Feeling ＂Invested＂ and ＂Ownership＂ - Life and Business Advice

There's a concept, having investment or having ownership, feeling ownership in a thing

And I just wanted to chat about that a bit today because I've noticed it in various walks of life

I've noticed it from employees. I've noticed it from other people who we were considering investing in a business with

I've noticed from just a lot of people who don't seem to get this concept

And I think maybe it hasn't been explained well and I hope to do so better and kind of get across the idea

that might help somebody in the future demonstrate that they do in fact

feel ownership of something. So the first time that this really came into my

mind, just being a huge deal, was, oh, probably, it was more than

15 years ago. This was before there was a big deal being made

out of the whole Somalian pirates stuff. Since the Captain Phillips or whatever movie came out, it's gotten a lot more popular

But this was before all of that mess. And it was still kind of

an unknown thing. And I was a police officer at the time and had a partner of mine who was

also a retired Navy guy. And I guess he was still in as a reserve or something like that

But he'd been in for 20 years, knew a lot of folks. And his particular, I don't know if they

call it in the Navy if it's MOS or whatever, but his thing was maritime security. Like he

had the experience being on the boats that would go alongside the MERSC big shipping container

ships and provide security for them. And he just really knew that industry

Well, I was kind of into the executive protection industry at the same time

And so, of course, we chatted back and forth. We worked some details together in executive protection

And as it turned out, he has a buddy who was getting out of the Navy and was interested

in getting this private maritime security company going. And my wife and I were doing okay at the time financially

And we had some great mentors that were working closely with us

and they had a good bit of money. And in talking to my buddy about this, I said, you know, this could be an investment

It seems like his buddy and my friend, those two guys were going to kind of be the owner's leaders of it

but they didn't have any capital to put into this new venture. And they didn't have any business, any real business knowledge

Well, my wife has the business knowledge, and I had some security knowledge and have some good ideas

And so we thought, you know, maybe this could be good for all of us to get together on this thing

So my buddy sets up a meeting and my wife and I go to his house and the buddy's buddy has a whole PowerPoint set up for us

There's a good job on it. And we're thinking, hey, this is a really good investment

You know, maybe we'll put in a quarter of a million. Maybe we'll talk to our mentors. They'll want to put in half a million, a million, something like that

And that's a way better way to bootstrap an international maritime security company than with, you know, $10 or $20,000 or $30,000, which, you know

which is what these two would have been able to come up with. So one of the questions is we're asking various questions about the business and their projections

One of the questions was from my wife to the guy, how invested are you in this And the guy took it He had no idea of this concept And this is why it kind of exploded in my mind at the time He got so offended by that I been serving our country for and he didn say this

to a sore face. He just kind of said, well, I'm invested and didn't really say more

And then I hear shortly thereafter from my buddy that he was just went off the deep end and

was yelling and cussing. I'm never going to work with those people. and they have no idea how invested I am

I spent 13 years fighting for my country in the Navy or whatever

and blabbered on about that and didn't understand what invested means. So here's what it meant in that sense

If you were just doing your job as a Navy dude, Navy Maritime Security dude

and you were getting paid for it and that's all, that's a bit of a time investment

but you kind of were getting paid for that along the way. That's not like if you had gone out and spent 13 years not getting paid

just building up a huge body of knowledge. And so this guy was probably really good at maritime security

and understanding how Somali pirates work and how to best discourage them from attacking our client ships, et cetera

But he didn't show that he had put a certain amount of money in

That's what my wife meant by investment. Have you put money into this? Have you sent out 300 letters to various important people at shipping companies

Have you formed relationships with the Somalian princes, not the one who's giving away $26 billion, but the other ones have you have relationships with the government officials in those areas who would grease the way to have this company happen in their waters and such

And that's what we meant by investment. How much energy, how much capital, how much money, how much whatever, have you put into this thing

And he just completely didn't get it, blew us off. And as it turns out, it was, he started his own little thing

And I'm sure he did okay. But it did not turn out to be what it could have if my wife had managed it and run it

My life would have taken such a different turn. I probably wouldn't have become a voluntarist

I would probably, I'd be like Blackwater. Like I'd be this super rich guy who's in trouble for all the stuff we did

And yeah, it wouldn't have been a. good thing in the long run, but man, oh man, I'd have been rich

That idea we were in at the ground floor and it all didn't work out because some dude

didn't understand the meaning of the word invested. Okay, so now let's look at another way that it can be meant

The showing ownership or feeling ownership. Recently in our business, I got a message, as I expect from one of my guys and he says

hey, we need more of this thing. And it was going to be, you know, four or five grand

And so I said, oh, okay, you sure we don't have it? I thought we did

He's, yep, there's none in the storage area. And I said, oh, okay, well, I'll get on it and ordered it

So I made this order. And then I went and checked the storage area later, and it was there just in a different area

but very easily findable. But it wasn't his, let's say, $4,500. It wasn his He didn feel ownership It didn come out of his pocket He didn feel the bite from having to spend too much on inventory And yeah it not horrible that we have it but it not good business practices for what we have there and in backup storage

It wasn't a good move to get more at that time. But I trusted him and did so

And it's kind of dawned on me. He doesn't feel ownership. It's not costing him a single thing

Another guy yesterday was saying, hey, this certain piece of equipment isn't working so well

And one of the other guys who does kind of have that sense of ownership says, hey, well, I think there's a way we can fix that

And then I said, yeah, let's work on that. And meantime, I'll get some extras pieces of this equipment just so we know we have it for the future

And the other guy says, yeah, I think that would be a great idea. And I appreciate him agreeing with me

But I was thinking, and I actually mentioned, yeah, why don't we all chip in to buy more of these

Yeah, and I'm making the ultimate profit from the venture, and it's my capital that should be putting into it

It's not other people's responsibility to chip in and buy. However, it made me think

Yeah, it's easy for him. I placed the order this morning. It was $38. I got four of the things, and so it's not a huge deal

But it's a bite. It's $388 that I can't spend on something else that I want to spend

I'm spending it on making sure that the guys have better tools. and equipment and such to work with

And there's no appreciation for that. And that is a total lack of a sense of ownership or a feeling of ownership

So how do you, if you are an employee kind of person, how do you acquire this ownership feeling

How do you come about getting this? Is it hopeless if you don't own a business

I would say no. I would say it's more of an empathy thing

It is, rather than just thinking how things are from your perspective, put yourself in the perspective of your boss and say, and not necessarily your supervisor, but the ultimate boss, the owner of the company

And if it's Walmart, put yourself in the shoes of the Walton family or the investors or whomever

And don't be thinking, oh, they may have so much money, it doesn't matter. No, every penny matters

And whether it should, if not, they're not going to do well in business. So think about it from their perspective

Why don't we just pay our employees an extra $5 an hour? And if we did that, everybody'd have a living wage

Well, do a little math. Then you'll realize why that isn't happening. Also, if you understand economics at all, you'll understand why it isn't working

But let's say you work for Walmart, and you're thinking, I should be able to have a new apron to wear every week

And they're only giving me one every six months, and they expect me to make it last

They expect me to look good, but it gets frazzled and this is messed up

I deserve a new apron. Well, think about it from the owner's perspective

Do you think an owner, typical owner is probably working 12 to 16, 18 hours a day, seven days a week for the first five or 10 years

Maybe they take a vacation after a few years and both like a week or two weeks and get away and rejuvenate

But they're not like an employee who's getting two days off every single week and is only working eight hours a day

They're exhausted. They scrambling They scrounging And that apron that little apron that has to come from somewhere Do you want it to come from your salary

Like, or your hourly wage? If they came to you and they said, hey, how about for this apron, we know you want one every week

How about we split it and you're making $10 an hour? How about every week you give us half an hour of free work and then we'll chip in an extra $5

And then you can have that new apron you want every week. would you still want an apron every week

You'd say, well, no, that's their responsibility. Well, if it's looking frazzled and they don't like it, then yeah, it does turn out to be

They need to either teach you how to maintain it better or fire you and find somebody who takes care of their stuff better

or maybe they do decide to buy it on a more frequent basis. But try to put yourself in their shoes and understand how they feel as the owners

And yeah, the Walton family isn't working 18 hours a day, seven days a week right now. The flywheel is going and they've got good stuff coming

as do all the people who have stock there, and I'm very happy for them for that

But they should still be thinking about it. I mean, the principle remains the same

There isn't a certain point that now all of a sudden you're making more than $23,000 a year

or what is it, $36,000 a year is the poverty level, I think. Okay, now you're making $37 a year, now money no longer matters

You just burn it with cigars and to light your cigars. Well, no, that's not the case

Even when you have $100,000 a year income or a million of your income or $100 million

of your income. You're still thinking about stuff. You know, you think about it. A billionaire

a billionaire isn't completely able to go out and do whatever they want. Like, if you go by

the nicest private plane and the nicest private yacht out there that you've gone over your

limit. You've spent more than a billion bucks. And the person who has a billion isn't even

a billion in liquid assets, probably. They probably have 950 million of it in their companies

So they don't have that much liquid. And of that other 50 million, it's not like it's just sitting

there in their wallet. They're waiting to spend it. Even the folks who you think are very, very wealthy

they're still watching the dollars. And just because they happen to be your boss and they have more money than you

doesn't mean they don't feel the pain of small stuff. So that's kind of my little quick thought on feeling that sense of ownership

and on being invested in a project or a company or whatever

My suggestion is, of course, if you want to do well in the organization that your currently in and you want to be courted by other organizations, feel that sense of ownership

Work hard. Pretend you're the owner. Pretend that putting in that extra little bit of work is what's necessary to make it happen

We had an employee yesterday that says, I'm just so exhausted after it was this person's Friday

And they said, oh, I'm just so exhausted. I saw a call come in three minutes after I left, but I'm not going to do it

Well, that call could have turned into $1,750 gross for our business today

It had to be answered right then. Well, guess who? Where the buck stopped

My wife, she took care of it, and she did the necessary follow-up phone calls and such

It's an employee who thinks, hey, it's the end of the workday. I'm going to clock out and it's all done

No, it's not. The world keeps turning. What can you do to make your organization more successful

That is feeling a sense of ownership