Ray Zinn: Commencement

Tough Things First

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12d ago 18:46

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Tough Things First Podcast: Ray Zinn discusses his commencement speech at San Jose State. (Watch)

Rob Artigo: Well, you have the honor to do the commencement speech at San José State recently, and you described it as a bucket list moment. What was it that you felt was so special about doing it?

Ray Zinn: Well, if you think about all the things in life you want to accomplish, your bucket list defines what your goals are. And education is extremely important to me and always has been. And so, this is going back, I would say probably 25 years ago. I was talking to a friend of mine who was asked to do a commencement address. And I got thinking, I wonder why I haven’t been asked to do it, given my help with the schools, and the things I do as end starter and other programs that I have scholarship-wise, why I haven’t been asked to be a commencement speaker. And so, it was just something I didn’t really voice out loud. It was just something I was thinking about. So, there’s this movie called The Bucket List, if it’s called The Bucket… but anyways, a movie about this fellow who had a bucket list. And he was striving to… before he left this world and went on the other side as they say, there’s some things he wanted to accomplish.

Ray Zinn: And so, I added that to my bucket list or my things I wanted to do. I added that goal to being a commencement speaker. I did not ask, by the way, to be a commencement speaker. So, it was something that was offered to me, just like it was to my friend 25 years ago. Because if you ask for it, then of course, that’s different than if they want you to come and it was their idea as opposed to yours. So, it was very important that I do that and I enjoyed it immensely. And it was just something that I’d been looking forward to for years and then had opportunity. So, that’s what happened.

Rob Artigo: Well, Ray, I have a clip here. I want to play the video so people can get a feel for what that was like. It was really a great picture of you on the podium there and you did a great speech, and so I wanted to share that with them. When was this recorded?

Ray Zinn: I believe toward the end of April.

Rob Artigo: Okay. So, I guess that’s about the right time for college graduation. So, yeah, it sounds about right. Let’s play that clip. We’ll come back and we’ll talk a little bit more about it.

Presenter: Outside of his work as an inventor, Ray is the author of five books on leadership and has been featured in titles like Jim Fixx’s The Complete Book of Running, and Greg McKeown’s Essentialism. Please join me in welcoming Ray Zinn. Congratulations, Ray.

Ray Zinn: I found one bank in San José that was willing to loan me $300,000 if I matched it with $300,000. So, Micrel, my company that I started in 1978 was the very first semiconductor company or technology company, I should say technology company that received financing from a bank. The very first one. And that spawned another bank called Silicon Valley Bank, spun off of that because of the success that the bank had with us. So, anyway, I had to personally guarantee millions of dollars and I had to be profitable in the very first year. And if you think about that, as a technology company, being profitable in the very first year caused me to revise my business plan. Now, most semiconductor companies in my time period in the ’70s had to raise $50 million to start their company. And here I’m doing it with $600,000 and my friend says, “Are you crazy?”

And I said, “Yeah, I’m crazy.” I’m going to do something no one’s ever done before. That’s me. I like to do things that no one has ever done. And so, that prompted me then to start this semiconductor company and I had to be profitable the very, very first year. In other words, I could not lose money. So, when I started the company, I had to change and revise the business plan, such that we became a service company, semiconductor service company, and not a product company. We weren’t able to start our own products until 1985, and when we developed our first data book with our own products. So, it took me seven years in order for me to get the money I needed to actually become a product company.

So, in 1994, we were successful enough that we were able to go public on the Nasdaq market with the symbol MCRL, which became a very promising startup or IPO for Silicon Valley. And I’m very proud of that, the fact that I was able to take the company from $600,000 to a company that was doing millions of dollars, to go public in 1994. So, it was on my IPO. And I was in London doing my road show that I lost my vision. And I became legally blind in 1994 and I’m still legally blind today. But the board said, “How can you run the company if you’re legally blind?” I said, “I don’t know. I’m a graduate of San José State University, I’ll figure it out.”

Anyway, no joke. San José State is one of the best universities in the entire country. It was that learning process that helped me being legally blind to run the most successful semiconductor company up to that point that had ever existed. And so, I was proud to say that we were profitable 36 out of 37 years with a loss in 2002. With the dot com implosion, we lost $50,000. Can you imagine only losing 50,000 when hundreds of companies were going out of business? We only lost 50,000. Thank you. Our focus was on our employees. My people, I loved my employees. I loved every single person. I knew every person. Even though we had thousands of people working for us, we knew our people and we loved our people. And that was important to me to have that kind of culture. So, our culture was honesty, integrity, dignity of every individual.

We had respect for everyone. No matter what your role was, you were respected as though you were the CEO. And the last one was doing whatever it takes, no excuses. In other words, you don’t offer excuses, you just solve the problem. And so, that became a hallmark of our company, do whatever it takes. Then in 2015, I sold the company to Microchip. And then instead of retiring, I started writing books. And my first book was called Tough Things First. And the focus of Tough Things First is learning to do what you don’t like doing and doing it well. Professor Basu told me she hates to grade papers. And I thought, well, that’s something you got to learn to love to do. So, doing what you don’t like doing and doing it well is discipline.

And that’s the thing that’s the most important for you to do, is learn discipline. And so, in my book, Tough Things First, what I did is I prioritized all the things I didn’t want to do first thing every morning. In fact, I’d even make a list the night before and I tackled those things very, very first thing. So, by doing that and getting that habit established of doing the tough things first, I was able to improve my productivity by 20%. And that became a hallmark of success of our company, was getting our employees to learn to do the tough things first every day. It’s called loving the things you hate. Now, I know that sounds strange, but loving the things you hate is important, because you avoid procrastination. Procrastination is the bane of mankind.

As a student, the thing I hated to do, much like you, I hated homework. Homework was something I hate. I had to learn to love homework. How many of you love homework? I didn’t see anybody raise their hand. I loved homework, because I focused on it first thing. I got it out of the way. You see, only 20% of what you do is important. The things that really benefit you is only 20%. The other 80%, like grading papers or doing homework, is mundane. And so, the tendency is to avoid doing it. And that’s called procrastination. And so, avoid it like it was the plague. My other books, Zen of Zinn, I’ve written three of those. And my newest book, Essential Leader, has just came out. And that talks about the 10 principles of being a successful leader.

So, I want you to take away from my talk to you today, is to learn to do the tough things first. Learn to love, love the things you hate. Now, it’s dead quiet in here when I said that, but that’s what you learn to do. Now, the last thing I want to tell you that’s important for you to know before I sit down, and that is you have a limited amount of time to develop your career. Your career has to be developed within the first 10 to 15 years. Write that down, 10 to 15 years, you’re dead otherwise. After that, you’re done. You might as well just retire. So, 10 to 15 years, don’t waste that time. You’re on the precipice of a great experience. You’ve got the education, now you need the experience. Experience and knowledge is wisdom, and you need to develop that wisdom.

As I said earlier, you have attended one of the best universities in the entire country and you deserve to promote that. And I hope that when you graduate and you get up like me, that you’ll give back. And I did that with a program called ZinnStarter. ZinnStarter is a program at San José State University, where we help fund students who want to develop or learn to start a company, run a company, because nine out of 10 companies fail after the first three years. And so, we want you to be successful at that, and so we have this program at San José State called ZinnStarter. And you’re welcome to become involved in it if you want to become an entrepreneur, but you have to be in school to do it.

So, maybe for you, you’re going to have get your advanced degrees. But anyway, remember, don’t give up. Keep pushing harder. People who give up are losers, and you guys are not losers. Thank you, and God bless you and your endeavors as you now proceed forth in the next important phase of your life. Go Spartans.

Rob Artigo: That, of course is, Ray Zinn doing the commencement speech at San José State. Nice work, Ray. Congratulations. Looked like it was a lot of fun for you.

Ray Zinn: It was fantastic.

Rob Artigo: Now, I would call it an energized speech. And the takeaways from the clip that we played are that these students that are graduating now, going into the world, should keep two things in mind. They need to do the tough things first and use it to develop discipline.

Ray Zinn: Exactly. Discipline is doing what you don’t like, doing it, doing it well. And I focus on that during my commencement speech, because we’re always going to be faced with challenges that we really don’t want to have to deal with.

Rob Artigo: Yeah. You also mentioned that you are legally blind. And the teleprompter is there. I don’t know if you noticed that, because I know that you have some sight. It’s just you’re legally blind and you have some visual cues. You can see shapes and things like that going on around you. But the teleprompters are there, like the president speaking. And I think somebody who didn’t know that you were legally blind would think that you were using the teleprompter, but you weren’t. You were going right off the top of your head in that speech. I mean, I guess you practiced, but it came across like you were reading off the teleprompter. And I mean if you were reading off the teleprompter, it was really well done. But obviously, you weren’t doing it on the teleprompter.

Ray Zinn: So, when you talk about legally blind, it means I can’t drive on the highway or I can’t drive period. And so, my vision’s limited to distance. In other words, I can see things a little bit further away. And I see things, it’s just that it’s not clear enough for me to read. So, if the pitch of the words were large enough, then I could read it. But the speech was relatively long. Not long. I should say it was 2,000 words. And to put that up on the teleprompter, I’d be focused too much on it. So, to your point, I did somewhat memorize it and then gave it just verbatim as though I was reading it.

Rob Artigo: Did you gauge reaction to the speech afterwards? Did you talk to some of the students? Did people come up and congratulate you on the speech? And did they give you any inspiration from it?

Ray Zinn: Sure. I mean both written and verbally at the commencement, sure. They loved it. And according to the president of the school, it’s one of the best commencement speeches they’ve ever heard.

Rob Artigo: Well, you being a real alumni, the first and only master’s of science degree holder from San José State, from so many years ago in that challenge as well, I’m sure they appreciated it. And I want to tell people, we will put the link for that whole commencement speech up, so that if you want to listen to it or watch it, you can and get the whole flavor of it. It’s not a long speech. Like you said, it’s 2,000 words. I think it ends up being somewhere around 16 minutes or something like that. It’s a pretty tight speech, but it’s also a great story. If you want to get the full flavor, you can watch the video. Also, join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray Zinn on X, and Facebook, and LinkedIn. And of course, pick up Ray’s books. Tough Things First, and the Zen of Zinn series one, two, and three on sale now. The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Thank you, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

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