Uncovering The Benefits And Hazards Of Being A “Multipotentialite” — Interview with Tom Alston (Part 2)

If you have not read the previous parts of this interview, please go back to make sure you enjoy the full commentary of the host, Kale Houser, and the interviewed, Tom Alston.

Kale: That’s pure reactionary and acute. You don’t create long-term success, especially as a business owner under those circumstances, like: “Do this or you will be fired tomorrow”.

Tom: There was an old World War II Army saying: “Firings will continue until the morale improves”.

Kale: Quite possible. I wanted to ask you about how do you go from regional manager of large retail to the race car industry? You also said you were doing development or design and then moved to tax professional.

Those seem pretty different arenas on all three accounts. What was that path like for you?

Tom: The reality is it just doesn’t matter. I have always been able to look at things and say: “I would do that a little bit differently. Why don’t I try this?”

I went to 17 different schools before I got out of high school. I’m used to this crazy constant evolution of doing something new, of figuring out a way to get through this.

I was a district manager for Kmart, then I left that, because even if I enjoyed the hell out of the job, they told me something and then they didn’t keep their word, so I stayed out of that.

I moved to Sacramento with two of my brothers, one of whom was a dentist and one of whom was working at the time in a phone company and was looking for something to do.

They said: “We are starting this company and it has to do with race cars”. I wanted to try that too.

Then I just struggled my way through that. We had a little chassis shop and we were building, doing custom things for some people in the area.

However, this was never going to be big enough for me. Then I turned it into a manufacturing company and we were at one time one of the main sponsors for NHRA and IHRA, which are sanctioning bodies.

I traveled 250K-300K miles a year giving seminars on how to deal with the products, how to design and how to help racecar people while they were at the track.

I built a dealer network across the United States and Canada and I enjoyed all of that, but I eventually ran into a reason to leave, which I apparently pulled all those in for myself.

I got out of that and started writing because I enjoy writing fiction. I wrote a couple of novels which never were published, probably because I didn’t have the courage to send them to anybody to publish them.

Then I wrote maybe a hundred short stories in a short period of time. I got bored.

Then I contacted this friend of mine who I knew through baseball, coaching kids. We were both helping coach 11 and 12-year-olds at the time, and he was in the sales tax business and getting ready to run for political office.

He asked me if I wanted to be his campaign manager. I said: “Why not? I have never done that”. Besides, he told me he wanted to lose.

I said to him that I don’t want to be a salaried employee. I wanted to be paid straight commission. I wanted 28% of every dollar that I produced for him.

I went to work for him and in about two years I was doing 70%-80% of the total volume of his firm, and he had six other tax consultants working for him at the time.

He just decided to start developing amnesia about our payroll agreement. Then I went off and did it on my own because I liked it. Now I’m in the aviation tax business in the state of California.

Basically the real answer to what you asked is those are not connected.

What connects them is me. I’m fairly confident that I can make things happen no matter what business it is I’m in.

I don’t mind working on a 100% commission, because when you own a business you are on a 100% commission whether you want to admit it or not.

The sooner you can get the people that work for you to buy into that viewpoint, the better things will go for your company and the sooner they have to take responsibility for their own output.

They have to take responsibility for doing the right thing for the company and constantly adding new revenue sources. If they don’t want to do that, they are not sold. They are not buying into the company that you have.

You don’t get mad at people when they leave you, because it’s always a good thing. It’s good for them and it’s good for you.

If you teach them the right things, you have given them some tools to help them go forward in their life, to do something for themselves or to be better employees.

Unbeknownst to most people, I think three-quarters of the millionaires in the United States work for someone else. I was always taught by the people that I grew up around that you had to be on your own to be a millionaire.

It’s not true, especially in this day and age where it’s really easy to take the viewpoint that young people don’t want to work. They are entitled. Now I’m giving you the old grouchy part of it.

Create an opportunity for them. Teach them how to take advantage of that opportunity and show them how to make a lot of money. Then why would they ever leave you?

If they leave you, bye-bye. That’s their choice. This is not Nazi Germany. This is not Russia. You don’t have to work for me if you don’t want to.

Kale: I just got to say that’s fascinating. I think you are right. So many people feel stuck because even if you get a new job, you are still you and you still got to deal with all your insecurities, fears and things of that nature.

You overcame that, became a little bit more self-reliant and followed your heart’s desire, or whatever was influencing you at the time. Now you have found something that you really enjoy and you obviously do very well at.

A friend of mine coined the term: the multipotentialite. Those types of people that are always looking for new things, because they want the new challenge, the varied experiences and stuff.

I would definitely describe you as a multipotentialite in nature.

Tom: I will accept that. You can call me an MP if you want. However the danger of having that attitude is that you always think that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

The only reason why you think the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence is because you pissed on your own grass. When you go over to the new place, you are going to piss on that grass too because the constant in that is you.

There’s nothing wrong with being willing or wanting to take on a new challenge, but you have to understand the ethical obligation to the place that you leave. You always have to try and leave the place better than you found it.

Even though I am the CEO of this company, whether it’s the coaching company or the tax company, I created this living and breathing organization and it’s my responsibility to keep it alive and moving forward.

That’s the essence of learning how to lead people. I have an obligation to lead by example and I’m going to tell you about what happens to you when you reach 74. You start to feel like you are running out of time.

You never think about that when you are 12, 20, 30 or 40. I didn’t start thinking about running out of time until I was 60, but the reality is that you are running out of time.

If you understand the simple concept of a normal graph, it only has to be one better each time. That means it’s constantly going up. If it goes up over 50 years, you have created a tremendous affluence.

Please share with us if you take action to make sure that you are not running out of time. What are these actions? How do you make sure to constantly one-up yourself?

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