Over the years I have gotten to know some extremely successful people. Contrary to common belief a psychoanalyst does not work with disturbed, dysfunctional and low functioning people but rather with those who are high functioning, bright, well educated, ambitious and successful.
One thing I have observed about the truly successful is how likable they are.
Virtually every successful person I know either personally or professionally has charisma, great social skills, is keenly empathic and basically fun to be around. I call this the ‘likability factor.”
Good examples of this kind of likability was seen in Vincent Albanese who ran the most highly rated law firm on Long Island, Freddie DeMatteis the famous real estate developer and Mike Balboni who was once a state senator and now runs the Redland Strategies. When you are around these guys you get relaxed and happy. They are all disarming, friendly, easy to like.
Recently I met another very successful businessman who has the same kind of charisma and likability. He works out at Healthtrax with me every morning at about 6 a.m. and I decided to interview him in order to better explore the dynamics of his success.
Meet Bob Fox. Thirty-five years ago he was selling men’s and women’s wear at flea markets at Roosevelt Field and Aqueduct and today he owns 16 stores throughout the nation in places like Chicago, Atlanta, Boca Raton, Forest Hills, Huntington and Manhattan. Not bad.
He now concentrates exclusively on upscale women’s wear at off prices and buys most of his product in Europe. So how did he do it?
As an analyst, I believe that it all starts in childhood. Bob is from a family of 9 kids raised in Milwaukee Wisconsin with a mom of Irish descent and a dad who was German.
When you chat with him you are aware of his Midwestern etiquette and grace. He is humble and friendly and reminded me of Steve Stricker who is also from Wisconsin and will be America’s next Ryder Cup captain.
The little I know about Wisconsin is when I traveled there to play Whistling Straits and to interview people from the Kohler family who had built the course and who were powerful politically and in business. Bob told me he had never met them but I could see that his family had a similar history of hard work and honesty.
He was educated by the Jesuits at Marquette University High School and while in high school already had a business with a crew of 15 painting houses. He told me that his father was also an entrepreneur who ran a printing business. He moved to the University of San Francisco where he met his future wife Eileen Freel and followed her back to the East Coast where he attended Manhattan College and finished his degree at Marquette.
He had hopes of entering the finance world and entered the flea market business in Nassau County just to make ends meet before he started his finance job. Well, he must have been good at sales because his little booth became a wild success. When I asked him about that he said “It’s all about position and reaction. You have to be nimble and quick enough to see market trends, what is selling and then make sure you get that merchandise in front of your customers without delay. The reason I can do that to this day is that I have enough control over my business whereas the big fashion houses have such complex and large-scale layers of management and manufacturing that it literally will take them 18 months to make changes. I can make the same changes within three months so essentially I can beat them to market.”
And as he spoke I was thinking about two gorgeous coats he had on display in his Mineola store.
One was a short black leather jacket with blue lining and the other was a beige cashmere number that my wife would look great in. I wondered about the price and made a mental note to get over there and buy them both.
The Mineola store was his first and he told me a funny story about his ‘aha’ moment when realizing that it was perhaps the worst location on Long Island to open a clothing store.
It was on that little hidden away street one block east of Mineola Blvd. and now in the shadows of those huge monstrosities that are sprouting up like mushrooms in downtown Mineola.
He is right across the tracks from Davenport Press Restaurant. When I asked him why he purchased that spot he said “I was young and stupid and didn’t know anything at all about location or business in general. Eileen and I had the energy of youth and lots of optimism and hope.”
I started out this article asking the question about the secret to success and perhaps we have come upon one of the key ingredients. There is nothing which is as powerful as hope and optimism and a dream.
Maybe the truly successful people have a childlike naiveté and an enthusiasm about themselves and their dreams. They seem to follow their dreams with a blind abandon. This may be the charm of Bob Fox and the reason that despite a poor location and all odds stacked against him, he managed to achieve large-scale success.
The classic Sinatra song goes like this “Fools rush in where wise men never go, but wise men never fall in love, so how are they to know?” That is a line taken from the famous essay by Alexander Pope back in 1711 and it has been used many times since.
It suggests that to be successful you will face all sorts of risks and dangers along the way but alas that may be the only way to the top of the mountain. So congratulations to Bob Fox and to all the others who have the guts and the energy to follow their dreams, no matter how foolish they seem to others.
