s forced.

Rob Artigo: We once talked about kiosks. What we were talking about was technology. I think we were talking about robots being used in restaurants and we talked about kiosks. And I was adamant, I felt like they were impersonal and that they would end up backfiring on businesses. And in California here where I’m at right now, you have house here, $20 minimum wage that went into effect here in California has made the proliferation of kiosks grow also by leaps and bounds. Cash registers are literally having signs hanged on them at fast food restaurants where they just said, “Please use the kiosk,” and they have no person operating the cash register anymore, you have to use the kiosk because they don’t want to pay somebody to work there. Employees at the counters are really becoming a thing of the past. You walk into a place and there’s nobody standing there.

Rob Artigo cont: They only walk up and hand you your food, and there isn’t really any interaction. The most interaction you get is if you go through the drive-through. I am out in the field doing work all the time, so I end up going through and getting snacks and things like that or light lunches in fast food as much as I can do that by going through the drive-through. And I noticed that some places are using AI voices to take orders. So they don’t even have a person that’s talking to you and creating a relationship. If I find out that it’s an AI voice, I feel like I don’t have to be courteous to it. It’s like I don’t have to say hi or “How’s your day?” or whatever.

Let’s go into this conversation by… Let me ask you the big question. Did the high minimum wage in California just erase a bunch of what used to be called entry level jobs?

Ray Zinn: It will. There’s no question. We know that from listening to some of the new stories from these different fast food places like McDonald’s and Burger King and Taco Bell and so forth. Yes, it will definitely impact not only our relationship with that particular vendor, but also our relationship with other people. So now when we got caller ID on our phones and it tells us who’s calling, if it’s just a robot voice as you would or an AI voice, I just hang up because I’m not dealing with a real person. And so I don’t feel any obligation to sit and listen to their spiel. I will not listen to a robot voice. And maybe I’ll have to get used to it because if that’s all there is, if there’s no longer that human interaction, then how do I chew out somebody that’s not really there as you would? No, I think it’s going to cause a big problem. I mean, this whole thing about reducing human interaction I think is harmful, in my mind.

Rob Artigo: I noticed that really just in the last few hours, really last 24 hours or so, that California healthcare workers will get their bump in their paycheck too. It goes to $25 an hour minimum wage for healthcare workers, and that includes everybody who works in a healthcare facility. So if you’re the maintenance guy or you’re the chief bottle washer or whatever, washing dishes in the cafeteria, you’re getting $25 an hour to work in that environment. Who’s going to pay for that?

Ray Zinn: You guess who, all of us. So in business, roughly 1/3 of the cost of a product is labor. And so if that labor cost goes up, you can rest assured that your price is going to increase 33% based on that increase in cost. We are living in a high inflationary time, even though some of the government officials are saying, “Get used to it, live with it. That’s the way it is,” the give and take as you would, it’s just still hard because most people’s wages aren’t increasing as fast as inflation is.

And companies, by the way, don’t mind inflation because it means more to their bottom line. If you’re, for example, adding 30 or 40% profit to your costs, then if their costs are going up, your bottom line’s going up because you’re just tacking on more profit. And so that’s why, by the way, the stock market’s doing so well right now. We tend to give the government credit for this, is that because inflation’s going up, profits are going up. And so that’s a good news and bad news. We’re dealing in a difficult time. Inflation is okay as long as it’s not out of line. And so unfortunately, inflation has increased so dramatically in the last few years that we can’t adjust to it quick enough. And so it’s a tragedy right now that a lot of lower income people are facing, is that their costs are going up faster than their wages.

Rob Artigo: And some people have said, “Hey, why stop at $20 minimum wage? Why not $30 or $100 an hour if you can just do that?” And also one of the quotes that I remember from Ben Franklin, one of the famous quotes was that… I don’t remember the exact quote, but it’s something along the lines of, “This great experiment of America will die when the people figure out they can vote themselves a raise.”

Ray Zinn: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true, yeah. Well, that’s what the unions are doing. They’re voting themselves a raise. And they do it by, of course, by picketing. Wages should naturally go up to compensate for increasing inflation. It’s just a natural thing. But remember, if it goes up too quickly, then there’s a price to pay just because of trying to trade differences, trade imbalances between countries. If our wages go up dramatically faster than these other countries, that makes it more difficult for foreign trade. Be careful what you wish for as they say.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, I am just looking at a list of some of the negative impacts that either have taken place or are taking place or will take place. Workers who still have jobs in California, and this is specifically the fast food workers, but anyone affected by an arbitrary minimum wage hike, says workers who still have jobs will lose them because now their employers will have more incentive to automate. And apparently, Chipotle, which does the burritos and burrito bowls, have figured out a way to have a robot make their burrito bowls. Obviously, like I said, if you go into a restaurant, there’s nobody operating the cash register. My reaction to that is instantly I go, “There’s your $20 minimum wage job.” A not job, a no job. And people have cut work. El Pollo Loco, which is another brand, I think started in California many years ago, they cut employees wages by 10%. Not wages, their hours by 10%.

Ray Zinn: As I said, be careful what you wish for. I asked my wife if she wanted one of those robot vacuum cleaners and she says, “Well, yeah, if I got one, then what would I do?” And that’s a good point because part of her responsibility is doing some house cleaning. And so we don’t want to end up not having anything to do because then we become more lazy or lazier and we forget how to work, how to get things done. I think we are going a little too fast. Maybe AI is what’s driving it, but certainly there’s a price to pay for too much machine interference as you would.

Rob Artigo: Just think back to when I was getting 3.35 an hour I think is where I started and I started at… And we’ll wrap this up here with this thought, is that the entry level, I was talking about entry level positions. Somebody who’s in high school perhaps would take a job at… I took a job at Wienerschnitzel. I think my first one might’ve been at Kentucky Fried Chicken, and then I went over to Wienerschnitzel, but gave me an opportunity to work and learn how to show up on time for a job and that sort of thing. I didn’t particularly care for working in the fast food industry. I didn’t like the pacing of it and some other issues. But it was an entry level position for me.

When somebody’s working another job, a security guard making $18 an hour goes, “All right, well I’m just going to go to work for McDonald’s and make 20 if I can,” I mean, wouldn’t it behoove a McDonald’s franchise operator, for example, to discriminate more on who they hire and make sure that the quality of that worker is worth 20 bucks an hour? So they have to be able to spell, do math if they happen to interact with anybody that they know how to approach it and be professionals or something. Because you’re not going to expect a teenager to do those things, but you might be able to find somebody who’s a little older and a little bit more mature and somebody who can handle the job for 20 bucks an hour and you’re going, “Hey, look, if I’m going to pay $20 an hour. I want that person to be worth $20 an hour.”

Ray Zinn: Well, it might push more of these youth then to get a better education so that they can get a better job like 30, 40, $50 an hour or $100 an hour. There’s, as I say, Newton’s first law of economics, is [inaudible 00:10:02] actually you have in one direction, you have an equal and opposite in the other. And so there’s a certain leveling that’ll take place over time. It’s just that when it happens too quickly, it becomes problematic. And so let’s do it in moderation as they say.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, I mean everything in moderation and we don’t do that in California. It’s all or nothing. All right, Ray, thank you very much for that conversation. I want to be able to tell the listeners that they can reach out to you if they have questions. They can go to toughthingsfirst.com. They can also offer some comments there. If you have a topic you’d like to have Ray discuss here on Tough Things First, the podcast, well, you can do that. You can drop that note there. We can always continue your education by coming back for the next podcast, reading the material on the podcast, which is blogs and links to information to raise social media, which is out there, and also his books, Get Tough Things First, which is available digitally and also in paperback, and the Zen of Zinn series 1, 2, and 3. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

Effective leadership is about being a people person, not about people pleasing. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn wonders if a better understanding of your own leadership style can help you communicate better with different personalities.

Ray Zinn: Hello there, Rob.

Rob Artigo: Your idea was, what kind of leader are you? And I bet the listeners are wondering, how could four colored squares help them understand their leadership style?

I looked into this, and there’s this guy whose name’s Don Lowry, and he developed a system called True Colors. There are a couple of different iterations or versions of this kind of thing out there, and some of this is based on other versions of this. So I’m not saying that this one is the end-all, be-all, but to understand sort of the origins of it, this particular one that we’re using here, Don Lowry developed the system, True Colors, and it uses four primary colors to designate personality types and behavioral styles. And what we want to be able to do is find out what can we glean from that about our leadership styles individually and where the crossover exists.

 Rob Artigo Cont: So the colors in the picture that we have on the desktop are blue, red, yellow, and green. But actually, let’s translate that and we’ll just call them orange, gold, blue, and green. And the red will be orange and the yellow will be gold, just to make sure we keep things on track here. So there is obviously a lot more we can cover here, but we just can’t cover it here because it’s just not long enough as a podcast. But it is a personality test, so you can Google it and actually find a test, a version of this, and if you look up the one that is this True Colors, you’ll actually be able to take an online test and figure out where things go. It’s helpful, I think.

If a person’s brightest color is gold, then they tend to be steadfast, loyal, traditional, a rule-follower or a rule-maker, parental, orderly, structured, punctual and precise. And those are some of the things we talked about in a previous podcast. I think this sort of sounds like you, steadfast, loyal, traditional, a rule-follower or a rule-maker, parental type, you’re orderly, you’re structural, you’re punctual, and you’re precise. Would you agree with that assessment? Do you think you’re falling more into the gold category?

Ray Zinn: Well, yeah, I guess. But that’s not the purpose of this podcast. It’s to talk about what kind of a leadership style that we have. Not that any one of them is bad or the other ones are good, it’s just that we need to recognize what kind of a leadership style do we portray. So the ones on the right side of that chart, what we call the hotter colors-

Rob Artigo: Yeah, the blue and the green.

Ray Zinn: On the right side.

Rob Artigo: Oh, I’m sorry, on the right side. I apologize. My dyslexia is getting me.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, so on the right side, those are the hotter colors. We talk about the cool colors tend to be less dramatic, and then the ones on the right are more dramatic and what we call the hotter colors. And so on the right side of the chart, you’re more of an extrovert in personality, whereas on the left, the cooler colors, you’re more of an introvert. And so, as I said, there’s not necessarily any good color or bad color. They’re just colors, and they represent really kind of, in the psychological test that you can take, kind of represent what kind of a leader you are.

And if you recognize the kind of leader you are, that will help you as you lead and direct and manage in your company. Try not to be something you’re not. In other words, if you tend to be more introverted, so you are more cool in the way you view things, then use that to your strength or your advantage. On the other hand, if you’re more of an extrovert, you’re more outgoing, more deliberate in the way you view things, more ones and zeros, as you would, as opposed to the other, which is more in between, more gray area.

So on the left side or the left of the chart, more introverted, you’re more gray. In other words, you don’t view things in black and white, whereas on the right side or the more harsh colors, as you would, you tend to be more black and white, more ones and zeros. That’ll help you as you understand your leadership style. That’ll help you become a better leader.

As I said, I’m going iterate this again, it’s not that one is better than another or one is bad and something is good. It’s just that we need to understand our leadership style so that we can do a better job in influencing those that we’re in charge of supervising.

Rob Artigo: I think you can also see by looking at the various personality types that some of these things carry over. For example, we have green and gold here. You have the introvert on the left and the extrovert on the right, which is the gold color, the hotter color. But they’re both people who emphasize feelings and they’re relationship-oriented. Both the introvert and the extrovert have those shared elements. And what you can learn from looking at the different elements is you can see which color is your dominant color, but you can also see where you have things in common with some of the other categories and really realize that maybe you have a broader base.

Doubt anybody takes this test and finds out that they’re high-scoring in the hot orange or red color and find out that they’re zeros on all the other colors. They’re going to cross over here and there. And it is of value when you’re trying to figure out self-knowledge, which is something that you talk about a lot, and understanding yourself and your leadership style. This is just another tool to do that.

Ray Zinn: The people that you supervise are also one of the color points on that chart. So if you’re dealing with an extrovert, one on the hotter side, that your leadership style should be to understand that and use that to your advantage, and vice versa, on the left side or the cooler side, if that person’s more introverted. You need to understand how they are and what kind of personality they have because it will help you as you manage them and lead them in their responsibilities.

So this is not just a chart for leaders, this is a chart for everyone to understand who we’re dealing with, why we’re dealing with them, having the understanding of their personality. And so, again, if you’re an introvert and you’re supervising an introvert, that makes it easier. But if you’re an extrovert supervising an introvert, or vice versa, if you’re an introvert supervising an extrovert, that’s important for you to understand that because you have to deal with that personality.

Rob Artigo: Right. Yeah. You don’t want to expect the other people to automatically understand your perspective. You have to be able to approach it or tailor your interactions with people so that you can better communicate with them based on their personalities. That’s intel, as they say in the military world, that you understand the people that you’re communicating with have certain personality types, and this is the way to approach them. It just means that you’re approaching it logically.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. The purpose of this podcast is really to have you consider exploring what kind of leader you are and then what kind of people are you leading. So I would encourage you to understand what your personality is and also the personality of the people you’re supervising, and that will help you then become a better leader is that understanding, being kind, gentle, persuasive, and being empathetic is a natural thing for all colors. You don’t have to be obnoxious and dogmatic just because you’re on the extrovert side or the red side, as you would. And nor do you have to be so mamsy-pamsy, “Let them do whatever they want,” if you’re on that left side, more of a liberal, kind of a quiet, liberal type of a view, more introvert-ish.

So it’s good to really understand who you are and understand who they are, and that’ll help you then become a better leader.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, and there are lots of ways of looking at this that help you understand your own personality, but also as your leadership style is, and also understand the people around you because you can make positive adjustments if you just understand the environment you’re working in.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. Being cognizant of their personality and also of your personality will help you as you migrate through this leadership style that you need to have as a leader in your particular organization.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, this is a fast-growing podcast, and listeners are helping us grow by leaps and bounds, one of the top in Silicon Valley as a podcast and we’d like to keep it that way. So our listeners can check into their favorite podcast platform and give us a rating of four or five stars, whatever they are offering. And also, check out Ray’s books, the Zen of Zinn I, II, and III, and of course, Tough Things First. I look forward to the next time, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

Diversity is a natural course of business. Not just in gender and race, but in thought. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses the key differences between the proverbial left and right brains on the job.

Rob Artigo: Now you’re someone who has run a diverse workplace at Micrel. You’ve ran it for decades, all walks of life it seems. You had men and women working there. You had short people, tall people, I’m assuming people who are a little larger, a little smaller, a little thinner, a little more healthy and a little bit maybe a little bit more lax in their exercise routine. And also the idea that you’re in a creative environment, so you have different ideas and different types of creativity out there. Let’s talk a little bit about personalities here. Some people are conservative and some people are more liberal, and I would say that that manifests itself in politics, but this isn’t really about politics as much as it is about understanding the people who are around you and the differences. The people who are more conservative versus people who are more liberal, give me just some general ideas where you see differences between the personality types.

Ray Zinn: Well, the biggest difference between an individual is conservative versus one who is liberal is that conservatives tend to be more religious and they follow what we refer to as the Mosaic law. That’s the 10 Commandments, which is found in the Torah and the Bible. And the 10 Commandments were the ones that Moses brought down off Sinai and hr had those tablets, and he saw how wicked the people were when he came down and he threw them down. He broke them and smashed them into pieces. And then again, they were reconstituted and they’re basically the rules or the guidelines, laws that most countries legal system is based on is the Mosaic law. Because Moses was in the Torah and the Bible and so forth, the Quran or whatever, they tend to be more religious derivatives as you would, commandments or laws brought down from heaven as they say. That’s the conservative view or values is based more on what we refer to as the moral law or the Mosaic law.

Liberal is different, meaning they don’t necessarily adhere so much to the Mosaic law, but more to what we call the amoral law or the law that was set up by the legal system or the courts. Not so much coming as you would through a religious media like the Bible or the Quran or whatever, or the Torah, but more related to what the populace accepts as law. So in other words, the liberal view is less defined by the moral law or the love thy neighbor as myself kind of law, but more on what’s legal. In other words, what the court system has defined as legal.

For example, in the moral law, adultery is defined as one of the sins or one of the rules that needs to be followed. But in the amoral law or the liberal law, there’s no crime against committing adultery, I guess depends upon if you’re Donald Trump or not. But they accused him of having this relationship with Stormy Daniels and then hiding it as you would in some way he was keeping his records of that payment. Again, the liberal view is that we don’t necessarily follow the moral law or the Mosaic law, but we follow what is legal and not legal as defined by the rules of that country. That’s basically the difference, Rob, is the amoral is more focused on what’s legal and the moral law is based on what’s more what’s right or what’s based on what God defined as the Mosaic law or the moral law.

Morality, we’ve heard that term before is kind of the guideline of the conservative and so that the liberals say, well, let the people define what’s legal and what’s not as opposed to what God says is legal.

Rob Artigo: And I would take that a little bit further thinking about that. And when you have the Mosaic law being the rule of law, and then the liberal approach is more of the interpretation of the law according to norms of the moment. And I was looking at some research from 2013, so just over 10 years ago, it showed that conservatives desire security, predictability, and authority more than liberals do. And liberals are more comfortable with novelty and nuance, which I was just referring to when it comes to interpretation of law, and complexity. And I wonder if it’s still that way now here 11 years later, and was it that way in the 1970s when you started Micrel?

Ray Zinn: Yes, it’s substantially changed. I mean, the younger generation or what they call generation Z, they’re more liberal. In other words, they’re not so much… Well, they’re not religious for one thing. So if we define how a conservative would view loyalty, God, belief in God, belief in family, and belief in country or patriotism, they’re at least two to three times more likely to favor loyalty and family and God and patriotism more than the liberals who are less likely to make that as a priority. And so the Gen Z or the younger upcoming generation, they’re much less religious and their belief in what they call the moral law is like one third that of the conservatives.

So that that’s a change. And you have to understand then that, for example, in a company, loyalty is very important. The younger generation doesn’t believe that loyalty is that important. And especially when they can work from home or if they’re so mobile now compared to way it was 50, 60 years ago, you have to understand that as you now deal with that younger group.

Rob Artigo: That statistic has continued, I guess, the trend downwards for years, which is that fewer people feel strongly about having a religion or believing in God. And then also patriotism. And one of the stories I saw, which was actually from… I believe it was from 2023, and it said under 40% of Americans in general, we’re talking about young people, but also in this case under 40% of Americans said patriotism was very important to them. A similar number shared that opinion about religion. In 1998, when this survey first asked about these values, 70% of Americans felt patriotism was very important and 62% felt that way about religion. So we obviously have seen a enormous drop really in the percentage of people who feel that way. What do you owe that to?

Ray Zinn: The breakdown of the home, having a strong mother and father figurehead in the home has somewhat degraded those attributes of loyalty, family, God, and country. There’s less, I think, teaching and actually encouraging religion actually in the home. And if the children aren’t getting that emphatic guidance and direction, then they’re less likely to be religious. It’s interesting, this podcast wasn’t meant to dwell or focus on religion, but because it has such a dramatic impact on the morality of each of us that we can’t just ignore it.

That’s what’s actually covered in teachings in religion, is morality. That’s the moral law. And so if you’re not getting that, if that’s not being taught in some way either in school or church or family, or if you’re not getting that moral background, then you’re less likely to be moral. So if we look at loyalty, God, country, and family, that’s more of a moral issue as opposed to being what they call amoral, meaning whether it’s defined in the law or not. Not having that focus, religious focus as you would or moral focus, don’t call it religious, let’s call it moral. If you don’t have that moral focus in your home, in your community, in your education, or in the work environment, if the work environment that you’re in doesn’t promote morality, then again, it’s going to become less of a priority.

Rob Artigo: I think that in the more secular business environment, it manifests itself as a focus on ethics, on ethical behavior, and-

Ray Zinn: That’s all part of it.

Rob Artigo: And so you just don’t see that focus anymore. People don’t focus on that. It’s really all about what you can do for me to validate my opinions and attitudes, not what I can do for the company to make it better.

Ray Zinn: It reminds me of that John F. Kennedy and, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.” It goes back to that’s 1961. It’s more of a me too focus currently that we have to deal with. And for those of you who are running companies, if you want a strong ethical company, then you have to have some kind of moral guidelines or attributes associated with your company. So I would encourage you leaders, corporate leaders, to bring in this morality and this self-governing concept of ethics and being honorable in the way you deal with your customers and your way you deal with each other.

Rob Artigo: Our listeners can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Those questions that you might have and you want to pose to Ray, you can obviously do that. Comments as well all welcome at toughthingsfirst.com. Follow Ray Zinn on Twitter, which is obviously now X, Facebook and LinkedIn. And of course you can pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First, the flagship book of this podcast, so make sure you get that. Also, the Zen of Zen is a series one, two, and three, which we talk about occasionally on podcasts here. You’ll enjoy those books. If you like what you hear on these podcasts, you just get more of that in those books. Thanks again, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.

The enemy of innovation comes in many different forms, but usually the goal is the same. To throw you off your game. As Ray Zinn tells us in this Tough Things First podcast, stifling innovation can take a whole company out.

Rob Artigo: Let’s talk about this, ways in which innovation can be stifled in our businesses, in our organizations, because a lot of people that are listening to this either want to be entrepreneurs or are entrepreneurs, but there are other people who are just interested in the life advice that you offer.

So they have families and they experience roles of leadership and also serving others and all this stuff has value in those areas as well. And I found this list that sparked my interest on the subject. This list, it’s not one of your lists, but it’s certainly the kind of thing that you would come up with. So I wanted to ask you to see if you agree with the statement. If you could add something to it or make a change to it, what would you do? Let’s start with number one, fear. According to this list, fear is the single biggest reason why most organizations and individuals do not achieve their full potential. Fear of failure.

Ray Zinn: I agree. Fear is probably the biggest deterrent to success if you lack courage because the opposite of fear is courage, if you lack courage, then you won’t be able to pursue your dream or your mission. Fear is a great deterrent to innovation because you just don’t want to fail. Failure is part of growing. We all fail to some extent, and that’s how we grow. For example, a little child learning to walk, he will fall down and that’s failing as you would, but you know darn well that if you don’t start with that first step, you’re never going to learn to walk and so you’re going to fall down. And so becoming an entrepreneur or a successful CEO or leader, you have to be willing to fall, be willing to fail as you would, being willing to get up again and get back on that horse if you get bucked off.

Ray Zinn: And so if you ever watched a rodeo and watched the bucking broncos and the wild bull and riding those bulls, there’s some danger there. Life in general is dangerous as you would because the potential for failure. Learning to walk is potential for failure because you’re going to fall down. So you have to be willing to fall. A mistake is only a mistake if it’s not corrected. The mistake of falling down is not getting up again or not getting back on that horse or not solving that problem. If you look at the very first automobile model T Ford as you would, it looks nothing like compared to the… Comparing the model T Ford to what we have today, it’s night and day.

Rob Artigo: You mentioned leadership and the next one is on leadership. And it’s really about the lack of leadership. One of the enemies of innovation being the lack of leadership.

Ray Zinn: Leadership is very similar to being a parent. You have to set the example and we know with all the crime that we have today, especially in the big cities, it’s all reflected on the fact that there’s not a family, like an image, like a father image and a leader or entrepreneur. I use that term father in a sense of a leader. There’s just no father there leading that organization, trying to compare that to the family. Having that father image as you would, and I know there’s a lot of wonderful female CEO’s out there, but I’m still using it. Even if they’re a female CEO, that’s kind of the father, they’re still the father of their organization. And so you know what a father’s role is. A father’s role is to provide for the family, to protect the family, and sustain the family. That’s what a CEO does. They provide, they sustain, they protect, and they lead by example. The key to leadership is having that father role as you would, that father responsibility, being the father of that organization.

Rob Artigo: The next one on the list is short-term thinking. How troubling is that?

Ray Zinn: Well, it’s like buggy whip manufacturer, and you ignore the fact that there’s a car being designed. Short-term thinking is believing that that buggy whip is going to be around forever. It’s called the buggy whip phenomena. That short-term mentality. I mean, you may do well until that idea runs afoul like the pet rock or something. Short term thinking is focusing only on the near term, not looking at having to continue innovating your product. Look at the first Apple iPhone compared to what the current model is. I think it’s a 14 or 15, whatever the current level is, it’s night and day. It’s just like the first car. It doesn’t look any like the car today. So you have to build on what you know and keep growing and innovating and being creative and not sitting back and just assuming that pet rock is going to last forever as you would. So for those of you who don’t know what a pet rock is, that was something that happened back in the-

Rob Artigo: They took a rock and they glued eyeballs on it.

Ray Zinn: And you can make a pet out of it. I don’t know.

Rob Artigo: And that was a pet rock. That was it. Somebody came up with this idea. People made bundles of money by gluing those little plastic eyeballs onto a rock.

Ray Zinn: Well, you go online, you can still buy a pet rock, by the way it’s nothing like it was back in the sixties, but you can still buy them, but they’re not very innovative. They’re not very creative as you would, and so short term thinking is not looking that things are going to change. I guarantee you the only thing that is going to change is change.

Rob Artigo: And that leads directly into this last one here we’ll discuss is that there are lots of ideas out there, but no delivery to the market. That is an enemy of innovation.

Ray Zinn: What kind of an invention doesn’t lead to a product? You can’t call an invention an invention if it doesn’t lead to a product.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, I mean, it’s an idea. An idea can be anything, like I have an idea that I can use a bundle of rubber bands and launch a rocket ship to Mars. But that’s an unrealistic. That’s just an idea.

Ray Zinn: An idea without a product is strictly an idea. When you become innovative, that means you’re going to create, not just think. Thinking without doing is really daydreaming as you would. So in your thinking, there’s got to be some doing, so you got to go from the thinking to the doing, and it’s the doing that really is… Now we’re back to the first one, which is fear. The doing is if I never do it, then I don’t have to fear it. Fearing not doing it as you would. You got to go from the thinking phase to the doing phase.

Rob Artigo: Our listeners here at Tough Things First can join the conversation. If they’re not satisfied with just listening, they can reach out to you at toughthingssfirst.com. Make the recommendations for the topics they’d like to hear about. If you have questions, if you have comments, they’re always welcome. You can follow Ray on X. You can also follow Ray at Facebook and LinkedIn, and of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First and Zinn of Zen, one, two, and three. You won’t regret it. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thank you.

Some train wrecks are easily seen coming down the tracks while others go off the rails because of bad drivers. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses the faulty CEO who goes off the rails because their priorities get out of whack.

Rob Artigo: Well, a company called Stability AI was sold to investors as a, quote, “Herculean force poised to vanquish the twin serpents of illness and ailment and extend the olive branch of longevity,” unquote. And that sounds like a really good deal. Hey, I’m all about longevity and you’ve proven that you don’t need this technology to have longevity because you just live a good life and you’re good to go. One of the business startups that caught a lot of attention, and as recently as March of 2024, the CEO was hailed as a modern Prometheus. And you see how there’s like a Herculean force and a modern Prometheus, really like this hyperbole going on to build this company up. And a couple of weeks later, the creative leadership of the company, the creative team behind the company, they just all quit and the CEO ended up resigning. There were these issues going on like unpaid bills and bungled contracts and complaints about running out of money that had been known for, apparently, months and the CEO was unable to secure additional fundings.

And so, in March, he was out there while this was all going on, doing what amounts to some kind of tech TED Talk kind of thing where he is talking to a crowd of investors and people and building things up. So, where am I going with this? And the thing is that we were just casually talking about this not long ago. I thought it was interesting that your take on it was more about CEOs. You made the point that often a CEO kind of loses focus or doesn’t really know what the true objective is of the company. And you mentioned the company JUUL as an example of this. Let’s talk a little bit about how even good plans or good ideas can run afoul in a hunt for money.

Ray Zinn: Well, you’re talking about JUUL, which is that e-cigarette company.

Ray Zinn Cont: Their goal, they said, their stated goal was they want to get people off of cigarettes, tobacco, I should say, not cigarettes, but get them off of tobacco. And that sounded great. People jumped on it like crazy because they thought that, “Hey, this is a way to get off of tobacco,” because it was thought that it was the tobacco that was hurting your lungs and causing cancer and so forth. And so here they are, they were all Stanford, these are two Stanford students. They were all excited about, “Look at our ideal, our stated goal is to really get people off of tobacco and the effects of that-

Rob Artigo: Which you would think is a noble goal.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, it sounds noble.

Rob Artigo: Yeah.

Ray Zinn: It sounds noble. Just like this company wants to increase longevity. Anytime we have something stated that, “Oh, this is for the good of this society. This is good for mankind,” people tend to rally behind that. And so, in the case of JUUL, their stated goal or mission sounded good, get people off of tobacco, but their real goal, as it turns out, was to make money. But to do that, they had to get people addicted to their product. Addicted. You know an addiction is, so you can’t do without it. That’s what an addiction is.

Rob Artigo: Yeah.

Ray Zinn: So, if you get somebody addicted to popcorn or ice cream or candy or whatever, then they’ll keep buying that product. And so, almost everything that is an addiction is bad. Normally, addictions are associated with drugs and other things which are, pornography is an addiction. And so there are a lot of things that are addictive that aren’t necessarily a chemical or whatever. Addictions are bad, in general addictions are bad because we can’t do without it and it changes our life. It changes who we are. And so, these two Stanford students at JUUL, instead of having this creative idea of getting people off of tobacco, actually got them hooked on their product. And actually, because of the addiction, you take a little bit, but you keep taking more and more and more, you need more of it. They started promoting it to young people, even to middle-aged kids. And they got them hooked at a very early informative age. And that’s not good.

And so, now JUUL of course is undergoing a lot of scrutiny. I don’t know where their current situation is, but I do know that they got a lot of bad press. I know that the founders quit, and I think it was Marlboro or something like that, that actually acquired the major portion of JUUL. But again, these great ideas, these things that get people in society hooked on longevity and so forth, sound noble and great. And some of them are good, some of them are not good. But what this guy did, this CEO, was he was not focusing on their goal, their mission of improving longevity, he was focused on what can he do to promote himself. How can he become wealthier and better?

And so, he started not paying bills. He started spending the corporate money, the investor’s money on himself, tried to improve his own way of life. Most good CEOs, most entrepreneurs that are good entrepreneurs, their passion is to see their company succeed. They’re not necessarily focused on themselves. They’re not trying to make themselves successful. Some of the more successful people that we have in our mindset like Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill and others like that were not focused on themselves, they were focused on others. And so, what’s that? Mother Teresa?

Rob Artigo: Mm-hmm. Gandhi.

Ray Zinn: Is another one. Mahatma Gandhi. The true, real beloved people, beloved leaders, are those who don’t focus on themselves, they focus on others. And that’s the key to this podcast is, if you’re going to be an entrepreneur or a successful CEO, it’s because you focus on others. You put yourself second or third. Jesus Christ is another example of an individual who paid a great price for serving others, but He didn’t, certainly don’t remember Him as being wealthy or didn’t focus on His own success. He focused on others. And so, that’s the key to this podcast is, if you want to be successful, focus on others not yourself.

Rob Artigo: Really great advice. And I should tell the listeners that, as always, they can reach out to you with their questions at toughthingsfirst.com. They can continue their education in conversation with all the podcasts, blogs and links to information about Ray’s books, Tough Things First, The Zen of Zinn series is always recommended. There’s three books there and some great wisdom as well. You’ll find in all of what Ray writes more of what you experience here in this podcast. And just to underscore, it’s all good stuff to keep a rounded attitude about things. And Ray, the remarks you had about where a CEO needs to have the focus, I mean really, we’ve seen so many examples of it, that where a person focused on themselves ends up in ruin. Throwing it out there is, you were a CEO for 37 years at Micrel, and one of your most important attributes as a leader was your empathy and care for other people in the business and less about yourself and your finances.

Ray Zinn: That’s correct.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. Well, thanks Ray. Thanks. Great podcast.

Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.

The Chips and Science Act is supposed to lower silicon chip manufacturing costs, create jobs, and strengthen supply chains. It all started three years ago, but as Ray Zinn explores in this Tough Things First Podcast, China’s head start caught many by surprise.

Rob Artigo: Hi, Ray. I was reading about this fresh influx of about $8.5 billion in…

Ray Zinn: No, $85 billion, $85 billion.

Rob Artigo: $85 billion? Well, in this particular story that I was reading deals with Intel and it said $8.5 billion so you’re saying…

Ray Zinn: That’s just to Intel.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, just to Intel. In this Intel thing, $8.5 billion in CHIPS and Science Act funding to help Intel build its semiconductor plant and upgrading an existing plant in Chandler, Arizona and downtown Phoenix. It’s expected to bring in thousands of high-paying jobs and that sort of thing. But I really wanted to just use that as a bouncing board to say, “Where’s the industry right now? The chip industry.”

Ray Zinn: And I might have my numbers wrong, maybe it’s $58 billion, not $85 billion, but it might be 50. I don’t remember the exact amount. But what happened was is back in the late seventies, early eighties, the industry began moving offshore some of their manufacturing because it was less expensive and mainly the less expensive and more they offloaded upsourced or sent out the higher labor-intensive parts of the manufacturing, such as assembly and test of the semiconductors.

Ray Zinn Cont: And they did this primarily in Asia, and in Asia Pacific. And that began the beginning of the end as you would, as you open up that door cracked and then it swings wider as time goes on.

And as a consequence of them moving that assembly and test offshore, first it was assembly, then it became assembly and test, that gave these other countries an opportunity to see what you’re doing. And they gained a foothold in semiconductors. In the late nineties, they really opened the door up for China. This is the Y2K thing, the changing of the centuries. And they opened the door up to allow manufacturing in China with semiconductor wafer fabrication. Wafer fabrication is the process technology that’s used to create these wafers with the chips on them, the circuitry on the wafer itself.

And they sold a lot of the used equipment that we had. They bought, I should say, we sold, they bought a lot of used equipment, and they began manufacturing wafers themselves. Mainly older technology, 10, 15, 20-year-old technology they were using in China primarily. In Japan that began in the eighties with memory chips. They opened the door up to let Japan have access to our technology. And Japan then became the world’s largest supplier of semiconductor memory. Then they opened up the door for South Korea in manufacturing processors, which is the heart of a computer, step by step, piece by piece, the industry began to give up its crown jewels to these other countries.

Now, of course, Europe has always had our semiconductor technology, but then it got into Russia and the communist countries vis-a-vis they began to… As you would steal our secrets and our patents. And I want to start out by saying that the gross national product of the world, or worlds, as you would, the world GDP, really is formed from what we call non discretionary… From discretionary products like TVs, radios, computers, all kinds of electronic technology. So goes the electronics industry, so goes what we call world GDP, which is what call discretionary technology.

Non-discretionary courses is what you have to have every day to eat, rinse, food, energy, and that sort of thing. That’s called non-discretionary. But discretionary is electronics. And the heart of electronics, and it’s always been the heart of electronics, has been semiconductors, at least in the last hundred years. And so semiconductors are extremely important in the manufacturing of almost all products now, whether it be refrigerators, washing machines, cars, things that before didn’t have much electronics in them, your kitchen now is almost 100% electronics. And that semiconductor technology became crucial to electronics.

Some of the biggest electronics suppliers now are non-US companies like LG and Samsung, and some of you should recognize some of those names. And they’re in everything, primarily in our homes. It became very prevalent going into the 2000’s, the technology spread like wildfire. Well, of course China wanted to build up their GDP as you would. And really semiconductor technology is at the heart of China’s growth. Huawei, and ZTE, and some of those other companies that are big companies in China that produce large electronic systems are hungry for semiconductor technology.

Well, in 2005, China made a goal, published goal that they wanted to produce 95% of all their own chips by 2025. And we, I guess frowned or we didn’t think much of it. We didn’t ho-hum, “Oh, they really can’t do that.” Well, they have surprises because they have been able to do it and because of environmental concerns here, the green and environmental and whatever, the semiconductor industry has really been shut down in the United States because of environmental issues, because there are a lot of environmental issues associated with the manufacturer of semiconductors. Of course, the environmental issues are more government funded or affected than anything else. The government, to a large extent has brought about this demise of semiconductor technology in the U.S.

Rob Artigo: And China doesn’t care about that stuff.

Ray Zinn: No, no. China is careless about environmental issues. They’re more than happy to welcome semiconductor technology.

Well, as it turns out, the U.S used to be 75% of all semiconductors were produced in the U.S, or at least the processing of wafers was done in the US. Now that’s shrunk to under 30% worldwide are produced here in the US. The government is finding out finally, after 50 years, they have finally figured out that semiconductor technology is extremely important to GDP, gross national product. If we’re going to continue to grow and not give up as you would our growth potential, especially in what we call discretionary products, we got to get that technology back into the U.S.

Now, here’s something that’s interesting and why I think there’s still hope is that the technology changes about every five years. One thing we have to our advantage is that 90% of all semiconductor equipment, production equipment is still produced in the US and Europe, and these European countries are favorable to the US and there are partners.

We do control the technology by virtue of the advancement and manufacturing of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. We do have the ability to stay ahead if we don’t give up our equipment technology, as you would, we will still be able to stay ahead. But the government has finally realized that we need to get back to producing things here in the US and not just become a service and financial GDP, as you would, that we do need electronics. And so therefore the US is, I think is, I don’t remember now, but I think it’s $58 billion or something like that. They got approved to introduce or to get back manufacturing in the US, and Intel was a recipient of a large portion of it. And that’s in creating those new fabs in Channel, Arizona.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, the number that I was looking at was 50… Looks like $50 billion, at least in the US Department of Commerce website says $50 billion, and that’s a lot of money. And we’ll see where that takes us. The only thing I would ask you to finish this off is to say, or to ask, are we really divesting from China in doing so or are we in some ways benefiting China with CHIPS Act funding?

Ray Zinn: Well, we are trying to divest ourselves from manufacturing semiconductors in China. I do see that happening and China sees it happening, and we’re also preventing China from selling some of their high-end technology back into the US like from Huawei. The US is trying. Things move slowly in government, but they are recognizing the need to get this technology back into the US so that the trade seekers don’t keep getting spread out throughout the world.

Rob Artigo: Because it’s a leaky environment out there. I think it’s not a ill intent kind of thing. It’s just about it being competitive and wanting to make sure that we’re taking care of ourselves. And for many years, China benefited from our openness and we want to be able to recognize the fact that China hasn’t been a fair dealer in that respect.

Ray Zinn: It’s one of the reasons why China wants to take Taiwan is because of the semiconductor technology. See, Taiwan produces 15 to 20% of all semiconductors worldwide. And China would love to have access to that Taiwanese semiconductor business. And that’s one of the concerns of course the US has is they don’t want China to get access to that technology.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, as always, our listeners here at Tough Things First can reach out to you with their questions at Toughthingsfirst.com. They can continue their education and the conversation with all of the podcasts, blogs, links to Ray’s books, Tough Things First, the Zen of Zen one, two, and three. And in general, you can get to the social media as well and keep following up on what’s happening here at Tough Things First. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Hey, Rob, if they want to hear more about semiconductor and semiconductor businesses and issues, send us a note. Tell us what you want to hear, and if you want to hear more of these or if you want to hear less or whatever, let us know because we certainly can talk more about semiconductor technology going forward if you want to hear more about that.

Rob Artigo: I’m sure there’ll be a lot of opportunities too, particularly with this CHIP Act because we have so many different aspects of a semiconductor that will be coming up and we’ll see how effective things are. Thanks, Ray.

Between global turmoil and more local chaos, how do you stay focused in life, and stay profitable in business? In this Tough Things First Podcast, Ray Zinn explores the finer points or knowing where to put your energy and what to avoid. (Watch Video Podcast)

Rob Artigo: Well, 2024 has been marked by small but vigorous protests around the world influenced by the attack on Israel and then Israel’s response to that attack, but that’s just one aspect of what’s going on in the world. We have Russia and Ukraine, we have China and Taiwan, and in the business world, we have higher than usual operating costs, difficult labor market, and lots of uncertainty out there. So this question really is in your wheelhouse, and I really wanted to ask you about it is, how do we as business leaders and entrepreneurs stay focused and profitable when everything else in the world seems to be going crazy?

Ray Zinn: This is all about being able to deal with challenges. Half the time, things are going to be going up, half the time things are going to be going down, and so you just have to be able to deal with the vicissitudes of mortality, meaning the challenges, the problems that face you as you wake up in the morning and try to execute your day.

If you think about a challenge, I think that what Donald Trump is going through with four litigated litigations that he’s dealing with and running for president, which is unbelievable task, and then still running his business at the same time, I think that’s like rubbing your head, patting your stomach and jumping rope at the same time. I don’t know how you do that. I can see rubbing your stomach and patting your head, but I don’t know how you jump rope, but he’s doing unbelievable.

I mean, how he does all aspects of dealing with four lawsuits or four litigatory issues, still campaigning, still running his business. It’s amazing that here we have an example of someone contemporarily who’s doing all that, and so I’m sure he’s been asked, how does he accomplish that? Well, he puts his pants on just like we do. In other words, we’re all human. We all face the same issues, health issues, family issues, business, economic, whatever. We’re all are faced with these challenges. So the key, as you would talking about the key to dealing with challenges and not getting derailed is to be able to compartmentalize, be able to separate each thing out one after another, and being able to not be derailed by the overall problem.

And so what you need to do is really break your day down into things you have to get done. Don’t worry about tomorrow, don’t worry about yesterday, just worry about today. What can I do today? And I think that’s what Donald Trump is doing is he says, “Okay, what am I going to do today? And I’m going to make the best of it,” so I’m sure he’s going to do the tough things first because that’s our motto and our book, Tough Things First, is you make a list of the things which you don’t want to do, wish you hadn’t had to do and you do them first. Get those out of the way, and then the rest of the day goes easy. Don’t worry about tomorrow, don’t worry about yesterday. Just focus on, “What can I do…” Because you can’t do anything about tomorrow. You can’t do anything about it yesterday.

All you can deal with is what’s going on today. And so just sit down first thing in the morning, make a list of the things you don’t want to do and then tackle them first, and then you just roll from there, and you really can’t worry about things that you can’t control because worrying about things you can’t control is an oxymoron. I mean, it’s like you break your leg and saying, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t broke my leg.” Well, you have a broken leg, you’ve got to go fix it. You can’t say, “Well, I wish I didn’t have a broken leg.” You could say that I guess, but it wouldn’t do you any good. So again, focus on doing the tough things first. Get those out of the way and you’ll see how much smoother your day will go.

Rob Artigo: We were talking about how don’t worry about the things that you can’t control, and clearly you can’t control world events, and because you have Ukraine, for example, if you woke up in the morning and focused all your attention on stressing out over Russia and Ukraine, but you can’t do anything about that. So if you waste energy on focusing on those things that you have no control over, that’d be like trying to focus on changing the weather. The weather’s going to happen one way or another. “Oh, I have to stress over the weather.” Well, from what I hear you saying is that clearly you need to just set aside, really compartmentalize those things that come into your mind that are out of your control and just say, “Look, I can’t do anything about that. That’s not my problem. My concerns should be what’s happening right now in the sphere in which I can influence.”

Ray Zinn: A friend of mine, and I [inaudible 00:06:05] more of an acquaintance of mine is T. J. Rodgers who used to run a company called Cypress Semiconductor, and I’ve known TJ for, gosh, I don’t even know how long, 40, 50 years. And he recently sold Cypress, and now he has a company called Complete Solaria which is a solar energy company putting solar panels on people’s houses and whatever. But anyway, he recently did a SPAC on his company, that’s a special purpose acquisition company, it’s called a SPAC, where he went public vis-à-vis another company at $9.30 a share, I think it was, and then that’s within the last nine or 10 months ago, and then he saw that stock drop tremendously over the ensuing two or three months, it dropped under $5 and then $3, and then right down.

Rob Artigo: Making him a penny stock, basically.

Ray Zinn: What?

Rob Artigo: Yeah, basically it became… I used the term penny stock, meaning it had gone way down [inaudible 00:07:24]-

Ray Zinn: What’s on NASDAQ anyway, but my point is that, and he’s dumped $68 million into Complete Solaria, and he saw that stock drop to 20 cents and the value of the company went down to nine or $10 million total valuation. And my grandson happens to work for Complete Solaria, and so I get to follow what’s happening with Complete Solaria by just checking with my grandson how it’s going, and it’s amazing to see your company… And by the way, TJ is a very successful entrepreneur, very successful and done very well, and he saw his company drop in value of 96%. I mean, drop. That’s tremendous drop.

He hasn’t given up. He didn’t lose his energy and enthusiasm for turning the company around. I mean, so will he do it? Sure. I believe that TJ will turn that company around, but he’s not going to let the world events or let what’s happening with Donald Trump or what’s happening with the riots at the different schools, he’s not going to let that affect him. He’s going to focus on what he has to do to get Complete Solaria up and running and get it back on its feet.

So he recently did a conversion where he converted $5 million in debt to shares in Complete Solaria. He had to do it at 80% of the market price. That was a few weeks ago, at 45 cents was the market price, and of course, he saw that drop all the way down to 20 cents, but he did a conversion at 38 cents, and it’s just incredible. Rather than throwing in the towel and saying, “I am not going to do anymore, I’m not going to focus on making this company successful,” he did whatever it took, and that’s one of the models or one of the cultures that I have is doing whatever it takes, no excuses.

Rob Artigo: … right.

Ray Zinn: So again, an excuse is a reason wrapped in a bag of poop, so he didn’t come up with an excuse. He just dove into it. Now, there’s a lot of challenges, a lot of problems. I mean, I just can’t believe that he could still keep his enthusiasm up when he saw this company’s value drop 96%, but it did, and now it’s back up again, now it’s recovering a little bit. But anyway, so to keep focused means you have to compartmentalize to separate out all those things you can’t control, things that are totally outside your scope of influence and focus on your task, focus on what you have to do, whether it be a family issue, whether it be a personal health issue, your company, your community, whatever it is that you have to focus on, focus on that because many of you who are watching this podcast or listening to it aren’t necessarily running a company, but you do have problems.

You do have challenges every single day. And so to deal with that, as I said, sit down first thing in the morning, make a list of all those things that you can control, that you have the ability to deal with. Write those tough ones, the ones you don’t want to do, get those done and out of the way, then the rest your day is easy.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And your example of your acquaintance that saw that his investment was sort of… I wouldn’t say going down the tubes, but we started at one price point on the stock market and we saw it fall down to pennies, and he kept his wits about himself, and he managed to weather the storm just by being not, I’m assuming your read of it is that he wasn’t being emotional about the situation. He was being focused on what he could focus on and understand the fundamentals of the potential there. So he wants to see it turn around, of course, but he’s not freaking out, and everybody else, and many other people are probably freaking out.

Ray Zinn: Well, he may be. I’m not sure he’s not emotional, but I’m sure when I had my challenges, it affected my emotions.

Rob Artigo: Okay, okay.

Ray Zinn: I mean, it does affect you, you’re human. I mean, there’s going to be emotions associated with your challenge. So in any case, I’m sure he was emotional because I’m sure he didn’t like what was going on. None of us like challenges or problems. It doesn’t change our ability or our need to deal with them, but I’m sure he was concerned. The outcome of it is that he didn’t give up. He didn’t throw in the towel. He didn’t say, “Oh crap, I’m done with this.” He jumped, he said, “Okay, here’s what I’ve got to do.” He broke it down into segments that he could eat, he could chew. Like an elephant, how do you eat a whole elephant? You eat him one chow-chew at a time, one by bite at time. So he just broke it down and said, “Okay, I’ve got to do this, this, this and this.”

I have no doubt he’ll turn it around. I’ve invested in the company myself personally, because I know TJ will turn it around. I have faith in that. So anyway, I’m losing a lot of money right now because I bought the stock a lot higher. I mean, I bought it under a dollar and now it’s down around 30 or 40 cents. But anyway, I’m sure he’ll turn it around. My point for this whole podcast is don’t focus on things you can’t do anything about. If you can’t affect it, if there’s nothing you can do about it, then don’t deal with it, just move on.

Whether you broke your leg or whether you broke your arm, or whether you came down with cancer or whatever it is, you focus on what you can handle, what you can deal with, and then the rest is easy because you’re focusing on what you can handle. Don’t focus on things you can’t change the outcome. I do feel for TJ and what he’s going through and trying to turn Complete Solaria around, but I can’t do anything about it. There’s nothing I can do to affect what he needs to do to make it successful. And the same thing, I can’t help Trump, I can’t hurt him either. I can’t help him [inaudible 00:14:24]. I can’t do a thing. I can pray for him, but that’s about it. And so focus on what you can do. Don’t focus on things you can’t do.

Rob Artigo: Well, let’s let the listeners know we appreciate the fact that they are listening or watching this special edition of the Tough Things First podcast which is on video. Again, if you weren’t watching it on video already, you can go to the website toughthingsfirst.com, and you can click on this podcast and then click on, watch now or watch this video, and you’ll be able to see it. So if you want to review something or you want to see what it looks like to watch us on video, we would appreciate that here at Tough Things First. And this is a fast-growing podcast, rated one of the top in Silicon Valley, and we’d like you to keep that up for us by giving us a rating on your favorite podcast platform. Please also check out Ray’s books, the Zen of Zinn. There are three books. It’s a great series, and also, of course, Tough Things First is the flagship book and the motto, as Ray mentioned, of this podcast. Do the tough things first. Ray, awesome podcast. Thank you very much for your time.

Ray Zinn: You’re welcome.

Many entrepreneur’s know when their mojo is working, but some people just do not know how to tap into it. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn offers a surefire way to find your mojo.

Rob Artigo: Entrepreneurs at their heart are creative, ambitious people. Am I generally right when I say that?

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. You have to have ambition, you’ve got to have the enthusiasm, and you have to have that passion. Passion, passion, passion.

Rob Artigo: Entrepreneurs know when they are on a roll because everything is kind of clicking, and I was looking at Zen of Zinn 3, page 49, and I was reading something that you wrote and it talks about mojo. Let me read this for you. It says, “I got my mojo working. How’s your mojo? Mojo refers to magic or special power. We all have a mojo, but often don’t identify what it is. In my mind, of course, being your mind, mojo is that unique talent each of us has. If you are having difficulty finding your mojo, ask those that know you well. Often these people can help you find it.” This is from, again, page 49 of Zen Zinn 3, and you obviously can pick up that series if you want to, but Ray, let’s talk about mojo. I mean, obviously you had your mojo working when you wrote this.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, so talking to my wife the other day, I wrote 10 or 11 musings the other day, and all at one time, I just went one after another and I was saying to her, “I don’t know how I do this. I really can’t figure out how I am able to just sit down and just start creating all these sayings because I’ve done thousands of them so far.”

And she says, “It’s because of your mojo.” And I said, “Okay, what is my mojo?” She says, “You’re intuitive, you’re perceptive. You can see things that others can’t see, and that’s how you can write about them.” Well, that’s what a book author does. I mean, he can see things that others can’t see, and so it may not be your mojo. Your mojo may be your ability to work with people. Maybe you’re a good salesperson or maybe you’re a good accountant, maybe you’re good with numbers, or you’re great at motivating others.

We all have different talents and there’s no one talent that’s particularly better than another. They’re just kind of what we’re born with as you would our innate ability. This podcast is really to get you to focus on where is your unique talent. As we start out talking about that musing that I wrote in Zen of Zinn 3, you can ask your spouse, your significant other, your mom, your father, friends. They know you and they know what you’re great at and what you’re good at.

It’s good to get that reinforced by someone that knows you. So go to someone that knows you. It might be a professor, it might be classmates, it might be someone else. It might be your preacher, it might be your cousin or your wife or your husband or whoever, but ask them, “What’s my unique talent?” And then go after it and focus on that, tune it to a fine, fairly well as it were to just really work on developing that unique talent. And you’ll find out how much that will benefit you then as you proceed with your career.

Rob Artigo: That just triggered something in my mind about the importance for young people to understand this because oftentimes I think that if you just ask any 18 year olds, “What do you want to do with your life?” “I don’t know. I don’t really know if I’m interested in anything, and then I don’t know if I’m good at anything or I don’t know where my talents lie.”

For young people specifically in this situation, what you just said, it could be the secret sauce to them figuring out what to do with the rest of their lives because they can, if they are free to do so, if they feel like if they have the confidence to do so is to be, I guess it’s humbling to go to somebody and say, “Hey, what do you think about this? What have you seen in me that looks like it’s a value that I can do in the world? Where are my talents?” And those people, like you said, who know them well, are going to say, “I’ve seen you do this and I’ve seen you do that, and I think you’re really good in this area.”

Ray Zinn: I’m going to be meeting in a few days with a number of college students at San Jose State University. They’ll listen to their pitch on what they have an idea for starting a company, and I’ll be great to see how their mojo fits into that because that’s what I look for. When I will go there and I’ll listen to their pitches, I will sense in my mind if they’re going to be successful by how their passion is, how do they feel about this particular business opportunity that they’re pursuing?

It’s called Zen Starter and Zen Starter is a business that I’ve set up at these different universities, five or six universities where Zen Starter will help fund them in their business if their board of directors or the school will give them the go-ahead to do it. We help fund that, and so they learn how to start a business while they’re still in school. And so I get a chance now in a few days to listen to a number of pitches from the students of what they think is a good business.

And what I’m going to be looking at is where’s their passion? In other words, where’s their mojo and do they have that unique talent to pull it off? Everybody would like to be an entrepreneur. Everybody would love to be able to start their own business work for themselves, but not everybody can. Not everybody has that mojo that allows them to go where no one’s gone before, as you would.

Look at successful athletes, and you’ll see that they have a unique talent. Maybe they’re not all running backs or tight ends, maybe they’re guards or tackles or whatever or centers, but they have a unique ability and that’s what allows them to succeed is they have to do it better than the guy next door, so to speak. And it’s the same thing when I go to San Jose State in a few days is to see how successful I believe they can be because I’m an investor in them and what they’re doing through Zen Starter, and I want to see if they have that unique talent to make this business that they want to start successful.

Rob Artigo: Professional athletes tend to start out in their development years as the best players on every team and every sport that they play. They’re that good. But it takes advice and talking to people and understanding where their skills really lie and really stand out to decide which sport and then decide which position. So I love that example about whether you’re going to be a tight end or a receiver or a running back or whatever the case may be. You don’t know. You may want to be a receiver and they’re going, “Nope, you’re going to be a running back. You’re going to do this, or you’re going to be a center because that’s where you’re best suited for.” And then you work in that area. And most of the time, these guys find out that that was a good decision, that they did the right thing because they were most successful, and it takes good coaches to do that sort of thing.

So let’s wrap this conversation up by saying join the conversation at ToughThingsFirst.com. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray Zinn on X, Facebook and LinkedIn, and of course you can pick up Ray’s books Tough Things First and as you’ve mentioned Ray, the Zen of Zinn 1, 2, and 3. You won’t regret it.

Ray, real quick, I wanted to ask you, I like the Zen of Zinn for how it is a nest of writings that reflect, like you said, you write a ton of these things, but the Zen of Zinn is a special kind of book because it is one where you can pick it up and you can read a few of these things. I’m going to say that it’s not like a fortune cookie. You can read it and get something out of it and then put it into work in your life.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, I’d say opening up a fortune cookie every day.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. That is it. Thanks, Ray. Thanks for a great conversation.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

Loyalty in the mafia means something different than loyalty in its most productive and meaningful ways, or does it? Is blind obedience really loyalty? Ray Zinn explores the finer points and graces or loyalty.

Rob Artigo: Rob Artigo here once again, your host for this edition of the “Tough Things First” podcast. I’m an entrepreneur in California, wonderful to be… Let me try that again. Three, two, one.

Rob Artigo here once again, your host for this edition of “The Tough Things First” podcast. I’m an entrepreneur in California. Wonderful to be back again with you, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Hey, it’s good to be with you, Rob. Thanks for joining me today.

Rob Artigo: Of course Ray’s the longest-serving CEO in Silicon Valley history, ran my Micrel for more than 37 years.

So Ray, you say loyalty is one of the most important human attributes. I was thinking about loyalty, and this is how I framed it was, loyalty in the mafia means something very different than the loyalty we expect in our lives with our families and our places that we work, because those are the more productive and meaningful ways to have loyalty. Blind obedience really is not loyalty anyway. So a healthy loyalty benefits pretty much everybody. You say-

Ray Zinn: So, Rob-

Ray Zinn: So, going back to your comment about loyalty is not the same thing with the mafia. So once you hit on that, why you think that loyalty is not the same as it is in the mafia.

Rob Artigo: Well, what I mean is that if I’m just being obedient, that’s not loyalty.

Ray Zinn: Well, it’s part of loyalty, though.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, but there’s an expectation that you’re cooperating and willing to do what the other person expects of you. But I think that loyalty, if I tell you that you’re going to do something or I’m going to hurt you, it’s really more of coercion than loyalty. Does that make sense?

Ray Zinn: Sounds like a gang-type thing.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, that’s what I mean. In the mafia, you expect that somebody might… Like the boss tells you to do something, and you either don’t do it or you fail to do it right, you could be sleeping with the fishes, as they say, with cement shoes.

Ray Zinn: So, let’s talk about then why loyalty is one of the most important attributes that a human can have-

Rob Artigo: Okay, why don’t we start with that.

Ray Zinn: … because it might flow into why you think that there’s no honor among-

Rob Artigo: Well, I have a list of seven bullet points that you had written about, and we’ll go through those, but let’s start with your explanation here.

Ray Zinn: Okay, so we’re talking about what the loyalty is the best, strongest attribute we can have. Is that what you’re referring to?

Rob Artigo: Yeah, I think that’s what you were leading into.

Ray Zinn: When you think of a relationship with another person and you want to build that relationship, that’s where loyalty comes in, because you’re honorable. Other words, you’re trustworthy. You have integrity. You show dignity. You’re not negative. You’re positive in how you want to develop that relationship. You’re a good listener. You’re joyful. You’re happy when you’re around them. You’re willing to be supportive, and if they have a problem, you’re going to jump in and help them.

And so that’s what I mean by if we look at loyalty. While loyalty implies obedience, it’s obedience in that relationship, whether it be marriage, whether it be a family, whether it be your school or your vocation, whatever it is, you’re going to be obedient to the requirements of that vocation, following the rules as you would, whether you’re an engineer, whether you’re a doctor, whether you’re a lawyer, whether you’re a husband, or whatever it is you’re doing. You want to make sure you comply with the agreement or the rules as you would associated with that relationship.

Rob Artigo: Well, let’s take a look at this list that you put together here, which I think is all meaningful points. And this is really all related to the concept of demonstrating that loyalty, which you were mentioning there.

Number one says you’re just simply being dependable.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. What employee that’s not to work on time or dependable at their job would be considered loyal. That’s the key to being dependable is that you can rely on me. You can depend on me. I’m valuable. I’m resourceful, as you would. I’m there for you. That’s being dependable. You’re there when you’re needed.

Rob Artigo: Well, before I continue to number two, is it important to make sure that you’re demonstrating that loyalty to your employer or the other people that you are loyal to?

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. That’s the key to being dependable. If you’re not dependable, how can I be considered loyalty, whether it be military duty, or whether it be in some other political arena where you’re not being dependable in the way you vote or the way you resource your particular job.

Rob Artigo: All right, so number two here is being supportive no matter what the issue is.

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. If you’re not supportive, let’s say you’re an employee, as you would, if you’re not supportive of the company and its mission, you shouldn’t be working there. And the same thing if you’re the CEO or the boss and you’re not supportive of your employee, they’re going to know that and they’re going to leave you. They’re going to go off in some other vocation.

So it’s extremely important to be supportive with your political party. If you’re not supporting your views, then you’re just not going to be a very loyal political leader.

Rob Artigo: And if you’re representing a company that has products that are for sale, and when you’re out talking to other people, you tell people, “Oh, I prefer the widget from Sony Corporation,” or something like that. And it’s not the widget you sell, it’s a different company that does it.

And you’re like, “Well, yeah, I just think it’s a better product.” That’s not being supportive is, you’re trash talking, basically, your own product, and that’s not going to help things out. So if you’re not supporting the product, then you’re not being supportive.

Ray Zinn: Right, exactly.

Rob Artigo: All right, number three, being kind and compassionate. That’s something that was part of the culture of Micrel for 37 years when you were running the company. And it seems like very much common sense to be part of this list is being kind and compassionate.

Ray Zinn: No, I can’t think of any other two attributes that would be more associated with loyalty than being kind and compassionate. In a marriage relationship, if you’re not kind and compassionate with your spouse, how’s that being loyal? Or if you’re an employee and you’re not showing kindness and compassion towards your fellow worker or towards your company, then understanding, and dependable, all these things wrapped up into kindness and compassion, then what kind of person are you?

Rob Artigo: And being a good listener is number four.

Ray Zinn: Yes. Again, what kind of a supportive spouse or worker would you be if you’re not a good listener? If you don’t listen well, remember, we have two ears and one mouth for a reason, and we need to use in proportionally, meaning you should be listening more than you’re talking. And so listening is extremely important, because you’re not going to understand the other person’s point of view if you’re not listening, if you’re trying to talk over them.

And we see that a lot in politics. They don’t listen to each other. They really don’t. They just try to talk over each other. And that’s a discouraging thing. No matter what political party you’re affiliated with, they don’t listen very well. They all try to talk over each other.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, just listen to one of these congressional house hearings or something like that. You know that the politicians are not listening to what the people that are testifying are saying. When it’s time for them to ask questions, all they do is make a statement.

Number five, going the extra mile.

Ray Zinn: That’s kind of a biblical saying is to go the extra mile, because that does show loyalty, willing to do whatever it takes, no excuses, as we talk about in our book, “Tough Things First”. Just doing whatever is minimal, just doing the minimum amount, doesn’t speak to your loyalty, doesn’t speak to your willingness to really do whatever it takes to make this adventure a success, whether it be a marriage, or whether it be an education, or work situation. If you’re not willing to go the extra mile, work the extra minutes in the day, or put in the extra time and energy, that doesn’t speak well to your loyalty.

Rob Artigo: And number six, being respectful, not judgmental.

Ray Zinn: That’s something we talked about in one of our podcasts about differentiate, don’t discriminate. Being respectful is extremely important in a relationship. I tell my wife every day, maybe five or 10 times a day, how much I appreciate, how much I love her and appreciate what she does for us and the family. And so I express that readily.

And so at your work, whether you’re a doctor, a nurse, or whatever, your lawyer, express appreciation to those that you’re working with, your client. If you’re a lawyer, express appreciation. Tell how much I appreciate you as a client or vice versa. If you’re a client, tell how much you appreciate the legal advice you’re getting, or whoever’s taking care of your house, whether they’re mowing your lawn, or whether they’re planting your flowers, or cleaning your house, whatever, express appreciation to them. Tell them how much you really appreciate what they’re doing.

So expressing appreciation is so key to developing a lawyer relationship, and we need more of that. We don’t express appreciation enough.

Rob Artigo: Well, the final one on this list here, I think I might’ve transcribed it incorrectly, because it says, “judging others”. I think the idea is really not to be judgmental of others.

Ray Zinn: Well, again, it goes with being respectful. Differentiate, but don’t discriminate. Finding out why your spouse didn’t cook the best meal that you were expecting and being respectful. In other words, there was a reason why that happened that way, or why your boss yelled at you, or why you yelled at your boss, or whatever the issue may be is, try to be understanding and not jump to conclusions.

And we’ve heard that jumping to conclusions can kill you. And so don’t make off-the-cuff statements until you walk, as they say the Indians, walk two miles in their shoes, as you would or whatever, two weeks or whatever. And so don’t be quick to judge. Be slow, slow to judge.

Rob Artigo: As always, you can reach out to Ray Zinn with your questions at toughthingsfirst.com. Continue your education and the conversation with all the podcasts, blogs, and links to information about Ray’s books, “Tough Things First”, “The Zen of Zinn” I, II, and III. And, of course, we have another book coming up that is the “Essential Leadership”. And I think everyone’s going to enjoy that, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thank you.

Entrepreneurs rarely get what they “deserve”, but most everyone gets what they focus on, good or bad. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn takes a deep dive into our focus and how it drives the results.

Rob Artigo: You wrote recently, we generally get what we expect, and you say the reason is our focus is on what we want, and that dictates our decisions. It’s true in our personal lives. Is it true in our business lives and our work environment?

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. I mean, you get what you expect because that’s where your focus is, so if you’re not happy in your work or you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, you’re going to change your focus and that focus becomes your output because again, you can’t think of two things at the same time.

You can only focus on one thing at a time, and so if you’re focusing on what is not what you want, you’re still going to get it because you’re going to get where your focus is.

Rob Artigo: Is this, and I know you are an equestrian, you like to ride horses. Is it like the horse that meanders around? If you’re on a horse that’s disinterested in doing a ride, but their eye will point towards something and they’ll start going that way instead of going the trail that you want to ride on, it’ll wander off to the side, where you’re focused on something and you naturally gravitate towards it.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. I’m sure that’s quite what it is. I mean, on riding horses in race horses, they put these cups around their eyes so that they focus straight ahead because a horse can actually see back toward the rear, and so they want him focusing on where he is, not where he was. Again, that’s not exactly a perfect example of what you’re talking about, but certainly where our focus is, and our focus could not be visual, it could be audio. It could be also what we’re thinking and what we’re smelling, or what we’re feeling, that determines or affects our focus. For example, if your cubicle or where you’re working is very, very cold, then you’re going to be focusing on how cold it is and you’ll lose a train of thought on what you’re trying to accomplish and you’ll make mistakes.

Or if it’s too hot, the same way. Maybe you get up and get a drink of water or whatever, or go try to cool off as you would. It doesn’t have to be just what you’re thinking. It could be how you feel. Maybe you’re sick, maybe you’re coming down with a cold, or maybe you’ve got a headache, or you’ve got an earache, or a toothache, or your shoulder hurts or whatever, those things can distract you and keep you from focusing on the job at hand or the task at hand.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, and in your upcoming book, Essential Leadership Managing Distractions, and it seems like that’s part of that process. And so I guess, the positive thing is if you’re right focused, if you’re focused on the right objectives for your business and for your working life, then you head in that direction. The drawback is that if you were focused on something negative, you’re going to gravitate in that direction and the wish becomes the reality sort of scenario.

Ray Zinn: If you have a headache or an earache, or a cold or a physical thing, it’s best to go get it fixed. It’s best to take either something that’ll minimize the effects of that particular medical problem so that you can go back to focusing. So sometimes you need to fix something that’s distracting you, whether it be heat, whether it be cold, whether it be something in your surroundings. Maybe it’s somebody playing their music too loud next to your cubicle or area. It could be that there’s somebody on a lawn mower outside that’s buggy or a leaf blower or something, so it is best to minimize those distractions so that you can focus. Distractions are key to your ability to stay focused on your task. As they say, “You better be careful what you wish for because your wish may become your reality.” Focusing is a matter of asserting yourself on the task and not being affected by your external factors, whether it be thinking about something at home that you’ve got to take care of.

You might be thinking about, for example, that you’ve got a bunch of company coming over after work and you start thinking about getting that organized, or maybe it’s a problem with one of your children, and maybe a problem with a spouse. It could be a number thing. Maybe it’s your boss. I found out in my 37 years of running Micrel that 75% of the reasons that employees leave to go to another job is because of their boss. Their boss becomes their distraction. They look over your shoulder, or if they’re constantly harassing you, or if they’re bothering you in some way, or if they’re not being fair, that sort of thing. That’s a distraction, and that keeps you from focusing on your task at hand and minimizes your ability to accomplish the task at hand.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. I guess, the idea is you said, “Be careful what you wish for.” You also want to be able to wish for the best so that you can generally expect that the best will be what the outcome is.

Ray Zinn: Absolutely. Well, again, your ability to focus is the key, and you should know what the distractions are because if you have a job you’re doing and you’re becoming distracted in some way, find out what that distraction is. It doesn’t take, but a few seconds to say, “This is bothering me, something is distracting me,” whatever it is. Maybe it’s just the noise in your work area, it might be the environmental, maybe it’s cold or hot, or it could be any number of things, it could be an employee or a workmate that’s giving you a problem. So just focus on what’s distracting you so that you can get it out, you can solve it. Again, distractions are the thing that keep you from minimizing your performance.

Rob Artigo: I’d like to remind the listeners that they can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Please bring us your questions, comments are always welcome, let us know. We do have some podcasts on toughthingsfirst.com that take you to the video podcasts at Ray’s YouTube channel, so you can check that out and tell us which way you prefer to listen. If you like the podcasts that are on video, we would appreciate knowing that. Ray, of course, you can follow his, it used to be called Twitter, but now X and his other social media, Facebook, LinkedIn and of course, Ray’s books. Make sure you check them out if you haven’t already. Tough Things First is the title of his first book. We have the Zen of Zinn Series one, two, and three, and the upcoming book, The Essential Leadership, which is I think, going to be very helpful for a lot of people. Thanks again, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.