No one wants you to succeed more than I do. Getting this job doesn’t mean you’ve won the battle. Hardly. What it means is that you’ve been shipped to the front lines. Now you have to start fighting. In order for you to win, not only do you have to be smarter than the enemy, you have to work harder than him. Yes, that’s right: I’m the enemy; but so is everyone else here. The difference is that I’m willing to step up to the front and take you on directly, while the rest are content to work behind the lines using “diplomacy” to get their way. These people can shut you down without you ever knowing what hit you. I’m giving you a chance to prove your mettle, to go one on one. I want to give you a chance to show what you can do, but in order to do that I can’t pull my punches, I’ve got to go at you with everything I’ve got, otherwise, what’s the point? If I let you win then we’re all no better off than if we make you lose without ever giving you a chance: we still don’t know what you can do. So, c’mon, let’s see what you’re made of, let’s go.
Here’s my problem: You say you’re doing your job, but I say you’re not. Sure, you’re dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s. but from where I sit it looks like you’re just going through the motions. There’s nothing there. It’s just empty, ultimately unproductive labor. To win you have to do more, you have to bring yourself to the job, your whole self, and you have to put it on the line and give your all. You have to be original on the job. Each and every one of us on God’s green earth is an original. You just have to bring your originality out of yourself and into your work. And that’s not all. You have to communicate it so that the rest of can get it, so we can plug into it and make it go, so it becomes a part of the all around, the everything, the light that shines at night, the power that drives the engines that make the world that is our world go round -- not God’s world, that will go around without any help from us -- but we’re making our own world here and we need you to be a part of it, we need you to put your shoulder to the wheel, to the lever and the pulley of the imagination, the original machine. Once you’ve done that then then you’ve won the battle and I’ll step back and be the first to shake your hand and welcome you to the world, our world. Until then I’m going to keep pushing you until you can push back and knock our socks off and lay us out. That’s what I want. Nothing would make me happier than to lose.