An Army of Normal Folks - Fred Smith’s Perseverance

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

For our latest Shop Talk, what the founder of FedEx can teach all of us.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney, Shop Talk number 22. You still haven't got a bell, Alex. We're supposed to have a bell. You don't pay me enough. Well, I don't pay you enough, for God's sakes. You don't pay me enough. True. Yeah, that's a good point.

Nobody's getting paid enough over here at Army of Normal, folks. Hey everybody, Shop Talk number 22. We're going to talk about perseverance. And the perspective's gonna be from a name you may know, Fred Smith, the CEO of FedEx, who I got a really cool chance to sit down with and talk to one day. And the stories he told me were inspiring, yes, but even more maybe interesting.

How the man persevered to change the world right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history.

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You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiral'd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our

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wherever you get your podcasts. We think of Franklin as the dodging dude flying a kite in the rain, but those experiments are the most important scientific discoveries of the time. I'm Evan Ratliff. Last season, we tackled the ingenuity of Elon Musk with biographer Walter Isaacson. This time we're diving into the story of Benjamin Franklin, another genius who's desperate to be dusted off from history. — His media empire makes him the most successful self-made business person in America.

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Late on the evening of March 8th, 1971, a group of anti-war activists did something insane. Holy shit, we are really here. This is really happening. They weren't professional criminals. They were ordinary citizens,

but they needed to know the truth about the FBI. Burglars forged blackmail letters and threats of violence were used to try to stop anti-war marches. Even if that meant risking everything. I just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon and it was just my job to stop the fire. I'm Ed Helms, host of Snafu, season two Medburg, the story of a daring heist that exposed J.

Edgar Hoover's secret FBI. If it meant some risks that were involved, well, that's what citizens sometimes have to do. Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, Bill Courtney, Shop Talk number 22, ding ding ding, since Alex won't buy me a bell. Fred Smith, Fred Smith is the founder of FedEx and he's been incredible to the Memphis community but obviously to the world at large he's changed the way we do business. I had an opportunity to interview him for my book Against the Grain and some of this content is in that book but I learned so much from him and

I think it has value to talk about his idea of perseverance. The first thing is this guy went to Yale and while at Yale he realized that from Marks Mississippi to Yale, which is a big deal. While at Yale, he realized that business the business and industry were headed toward automation. And believe it or not FedEx, the idea of FedEx was born from the fact that banks were replacing, you know, my goodness, stories, floors full of clerks that were typing in debits and credits and running passbook checking accounts and all of that was done by hand and they started to be being replaced by mainframe computers, machines replacing laborers. Insurance companies were using computers to calculate actuary

tables instead of relying on huge staffs of accountants. And while all of these cost saving measures were taking place, you know, if two of your accountants at an insurance company or five of your clerks didn't show up at a bank one day, you still had hundreds of others doing this work. But when you place all these people with these massive computers, if one part breaks, the bank shuts down. And can you imagine what would happen to your economy in the country if the banks just shut down because the mainframe computer shut down?

And so what he realized is banks and insurance companies, and then as industry involved in manufacturing, companies to be able to do the work that they'd always done with people with these mainframe computers, they were absolutely positively going to have to have replacement parts overnight. You see his first idea wasn't really about replacing documents and mail, it was about parts for banks and insurance companies and large manufacturers. So that was his idea. But before he was able to work on this new logistics system, Fred went to serve in the Marine Corps in Vietnam. That was expected in his family.

Six of his relatives served in World War II. When he returned from the United States in 1970, Fred realized that his predictions from the early 60s were coming to fruition and quickly. But in the military, he'd observed this tremendous coordination between the air and ground forces and the Marines, and he further developed the concept of a hub and spoke system. Integrated air and ground backing, the hub would be in Memphis, his whole town. Interestingly, when I asked him why it was in his hometown, it's because Memphis International Airport was a large airport. It's much larger now because of FedEx, but it was because it was the airport in the country that had the least amount of

fog and he knew he'd have to be landing planes early, early in the mornings and late at night when fog could be prevalent. And because Memphis had very, very little fog, it would interrupt operations less frequently. So he started. The next step was raising capital. Everything was going according to plan until an Arab oil embargo happened. Fred was forced to raise more capital and navigate miles of red tape in DC to secure adequate fuel for

his fleet. This was a task that could have crippled a lot, but he persevered because he planned properly and the research showed his concept was sound. So he went to work and the whole time he's overcoming the naysayers, he's persevering the difficult times of raising money and oil embargoes and all of the things that face starting up an airline based, this wasn't just an airline carrying passengers,

that was a proved concept. This was an airline which is hard enough to raise money for and start, but also a concept that was his idea that had never been proved out. The whole time though he's falling back his perseverance is falling back on his time in the military. He said to me quote, there's no poke your head over the next hill and see what's going to happen in business because if you do that in warfare, you end up with a bullet between your eyes.

So he approached and he persevered through business much like he persevered through his military service in the Marines. When skeptics such as shipping magnate Malcolm McLean refused to invest in those early days, Fred pressed on. He knew his company would thrive as long as he stayed the course and carried out the plan. Today, FedEx employs over 300,000 people and it has changed the way the world does business. Fred does not believe in luck. He believes in what he learned in the Marines, proper planning.

Fred does not believe in risk because risk in the Marines led to death. Calculated risk is how he ran his business. He wasn't worried about what people had to say about him. He didn't have a fear of failure. He persevered because of proper planning and he persevered because of a proof of concept. And in doing so, he changed the world. How does that affect us? Why is that a shop talk? Because we have problems every day as normal folks. We've got to overcome money problems, kid problems, relationships problems, work problems, business problems.

But what Fred Smith has to teach us about the way he changed the world and the way we can change our lives is that perseverance is not about just being tough. Sure it takes being tough. Proof of your concept. Plan accordingly and stay the course and don't take unnecessary risks. That sets you up to be able to persevere through any challenge. Starting a 501c3, serving in your community. Whatever it is that you seek out to do, plan accordingly, prove your concept, stay the course and don't worry what other people say. That's how you persevere.

And if Fred Smith can use that menu of options and that recipe to change the world, maybe we can use it to change our little corner of the world. That's shop talk number 22. If you have any ideas about fundamentals, tenants, current events and you'd like me to do a shop talk on it would you please email and let me know. You can reach me anytime at Bill at normalfolks.us. If it's a topic or an idea that I think I might have a thought on that could be valuable, I'd love to cite that you sent it to me

and have a little chat about it on Shop Talk. Thanks to our producer, Iron Light Labs, I'm Bill Courtney, I'll see you next week. Thanks to our producer, Iron Light Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti

marked the beginning of the end. It sent the message that we can prosecute these people. Listen to Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ever get the feeling someone's watching you? We know they're looking for us. Well, in 1971, a group of anti-war activists

had that feeling. I was in the heart of the dragon, and it was my job to stop the fire. So they decided to do something insane, break in to the FBI, and expose J. Edgar Hoover's dirty secrets. We had some idea that this was pretty explosive. I'm Ed Helms.

Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers.

You mix homesteading with guns and church, voila, you got straight away. You try to save everybody. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring

the three pound universe in our heads. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life, because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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