Taking the Beach

My old boss and good friend, Claude Bergeron, died just before the holidays.

He was 80 years old.

His last message to me a few weeks before he died is still on my cell phone.

Claude was not the Brooks Brothers, 3-piece suit, corporate executive kind of a guy.  He didn't use "MBA-Speak" to talk about "leveraging synergies" or "maximizing core competencies."  He didn't own a BMW with an alarm, but drove a pick-up with a pit bull named Sharky riding shotgun.

Claude was also one of the smartest guys I have ever known--and I can absolutely tell you I learned a hell of a lot more about the principles of success and pushing through adversity from him than I did from my MBA program.

Back in 1997, Claude and his wife Barbara opened the only federally funded community health center for the uninsured population in Klamath County in Southern Oregon.  Before Claude and his wife opened the clinic, if you were pregnant and on medicaid--or uninsured--you drove 60 miles over the Siskiyou Mountains to nearby Medford for prenatal care--an especially harrowing journey during a snowstorm--because very few docs in Klamath County were taking new medicaid patients.

Claude hired me as the Finance Director after their second month of operations to set up the Accounting Department.  I was 28 years old and had never done a "start-up."

But Claude believed in me before I did.

And I am grateful.

That first year was terrifying as we were flooded with new patients--we could barely keep up.

To meet the demand, we kept adding docs and relocating to newer, bigger--and more expensive-- locations.  As the "the numbers guy" I was terrified as we hemorrhaged cash from our exploding payroll and rent.

I fretted about everything--the payroll, the bills, our account receivable balance, the federal reports that were due...

But Claude never worried.

For this was not Claude's first rodeo for he and his wife had opened several community health centers in Northern California and Southern Oregon throughout the years--health centers that would grow to the size of small hospitals.

Serving THOUSANDS of grateful families.

In his typical Redd Fox demeanor, Claude would assuage my fears by ordering me to "stop thinking like a bean-counter" and start thinking like an ENTREPRENEUR.

He would remind me that a "start-up" required a "take the beach" mind-set.  "We are the Marines, Andrew," he would say.  "In a start-up, things are messy and bloody...but you can't get lost in the weeds...you have to keep your eye on the goal of victory by first TAKING THE BEACH."

I love that metaphor.

As I find it applies to many endeavors--including running.

Not getting overwhelmed with the small chores and keeping focused on the big goal.

Taking the beach.

The emails, the phone calls, the forms that need to be completed and signed in triplicate....the laundry, the bills...the hill-work, the speed work...all "necessary" chores that indeed need to be done.

But chores that can easily decimate a vision and make us miss the big picture.

Our goal.

Taking the beach.

The Spring semester starts in two weeks.

I feel some trepidation as I am piloting an experimental business course where the final exam is completing a 26.2 mile marathon (I am serious).

But I can already hear Claude's calming words as I finish typing the course syllabus...

"Stop thinking like  a "bean-counter" Andrew...and focus on TAKING THE BEACH."

Thanks Claude.

AMJ