David Senra

July 7, 2021

Driven: An Autobiography

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My highlights from the book:

1. The Larry H. Miller Group, which produces $3.2 billion in sales annually, ranking it among the 200 largest privately-owned companies in the United States.

2. All of this blossomed from a single car dealership with fewer than 30 employees. 

3. He was an ordinary man even though he did extraordinary things.

4. Waste is unjustified, and especially the waste of time. One must live, not only exist; he must do, not merely be; he must grow, not just vegetate.

5. It’s excellence for the sake of excellence. It just feels good being excellent, doing your best, learning everything you can about anything to which you apply yourself, and then doing that thing well.

6. Miller considered John Adams a kindred spirit after reading David McCullough’s biography of the man

7. There are few great secrets to my professional success, just hard work and a conscious attempt to draw conclusions or lessons from things that happen to me and around me and to learn everything I can about my job and find a better way to do it. 

8. The chain of events that began my entrepreneurial career was sparked by three failures: I dropped out of college, got laid off, and got demoted.

9. It hit me like a bucket of cold water. Here I was, soon to be 27 years old, married, with two children and one on the way, and I was responsible for raising and supporting those children. I realized I had nothing to fall back on. I had no college education, no special training. All I had was my energy and whatever talent I had been blessed with. It scared me. The feeling was so overwhelming that I stopped what I was doing to ponder the matter. I decided I had to be extremely good at something, and the thing I was best at was being a Toyota parts manager. That night I worked until 10:00. It was the start of my 90-hour-a-week work schedule.

10. Being mediocre is no fun.

11. The insanely long hours that I worked were driven by fear, but then the success became intoxicating. 

12. I was taken again to the juvenile detention center for several days. Whose parents call the police on them?

13. I discovered that I had a knack for creating work systems that produced stunning results,.

14. I come to work every day with the sole purpose of beating you guys.

15. I was betting on myself.

16. When he got into something, he took it seriously.

17. David Stern asked me, “How long are you going to keep playing for table stakes?

18. Working all the time made me successful. It made me a failure, too. I missed most of my children’s youth

19. If I had to choose between working long hours and being closer to family, I would choose the latter. I didn’t see it until after my kids were grown and gone.

20. I try to pass these painful lessons to others who might be tempted by the allure of professional success. Mine is a cautionary tale.

21. I missed all those years with my family, and I can’t have them back. In some ways, it’s so simple. All you’ve got to do is be there.

22. A bunch of people say, “I wanna have . . .” and “I wanna be . . .” but they’re not willing to pay the price. The price is time and effort and being a student of what you’re doing.

23. I often remember that discussion with Grandpa Horne that had such a profound influence on my life and the way I worked. You’ll remember that I was discouraged because I was working very hard and had earned great responsibility from my employer, and yet I was paid like everyone else and was refused a raise. I told my grandpa that if they were only going to pay me $1.45 an hour, then I would give them only a $1.45 effort. That was when he told me that no one would know the difference except me. And then he promised me that if I worked as hard as I could and learned all that I could in that business, someday it would pay off many times over. It was not about my employer; it was about me. Everything Grandpa Horne promised has come to pass.

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About David Senra

Learn from history's greatest founders. Every week I read a biography of an entrepreneur and tell you what I learned on Founders podcast