66
BRIGHT IDEAS
||
INDUSTRY
has plenty of that to offer, much of
it based on his experience as a self-made
man—witha li le of hismother’s common
sense sprinkled in.
First lesson: Nowhining. A “Shark Tank”
hopeful named Rachael Mann made the
tactical error of complaining to John
when a manufacturer
couldn’t keep up with
the demand for the body
jewelry she co-designs
with her sister, Macken-
zie Burdick. “Stand up
and be a CEO,” he barked.
“
Call the manufacturer
and ask for discounts.” It
worked. Her confidence
grew every time she fol-
lowed his advice, Mann
says—including the
directive that she and her sister write
individual notes to customers explaining
and apologizing for any delays.
For his part, John says he was simply
passing along a version of something he’d
learned fromhismother,Margot. Being the
family CEO required that she fix the prob-
lems she faced, rather thanuse themas an
excuse for self-pity. When she got a bill she
couldn’t pay, for instance, she’ddriveher car
along a bus route and pick up people for
cash. John drove that route, too, when he
neededmoney inhis late teens. It gave him
the ideaof starting a commuter van service
when he graduated fromhigh school.
Second lesson: You’re ultimately
responsible for everything your company
produces.Manneventuallyfiredhermanu-
facturer and hired a new one. “You can’t
blame anyone else for problems in your
business,” John told her. “Did you sit there
in the factory and watch themmake it?”
John learned to take responsibility for
himself a er his mother yanked him out
of Catholic school. He
had become rebellious—
a reaction, he says, to his
parents’ divorce. Told he
had to pass one test to go
on to the eighth grade, he
had blown it off, filling in
answers he knew were
wrong (he identified the
U.S. president as come-
dian Nipsey Russell).
So his mother sent him
straight to public school,
whichwas a significant punishment, con-
sidering howoverrunwith gangs the local
schools were at the time. John would get
robbed “here and there,” he says.
At first he resented being put in that
position, but he soon realized he was
accountable for his own fate. And that
understanding, ultimately, is what led
him to co-found FUBU. He hired people
to work for him as the company took off,
but stuck to the principle of personal
responsibility. “If anything happens, if the
business goes down,” he’d tell himself, “it’s
your fault.” John put FUBU on hold three
times between 1989 and 1992 due to a lack
of money, and each time he held no one
accountable but himself, he says.
N
ow, be honest: Do you start conversations with
“
Did you see [friend’s] post on Facebook?” more
often than “This reminds me of a book I read ...”? If so,
you’re not alone. In a recent study in the journal
Memory
&
Cognition
,
Laura Mickes, a visiting researcher at the
University of California–San Diego, showed that people
remember social networking posts so much better than
sentences from books it’s as if those looking at online posts
have normal memory and those looking at books have amnesia.
Subsequent analyses and studies showed that the memory boost doesn’t
come from the posts’ length, unusual spelling or multitude of exclamation
points, or because the posts remind subjects of people they know. A second
experiment made the researchers think gossipiness, completeness of thought
and lack of self-editing might be responsible. Should we tweet this later so
you can remember it? Yeah, we probably should. —JACQUELINE DETWILER
Sticky Business
HOPING TO FORGET THE FACEBOOK STATUSES YOU
READWHEN YOU’RE BORED? GOOD LUCK.
ILLUSTRATION BY JEFF QUINN
this month’s
AMAZING
FACT
!
John hired
people to work
for him as his
company took
off, but stuck
to the principle
of personal
responsibility.
©KenGrahamPhotography
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