Dr. Gary North has six total principles regarding success: (1) Do what you say you’re going to do, (2) do it when you say you’re going to do it, (3) do it at the agreed upon price, (4) decide what you want to achieve, and (5) decide when you want to achieve it, (6) and decide what you’re willing to pay for it. These are good rules to live by. He argues that if you live by them, success is inevitable. It’s a value-oriented lifestyle with the endgame in mind. Personal success in the free market is determined by the creation of value. Unethical means of attaining success do not count. Crime does not count. There is no value creation in crime, though the criminal may have some level of success. Still, the fulfillment and peace of mind found in their line of work is dubious at best. The same is true of prostitution. Regardless of what modern society says, there is zero value in prostitution. Prostitutes and others in the brothel industry may have monetary success, but it isn’t true success because there’s no fulfillment in the industry, regardless of what people say. There just isn’t. I’ve never been a prostitute. I don’t have to be a prostitute to know that. Evil does not provide fulfillment. It’s that simple. It’s a destructive business, and I’ll proclaim this unapologetically. Regarding the creation of value, there is no value created in unethical enterprises, by definition.
This brings me to Gary North’s second point. He defines success as replenished outflow. There are two parts to this: the goal and the means. The goal of success is outflow (i.e., service). True success (i.e., fulfillment) comes from providing services, or what he calls “outflows.” To be able to pay for the outflows, a person needs inflows. This is the second part. The inflows allow someone to give outflows. This inflow-outflow relationship is a form of replenishing, hence the definition of success as replenished outflows. To many, this may appear to be an entirely backward approach. Many probably think they only provide services (outflows) so they can make money (inflows) to purchase material pleasure. This, however, does not provide fulfillment. Success without fulfillment is not success. The outflow-inflow distinction and relationship is an extension of the job-calling distinction and relationship. Both are necessary. Most people will not be paid to pursue their calling. Gary North defines a calling as the most important thing a person can do in which they are most difficult to replace. That is where they find fulfillment. Since most people cannot be paid to pursue their calling, they need a job to fund it. The “job” may not be a 9-5 salary job. It may be as a business owner, or through passive investments such as dividend stocks and real estate, or it may be in pursuing freelance work. Regardless of the technical definition, the “job” is what pays for the calling. The inflows are the means of attaining the outflows. That is where success lies. It is a replenished outflow.
Mowing Business
I started a mowing enterprise four years ago, during COVID-19. At the time, I was only thirteen years old. Ever since I was eleven, I wanted to make money. Most of this was rooted in selfish and futile ambitions to purchase superfluous “luxuries.” What else could you expect from a twelve-year-old? I saw local yard guys mowing, and the business didn’t look difficult. We had a mower and a weed-eater. The up-front costs for me to start a mowing business were virtually non-existent, so I figured the only thing standing in the way of me and what I considered to be unlimited riches was skill. Dad and I discussed the prospects of starting a business. He liked the idea, but he told me to spend a year doing our yard, week after week, and if I could last one summer doing our yard, I could start knocking on doors after my thirteenth birthday. After knocking on thirty doors, two people were willing to give me a shot, and my lawn-mowing business was born.
The first was an elderly man living on our block. He injured his leg and was incapable of mowing his yard. His yard grew out of hand. My job was to keep it in order until his knee healed. The job seemed simple enough. It was pretty simple. But he continually reassured me that once his knee healed, he was going to buy a new mower and continue mowing his own yard because he enjoyed it. It’s been four years since I started mowing his yard, and I haven’t stopped since. In those four years, he hasn’t touched a lawn mower once. I guess he changed his mind.
My second client was an elderly woman living two blocks away from our house. She, like my first client, was incredibly gracious in allowing me to work. I mowed her yard for the summer, but unfortunately, I made a blunder that caused me to lose the business. After mowing her yard consistently for a few months, my mower broke. Nowadays, I can fix almost all issues my mower faces within a very short time, usually one or two days. This was not the case back then. I hardly knew anything about the mower or mechanics. The mower spent over three weeks in the shop. People say time is money. In my experience, this is very true. However, in my case, this time was lost money. While my mower was in the shop, I lost the business. Her yard needed to be mowed, and I couldn’t mow it. She hired a new yard guy while my mower was broken. It turns out, that my mower wasn’t really broken. Some grass had clogged around the blade spindles, and the blade belt couldn’t spin the blades. All I had to do was remove the grass. This issue could have been fixed in a matter of minutes, had I known what the problem was. Unfortunately, I did not, and because of this, I lost the business. Even though losing a customer hits you with a treacherous sting, it taught me an invaluable lesson about the mowing business: If I wanted to retain customers, I needed to learn to fix my machinery by myself. I couldn’t rely on mechanics. I wouldn’t have weeks or months to spare. Since then, I have never taken a piece of mowing machinery to the mechanic. I haven’t needed to because I could fix it myself. This has been beneficial for two reasons. First, it has saved me countless dollars I would have owed the mechanic for his labor. Second, and even more importantly, this has saved me time that would have cost me clients, and there’s no telling how much that would have cost me in the long run. The overall point that I learned from this experience expands beyond the mowing business, however. While I can directly apply this lesson to say that I shouldn’t be reliant on mechanics, this truth applies to every business. At the end of the day, we are rewarded for providing a valuable service to our clients. We must satisfy their needs, irrespective of what hindrances may befall us. Anything that might stand in your way from providing a given service to your customer must be eliminated—inefficiency must be eliminated. In my case, this inefficiency relies on mechanics.
That is one of the lessons I learned through a negative experience. There are also many valuable lessons I’ve learned through positive experiences. As I already mentioned, my first client has stuck with me for four years. My dedication to this customer only increased when I lost my other customer. He was the only client I had at this point, and I was determined not to lose him. It paid off. I showed up on time every single day. If I promised to be there at 9:00 AM, I was there at 8:55 AM. I fulfilled every promise I made. I paid extra attention to the details. I charged modest prices. He often tipped me because of my low prices. Dr. Gary North says the three points to achieve success and leadership are: (1) Do what you say you’ll do, (2) do it when you say you’ll do it, (3) do it at the agreed-upon price. In my experience, this is true. It was certainly the case with my original client. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, by following these three principles, my business expanded. He was so impressed with my work that he decided to recommend me to a few locals he knew. That resulted in more business. When I followed those same principles with the new clients, they referred me even further. In my first year of business, I started with one customer; by my second year, I had four; in the third year I had about eight; and this year I have just shy of seventeen clients, thirteen of which call me on a consistent, weekly or bi-weekly basis. I try to save as much of the money that I make as possible. While I initially started the business with the ambition to purchase toys, I quickly realized this was a waste of money and became more addicted to seeing my assets multiply than buying futile toys. More on that here.
Now, I have a significant emergency fund. It’s not bad for a seventeen-year-old. Most of my money is in savings accounts, money market accounts, gold, ETFs (mostly a simple ETF that tracks the S&P 500. I like STRV), bond funds, and municipal bonds. I used to invest in individual stocks, trying to emulate the Benjamin Graham investing philosophy. I made some nice money doing it. I also lost some money doing it. I don’t do it anymore. Maybe I will at another point in my life. I’m not interested in putting the required time into reading financial statements. Regardless, all of these investments—gold, bonds, ETFs, and money market accounts—have done pretty well. They should help pay for college and law school.
There are many other business lessons I’ve learned in the four years I’ve owned a lawn care business. I won’t write about them here. I may write another blog post in the future discussing those lessons. But in terms of Gary North’s analysis of success has certainly been true. His points for success—do what you say you’ll do, do it when you say you’ll do it, and do it at the agreed-upon price—have certainly benefited my business tremendously in terms of expansion. Profit margins have increased because of this philosophy. Sales volume has also increased. As far as his definition of success—replenished outflows—I have also found this to be true. Over the years, there have been instances where I assisted people in need. In some cases, it’s been neighbors who cannot mow. Just this past week, I helped a widow from our church by mowing her lawn and using my understanding of mower mechanics to fix her riding lawnmower. Outflows like this are largely possible because of the inflows I’ve received from my business.
Piano
Piano playing is another area in which I’ve experienced some levels of success. My parents enrolled me in piano lessons when I was seven years old. I quit taking piano lessons this past year due to increasing high school obligations. I took lessons for ten years. There were many lessons to be learned. First and foremost, it taught me the power of compounded time and consistency. Even though ten years may seem like a long time, it went by quickly. The value of showing up each day and practicing something cannot be understated. It teaches immense discipline. In the day, practicing was not that exhausting. Yet ten years later, the progress was almost unrecognizable.
Gary Norh’s last three of the six principles of success—decide what you want to achieve, decide when you want to achieve it and decide what you’re willing to pay for it—directly apply to practicing the piano. Every year, my teacher gave me new pieces. I had the anticipation of a piano recital the next year. This caused foresight. The goal was not to be embarrassed by the piano recital. There were often some students who hadn’t practiced enough. You never wanted to be that guy. “What I wanted to achieve” were accolades. “When” I wanted to achieve it was during the recital, giving me an exact deadline. What I was “willing to pay for it” was the time spent practicing.
Speeches
I’ve also experienced some success in giving speeches. There are a handful of speeches I’ve given in the past year. Most of them were unplanned. All of them have been tremendous successes. Much of this success is attributable to my father, who has served as a type of speech coach. Though I can go into the specifics regarding the speeches I’ve given and how they’ve been impactful, I cannot think of any way in which they concern Gary North’s principles or definition of success. Therefore, I will not waste the beloved reader’s time by continuing to elaborate on this subject.
Conclusion
Just to recapitulate, Gary North defines success as replenished outflows. Genuine fulfillment, and therefore success, comes from outflows, not inflows. Success is producing outflows that replenish themselves via inflows. He has six principles regarding success: (1) Do what you say you’re going to do, (2) do it when you say you’re going to do it, (3) do it at the agreed-upon price, (4) decide what you want to achieve, (5) decide when you want to achieve it, (6) and decide what you’re willing to pay for it.
Asher Sisneros 