A demonstration sample of "American Dream" —— Reading Peter? Autobiography of Peterson

Peterson's life is undoubtedly a model of the "American Dream". As a descendant of a Greek immigrant, a young man with nothing but his own qualities, he showed amazing adaptability in his work. First, he jumped from advertising to a strange film equipment manufacturing industry, then turned to politics, served as the president's economic adviser and commerce minister, and then entered the business world, where a hundred flowers blossomed on Wall Street, creating a business miracle. Let's follow his memories and see how he achieved these achievements step by step.

1943, young Peterson set out from his hometown to study at MIT. In this process, he gradually realized that he was not cut out to be an engineer:

"I only know that I need to find a field where I can apply my mathematical talent to interpersonal relationships or business situations instead of wasting it on object structures and mechanical equipment."

Accordingly, his outstanding ability of "observing words and observing colors" has long been reflected. For example, he has his own knack for how to get "good grades" in class:

"If you watch carefully, you will find that when people talk about their favorite topics, their actions will be extraordinarily rich and their voices will be full of passion. In other words, I not only listen to the superficial meaning of the professor's lecture, but also listen to the implication, and write down the implication of the professors with the classroom notebook. The exam is coming, I will look at my notes, think about the paragraphs that the professor emphasized at that time, and then read them carefully until I remember them. No matter what the questions on the test paper are, I will try my best to write down the main points that can arouse the enthusiasm of the professor. Actually, I was just flattering them. I know it's a bit unkind, but these behaviors always bring me an A or A+. The knowledge I learned in these classes not only helped me get on the honor list of outstanding students, but also helped me learn to listen and observe others, which played a huge role in my later early career. "

After graduation, Peterson briefly worked as a retail salesman and then devoted himself to advertising. At the same time, he completed the MBA evening course of Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago after work, and became an associate professor of marketing in the school one year after receiving his MBA degree. Peterson said: "I think the reason why the business school asked me to teach is that in addition to my thesis and good grades, my work has attracted some people's attention." I'm not content to know something. I like to write down what I know and even teach it to others. Although I am only in my twenties, I have accumulated a lot of contacts, most of which I cooperated with when I was doing research, which makes my world not limited to a small Chicago market research company. "

During this period, he took part in the activities to persuade Eisenhower to participate in the presidential election, and got to know Chuck, the chairman and CEO of Bedshaw, a photographic equipment manufacturing company (Peterson participated in many economic and political organizations at various stages of his life, and these "amateur" activities also helped him a lot in his career). There is another similarity between them: Booth School of Business, University of Chicago. Chuck also graduated from there. He is also a director of the business school. He has heard that Peterson teaches marketing courses at the university.

After being dissatisfied with the behavior of the president of the advertising company, Peterson decided to leave the advertising industry, and Chuck sent an invitation, so Peterson joined the manufacturing industry of Northbridge Company.

At that time, the traditional photographic equipment manufacturing industry was gradually impacted by Japanese enterprises and emerging electronic products. Although Bedxiao under the leadership of Peterson can try his best to maintain the annual profit growth and keep the stock price at a high level, in the long run, the decline of the core photographic equipment business and the brutal competition from abroad are inevitable. This means that cost-saving measures or efficiency improvement cannot maintain the company's development, and other complementary fields must be developed to achieve diversification.

Despite many efforts, in fact, the decline trend of Northbridge Company continued, and Peterson chose to go to Washington for public office before the industry and the company completely declined. Peterson also made a more pertinent evaluation during his dexterous work. He concluded: "Just looking at the figures, people may think that I have achieved quite good results in those eight years. During my tenure, the company's sales doubled and its income quadrupled, but in fact the situation is much more complicated. In trying to push forward cost control, I gave myself an A; In the context of the rapid decline of the industry, I maintain market share and profits by launching new products, and I also gave myself an A in this respect; But I can only give myself a C for the assurance of the company's future. I failed to guide Bay into a future electronic world: cameras, video recorders, etc. "

During Mr. Bay's tenure, Peterson accumulated first-hand experience in international economy and trade, because "just studying the competition from Japanese photographic equipment manufacturers gave me a clear understanding of international trade, exchange rate and production norms."

At the same time, Peterson was elected to the oldest and most respected Council of the Brookings Institution in Washington (this is another "amateur" activity), where he can be exposed to all aspects from domestic and foreign security policies to social and economic policies.

This series of experiences may be the reason why the Nixon administration issued an invitation.

After joining Washington, Peterson served as the president's economic adviser and commerce minister, and went to the Soviet Union as an economic negotiator, but for political reasons, he was "purged" from the cabinet at the beginning of Nixon's second term.

Peterson concluded: "During my work in the Nixon administration, I gained some unique experiences and established some beautiful and lasting international friendships. They paved the way for my future opportunities in business and large non-profit organizations. Although the days in Washington are surging, if you don't stay there for 30 months, the subsequent business and non-profit organization activities will not succeed. "

The success of Blackstone Group also played a great role, that is, the good relationship between Peterson and Sony founder Akio Morita.

After returning from Washington, Peterson turned his attention to Wall Street. Why I chose Wall Street, Peterson said: "At that time, I clearly realized that it was investors and business owners who really made big money, not lawyers, consultants, financial consultants and other people who earned wages by the hour or by projects. Similarly, I know that I don't want to devote my business energy to only one or two industrial fields. And obviously, some units need people with extensive social relations like me. "

"Although I have no working experience in the financial field, there is a popular saying on Wall Street: As long as I master mathematics in the second grade, I can work on Wall Street. I think I have the ability to learn new knowledge quickly. In addition, there are many people on Wall Street who manipulate transaction details such as dividends in exchange for convertible credit bonds. I don't need to learn this anymore. I have experience in company operations, contacts with many companies, and international experience accumulated during my tenure in Washington. "

In Peterson's experience, it is easy to get one or more consulting positions, but Peterson believes: "Although I am still a senior consultant in finance, corporate mergers and acquisitions and asset acquisitions. However, your suggestion may or may not be adopted by others. For me, if I really want to win wealth and bring myself satisfaction, I must own, build and develop enterprises. Your daily decisions can be accumulated into the spirit of the enterprise and gradually become the driving force. You can witness with your own eyes that one of your ideas becomes tangible and becomes a reality. There is a big gap between the tax rate of capital gains and the tax rate of labor income, so the risk of investment enterprises has also been rewarded with tax reduction and exemption. "

At this time, Lehman coincided with the crisis, and its internal factional struggle made them need an "outsider" to coordinate, so Peterson became their choice and got the position of CEO. After taking office, he took advantage of his own advantages and implemented a series of reform measures, the most important of which was: "Expanding M&A business seems to be the most promising move, and I began to increase my efforts in this direction. It is difficult to get customers from its traditional securities underwriting bank, but I have a good personal relationship with the bosses of many companies. I think this relationship is conducive to the development of Lehman Brothers in the field of corporate mergers and acquisitions. Lehman Brothers' role in this business is to consult and provide funds. At the same time, the company's operation will turn to the field where it is good at, and give up the business with poor performance or huge capital. I don't want to get involved in areas where we don't have advantages. "

Peterson did successfully save Lehman in the crisis. When summing up the reasons for his success in Lehman, Peterson said: "I have carefully studied such truly miraculous figures as Henry Kissinger and James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank. So far, they have provided a lot of consulting services to important customers and achieved great success. Part of the reason for their success is that their opinions and suggestions are extremely valuable, but I think there are other reasons for their success, that is, they have occupied prominent civil service positions and gained a global reputation in these positions, and potential customers will be very happy to associate with people of such status and quality as Henry and Jim. I do think that my position in the government, my experience in public service and my work in non-profit organizations have achieved some success, but I am not enough to be called a miracle person. I won't pretend to be a rock star like Henry or Jim.

Speaking of high-level people, I'd like to add a lesson I learned when developing new business in McCann Company: potential customers mainly care about their own careers and their own business problems. Before I plan to start a business, I usually preview a lot of homework in advance, and prepare various analysis reports and suggestions in advance for the problems of enterprises.

Some successful people who can give orders can make deals by playing golf, singing and dancing. They started a new career with their unique charm and unique way. My conclusion is that this method is not my comparative advantage. "

Lehman gradually entered a good situation, but a few years later, he was successfully forced to leave Lehman by co-CEO Gruxman.

Shortly after leaving Lehman, Peterson and Lehman employee Steve Schwarczman co-founded Blackstone.

About the development direction of Blackstone, such as whether to build Blackstone into a full-service enterprise and enter the fields of securities underwriting, stock research and securities trading. Peterson said: "Adam Smith believes that the success of business lies in focusing on what you do better than others." Or as he said, give play to your' comparative advantage'. This advice has benefited me a lot for a long time. There are many comprehensive service companies with high quality and outstanding ability on Wall Street. If we try these businesses, we will face fierce competition from companies with sufficient capital and professional services. More importantly, Steve and I are not experts in these fields, and our capital is not sufficient. In this regard, we only have a' comparative disadvantage'. We decided to listen to the important wisdom of Adam Smith. "

After nearly two years of long and arduous pioneering period, Blackstone Group has gradually embarked on the development track, and their "comparative advantage" is their unique connections.

The biggest consulting customer of Blackstone Group in its early days was Sony. Schwarczman knew Mitch Schulhof, the senior director of the company's US headquarters, and Peterson had a long and close personal friendship with Sony founder and CEO Akio Morita during his political career in Washington. Represented by assisting Sony to acquire Colombia, Blackstone's early transactions made it "gradually grow" in less than four years. By 1989, it has become the leader of M&A industry in Japan and the United States.

Regarding the contribution of megatrends to Blackstone's early success, Peterson also said frankly: "The investment conditions in the 1990s were so favorable to private equity funds. After shrewd calculation, it would be incompetent if it didn't succeed. In the 1990s, the economy continued to grow strongly. The low interest rate gave the company sufficient funds to allocate funds to repay debts. Moreover, the competition of private equity funds at that time was far less intense than today. Last but not least, the price-earnings ratio rose sharply in the 1990s. In the early 1990s, the average rate of return of Standard & Poor's 500 companies was 15. 1 times its net income. By 1999, this multiple has doubled to 33.8, that is to say, we can sell the same company without any growth in business, but the price is almost twice that of 1990. "

Since then, Blackstone has grown by expanding its business and entering the real estate industry, and finally successfully listed in 2007, making Peterson a real billionaire.

So far, several stages of Peterson's career have been explained.

Combined with the book reviews of netizens, I summed up Peterson's career with slightly harsh words:

Peterson is undoubtedly successful personally. His career has jumped from one post to another, and most of the time he can be said to be competent, but many times it is hard to say that he is excellent. Judging from the most rough impression, he is better at being a happy prince when the trend is favorable, and finding his next home with his brilliant resume and contacts when the trend is unfavorable. He pointed out that there was something wrong with the ship of the declining Shell Intelligent Company, and he attributed the development of Lehman to himself. If you interview his partners, including Nixon and Peterson's successors in various companies, you may see different comments more or less. The leader said that I made some progress and made some achievements during my tenure, but it is difficult to evaluate and quantify the performance of decision makers in essence, so it is difficult to say whether to lead or be pushed away by everyone. For example, there is something suspicious about Peterson's performance at Lehman: if he really made outstanding achievements, why didn't he get recognition, so that the board of directors would eventually support his men to force the palace?

Everyone has his own ability, just need a suitable position. Peterson didn't find his good field until the end of his career: matchmaking. He is good at communication. Although his political career was not successful, the accumulated contacts made Blackstone shine in the early days. Blackstone's early success largely depended on its role as a middleman between Japan and the United States, which was no different from Hammer he despised in the government. The same company/target wants to give the Japanese a higher price, which can be hooligans (the Japanese were stupid and rich representatives at that time).

On the other hand, the life of billionaires also has difficulties that ordinary people cannot understand.

According to Peterson's description, during the Lehman period, his life was basically spent like this (billionaires seem to be like this, right? ):

"In the morning, several colleagues and I took a special bus all the way to the company. They report to me in the car or finalize the plan. When you get to the office, have breakfast with the customer representative of the potential project. There is naturally a business dinner at noon. Later in the afternoon, I may need to introduce a foreign leader to the members of the Association for Foreign Relations. Every day, I have to answer 25 to 30 calls. Of course, you have to make the same number of calls. When I go to the dentist, I still consider spending time writing speeches. Sometimes I have to sign hundreds of letters to the executive chairman of the bipartisan Budget Appeals Committee. I attended five meetings a day, not 10, excluding all kinds of dinners. Every day, several assistants work at high speed beside me. I have to write articles for magazines and books for publishing houses on weekends. "

I'm afraid it's not enough to describe this life with darkness!

At home, he broke up with his two wives because he was too immersed in his work (Peterson now lives with his third wife). According to Peterson's own description, the second wife broke up after giving him a long-term "green hat", but foreigners may be more open-minded in this respect, and everyone will still be good friends after breaking up.

No matter how awesome the life is, there is always such a disgraceful side. And many times, people will only show you the most gorgeous side of feathers.

In the last part of the book, old Peter summed up seven lessons he learned in life.

(This part is quite good. It is recommended to read the original text. In fact, it echoes the original English title of this book: The Education of an American Dreamer. Chinese translation has to rub the hot word "Blackstone", and we can't see what the translation basis is. )

1. Give play to your comparative advantage

Don't be led by work, and don't give you a big office just because of high salary, good welfare and good location. Focus on whether your strengths can be reflected in your work.

2. Don't be lazy in thought

Always think about the specific situation of your company, your industry and the whole economic environment!

For example, in advertising, you can sit back and relax without being called a genius. Also think about what advertising is, what advertising can be and what advertising should be.

The most important thing is to invest and try to take practical actions.

This means trying to improve or improve what I think is worth trying, and trying to change what I think needs to be changed. There is no point in just putting down the cannon.

4. Carefully choose your own field of struggle according to your personal needs.

Be loyal to your interests, devote yourself to enthusiasm, and let unexpected joy follow you.

Be loyal to your principles, your heart and your moral standards.

Say no when it is time to say no.

6. Find a balance that makes you healthy and happy in your career and personal life.

7. Choose long-term interests

Still an old saying goes, look at the problem in the long run!

I don't know about autobiographical books, but this one is more like a running account, which makes people feel less energetic to read. Judging from the evaluation of autobiographical books on the internet, it is inevitable that the author will say something nice for himself, and it is difficult to objectively describe things by running on people who have had a relationship with him.

However, Peterson is more realistic in evaluating his life, which is reflected in his frank admission that there are many lucky elements in his career success. Yes, such a smart person, who is willing to work hard, has communication skills and knows how to follow the trend, how can he not be favored by luck?