Let’s Hear It For The Bureaucrats!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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In a post way back on July 20 that I called “Why Are The Bureaucrats Destroying What Made America Great?”, I highlighted the fact that the giant American pharmaceutical company Abbvie was planning to relocate to the UK in an effort to get away from punishing US taxes. (Click here if you want to read it.)

I also said that by abandoning the business friendly environment that had made it the wealthiest nation on Earth, the bureaucrats in the United States were creating a hostile place to try to do business to the extend that a growing number were leaving.

Ahem…. better make that, ‘trying to leave’.

Because rather than trying to make the US a more attractive place to do business, Obama’s bureaucrats have instead decided it to make it more difficult for them to leave.

The US government introduced new legislation recently which effectively put an end to the biggest corporate takeover of the year.

In the wake of new rules penalizing inversions, the Illinois based pharmaceutical giant, AbbVie, has walked away from its bid to acquire Shire, the Irish drug maker, for $54 billion blaming “….impact of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s unilateral changes to the tax rules”.

AbbVie will have to pay Shire a breakup fee of $1.6 billion, which is effectively money down the drain.

So who benefits thanks to this new legislation?

No one!

Let’s hear it for the bureaucrats!

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Failure.

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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They say that success breeds success and to a great extent that is true. If, for example, you have a successful business it can give you the confidence and the cash to acquire or set up another.

But is the opposite also true? Does failure breed failure?

I think it does. Most people tend to get the confidence knocked out of them when they fail. That’s why most never really succeed after one or two set backs. Some are so afraid of failure that they won’t even try the first time.

But, when they fail, some do get up, dust themselves down, and try again. And they are the ones who prove that failing a few times can, in the long run, actually lead to greater success that would otherwise have been the case.

Most of the world’s greatest serial entrepreneurs have had their failures. Some have even been bankrupt or been close to it. It may have dented their confidence a little and made them more cautious for the next time, but it didn’t stop them trying and that’s the key to real success.

Sure, plan well, be smart, work hard and all those good things, but don’t give up.

Does that mean you are bound to succeed? Well, no it doesn’t. There can always be extenuating circumstances well out of your control that makes things go wrong, but on average you should come out ahead. And you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you did your best and that’s as much as any of us can hope for.

It also helps if you set you sights at a realistic level. Barring a highly unlikely win on the lotto you won’t become a millionaire overnight, no matter how many of those self-help books you buy or how many internet webinars you attend. Nor will you become a Hollywood superstar if you move to L.A. and fill in the time waiting tables in the hope that some famous producer will stop by and ‘discover’ you.

Winston Churchill perhaps summarized it best when he said that success was going from one failure to the next without any loss of enthusiasm. Be sensible and it may be success that waits round the corner for you.

 

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