It is getting easier to instruct AI tools as a shortcut for sending out emails and social media posts, but when is it a misleading crutch? Ray Zinn discusses changing AI use and how to recognize the gray areas of using AI and calling it your own work. (Watch Video Podcast…)

Ray Zinn: Good morning there, Rob.

Rob Artigo: Well, this is a special edition of the Tough Things First Podcast. If you’re listening, you can check out toughthingsfirst.com, find this podcast, and right next to it there’s a link that says video. So you could click on it and watch it if that is your choice, or listen to it now and watch it later, whatever. While preparing this podcast, Ray, I logged into Microsoft Copilot, something I’ve been kind of experimenting with in a few different ways. And I asked it to write an email about this podcast, which is about having AI or ChatGPT write your letters, emails, or social media posts.

So I logged into Microsoft Copilot and I just said, “Can you write an email for me?” It said, “Yeah, what’s the topic?” And I told it what the topic was, and then what it said was… Here’s the email. Subject line is, “Join us for an insightful podcast on AI and email communication exclamation point.” And it says, “Hi recipient’s name, we are excited to invite you to our upcoming podcast episode where we dive into the fascinating world of AI-driven email communication. Our special guest, Ray Zinn, the longest serving CEO in Silicon Valley history, will be sharing his invaluable advice and insights.” And then it has the date and time and it says, “Put the link here.” And it says, “Look forward to having you with us. Best regards, your name.”

So what I’d really like to do is ask you just based on that, I mean, that was a very quick thing. If I didn’t want to craft it myself, seriously, Ray, it would’ve taken me just as long to write the email myself and do that same thing rather than having the AI do it. But let’s have your reaction to me going through the process of having something else create the email for me.

Ray Zinn: Well, for one thing, it says AI, so there’s the starting point. I mean it’s already doing kind of an advertisement for artificial intelligence. And it’s just interesting that AI really is a buzzword. We’ve had ways of doing emails that way before cut and paste. I’ve used cut and paste for, I don’t know, 50 years.

Rob Artigo: And people don’t think of that as being AI, but that’s basically what that is. It’s using an algorithm to work something out for you.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. So my point though is that I’ve pulled up old emails and just edited a few things and sent it back out. So if the topic is general in nature, like, “I’d like to invite you to my birthday or my anniversary or whatever.” That’s pretty straightforward because we have these group lists that we can call up and do a blast email blast as you would. Because this is an election year, I get probably 10 email blasts a day, and they’re all quote-quote AI crafted as you would. And I can tell it because they look bland. Okay.

Rob Artigo: Okay.

Ray Zinn: And so it doesn’t sound like anything that comes across as being personal to me as you would. The other day, I received a letter, actually a card, but written on it. It was handwritten by the governor of Montana who was thanking me for all the things I was doing in the community. That meant more to me than getting an email blast that just says, “Thank you for your support, blah, blah, blah.” And so handwritten, I mean, if I get a handwritten birthday card or a handwritten note from someone, that means more to me than if they just… Because I can tell if it’s crafted by AI or not AI, but by some generic email blast as you would. So can AI help? Yeah, sure, it can help.

It depends upon what you’re wanting to do, what your goal is. So if you just wanted to notify everybody that there’s going to be a meeting at such and such a time without having to sit there and type in that information, then you can do that with various, what they call abbreviated… You can type in, for example, M-A-T, MAT, meeting at time. You can have that just type in those three letters and it’ll craft, if you already have a predefined thing you want to send out. It’ll do that for you. And then you can just type in the time or the date. So this is really what it is.

As I’ve mentioned, AI has been around for a long time. I mean, it’s not… it’s just a buzzword referred to as AI. I remember Al Gore claiming he invented the internet, which was another misnomer as you would. The internet in a sense has been with us for many, many years and long before Al Gore did it. So what we do is we have these little buzzwords, these little things that we call smart this, smartphones, smart speakers, smart ovens, smart refrigerators, smart appliances. And they’re just nothing more than just a bunch of buttons that you push and it’ll then create whatever you want. For example, if you have a certain kind of washing machine load you want to do, you can have a predefined, you can program it as you would. It’s the same thing with your phone. You can program your phone to do different things or your computer.

And as I mentioned, this sort of thing has been around a very, very long time. I can remember back in 1978, 79 timeframe when IBM, what they call their… Oh shoot, I forgot the name of it, but it’s like a Skunk Works type thing. It wasn’t Skunk Works, but it’s had another name like Skunk Works, where they were playing around with doing a little personal computer. Now, IBM Corporate, they’ve been building computers since I was in college back in the 50s, but they were mainly for big corporations, and they were large expensive systems. They’ve taken up the size of a room. And so the Skunk Works Group down in Boca Raton, Florida, worked at IBM, wanted to come up with this little PC. And what’s interesting is that Heathkit made a PC, wasn’t called a PC, but it was a computer that you could put together, but that was a hobbyist thing. And all IBM did basically was take that S-100 bus, that Heathkit hobby thing, put it together with their own BIOS, and came out with a personal computer.

Now, granted it had a keyboard and a display and all that sort of thing, but it was nothing more than cobbling together stuff that was already there. And so when we talk about AI, you’re just cobbling stuff that’s always been there, making it a little more convenient and easy to use. But artificial means not real, fake as you would. And so fake intelligence, that doesn’t even sound good, does it?

Rob Artigo: [inaudible 00:09:04].

Ray Zinn: And again, if you’re just trying to knock out something, trying to speed up your day as you would, you can cobble together an email blast as you would by just having these predetermined emails that you’ve written over the past year or two and save them in your file and then have them named something, a certain name. You call it up and you just change the dates and times and so forth, or maybe a name or whatever, and you can do the same thing. So-

Rob Artigo: Let me just let you know that I actually thought of this topic when I was sales pitched by Adobe. And this isn’t a complaint about Adobe. Excuse me. I like their products, but what they asked me was, did I want to use their AI tool to write my emails? And what they suggested was that if I get a lot of documents, what this tool would do is it would scan the email for content and it would cr… I mean a document for content, and then it would craft an email about the content for you. And I said, “No, thank you. I can write my own emails.” What bothered me was the fact that they were interested in scanning my document and then crafting an email based on that. If I’m doing that, it probably means I’m cheating the system and not reading what’s in the document.

So if I don’t know what’s going on, and I put my stuff in the email based on what the AI suggests, and I send it out to everybody, other people will understand what the AI pulled out of the documents and its attitude or whatever you want to call it, toward what was in the document. But I won’t say what I believe is inside the documents. And so that kind of bothered me. What about the ethics Ray? Let’s wrap it up by asking about the ethics of it. If I don’t say this is AI, if it’s something that I created, but I don’t say it’s… I mean if it’s something I used AI to create, whether it’s an email or a long letter or something that’s typewritten, but I don’t really know what the content is because all I did was sort of do a cursory read after I had it create the message, am I behaving ethically? And am I really just setting myself up for failure down the road when somebody asks me, “Hey, you said in an email, blah, blah, blah.” And I don’t remember writing it because I didn’t, AI did?

Ray Zinn: Well. I think we’re giving AI more glory than it really needs.

Rob Artigo: Maybe.

Ray Zinn: When you do a cut and paste, if you’re using that term, again, you’re not creating something from scratch, you’re just going back to an old email and you’re pulling out some information and then doing a paste, being putting it back into the current one you’re doing. Is that ethical? And so whether it’s cut and paste, and that’s all it is. If you think about what AI is doing, they’re capturing tens of thousands of files and then creating something from you from those files. You can do the same thing just from your files, the documents that you keep. When you ask a computer or some other smart device, “What’s the date of Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday or whatever?” It just goes and searches millions of documents and brings back the information. It’ll also tell you the source of that information. It says, “According to Wikipedia or according to such and such and such source.” It’ll tell you what that source is.

So the ethical or the unethical part is that if you don’t say what the source of your information is, to some degree, that’s unethical because you’re pulling from somebody else’s information and using it as your own. So how authentic is that? Or how ethical is that? That depends upon what you’re trying to do. If you’re writing a original book and you’re copying somebody else’s work, then that’s not ethical. So when you copy somebody else’s, if they’re going to pull an email out of the universe and then say it was yours, that to some degree that’s unethical because it’s not original. So AI, if we know what… If something is specified as AI, then we can definitely say this is not original. So whether it be a video that looks like you, that’s not original. And so it depends upon what we’re trying to do, who we’re trying to fool as you would. So that’s the bottom line about what’s ethical and what’s not.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, and we talked at a previous podcast about what is copyrightable, and we know that portions of whatever your work is that you used specifically for… that you used AI to create instead of your own creative juices, if you will, then you’re not able to copyright that material. And that’s the reason why, because it could end up being somebody else’s material in the long run. And I think there’s nothing wrong with saying, “Hey, I used AI to create this.” And you could say that. You could just do a little disclosure, say, “I used AI to help me out with this because it was a long thing, but I read it and I agree with it.” So you could do that, and then that would kind of help you work it through.

Anyway, thank you, Ray. Great podcast, I’m glad we could do this on video. And I’d like to let the listeners know that you can join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions and your comments are always welcome. Follow Ray Zinn on Twitter, Facebook, I should say X, but I guess they still call it Twitter, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. And of course, pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First, and the Zen of Zinn Series 1, 2, and 3.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

Getting ahead at work is not complicated, but it does require effort. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses the concept of hiring from within a company, and how to be the person who moves up.

Rob Artigo: Good to be back. So let’s talk about promoting from within a company instead of seeking talent from elsewhere. Micrel, which you ran for 37 years, had a reputation for people wanting to stay and then anybody who left tended to want to come back at very high, what you called the boomerang rate. So people coming back to the company because they enjoyed the environment where they worked. That means that people are looking potentially for advancement within the company and they would like to be considered.

Are you a guy who preferred to promote from within or seek fresh talent from outside?

Ray Zinn: Well, again, it depends upon what the requirement is. If we’re in a new product line, a new area, and I don’t have that talent within the company, certainly I’ll look outside. Or if somebody leaves the company and there’s talent within the company, I would definitely promote within. I always look for within before I look for without, as you would. And so, the key here is letting people know within the company that they have a chance to advance themselves and that would promote their wanting to work harder or change their emphasis and scope of knowledge and industry as you would by knowing that the company promotes and fosters within the company as opposed to without.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, and what I think about is if I’m an employee for a company and I see an announcement that a position is opening up, happened to me once in radio where I was looking for specific responsibilities on a full-time basis. I went over and visited at a time when a person was retiring, and what it did was it moved the chessboard around a little bit and it opened up a spot. Turned out I was the first choice for the position, which was great and flattering because I was there. But I was also engaged and made myself visible and had expressed for a long period of time my desire and commitment and as well as my feelings about the company, which was that I really wanted to work in this role and they came right to me.

So in talking to people who see an announcement at the company, how do they stand out and let people know that they are interested, that they should be considered for that position in that promotion?

Ray Zinn: That’s easy. I mean, by letting people know how much you want to stay at the company and that’s the key is that-

Rob Artigo: Like loyalty? I mean, would you say in a word, loyalty?

Ray Zinn: Or, finishing your projects on time, acting happy, smiling, using positive vibes, as you would, circulating around the company, letting people know who you are. Just being a good person. I mean, that’s what companies want. Companies want good people, and so you just got to be a good person. We talked earlier in another podcast about on integrity, you want to have that. You want to be known as being honest and have integrity. Also that you’re a person who wants to help and contribute. When you greet somebody, say, “How can I help you?” Just be friendly. Be a very friendly, open, happy person.

Rob Artigo: And if you’re real serious, Ray, I imagine that it would be a good idea to be able to occasionally show somebody that you’ve done some professional development. Say, hey, I took this class. I mean, look, in some places where you’re very publicly forward in the positions, in sales for example, maybe having… You’re bilingual, you’re multilingual, you have a couple of languages. But I know you are fluent in Spanish. That if you went out and you said, “Hey, look, I’ve been studying Spanish for a while.” That’s an asset maybe that you weren’t hired with but you developed over time and now you can tell them, “Hey, look, I’ve been working on this and I got the certification of four years or whatever of training in Spanish and I just completed that. I wanted to let you know that this is beneficial for that.” But I mean, professional development I imagine would be helpful in letting people know that you’re serious.

Ray Zinn: Well, most companies offer a advanced course compensation. And so if you can see those individuals who are taking advantage of that, providing it’s a course and a study that will help them within the company, that should be a good indicator also that this individual is looking for advancement and be promoted from within. So again, there’s another source of finding out who’s willing to go the extra mile by those who are trying to advance their knowledge and education.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, great conversation. We’ve had a real good session and I do appreciate it. Join the conversation at ToughThingsFirst.com. If you have questions for Ray Zinn, you can provide them over at ToughThingsFirst.com. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray Zinn on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and of course pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First and the Zen of Zinn series and then coming soon, Essential Leadership.

Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

Entrepreneurs accomplish a lot by themselves. Fierce independence is a common trait, but why not work smarter, not harder? In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn details why going it alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, you write so much it’s hard to keep up, but one thing that you did right recently was, “To succeed, we need the support of others. Friends, customers, mentors, families and associates.” And these are in the home, these are at work and these are in the community, people that you bump into regularly at ACE Hardware, for example. So you say that you need to get this support, why do you think that that level of support is necessary for success?

Ray Zinn: Well, because we don’t live on an island, no man is an island. We need the help of others. We are very much a society of people.

We don’t do things all on our own unless we want, as a show, a TV reality show called Alone. Unless we want to be alone. We need the support of others. Going back to that TV series called Alone, I mean, you’re left out in some wilderness area and you have to survive on your own without help from anyone. And then when you give up, when you say, “I’m going to tap out,” and you dial this number, and then they come and get you and you’re off the show. But what’s interesting is that I’ve watched that series a number of times and almost half of the people that tap out are missing their family, are missing their relationship with others, and that’s interesting that half of them just can’t be alone. They can’t do it on their own, even though they’d like the money if they could survive that a hundred days on their own, it’s difficult to do.

There are very few people that can literally be on their own as you would Alone, and so the purpose of that particular musing was to talk about how we need to nurture that relationship because we need that relationship with our friends, our neighbors, our community if we’re to be successful, even in a company. I mean, if you’ve heard on the news how certain leaders are, they’re not well liked by those in the office.

I remember when I was running [inaudible 00:02:44], HR, Human Resources, would interview the employees that were leaving and ask them if they could be open with us and tell us why you’re leaving. Three-fourths of them said they were leaving because they didn’t like their boss. Think of that. I mean, three-fourths, that’s 75% of the people that leave to go to another job are doing it because they don’t like their boss. If you want to retain people, if you want to keep them working at the company, then you have to treat them correctly, and so it’s not just an eight-hour job and when you go home with your family or when you go out into the community, you are still who you are, and if you want to have a good relationship, then you need to nurture it. You need to make sure, because if you have a person that you want to mentor you, that person’s not going to want to mentor you if you’re not willing to listen, if you’re not willing to, if you don’t nurture that mentoring relationship or a customer.

I remember one time we had a customer was unhappy with the product that we were shipping them, and so when we went to visit with them, see what we could do to straighten the situation out, they took our parts and threw them in a wastepaper basket and said, “That’s what we think of your company.” It was a shock. That was a real eye-opener and I went, “What?” So we weren’t nurturing that relationship and obviously that customer quit doing business with us. Then I had to dig into, do a post-mortem and find out why that relationship fell apart, and I found out that it was that interrelationship between the salesperson and that company was the problem. So it wasn’t necessarily the company, it was the salesperson that was that relationship with the company.

Rob Artigo: You touched on so many points there that are related to this. You mentioned nurture, that was part of the get the support from you mentioned friends, customers, mentors, families, associates, those people as a whole. You want to have that support and this awareness is accomplished by nurturing these relationships. And you focused on nurture, which is really the bottom line here, is you have to be aware of these relationships and you have to nurture them because it does matter if you lose the sale because of it.

As always, Ray, the listeners can reach out to you with their own questions at toughthingsfirst.com. They can continue their education there and the conversation with all the podcasts, blogs, and links to information about your books, Tough Things First and the Zen of Zinn series and of course coming soon, Essential Leadership. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks Rob.

The benefit of self-awareness becomes evident when you put that knowledge into action and then evaluate if these actions are working. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn uses his extensive experience as a leader in business to explain why the habit of self assessment and reassessment is worth developing.

Rob Artigo: In the Zen of Zinn one, we have a series of Zen of Zinn books and it’s one, two, and three, and I picked up the first one and looked at the first entry. So on page one, you ask the question … in your writing, you ask, are you a good leader? It says, “Good leaders can tell if anyone is following by seeing if the tasks are met on time. When you make sure the team is happy and working together, they will follow.”

Ray, isn’t it the trick for starters in being a good leader, convincing people simply to see you as a person worth following?

Ray Zinn: Yeah, we can tell the good leaders. We’re going through an election campaign right now and we’re trying to decide who will make the best leader of the country going forward. We look at how they interact with people, we look at how the people react with them, if they show interest.

As my note said in that Zen of Zinn one, are they meeting their obligations? Are they walking the talk? Are they happy? Do they sound happy? Do they act happy? Are they looking for another job? We look at all the different indicators as to whether or not the employees are engaged, and that determines whether or not you’re a good leader. If the people that you’re responsible for supervising are engaged, getting their tasks in on time, they’re happy, they’re doing quality work and they’re not looking for another job, that’s a good indicator you’re being a good leader.

Rob Artigo: Looking at the productivities and the quote, “If the tasks are being met on time, you can tell if they’re following you and they’re following instructions.” Is there a way that we can, as leaders, quantify or grade the productivity so that we can see that level of productivity that we know is either they’re responding or they’re not responding? How do we quantify that when we look at it?

Ray Zinn: Are they following? Other words, if you said, I need this done by noon tomorrow, as you would, then was it done by noon and was it done right? When you look at the output performance of your employees or those that you’re leading, and if those goals are being met, if you’re being realistic, then shows that the people are following.

Now, I was talking with an individual the other day who said that his new boss he doesn’t like. I said, “Well, why? What’s the reason?” He says, “Well, because he sets unrealistic goals. It’s almost like he wants me to quit, he wants me to leave.” So, I thought that was interesting. I’ve never quite seen it done that way where you set an unrealistic goal to hope the employee quits, because if that’s your goal, then you should just ask them to leave. I mean-

Rob Artigo: Yeah, why waste your time messing around with that?

Ray Zinn: Right, and most states, the right to work, it goes both ways, meaning that they had the right to leave, but you also have the right to fire them. So if you’re not happy with them, you want them to leave, just pull them in and say, “We’re going to give you two weeks or whatever, and here’s your paycheck, and go find another company.”

But to be a miserable boss, that word gets out. That’s not just going to stay within the company, that word gets out. You might be talking to a spouse or you might be talking to your … this fellow was talking to me, and I didn’t think much of the company after that. Even though I had nothing to do with the company, I didn’t think it was very quality of them to … if that’s their goal was to get people to quit and just give unrealistic goals, or harassing them or being belligerent with them.

That to me is not a good workplace, so I didn’t tolerate that at Micrel for sure. I didn’t like any of the managers to treat any employee improperly irrespective of what they were doing or not doing in respect to the performance of their job. If you’re not doing the job, get rid of them, that’s what I told them. Don’t just make their life miserable, because that gets around.

Rob Artigo: Well, now going back to the original question you asked, and this is a question that you were asking of yourself. Are you a good leader? So, give us an idea how we can ask ourselves that question. Is it kind of a daily reflection sort of thing, a self-evaluation?

Ray Zinn: Yeah, I’d say speaking out to the leaders, I’d ask, do you love your employees? Not in a physical sense, but in a spiritual sense, do you love them? Do you ask about how are your children doing? How’s your spouse doing? How’s your health or how’s your parents? Or whatever the subject may be, just show you’re interested in them. Do some walking around and just visit with them and see how they’re doing.

That shows them that you’re interested in them as a person. Not just in a piece of the gear that drives the machinery, that you’re really a special individual and that I care for you, I want you to happy. So the good leader wants his people to be happy, and so you got to do whatever it takes to ensure that they’re happy as individuals.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, the listeners should know that this is the kind of thing that you can learn more about in Ray’s upcoming book, Essential Leadership. Stay tuned for that. The Tough Things First Podcast, rapidly growing, one of the top in Silicon Valley. We’d like to keep that up, so make sure you are rating this podcast on your favorite platform. Share it too on social media and spread the word about Tough Things First.

Also, check out Ray’s other books, the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three, and his first book, Tough Things First. If you haven’t already got those books, then please do, we invite you. Coming soon, again, Ray’s new book, Essential Leadership. I look forward to the next time, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thank you, Rob.

In business, we want to see the bottom line grow! But in the last few years wading into politics and the latest social trend is having the opposite effect on sales. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn explains the basic problem with divisiveness.

Rob Artigo: Well, I noticed that some companies have recently come out and said they’re changing the way that they attach their names to certain causes because some issues, and gosh, the last few years, almost any issue could, but some issues have proven to be so divisive that they’re not helpful. And Scripps is a company, for example, that has made some changes. It is apparently shutting down its 24-hour news channel and blaming advertisers because the advertisers are saying, “We don’t want to be involved in programming that has politics because it reflects on us.”

Rob Artigo cont… And the divisive nature of politics right now means that half of their customers are going to boycott them or stop buying their products simply by appearing to support one side or the other.

And as we know, the media right now doesn’t have the greatest reputation of unbiased. I don’t know anything about Scripps TV news work, so I don’t know. I’m not going to comment on whether they’re biased or not. But the CEO of Scripps had said this, “Many brands and agencies have decided that advertising around national news is just too risky for them given the fact that it’s so polarized in this country.” So Ray, put on your CEO hat, but also your past experience in marketing and sales. What have you seen in recent years? Do you support this idea? Do you see this happening in the corporate world?

Rob Artigo: Well, it depends upon if your product is agnostic, meaning it doesn’t matter what political party you subscribe to. If you’re selling cars, that’s pretty agnostic. It doesn’t matter except maybe if it’s electric or whatever, but-

Rob Artigo: Right, but it should be agnostic anyway you’d think.

Rob Artigo: Right. It should be agnostic. Or clothing, well, certain clothing. I guess there are clothes that are not agnostic.

Rob Artigo: No.

Rob Artigo: And food the same way. I mean, if you’re going to go to a pizza parlor, you wouldn’t expect to get steak or hamburger as you would. You have to gear your product around what group you’re trying to attract. The people at Old Navy try to attract younger people. If you’re a jewelry store, you’re not going to be selling clothing. You have to look at your product and whether or not it’s politically agnostic. Again, jewelry stores is pretty much politically agnostic. Now, news media, that’s very, very politically oriented, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican or liberal or whatever, libertarian I should say, you’re going to listen to certain stations because that’s the ones you want to hear because they agree with you. It’s really strange that most of us look at ourselves in terms of who we associate with.

Brands tend to be the kind of people that agree with us either religiously or politically or sports-wise, whether you’re a football fan or whether you’re a baseball or basketball, whatever. You want to gear your advertising, your marketing to attract the people that will most help grow your product line as you would. Obviously in this highly divided political environment we’re in, especially with this presidential election coming up, if you want to attract more advertisers as you would, you’re going to have to make your news, as you would, your product more agnostic. What I think is more interesting to our listeners is we can be different but not differ. If everybody looked alike, acted alike, it’d be pretty boring. And so we are all different. Every one of us. You and I are different, Rob. Just look at the way we dress. Look at our age difference, look at where we live.

So we are all different, but we don’t have to differ. Differ means to disagree. What we need to do is become less disagreeable or to differ less. We got to acknowledge that people are different. I think that Republicans and Democrats can get along perfectly fine, or we say liberals and conservatives can get along perfectly fine if they don’t focus on what differentiates us, as you would. The challenge here, I think is finding a way to attract people without differing as you would. I go to a particular restaurant because that’s the food taste that I particularly want that night or day or whatever. They provide that that means that they’re not going to get every single customer wanting to have that particular food that day. That’s why we have different restaurants, some Mexican food, Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian. What we need to do is not badmouth the Chinese because we want Japanese food or badmouth the French because we want Italian food. We just need to be less vocal about our differences. I particularly don’t like venison, which is deer meat.

Rob Artigo: But based on where you live, that’s pretty surprising.

Rob Artigo: I know, I know. But I don’t badmouth people because they like deer meat.

Rob Artigo: Yeah.

Rob Artigo: I don’t particularly like it myself, but I’m saying just because you like it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or because I like it or don’t like it doesn’t make me a bad person. Again, my focus here in this podcast is to talk about to be different but not differ.

Rob Artigo: Yeah.

Rob Artigo: Or to not be so disagreeable, as you would. We tend to get caught up in all these ways of differing with each other. We need to stop doing that, whether the subject is abortion or immigration or economy. Now an economy would think we’d all agree on that. So that’s one where I don’t think that’s politically agnostic or it is that political agnostic, I should say, the economy.

Rob Artigo: More, certainly.

Rob Artigo: More, right.

Rob Artigo: Yeah.

Rob Artigo: Now, abortion that tends to polarize and so does the immigration thing tend to polarize. And so we just need to, where we know it’s polarizing, we should just not become so vocal about it or so polarized about it because we drive away. We don’t bring together, we drive away. So stay away from those areas where it’s polarizing.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, don’t lose friends over disagreements on… And particularly when it comes to politics, and if you’re an advertiser or a business owner, you might want to think about your messaging and try to make it more agnostic and to avoid triggering people out there and your buying audience. Ray, I want listeners to know that they can go to toughthingsfirst.com. If they have questions for you, they can also make contact there. They can continue their education and this conversation and all the others with all the podcasts, blogs, and links, information about your books, Ray, Tough Things First, and of course, Zen of Zinn 1, 2, and 3. Great podcast and I do appreciate it. We’ll talk to you next time.

Rob Artigo: Thanks, Rob.

They are the errors that can do you in and you will have nobody to blame but yourself. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn defines what an unforced error is in the business word and what you can do to save yourself before they happen.

Rob Artigo: Ray, I was reading Zen of Zinn 3, in fact, right from page 191 it caught my attention. You wrote about unforced errors, define what an unforced error is.

Ray Zinn: Okay. It’s an error that you made that you weren’t forced to make. In other words, you did it because of just your lack of skill or paying attention to the problem, it end up being an unforced error.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. They actually track this stat in tennis and it’s interesting they go, “Okay. Well, let’s put up on the screen there’s Jones and Johnson, and this is how many unforced errors Johnson has. This is how many unforced error Jones has.” And they look at that as a comparison to be illustrative of what is an example of how they’re failing or succeeding. What are some of the reasons why they’re not doing well is usually the person with the most unforced errors is losing in the match. Not always, but that’s the case. But what you wrote was specifically saying it’s a sports analogy, but in reality, this is something that occurs in business life and personal lives. We can run into this situation where we have unforced errors.

Ray Zinn: It’s like a mistake. In other words, you made a mistake. Maybe you played too close to the net and maybe you were swinging with your wrong hand at that particular ball. Or the same thing in basketball or football. I mean, we see unforced errors in life, meaning these are just mistakes, and to avoid mistakes you don’t want to repeat them. So as you pointed out in this example of tennis, the more unforced errors you have it means you make lots of mistakes. You may be a superb forehand or backhand slammer, but if you make too many unforced errors, you’re more likely to lose the match. It doesn’t matter how smart or how glib or capable you are if you’re making lots of mistakes, that’s going to cover up all the good stuff you’re doing. As they say, one rotten apple will spoil a barrel is a case of one unforced error can do more damage than a bunch of good slams that you did.

Rob Artigo: I think of it Ray, as the one way of looking at an unforced error is the person who drives their car around with the indicator getting closer to E and getting closer to E, and getting closer to E and going, “I’ll go get gas the first thing I do tomorrow morning.” And then they go and get in their car and they don’t make it to the gas station. That’s an unforced error. That’s where they just simply were not responsible about taking care of something early enough. That’s a mistake that should have been avoided, and basically, that’s the kind of mistake you’re talking about here is one that should have been avoided.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. The ones, if you had paid attention, you wouldn’t have made it. Or if you were trying to gamble, let’s say you were trying to gamble on something that’s still an unforced error. You want to be prudent in the risks that you take and not unprudent. Because an unprudent error is a unforced error because somebody didn’t make you make that mistake. You did it either because you were not watching what you’re doing or you’re taking too big of a risk, but you want to avoid unforced errors because the greater your unforced errors are, especially those that don’t get resolved, the greater chance you have of failing.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And you mentioned in other podcasts about how our lives behind the scenes can have negative impacts on our companies and our businesses. In Essential Leadership, a book that you’ve got coming out soon, we spent a lot of time talking about that and being responsible for those sorts of things. The bottom line is that unforced errors can be very costly and a person who has the most unforced errors is not going to be considered much of a leader.

Ray Zinn: We know a lot of people in public life that didn’t know their little unforced error was going to be such a damaging thing, but you got to watch what you do and watch what you say because with today’s technology, it’s saved and it’ll come back to bite you. You can do all the deleting you want and hopefully, nobody will find out your unforced error, but they will. It will come back.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. The one thing you don’t want to do is wake up in the morning going, hopefully, that won’t happen because it will probably-

Ray Zinn: It will.

Rob Artigo: … happen.

Ray Zinn: Exactly.

Rob Artigo: Yeah.

Ray Zinn: You can’t hide an unforced error.

Rob Artigo: Well, to our listeners, thank you for listening to the Tough Things First podcast, the home for Ray Zinn the longest-serving CEO in Silicon Valley history, author of the book Tough Things First, also the great series, Zen of Zinn, which is 1, 2, and 3 books we’ve all mentioned in this podcast here, and we appreciate you being around to listen. Please rate the podcast, it’s a fast-growing podcast for Silicon Valley. Really popular these days, and we appreciate you being here. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks again, Rob.

Even if you have decided to shun social media, virtually every type of communication you use is a form of content creation. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn talks about ways we overlook our status as influences just because we don’t post videos of ourselves all the time. (Ironically, Watch Here…)

Ray Zinn: Hi, Rob. Good to be with you today.

Rob Artigo: Great to be back. This, of course, is one of our favorite occasions. It’s a special edition of the Tough Things First podcast. If the listener wants to watch it, all they have to do is navigate to the website, ToughThingsFirst.com, and then click on the Watch Now link right next to this podcast, obviously, the intro to the podcast, and watch instead of just listen, which is great. I’m wearing my sports coat today, which works out great.

Ray, one of the notes that we got as a suggested topic was content creators today are shaping far more than purchasing decisions and trends. They’re shaping public opinion on major national and international issues, which we know. I mean, we hear about this all the time. X, formerly known as Twitter, other platforms, people are creating content all the time, and they’re influencing. We worked together on the book Essential Leadership that’s forthcoming, we’re proud to say, and you did a whole chapter on how everybody’s an influencer and the essential leader has to look at themselves as a influencer. Are they also content creators in a general sense?

Ray Zinn: They sure are. I mean, there’s a program on TV, it’s called American Greed, and what’s interesting is that the way you live your life, what you do with the resources that you have, influences others, either for good or for bad. And so the concept of being an influencer is very important.

I mean, it’s the same thing that’s happening in the political environment, whether it be Donald Trump being sued for election interference or for his business dealings, or whether it be Biden regarding his son and other problems that his son is having. That has an influence on the election.

Or if you’re running a company, if you are doing things which are not legitimate or appear to be greedy, you may not be doing something that’s against the law per se, but if you come across as a greedy individual where you’re focusing on yourself … In fact, that’s one of the things that they’re complaining about Trump is that he’s focused on himself, and then Kamala Harris says she’s focused on others. So it’s a way that they have of steering the influence, as you would, either toward them or against them.

When we think about what kind of influence we’re having, either in our business dealings or employment or socially, we have to be careful what kind of an image we’re portraying. In our book that we’re coming out with soon, in Essential Leadership, we cover that. That’s one of the major chapters is, what kind of an influencer are you? Because you are influencing, whether you’re a school teacher, or whether you’re a nurse, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or whatever your field of business is, you influence.

In one of our podcasts, we’re going to cover the effect of nurturing your influence, as you would, or those that you do influence, those who you’re associated with. And so you can’t say just because you’re a student, or you’re a school teacher, or a nurse, or maybe a construction worker, that you’re not having influence, but you do. That affects your income, that affects your merit review is how well you are influencing others. And so getting the job done, as you would, working as a team, team building, even as an individual contributor, whether you’re working from home or whether you’re working at the office, you are having an influence.

In fact, what’s interesting is as we deal with working from home and either using some kind of media to interact with others, it’s actually you have a bigger challenge, because you’re not directly in front of someone. You’re actually doing it vis-a-vis some kind of a media connection, and maybe they don’t even see your face. Maybe they just hear your voice, so they can’t read the expression on your face, or how you’re dressed, or how your interaction is. If you’re going to be a good influencer, make sure that when you are working from home or working through some kind of a media interface, that you do it correctly. That your tone of your voice, the way you’re coming across, the way you’re answering questions is appropriate.

One of the things they’re talking about in the upcoming election is how Trump comes across or how Kamala Harris comes across. So how we come across is what we’re talking about in this podcast is, how are we influencing?

Rob Artigo: You made a valuable point there. Your points are always valuable to me. But, specifically, about the fact that you don’t have to be a TikTok participant where you’re out videoing yourself and then sending out a message. That there are subtle ways in which you are a content creator, that even in an email, you’re a content creator in a literal sense-

Ray Zinn: Exactly.

Rob Artigo: … and that those things are influential. I guess the question you have to ask yourself is, is this an appropriate message to send? Am I sending the message that would be something that I want shared with other people, and do I want other people to emulate it? For example, we talked about the election, is do I want a vote to go one way or another? Maybe what I’m saying sounds like I’m interested in one candidate, but I’m actually going to vote for another. You’ve mixed the message, and you’re not being a good influencer, obviously, and your content that you’ve created is confusing.

Ray Zinn: Well, the interesting thing is that Donald Trump, for example, says, “I am who I am.” Well, we all are that. We all are who we are. But depending upon how we want to come across depends upon what kind of influence we want to be. Do we want to be a negative influence or a positive influence? Hopefully we want to be a positive influence, either because we’re selling a product, or because we’re trying to build a relationship with another person. As I said, we’re going to cover that in another podcast, but our sociability, the kind of preeminence we want to be in whatever setting that is, is important.

I know that in this upcoming election, they’re talking about Donald Trump. “I wish he would back down on the rhetoric, talk about policies and issues rather than talking about the person,” but he’s not listening, he’s just doing it the way he wants to do it. And then the same thing with Kamala Harris. She’s doing it because that’s who she is. Maybe they both want to say, “I want you to vote for me for what I can do, not for how I’m acting or how I’m coming across,” which is difficult to separate. You’re bifurcating. You’re trying to say, “Well, I’m really not the person that I’m portraying myself to be. I’m really somebody else.”

If you want to come across as genuine, then, of course, you want to be who you are. But by the same token, though, you don’t want to come to a funeral dressed in a bathing suit. You want to make sure your interaction is appropriate for whatever role it is that you’re trying to achieve, whether you’re trying to be in a mentoring role, or whether you’re trying to be receiving information from someone where they’re trying to mentor you. So the information or the kind of input you want or output you want depends upon what kind of a image you’re trying to portray, which is again, this influencing image.

If you’ve watched TikTok, you’ve seen really goofy-looking TikTok videos, because what the person’s trying to portray, it comes across to me as kind of silly and stupid, but to others, they enjoy it, because it’s what they want to see. It’s how they want to be influenced, as you would.

Rob Artigo: As you mentioned, we are going to cover some territory in being an influencer for good in an upcoming podcast. This is a different area of being an influencer, but, obviously, the message ties in with the other one, which is being an influencer for good. So you can join the conversation at ToughThingsFirst.com. We appreciate you being here to watch or listen, as this is a special edition of the Tough Things First podcast. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray on X, Facebook and LinkedIn. Please rate this podcast, so that we can keep the momentum going and grow this podcast more times over as it is a popular podcast. Check out Ray’s books, the Zen of Zinn I, II, and III. It’s a whole series. Also, of course, the flagship book, which is Tough Things First. Be prepared, because the ball’s going to drop soon on this book, Essential Leadership, and you won’t want to miss that. Thank you again, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

Asked for an opinion or not, it seems most people jump at the chance to say what’s on their minds. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn discusses the ways opinions can go wrong, and how to make them go the right way.

Rob Artigo: Often flipping through Zen of Zinn one, two, or three and things appeal to me in some way, shape, or form. Hit me in a way and I write down a note, and I think this one did. You wrote about how people are quick to offer critical opinions, but you also suggest that an opinion that creates hard feelings should be avoided. Why is that the case?

Ray Zinn: Well, we talk about protests. A protest is an opinion effectively, and there’s no such thing as a good protest. They’re all evil, or they all have hatred or some animosity associated with a protest. So when you express an opinion, you’re actually protesting because if you’re not, unless you agree with somebody else’s opinion, you’re offering a counter view on something.

Ray Zinn Cont: And opinion is an unsubstantiated fact, is what an opinion is. In other words, it’s your view of a particular thing that may or may not have any substance to it whatsoever, but it is usually an opposing view on something. That’s what opinion is. So if an opinion doesn’t enhance the situation, if it doesn’t uplift it, if it doesn’t cause it to become better, then you should avoid it. As you say, your mom always says, if you haven’t got something good to say, don’t say it at all.

And so if you’re offering an opinion because you want damage a relationship, then that’s what’s going to happen. What is your goal? Why am I offering this opinion? Am I offering it because I want to ruin the relationship that I have? Or is it because I want to enhance the relationship that I have? So that’s that birds of a feather flock together thing. So depending upon what your goal is, what is your objective? Do you want to enhance the relationship or you want to destroy it? If you’re offering an opinion that’s going to destroy a relationship, like a protest, as you would, I would say avoid it. I don’t know why you would want to destroy a relationship. No matter how much you might dislike that relationship, destruction is never good. I don’t know, unless you’re trying to demolish a house to rebuild another one.

I don’t know why you would want to destroy a relationship unless it didn’t. If it wasn’t there to begin with, I guess you’re not going to destroy it anyway. But my point though is that be careful about how readily you’re going to offer up your view. If it doesn’t enhance, if it doesn’t develop, improve the relationship. I would avoid it. Keep your opinions to yourself. Now again, as your mother would tell you, if you haven’t got something good to say, don’t say it at all. And remember, most of what we say is an opinion, our view. We’re always offering our view, whether it’s wanted or not. These podcasts, these are effectively views on particular subjects. We’re offering this one up as a positive, and that if you haven’t got something good to say, just keep it to yourself. And if you got something good to say, then obviously if it’s helped to either help your relationship or help strengthen a particular view, then go ahead. But again, the purpose of this podcast is to reinforce how much our opinion or our views do affect our relationship with others.

Rob Artigo: Well, let’s close out the podcast by getting a good answer to this part of it, which is that in the business world, we may be faced with having to make tough decisions, tough decisions, where we don’t want to destroy somebody. But at the same time, like on Shark Tank for example, Shark Tank is something we bring up all the time on the show because such a great example of different communications and pitches and how to respond in the business world to different things. But sometimes the criticism can be harsh, but that’s the person’s opinion, that criticism, it’s based on many different levels of knowledge, but it’s still an opinion about the product, about the person, what they’re doing. Is that a place to be tactful or a place to be direct?

Ray Zinn: Well, you’re talking about a video or a TV show, a reality show or a Shark Tank. And it may be the view of the producer of Shark Tank to be more controversial because they want people to come back and watch this show. So you’re going to get more controversial discussion in a TV show than you are in a real life situation. I remember I was running… I did a TV series. It was one that they wanted to release. It actually didn’t get released, but I was involved in that. And I remember one series that we did on the TV show, reality show. They didn’t think it was controversial enough, and so they redid it themselves. They just changed things around, inserted comments and stuff to make it more controversial as you would.

So in reality, TV shows they are more controversial than normal because I’ve been at a lot of shark tape type environments with companies, not TV shows, but real shows as you would real interfaces. And they weren’t near as controversial as it is in the Shark Tank. And you have a whole bunch of different people that are all trying to play off one against the other. And it’s for… It’s a little different Shark Tank because it’s a TV show reality show.

Rob Artigo: And I guess the idea is don’t emulate what you’re seeing on television as being the appropriate behavior in a work environment.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, exactly. All of you have watching enough TV shows to know that they’re built to, or they’re developed to be shown to a lot of different audiences with different views and what they want to see, and they’re trying to attract the biggest audience they can.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, so that’s the reality TV series, reality Check for you here on Tough Things First. This is a rapidly growing podcast rated at your favorite venue, whatever, it’s your streaming services that you’re using at the moment. And tell them you like us. Come back to Tough Things First and listen again. We always appreciate you being here. Please also check out Ray’s books, Tough Things First is the book you want to get, and then the Zen of Zinn series. I look forward to the next time. Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks Rob.

No matter the size of the investment or the investor group, cash infusions to boost your company will come with strings. In this Tough Things First podcast, offers some thoughts on how it works and what to expect.

Rob Artigo: I recently read that Applied Digital, it’s a data center operator, their shares recently had soared like 65%. They said they would receive $160 million in financing from a group of investors. That would be including investment from Nvidia. I use Nvidia products, I like it. It’s in my computer. It’s good for digital editing, and audio, and that sort of thing, so I’m a big fan, but where I’m going with this topic here is part of the investment group is a real estate firm called Related Companies. I kind of think like, “Okay. You got Nvidia, makes sense for the type of company that Applied Digital is, but then there’s also an outside firm, this real estate investment firm that’s involved.” I think, “Wow, it seems like there’s not synergy there Nvidia and the investment firm would expect something out of the deal.”

Rob Artigo: Let’s talk about what big investors in companies like your company, Micrel, which you ran for more than 37 years, what you deal with when people are coming in, and who want to participate and get a piece of the pie, and that sort of thing. I mean, you’ve seen it, you’ve participated in it. Do investors, are they just looking for a little cash or are they looking for influence and sometimes ownership, a little bit of a piece of the action ownership-wise?

Ray Zinn: Well, most of the time, depending again what their role is with the company, if it’s strictly for an investment, then they’re just putting money in and hoping that, at some point down the road, the company is able to then repay that investment many times over, whereas others like venture capital… I’m not sure maybe even Nvidia would want to put somebody on the board so they can monitor their investment real time, because if you’re just investing, then you don’t get regular financial reports and so forth. But if you’re on the board and you’re able to have a regular influence with the company, then you can monitor your investment a little closer, so I’m not sure how much money Nvidia put in or that real estate company.

But in the case of Nvidia, there may be some synergy there because of the technology that Digital has. The real estate company may be just trying to diversify from real estate into some more technology, because Nvidia has had an extremely fast growth in the last couple of years, and maybe they’re just wanting to catch that wave and benefit from that investment. Again, without knowing what the role of those different individuals are, companies are, it’s hard to say where their emphasis is. In the case of Nvidia, it’s probably more synergy, whereas in the other, it might be just they’re wanting to diversify their investment portfolio.

Rob Artigo: Is it fair to say that the level of investment is going to be oftentimes commensurate to what the level of interest is going to be? In other words, I can buy stock. I don’t own any stock Nvidia or this other company or whatever, so I don’t know… I don’t have any of those things, but I can invest as an individual investor by buying a share. Just get one share. That’s one level of investment, and it’s completely removed from the activity of the company. But if I get into the mid-range, I’m in the couple of million dollars in something, and then the next level, it goes up from there. Eventually, the higher end, you’re going to get the people who want to have more influence and have a seat on the board, your guy who started Micrel without venture cap.

Ray Zinn: We’re covering a whole lot of ground here on this subject, so I’m not sure how we want to tie this up in a neat bow, but you’ll have these companies that their whole purpose is to buy a large percentage of the company and then be able to either get rid of the current leadership or to change the direction of the company.

Rob Artigo: As a CEO, I would want to be aware of the fact that it’s not just a one-size-fits-all relationship and that there are things that I need to watch out for if I… I have to make sure that what I’m doing is good for the company and not just assume that it’s all going to work out. Micrel didn’t have a lot of this, but yet you’ve been in the business world a long time. Are you fond of that relationship when you have to deal with a board that you have to work new relationships with?

Ray Zinn: Well, if you’re a public company and then they file a 13D, they can come in and buy once they buy a certain percentage of your company. If they’re one of those adversarial investors, then they can… If they have enough shares, they can dictate how you run your company effectively. Again, if you’re a public company, you’re stuck with what the investors want to do with regard to that dollar they want to spend in your company. If you’re a private company, you have a similar problem. Most of these companies, like Nvidia or this other real estate company, depending again how much money they’re putting in, they probably want a see it on the board so they can monitor that investment.

Rob Artigo: Thanks, Ray. As always, you could reach out to raise in with your questions at toughthingsfirst.com. Continue your education and the conversation with all the podcasts, blogs, links to information about Ray’s books. Tough Things First, of course, you always have to get that one, and then the other books, the series, the Zen of Zinn 1, 2, and 3. Remember, Essential Leadership is coming up. We want you to be focused on and preparing for that. Take pre-orders or whatever we can do to get you interested. Thanks again, Ray.

Ray Zinn:

Thanks, Rob.

Money is not everything, but if you want it, are creative, and a bit delusional, you have a shot and being more than lucky. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn points out the difference between a healthy delusion and being downright crazy.

Rob Artigo: You’ve probably heard of tennis star, Coco Gauff. [inaudible 00:00:17] she’s a major champion tennis star and she’s using that fame, which probably based on good advice, to take some of the money she’s got and the influence that she has, and she’s using it to parlay that into a billion-dollar entrepreneurial endeavor, which is probably a combination of businesses. I didn’t look closely at it, but I’m assuming that’s what that is. Usually that’s the case for the athletes that are operating smartly, but she actually recently encouraged people of her age who have similar goals to be delusional.

So look at the definition of delusion versus likely meaning behind her advice. I think there might be a little disconnect between the actual definition and what she said. So there’s delusional, and then there’s risk, favored by risk-takers not gamblers. And I guess that’s one way that I would put it. So when it comes to ideas, she says, don’t be afraid to be delusional. So then I’ll give you the quote, “I think delusional is great.” Now, forgive her syntax there. “I think delusional is great,” Gauff tells Forbes, that’s where I got the quote, “All of the great athletes and greatest artists have to be a little of craziness and delusion. Having a little bit of crazy in your goal is kind of healthy.” What do you think?

Ray Zinn: Well, again, it’s that syntax. Delusional, in the definition of the word, delusional, is believing something that is not possible. In other words, you say, “Well, I can jump off of the Golden Gate Bridge, and hit the water, and not die.” That’s delusional her. What she’s trying to say is that be a little crazy. Jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge is crazy, okay, especially if you don’t have something to protect you as you hit the water. Being a little crazy, I think she’s just trying to be a little bit obtuse here by referring to that word, delusional, as being something that we should endeavor, because there are people who will not take any risk at all. In other words, you still see people going around with masks on their face after the pandemic because they don’t want to take a risk of catching COVID or they don’t go out in public. They’re so used to staying at home now and staying secluded that they don’t go out at all because they don’t want to take a risk.

Well, that’s a risk in and of itself because now you’re not going to go anywhere. You’re not going to progress, but on the other hand, the pendulum can swing too far, delusional, meaning like Bitcoin or one of those things that is highly risky to me, in my view, that’s a little delusional. Other words, but people have made money on Bitcoin and other ventures, or going to Las Vegas and putting it all on a table. To believe you’re not going to lose any money going to Las Vegas is delusional, but there are people who have made lots of money. Las Vegas wouldn’t exist as an entity if it weren’t for the delusional belief that you can make a lot of money in Las Vegas. That’s a little crazy. But there are people who literally believe that they can make a fortune just by going to Las Vegas.

Rob Artigo: Yeah, a delusional person believes things that couldn’t possibly be true. And I heard you say was that there are also those people who believe that nothing is possible.

Ray Zinn: Right.

Rob Artigo: So they put a wall in front of themselves on everything. But like you said, I prefer that they be a little bit crazy as opposed to saying, “Be delusional.” Because really being delusional is a little bit more towards, go ahead and believe that things that are impossible are possible.

Ray Zinn: [inaudible 00:04:37].

Rob Artigo: Like you said, surviving a dip in a bath of hot lava or something like that.

Ray Zinn: Well, let me ask you, is being crazy, smart? Can you answer that question?

Rob Artigo: No. No, I think being a little crazy in that if you are willing to, if you’re being a creative person and you’re taking some chances, and people would say, “Oh, that’s not going to work, that’s impossible. That’s not going to work.” And then you go, “Well, okay, call me crazy, but I’m going to give it a try.” So that’s the crazy that I’m talking about, and I think it might be the crazy she’s talking about.

Ray Zinn: Well, I know that. Just saying [inaudible 00:05:14] is smart being crazy or crazy being smart?

Rob Artigo: I don’t know. I think I’d have to answer that question, yes or no to the question would be, no, being crazy is not smart.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. So if you look at the definition of being crazy, that’s nuts, okay? We [inaudible 00:05:32] that’s nutty, okay? If you’re being crazy, you’re being nutty. So everybody has their own risk aversion level. And so if you’re a person who is really risk-adverse and you do anything that’s risky, that’s crazy, okay, as a person who’s risk-adverse. So you got to look at your level of risk-averseness and decide how much risk are you willing to take? Are there people who do are crazy and put a little craziness into their investments? Yes, and they do well, but again, you’re gambling. And if you’re a gambler, that’s called being a little crazy as a gambler. That’s what a gambler is. A gambler is a crazy person. And so everybody has to look at their own level of risk-taking and decide if it’s good for them, and if you’re willing to bet the farm, then go for it.

What Coco is referring to is that being a little delusional as opposed to being a non-risk-taker, is what we need to go for. In other words, be willing to take a risk. That’s what she’s talking about. Get off the couch with your potato chips and go do something. Get a little crazy at times. And when I started Micrel back in 1978, all my good friends, and I’ll call them good friends, said, “You’re crazy.” I started Micrel with no money basically, which was a semiconductor company in Silicon Valley. And I started with my own money, but very little money and people said, “You can’t start a company with no money or very little money.” And so that just convinced me that I should, because if they said it can’t be done, that’s what I wanted to do.

Now, was I delusional? In their mind, I was very delusional. In my mind, no, I wasn’t delusional at all. I was confident I could make it happen. And yet in their mind, those friends of mines that looked at what I was trying to do, they were trying to help me and say, “Hey Ray, you’re crazy. You can’t do that. There’s no semiconductor company ever started with no money.” And I said, “Well, I’ll be the first.” So that’s what I did. I started a very successful semiconductor company, virtually no money. [inaudible 00:08:13]-

Rob Artigo: It did very well for a long time.

Ray Zinn: Yeah, well, it’s been sold, but it’s still doing well if you look at the company that acquired it. But again, I wouldn’t be Silicon Valley’s longest serving CEO if I wasn’t a little bit crazy, because I did something that, my friends said, couldn’t be done.

Rob Artigo: Right, crazy’s in the eye of the beholder. The last example is of course, based on the same example you gave, which is Elon Musk and SpaceX. To some people, he’s crazy, some people he’s delusional, but to Elon, he’s a risk-taker, and that risk is apparently paying off quite well because he’s had a lot of… Space-wise, they’ve done some amazing things that are just unbelievable and yet real, and so I guess whether you’re crazy or delusional, depends on the… Crazy, delusional or just a creative person is all in the eye of the beholder.

Ray Zinn: Well, in high school, I ran track and first I was just doing the 100-yard dash, and the broad jump, and that sort of thing, but I decided I was going to try out the hurdles. And my coach said, “You’re crazy. You’re too short. You need to be a taller person to run the hurdles.” So that convinced me that I should run the hurdles. So this was back when I was this teenager and I was very successful. I took fourth in the state in 1955, running the hurdles. And so, yeah, I’m very short. Those of you who know me, I’m not a tall person. And of course it was difficult running the hurdles, especially the high hurdles, because I had to alternate legs, and that means I had to be able to hurdle with either leg, which was very difficult to do, but I was convinced I could do it.

So was I crazy running the hurdles? No, in the sense the word, if I was willing to put forth the effort, like when I started Micrel with no money. I was willing to put forth the effort to be successful. So you might be delusional in other people’s minds, but if you’re willing to put forth the effort, you’re not being delusional. Now, that’s not gambling because gambling you don’t have control over, but if you have control over whatever your pursuit you’re going to have. Whether it be running the hurdles, or trying to get some other education that are difficult to do, or some of their occupation, as long as you have control over it, you’re not delusional.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, as always, our listeners can reach out to you with their questions at toughthingsfirst.com. They can continue their education and the conversation with all the podcasts, the blogs, links to your social media, and of course, there’s information about Tough Things First, the book, and also the series, the Zen of Zinn. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob. Good to be with you.