You could easily conclude from reading profiles in OC Metro that there’s not a single businessperson in Orange County with an ounce of wit or self-awareness.
Case in point: A profile in the current issue of “surfing banker” John Lynch, executive VP of Secured Funding Corp. in Costa Mesa.
The hook is — he’s a banker but he surfs every morning before work, and he says things like “Hey bro,” “We rock,” and “I never took a day of college.”
The article is a fawning blowjob from start to finish. Check out the concluding paragraph:
“For the foreseeable future, he will continue as a master of both the surfboard and the boardroom — plus anything else that he decides to do.” [emphasis added]
Nice!
Included with the article is a sidebar containing 10 random platitudes, collected under the heading “John Lynch’s 10 Rules for Success.”
Here they are:
JOHN LYNCH’S
10 RULES FOR SUCCESS
- Keep trying. The difference between a flake and somebody who is trying is the consistency of the effort applied. Success is something that happens later. [Okay — lemme see if I got this: The difference between a flake and a guy who’s trying is that one of the guys is not trying! Am dat right?]
- If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing. Perservere through the hard times and resist the easy way out.
- Luck is a condition of preparation. Opportunities are things that you position yourself for (see #1).
- Make your values your ‘non-compromiseables’ — once you stray from what you believe, you are lost.
- As the song says, ‘knowledge is power.’ You are what you learn. [What song is he talking about? Is that the Schoolhouse Rock song — It’s great to learn / ‘Cause knowledge is power! — from the Saturday morning cartoons?]
- What worked yesterday doesn’t necessarily work today. Evolution is mandatory.
- Don’t brag about how bitchin’ you are. Show them then let them tell you. [Whoa, dude! Now you can really tell he’s not a “typical banker” because a typical banker would never say bitchin’!]
- Work hard, play hard. Life is too short to play it safe.
- Success is a journey, not a destination.
- Family first, everything else is second place. [If you have a rule to put something first, shouldn’t it be da first rule?! Duh!]
What a moron! Add this guy to the long list of people I thank God I don’t work for or with.
It occurred to me that profiling a guy who doesn’t have a thought in his head as though he were the second coming of A.P. Giannini or Christ himself might be an extremely subtle piece of satire, but it probably isn’t . . .
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The mortgage industry sure has created some unlikely success stories in recent years, like this genius, who flew his new Porsche off a local freeway interchange at 100 MPH . . .