4 - Taking the Reins/Saddling Up

Summary

A horse is a horse, of course, of course.

—Jay Livingston (TV theme composer)

You’d expect the mantra would come from a source other than the composer and lyricist of the theme song for a 1960s television series about a man and his loquacious equestrian compadre.

Through the looking glass one might peer into the past for sage words of wisdom …

“Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged,” Thomas Edison advised.

“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them,” Walt Disney opined.

“If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied,” Alfred Nobel shared.

Remarkable innovators all. But perhaps because, as the oldest of the five Ain siblings, Mark was most often charged with chauffeuring his grandmother from Brooklyn to his Long Island home and back for her frequent visits, her words had become firmly entrenched in his psyche.

“Be a horse, not a mule.”

So, the concept of crunching numbers at the Esso Corporation, despite its place as one of the world's biggest and most powerful companies, held no allure for Mark. Nor did driving sales for DEC, even though the company was in the midst of redefining the role of computers in businesses large and small on a global scale. Even working for a very high-end and highly successful consulting company lacked longterm appeal, given an over-arching mandate to peddle the wares of the firm above providing true, customized consultation.

It wasn't about the money any more than it came down to pleasing his supremely accomplished mother, who consistently wondered why he felt the need to leave each of these situations just as he seemed poised for ascending their respective ranks. It was really about what he’d learned about himself and the role he knew he had to attain to truly achieve success, as he had come to define it.

“I was a mule,” he confessed, “and I had to become a horse.”

Ironically, the same was true for “Mr. Ed.” To be successful in the path he’d chosen, show creator Arthur Lubin also had to learn about the value of horses.