45 minute listen
Portsmouth
George Antoniadis always knew he’d be an entrepreneur. In this private, one on one interview with Pete Worrell, he describes how he took his “flying club” concept to what is now one of the top fractional aircraft ownership companies in the world. He tells us why he gratefully thanks the bankers who turned him down for his first loan, what role dogs play in life, some sage advice for nascent entrepreneurs, and a glimpse of the next chapters he sees PlaneSense writing.
What I am Reading / Listening to
RAKE: Australian Television Series found on AcornTV
Rake is an Australian tv series in its 5th season nominally about a rakish lawyer (barrister) named Cleaver Greene set in contemporary Sydney. But to me the show and this character are a lot more than that.
I often begin laughing during the opening pinwheel and sometimes wince or moan aloud at the tragi-comic life he creates with self-damaging twists and turns. A gifted lawyer who is also a gifted a#$hole, he feels the world in intense extremes. Cleaver Greene longs to be a traditional good man but he continues to self-sabotage. He messes up his marriage to his wife Wendy, sets a terrible example to his
son, falls in love with a sex worker of whom he used to be a client, carries on with booze and drugs, and betrays his heroic best mate Barney—the all-round good bloke Cleaver will never be—by sleeping with his wife.
The only thing Cleaver reliably continues to be good at is his job. Like many of us, maybe the crazy bastard’s greatest contradiction is that he utterly believes in his work and bringing about massive, positive change in people’s lives. Rake is about Cleaver balancing on that knife edge of cultural expectations vs individual actualization. Whomever is responsible for the script and the spirited dialogue deserves an award.
Evidently though, Rake Season 6 is cancelled and so won’t be released on Amazon (Acorn) as Richard Roxburgh, the principal actor and co-writer, moves onto the next chapter. But we have had five good years.
Entrepreneur Owner-Manager Quote
“What new partners (outside our firms) might allow us to do things we could not do alone?”
-Bob Johansen, Co-founder of Institute for the Future, Palo Alto, CA
Energy Creation
Revelation of Preferences: Motorcycle Race Track
With a no-name motel coffee in hand, it was 6 am on a day in May near the Thompson Motor Speedway; 40 degrees, breezy, bone-chilling cold, dark clouds suspended over the track. Grim. At 7 am with a Dunkin in hand, it was the same plus hard rain. Hostile weather for motorcycles
on the Speedway. We know what we’re here for, so it’s tech talk, safety check, and onto the track two by two.
The thing about riding a motorbike on a racetrack? No traffic, no potholes, no cops, no speed limits. When you’re riding in those conditions plus it’s raining and the track is wet, it’s safe to say you cannot be thinking about that unreturned email, HR problem, phone call, or meeting in the morning. Talk about being in the moment. Flow. Wooo—head up and eyes looking for the line through the next corner. Refreshing and energy creating.
Classroom time followed the laps on the track. Instructors used track video to point out the correct lines, amateur moves, or to give someone a good talking to before heading back out to the track.
As instructor Geno Berrio (who has half a dozen national championships under his belt) waved for me to follow his line around the track, Geno’s effortlessly carved turns, flexible weight distribution, hard throttle, without a false move demonstrated that smooth is fast—and showcased the noticeable benefit of a coach—even to (especially to?) someone whose been on a motorcycle for 40 years.
Around my lunch table? A retired USAF general ( a K1600GT), a founder of a startup biopharma business in NYC (who rode to / from the speedway in the rain on a R1200GS), a well-known TV series actor (“what do you mean you don’t recognize me, dontcha watch television?” with his Triumph Scrambler), a solo woman investor from France riding her new GSA around the US, Geno (on a Triumph Trophy Triple), and yours truly (R1200GSA).
Our biological ancestors, whether hunter-gathering on the savanna, navigating unknown waters, or storming the beaches of Normandy were accustomed to living in a world of unknowns and risk. When I evaluate how the energy is created in our world, it’s clear that comfort is over-rated, and security only an illusion.