Don’t grab what you can’t hold on to

This is an interesting story from the early days of the oil industry (as reported in this piece from Biofuels Digest).


I thought at the time it would be, therefore, useful to relate something of the character of the man who founded Saudi Aramco, Harry Deward Collier ... Collier was a marine engineer by training, who joined Standard Oil in 1903 when it became clear that the marine industry was going to completely convert over from coal to oil, and he took a leading part in that transition. His own father had participated in the transition from sail to steam. His grandfather had participated in the transition from the New England whalers to the great Yankee Clippers, as a fleet owner and china trader.  From his own story, Henry Deward Collier understood the transitory nature of transportation technologies, the importance of thinking globally, the importance of China.


He had a little trick he would play. He would ask you, “Would you like a nickel?” This was back in the day when a nickel was worth something.


“Sure,” you’d say, “what do I have to do for it?”


“There is is, take it.” And he’d point to a nickel by the stove. What the victim didn’t know is that he’d have heated up the nickel, so it was burning hot, and when you picked it up you’d drop it right away.


“What the Sam Hill you do that for?” you’d say.


“Don’t grab what you can’t hold on to,” he’d answer. “Study the problem, make a tool, make a friend. if you do that, there’s nothing you can’t get a hold of and keep holding onto.”


This story makes me wonder what I'm grabbing for that I'm not prepared to actually hold on to.  And, conversely, I wonder what I could (or should) be grabbing for if I only studied the problem, made a tool, and made a friend.