If the Shoe Fits: Five Keys to Living—Channeling Jack Bogle
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here
Looking for a great role model?
How about someone who founded his company 38 years ago and is still active in it?
Someone who built an amazing organization, with an incredible track record for success through every economic turn?
A financial innovator who created the first index fund available for individual investors?
Someone Time Magazine named one of the “world’s 100 most powerful and influential people” in 2004 when he was 75.
How about Jack Bogle, who founded and built The Vanguard Group.
“Vanguard now has 14,000 crew members, and it’s big business, and that doesn’t really appeal to me much. But those are the perils and blessings of success. When I get disturbed about all that size – $2.2 trillion is a lot of assets – I remind myself that we’re giving good careers to 14,000 people, and it’s a company that’s value-oriented, service-oriented, integrity-oriented.”
Bogle offers some great wisdom, that, while it is applicable to everyone, is especially apropos for founders.
I pulled what I saw as the most important to share with you, starting with a salient quote by Frederick Buechner that Bogle used in a speech he gave at Princeton.
“To live is to experience all sorts of things. (…) Pay attention to your life.”
You can channel Jack Bogle by taking these five points to heart.
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“Follow your own instincts, try to be yourself and live your own life. I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that.”
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“Other than that, it comes down to some pretty simple things: First, don’t forget your family, because in the end, that’s all you really have. Next, be a decent human being, and don’t think you’re better than anybody else, no matter what your condition of wealth or importance.”
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“Indeed, never forget the important role of luck in your life. Never, never, never, never say, ‘I did it all myself.’ Nobody does it all themselves. And when somebody has the temerity to tell me they did, I say to them: ‘That’s wonderful. I’m not sure I’ve ever met anybody who did it all themselves, but could I ask you one question: How did you arrange to be born in the United States of America?’ “
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“The struggle is what it’s all about; people ask me about success. Success is a word I almost never use. Success sounds like you’ve achieved something, it’s done.”
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“But to be corny, though not inaccurate, success is a journey and not a destination. You don’t say, ‘I’ve arrived, I’m here.’ You say, ‘I’ll try to do a little better tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after that.’”
Follow these and you’ll be known not only as a winning founder, but also as an exemplary human being.
Image credit: HikingArtist
