GROWTH OF A MAN

GROWTH OF A MAN

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© April 15, 2008

“If man is not afraid to grow, and embraces his resistance to grow, he will grow. He may not grow, as others would have him grow. He may not be like what others expect him to be. He may not do what others prefer him to do. But he will grow.

“He will soar under his own power and become something akin to what he could become. Along the way, he will meet obstacles, disappointments, betrayals, humiliations, disruptions, treacheries, and outright hatred. He will also encounter friendship, encouragement, happiness, approval, support, loyalty, and love. This will determine whether he will be or not be what he could be and could become.

“There will be the ghost of temptation in every form, addictions of every description. Blaming these compulsions on parents, peers, priests, or prophets, or on the times and circumstances will be for naught, as they belong only to him.

“If he fails to deal with them, they will own him, consume him, enslave him, reduce and control him until he is a figment of his possibilities. He will be lured at every stage by the gods of power, control, wealth, popularity, and celebrity, all of which are false gods, as they can do nothing but diminish him and imprison him in his own cave.

“It is the social commentary of our times that we should be friends with everyone, be accepting, understanding, forgiving, loving, and always there for others. Why, then, does this not equally apply to us? How can we have peace with others without first having peace within? We can’t. All pathologies stem from our false gods and self-hatred.

“We have yet to invent a philosophy of life that acknowledges the greatest and only sin is waste, and that all other sins are but expressions of this waste.”

James R. Fisher, Jr., “Fragments of a Philosophy” (1970, unpublished)*

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A reader of “The Days of Top Down Leadership Are Numbered” questioned the personal basis of my assertion. He writes, “What is your empirical evidence?” Since my writing is mainly empirical, this surprised me. What follows is a chapter in that empiricism.

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MY BOTTOM-UP TEACHERS

My first and foremost teachers were my parents: my mother intellectually and spiritually, my da in terms of life and reality. Genetically, they provided me with a good memory, so good that teachers sometimes thought I was cheating because I could remember a page as it had been written. To this day, old as I am, in my study of some 3,000 books, I can remember a passage read 40 years ago, or yesterday, know what book it is in, and where that passage can be found.

My teachers were often other children or adults. Even as a child, some peers and adults made sense to me, others didn’t; some made me feel comfortable with myself, others didn’t. I learned at an early age to avoid those that didn’t.

There were things my mother said I didn’t follow, biases by da expressed I didn’t take seriously. I processed what I heard, and used it to go forward. Sometimes I would misstep, and be confused. In such instances, I would seek solace in my Irish Roman Catholicism.

It took me years to realize my faith biased my mind to think in a certain way. I would reject information that didn’t fit. It is a handicap I have learned to recognize and accept if begrudgingly. I am a Catholic thinker and cannot escape that identity.

In grammar school, I lived in the idyllic world of being taught by the Sisters of St. Francis. They were dedicated to making the student all he could be. They had no hidden agenda, and weren’t interested in perks or material gain. I benefited from this.

In a public high school, I found my best teachers, more often than not, were fellow students. I gravitated to them like a moth to light. They could take the most complex problem and break it down into easily digestible mental units.

I would, in turn, develop this skill spending my lunch hours helping other high school students with word problems in math while my teammates would walk the campus. Teaching made me a better student. So, it paid its own dividend.

Teaching also taught me the power of conceptualization. The student needs the framework of the problem in terms of content and context to comprehend its construction before the solution will be apparent.

DEALING WITH LIMITATIONS & FALSE PERSEPTIONS

When I entered industry as an industrial chemist in R&D, I found myself better equipped with chemical theory than the demands of the industrial lab. I was comfortable with chemical abstractions but not concrete experiments. If the chemical apparatus needed for an experiment was not on the shelf, I didn’t have a clue as to what to do. My mechanical aptitude was nil.

This handicap went back to my youth. My da had no interest in how things worked. He had no workbench, no tools, or any interest in mechanics. It was in high school chemistry lab that I discovered this blind spot, which was industrial chemistry blindness.

One day a technician with whom I was working, said, “You know your chemistry, but you’re in the wrong place. You need to be in some university, somewhere your talents can be appreciated because you’re a disaster here.”

Heeding him, I applied for a fellowship in theoretical chemistry to an eastern university, and was honored with a three-year fellowship for a program terminating in a Ph.D. The stipend I was to receive with this fellowship was not sufficient to carry me and my wife and two children as a full-time student. I asked to have the fellowship delayed for a year, and it was granted. I also sought a position with Nalco Chemical Company as a chemical sales engineer and was hired. Nalco intrigued me because its sales engineers used field test kits, making the transition from the lab to the field seem less frightening.

After a month-long technical orientation in Nalco’s Chicago headquarters, which was dazzling, but involved no sales training, I was assigned to the Indiana District operating out of Indianapolis.

To my horror, I discovered Nalco had a three-year field-training program with the total emphasis on technical development. The company was grooming me to service high-level accounts with specialty chemicals in public utilities, waste treatment plants, steel mills, the paper, petroleum, chemical and automotive industry, as well as other large manufacturers such the aerospace industry.

A sales engineer was not expected to sell until this three-year training program was completed. I was caught in a paradoxical dilemma making less than I had made in the laboratory with the future looking very grim. This brought out my belligerent nature, which is never far from the surface.

The first month I spent traveling with the area manager. Near the end of that period, he asked me what I had learned and how I would evaluate the experience. I told him quite candidly that I thought the calls were essentially social calls shooting the breeze with customers. When we called on prospects, I said, I thought he attempted to wow them with Nalco’s eminence in the industry, but he never asked for a single order.

EMPIRICAL REALITY KICKS IN

The following Saturday, I went into the office, which usually had six other sales engineers present along with the district and area managers. This particular Saturday only the two managers were there frantically smoking cigarettes, asking me to take a seat.

The district manager took charge. With a big smile, he said something that I would hear repeatedly throughout my long career,

“We don’t think you are cut out for this kind of work.”

Then he added magnanimously, “We think you should look for another job.” He studied me for reaction and I showed none. “We’re going to give you some accounts to service during the next month allowing time for you to seek another position.” Then he pointed his finger at me to make sure I was listening. “But at the end of the month, we will take your car and give you your final paycheck. Is that clear?”

Imagine an Iowa lad with a wife who has never been out of Iowa, making less than he had made in the lab, dealing with a wife that calls Iowa nearly every day, thinking about his fellowship, his son, two, and his daughter, six months old, trying to deal with the idea of being fired. This is a young man in whom the tide has always broken his way, despite his arrogance and aggressive personality. On the job a month, he has had time to offend only one person, his direct boss, the area manager, and he did.

Shock went through his system like an electric current causing the hair on the back of his head to stand at attention. Yet, he said nothing, showed no emotions, but knew in his bones he would never forget this moment.

“You can upgrade these customers if you like,” the area manager chuckled, and then with a nervous laugh, added, “You can even call on some of our competitor accounts in your area, too, can’t he Jack?” The district manager joined in the intrigue. “Sure, why not?”

I didn’t tell my wife because I knew she would be justifiably hysterical. Our limited savings, which were meant for the fellowship, were likely to dry up quickly. Indianapolis was much more expensive. My income in the lab at Standard Brands back in Iowa had been adequate if not luxurious. I had no plans to go there with her.

Shock has a strange way of introducing you to yourself. I am by nature high strung. When crises occur, however, I am as calm as if in the center of a hurricane. I demonstrated that in the navy. During naval exercises in the Mediterranean, a hang fire of a gun mount killed four and badly wounded seven others. I was a corpsman and did my job. Two doctors brought on board from other ships couldn’t do theirs. They couldn’t deal with the grotesque corpses or the stench of melting flesh. Now, the calm returned.

ON MY OWN IN NO MAN’S LAND

To compensate for my lack of mechanical aptitude, I dealt candidly with chief engineers and system operators. I would ask them to explain to me how their systems worked. I played student to them as experts. This was a new experience to them and it showed on their faces.

As they explained, I would draw line diagrams and schematic models of their systems with the appropriate engineering symbols, highlighting critical areas where failures had occurred with colored markers. I would ask them to tell me how Nalco’s chemicals worked or failed to work in these systems.

They would look at me suspiciously checking to see if I was putting them on. Once they could see I wasn’t, from the first customer I approached in this way, we connected. It was clear that they were in control and I was there to enable them to express that power.

By this simple act, we were partners, the customer as teacher and me as student with a common interest to make his system work as well as it might. In this receptive mood, I would explain the possible use of other Nalco products to improve operations. Upgrading these accounts became automatic.

Before the month was out, I led the district selling 80 percent of the new business while the six other sales engineers generated only 20 percent. Nothing was said about turning my car in or receiving my final check.

From this modus operandi, several things happened simultaneously:

(1) I learned how my customers’ systems worked.
(2) I learned to identify common problems using Nalco chemicals.
(3) I learned how to apply Nalco products to better advantage to meet customers’ needs.
(4) I learned the critical importance of feeding equipment. Positive displacement pumps delivered chemicals continuously at a uniform rate, while slug feeding, which was commonly used, was problematical.
(5) I learned that common failures of Nalco chemicals must be equally true of competitor accounts.
(6) I learned the importance of taking copious notes. After each call, I would summarize my systemic findings, assess the customer’s peculiarities, and plan my next call. This would become my operating bible.**

Slug feeding chemicals increased the suspended solids in boilers causing carry over into steam traps and condensate lines. This fouled up steam delivery systems, condensers, heat exchangers and other auxiliary equipment triggering operational failures.

Soon, I was selling so many positive displacement pumps that the sales distributor in my area called one day, and asked the commission I expected. Stunned, I explained my reason for choosing his pumps was because they were the best. I expected no commission. “I am in the specialty chemical, not the chemical pump business.”

When I started in the second month to call on competitor accounts, I would ask open-ended questions such as, “What kind of chemical feeding equipment are you using? How is it working?”

If they were slug feeding, I would go without preamble to drawing my schematic of typical problems I had experienced with slug feeding, labeling typical problem areas.

Then I would show how my customers' systems worked, inviting them to check with their neighbors. On the next call, they were likely to be waiting for me to show them how I could put “Joe’s system” into theirs.

This success with small competitors encouraged me to call on our largest competitor’s account in my area. It was located in the small town of Connersville, Indiana, a complex of three plants making Philco refrigerators, with the largest plant seven acres under roof.

On my third call in my third month with Nalco, the superintendent of operations agreed to see me. His office was located in the middle of this seven-acre plant framed in a dirty glass enclosure. I took a seat and for the better part of an hour sat there with the phone constantly ringing, men coming in and leaving with frustration on their faces, as failures seemingly were occurring in paint booths, fabricating centers and assembly stations. I noticed the superintendent’s desk was cluttered with an overflowing ashtray of cigarette butts, failed steam traps, and paper-thin condensate pipes. There were large failed mechanical units in the corners of the room standing like sculptured sentries.

The superintendent came in, lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and let it slowly out through his nose, and then looked at me. “Okay, sport, you’ve got five minutes. What’ve you got for me?”

I was 24 looking 18 and said, “I’m here to save your job.”

Now, why would I say such a thing? I don’t know. After taking in everything over the hour, letting it dance about in my mind, it just came out.

The superintendent was sitting on the edge of his desk, and nearly fell off; laughing so hard he doubled up as if it hurt. It was a tension breaker. With a glint in his eyes, he said, shaking his head, “Save my job, huh? Now how do you plan to do that?”

I showed him a diagram I had been drawing as I envisioned his extensive systems, identifying trouble areas his men talked about when they came in looking for him. I then let my eyes drift to the failed units about the room. Then I explained why failures were likely to occur in these places, and what could be done.

We were both on the same side of his desk now, looking at my schematic, and he was in rapt attention seemingly mesmerized by everything being reduced to a line diagram. Before he could say anything, I said, “I need a blanket order for a three months supply of chemicals and proper feeding equipment to make this happen.”

It is called the “killer instinct” in sales, but it exists in every enterprise, and it is as ephemeral as a flashing light. Hesitate, and it is gone.

He opened the center door on his desk, pulled out a slip of paper and tossed it to me, and said, “You’ve got it. Fill it out and I’ll send it to purchasing.” Then he added, “If you make this worse than it is, I’ll have your ass.”

Undaunted, I explained that an engineering team would have to survey the plant to specify the proper chemicals and feeding arrangements. I didn’t tell him I lacked the technical and product knowledge to fill this blanket order. I called it in to the district office with only an order number, then left.

Later in the day, I called the superintendent to confirm that an engineering survey would be made the following week. He said, “Are you sure?”

“Pardon me,” I said, not knowing what he meant, my heart sinking in my chest, thinking he had changed his mind, that the magic was gone.

“Your boss called purchasing to confirm the order.” He laughed, “I guess your people don’t trust you much.” I would remember this, too.

That Saturday there was just the district and area manager at the office smoking cigarettes, but this time, more casually. “Fisher,” the area manager said with obscenities, “How did you do it?”

Without obscenities, I said, “I asked for the order!” This struck him like a dagger. His face lost its color. Then more good-naturedly, I said, "I need help with the engineering survey and setting it up. I don’t know the chemicals to recommend or where they should be fed. I know nothing about this kind of manufacturing. They’ll also need sophisticated feeding equipment."

The district manager recoiled, “That’s not in the order.”

“Trust me,” I said, pausing for emphasis. “The superintendent has already contacted his pump supplier. They’re waiting for our call.”

The managers looked at each other. Then the area manager said with obscenities, “Can you believe this?” The district manager just shook his head.

MY OWN MAN

When the survey was completed, the chemicals ordered, and the system was operating with Nalco, it became a major account for the district and one of the largest ever sold. This new customer had previously been with Nalco’s chief competitor for twenty years. No Nalco sales engineer had called on Philco in nearly a decade. Complacency, I was to learn, always breeds dysfunction for long-term accounts. My timing had been fortuitous, but timing with initiative is always fortuitous.

A month later, I stayed until only the district manager was there, walked into his office, and handed him a piece of paper. He said, “What’s this?”

“Read it.”

“It states without a bonus system you’re leaving.”

“That’s right.”

“You have another job?”

“No.”

Panic was in his eyes, seeing me with a competitor. “Wait a minute. Look at this,” he said, with a shaking hand. It was a bonus system that he had drawn up but not yet implemented. It called for $1,000 (in 1958 dollars) to be divided among the seven of us on the percentage of new business we generated for that month.

“When do you plan to install it?”

“Soon.”

“If not immediately, I’m out of here.” It was installed the following week.

Since I was bringing in as much as 80 percent of the new business, this didn’t set too well with the veterans. Rather than be emboldened by this opportunity, they could see, correctly, where the Lion’s share would go, and they weren’t happy about it. I didn’t care. I wasn’t working for Nalco. I was working to honor my fellowship commitment.

Time went on and I was making nearly as much as the area manager, who fortunately, was promoted to district manager of Ohio. I had been saving about 20 percent of what I made each month, but then learned my wife was pregnant with our third child. There was no way I could fulfill the fellowship and live on our savings. The die was cast. I had to make the most of what I was doing.

Six months after our third child was born, with no one promoted to the position of area manager, I again walked into my district manager’s office with a note. It seems sophomoric now, but it was consistent with my combative personality. The note contained a summary of why I should be the area manager, implying in no uncertain terms this was not negotiable.

It so upset my manager that he couldn’t talk. He sat there, polishing his glasses, attempting to gain his composure. Then, suddenly, I got it. I was not his first, or second choice, but other veterans on the staff were. I had been with the company less than three years, some of them as many as ten. Pressure was on him from them, and Chicago, Nalco’s headquarters to make a decision. He was between a rock and a hard place. I was the only one selling and I come in and “demand” the position. I was made area manager.

Now, I was calling on major customers and prospects, and also training people under me. While my sales performance continued, it was the metamorphic change in my men that got the attention of the company. Veterans who had never performed were performing beyond anything they had done before.

Over a period of the next two years, seventy-eight men from districts across the country came to work with me. I kept records of these sessions. Also, the Director of the Industrial Division, and several Regional Sales Managers elected to travel with me as well. It was from this involvement that I was asked to speak at regional meetings explaining my selling strategy.

At the same time, I was developing a reputation of being a problem solver, not in Nalco’s traditional technical approach, but from working with engineers and seeing problems from their perspective, not necessarily management's.

This was natural to me. What wasn’t natural was explaining my selling strategy in selling jargon. I had never read selling books. I read psychology and sociology books. This would not do. To make connection, I had to read selling books, finding the bland “penalty of delay” “selling the sizzle not the steak,” and “benefits not features” as trite and patronizing. So, I abandoned the jargon and presented case histories. I concluded they could decide on their own the value and relevance of these histories.

SURRENDIPITY

Many things were happening in my mind. I was making a good living, now had four children, but was finding work no longer challenging. In a more cordial less intimidating mood, I went to my district manager, and told him that I was moving on; that it had nothing to do with him; that I didn’t know what I would do, but it would be something. He seemed both relieved and at peace with my decision. I sensed that he relished sending it up the tree to the director.

Three days later, I received a phone call from the former director of the industrial division, now executive vice president of international operations, who once traveled with me.

We got on well during that trip, both of us a bit bookish, both introverts, but he more quiet and congenial to my confrontational personality. He said he would like me to come to Chicago and talk to him about a new position. I suggested he come to Louisville, where I now lived, thinking I would prefer any discussion to be on my turf. He came.

He was completely familiar with my whole history, including my academic performance in college, and the fellowship that never was. “I want you to come to work for me. What do you think of that?”

“Doing what?”

“Doing what you have been doing for us for years, but on an international stage.”

“Whom would I report to?”

“Who else, me of course!”

“No one else?” He nodded. “What would be my position?”

“You mean title? You need a title?”

“No.”

“Let me put it this way. It is a position four rungs up the ladder from where you are now, as an associate vice president of international operations. How does that suit you?”

“How are you going to sell that?”

“I don’t have to sell it. Nalco is exploding in growth, 20 percent a year, especially in international operations, and we need people like you. We just aren’t developing them.”

I am a sucker for candor and I know it, and so went on the defensive. “Still, I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“Problem-solving, the way you do it, getting people to work together, something you’re good at.”

I chuckled. “You’re not saying it, Bob, but you know I’m a hard case.”

“Yes you are, but not with customers, just with your friends.” We both laughed.

So, it was, South America, Europe, and finally South Africa.

GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA

Whereas I would spend weeks in these various places about the globe, I was to spend the next year, 1968, in Johannesburg, South Africa, facilitating the formation of a new specialty chemical company. It was to be my job to bring about the successful integration of Great Britain’s I.C.I., Ltd. affiliate, Alfloc, South African Explosives Ltd. specialty chemical division, and Nalco’s subsidiary into a new chemical entity to be called Anikem, Ltd.

Several competing stimuli bombarded my sensitivity, none of which I either grasp or understood. I had had culture shock going from a parochial grammar school to a public high school. I had encountered various cultures in the Caribbean and in Surname and Venezuela, but I was always working with people in the context of the job, not the society.

Now, not only did I have to deal with three formerly competing companies but with their differing cultures, and histories as well. That was a minor problem compared to finding myself in the draconian system of apartheid. The word means, “separate development of the races.” Nine major tribes were designated as “homelands,” but tribe members needed to work in industrial metropolitan areas; so thus the dichotomy. These men were often separated from their families for months if not years, and subjected to carrying a passbook at all times. If they violated curfew, or were in metropolitan areas without the proper pass after dusk, they could be placed in jail for 120 days without being charged.

One morning on my way into Johannesburg, I witnessed tens of thousands of Bantu natives flocking into the city on trains from a place called “SOWETO” (South West African Township). It was a sight to be seen. Later I would visit SOWETO never having seen such conditions before, even worse than the Tama Indian Reservation in Iowa.

My home was an attractive walled in estate with a garden and a striking light post outside the stucco building, allegedly given to the mayor of Johannesburg by Sir Winston Churchill. I had a gardener, maid, driver, and house manager, all from various homelands.

My wife had nothing to do, no cooking, no cleaning, no laundry, no ironing, no managing the household. The three oldest children went to private schools taught by Irish Catholic nuns. My wife was provided with a vehicle, as was I.

It was colonial living and it was hard for us raised as we were in a culture of work and responsibility. Someone might think it idyllic, but for my wife it was impossible. She couldn’t call her mother; there was no television in South Africa; I was gone more than home; she wasn’t a reader, or a hobby person; the only thing she liked to do was shop. So, from the beginning, it became a kind of hell for her in every way.

As for the children, they were a bit isolated from other children except at school. They learned to entertain themselves by throwing rocks over the wall at passing natives, darting about the garden, or involving themselves in some other kind of mischief. I never learned about this until we were back in the United States.

My work was demanding but satisfying. I felt I was hitting on all cylinders, and making progress. At night, I would read by the fireplace that Gabriel always had lit, or listen to some mystery on the BBC.

We would go to the neighborhood Movie Theater that usually had an Elvis Presley flick, or some other film stars South Africans liked. Sundays brought the London Times. It carried synopsis of books. I could spend most of Sunday reading these.

Still, wherever I went, I would run into the excesses of apartheid, excesses my Afrikaner and British colleagues seemed to take in stride.

Meanwhile, tension was building in the family. My wife had little to do. I was often gone for an entire week either to East London, Durban or Cape Town, or for a few days in Pretoria. The children were bored, and becoming increasingly antsy. I’ve always had a relatively low energy level compared to most men, which required me to discipline myself to get plenty of sleep, exercise and eat properly, and allocate sufficient downtime to read, relax, and rejuvenate myself. Otherwise, I would fall apart. Increasingly, I had little time for sleep and spent almost all my waking hours working. The strain was telling on me, and I was becoming increasingly moody, irritable, and anxious.

Then one day, my gardener, whom I was quite fond of and considered a friend, living as he did on the estate, was murdered. He was about my age; taught me a lot about his country, and was well read. We often had lively discussions in the sanctuary of our home. To behave this way in public might have been dangerous for us both. I could be deported and he punished in some way. His murder devastated me.

The police came, and when they didn’t interview me, or didn’t inquiry as to how the murder took place on my property, I became incensed. I went to police headquarters and asked what was going on; had they found the murderer; and why had I not been kept in the loop?

It was then that I felt the full weight of apartheid, the full ugliness of this system; the full evil that had gravitated into my soul. This realization came in a simple statement by the policeman. “This is no concern of yours. He is a Bantu, after all, they kill each other all the time.”

Word had gotten back to Chicago about the same time that I had taken the British general manager of our Durban plant to task. He had allowed the plant to go off line with no one in charge. No doubt I had overreacted, but it wasn’t the first occasion of his incompetence. The difference between the Brits and the Afrikaners was the former were astute politicians and the latter great workers. It was common knowledge where my bias lay.

I received a cable from my boss, requesting that I join him in London for a short chat. Working to the point of exhaustion, still mourning for my lost friend, the gardener, angry with the Durban general manager for causing his plant to shut down, then being asked to travel 12,000 miles to have my ass chewed out was too much. I had had it. I sent a cable to London: “Sorry, too busy, I resign.” And I did.

THE REST OF THE STORY

My wonder is whether it is the mind or the body that first informs you that you are ready to snap. I was down to less than 180 on a six-four frame, when my normal weight was 195. I was not sleeping; not eating; and had become uncharacteristically quiet. I wanted to relocate to Spain and write. My wife wanted to move to Florida where her parents lived. She won.

Once in Florida, my boss called and asked me to come to Chicago and talk. I asked him to come to Clearwater, Florida where I now lived. He said he would meet me at Miami International as he was on a business trip to South America.

It was a different meeting, formal but not unfriendly.

“What are you going to do, James?”

“Nothing for a while, maybe write a little.”

“You think you can make a living as a writer?”

“Don’t know.”

“What are you going to do for money?”

“I’ve saved $50,000.”

“You saved that much?” I had no business telling him. But if it was a surprise to him, it was nothing compared to my wife’s. She was a dedicated spender and felt betrayed with my hiding all that money from her ($50,000 in 1968 is at least $300,000 in 2008 dollars).

“Yes.”

“Actually, it doesn’t surprise me. You were always frugal. Does it surprise you that I’m not surprised?” I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, it shouldn’t. I’ve admired your discipline, but quite frankly, hated your inflexibility.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yet you remain obstinate.” I shrugged again. “James, how can you do this to us after all we’ve done for you?”

“Bob, if I wasn’t doing my job, you’d fire me. My first manager planned to fire me after I’d been on the job a month. He said I wasn’t cut out for this work. Well, maybe he was right. The company is not meeting my needs. I’m firing the company.”

What I didn’t say was that I was tired, confused, that I felt betrayed, not only by the company, my wife, or the people with whom I worked, but with life.

I found most of my beliefs were lies. I had done the dance and found it was a charade. The more money I made the emptier I felt. I had lived in a grand style, been treated as someone special, and found my gardener murdered. He was a sensitive man who read books and dreamed of a time when he would be free. What does that add up to?

It was impossible for me to comprehend this green island in a black sea, where evil poisoned everything. I talked to priests, educators, and fellow executives and none of them saw the sickness I claimed to see. “Forget it, James,” they would say, “It is not your problem. You’re a lucky man, my son, don’t you see that?”

I felt helpless against this canard, out of my depth. People who looked up to me had no idea how disturbed I was. I thought I was going mad, and wondered if I already had. How could I tell my boss such a frightening tale? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. He had been talking for sometime and I hadn’t heard a word.

“James, you have a lot to learn. You’re a young man and giving up a dream. I doubt seriously if you will ever reached this pinnacle again. I worry what will become of you.” We embraced hugging each other like father and son, and then he was gone.

He was right. I would never achieve what Nalco had allowed me to achieve; never enjoy the kind of life they introduced me to; never again have people frightened of my call; and never have a job become my marriage partner.

My world would disintegrate; my marriage would collapse; my children would go hither and yon without guidance or direction; my mind would become entertained by Krishnamurti, and other mystics, by Nietzsche and other philosophers, by Alan W. Watts, and other outsiders, by Aldous Huxley and other psychedelic authors, floating in a world of myth and magic, and then like everything else, driven by the laws of gravity, falling to stasis, and what is construed as reality, but is actually another mythic astral plane.

When I was broke, I would consult on the side, but go back to school full-time for the next six years, needing to take undergraduate as well as graduate courses in sociology and psychology in order to qualify to study social, organization and industrial psychology at the graduate level.

The irony here is that I was forced to learn the jargon of the work I had been doing for years in my industrial career. I was forced to play graduate student when the world I had left was light years ahead of academia. Yet, I persisted to the end while wondering why so little life entered these hallowed halls of learning. They were as barren as industry only without the essentials of power and money. The academic world could be a temple but chose instead to be a cage. I understood cages. I would write about them, over and over again, hoping someday to get it right, and to find that magic touch that might open the flea’s nest of my brain to make connection.

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*Fragments of a Philosophy appear in Dr. Fisher’s latest book, A LOOK BACK TO SEE AHEAD (AuthorHouse 2007).

**The “bible notes” eventually found their way into Dr. Fisher’s best selling book CONFIDENT SELLING (Prentice-Hall 1970). See his website and blog: www.fisherofideas.com