Why it doesn’t always take an expert.
The secret to doing big things, like rebuilding an engine or re-imagining an industry.
When I was in high school I bought a Jeep. A 1981 CJ–5. I think it cost around $4500. I took a loan (that my Dad co-signed for me) and because I had a job in a restaurant, I was able to make the monthly payments.
Jeeps are awesome by the way.
One of the classes I took my senior year was Auto Shop. Does this class even exist anymore? In Auto Shop I offered up my Jeep for (what I thought was) a small repair. The valve cover gasket seemed to be leaking a little oil so as a project we, together as a class, replaced it.
It turns out that the valve cover gasket on the 258 Straight Six (the engine in my Jeep) is very touchy. It’s incredibly hard to get a good seal, and if you don’t get a good seal you leak oil.
We didn’t get a good seal.
And I leaked oil. A lot of it.
For awhile I just carried around quart cans of oil and refilled the engine constantly. I knew I needed to repair it, but as I did with a lot of things, I kept procrastinating.
One night I asked to borrow my parents car to go “downtown” with friends. This was downtown Denver, which at the time was just starting to become an actual place to go after 5pm. My parents refused to loan me their car. Being a stubborn teenager, I said “screw you guys” took my leaky Jeep and went out. (Being a moody 17-year-old I may have said something worse than “screw you.”) I had no extra cans of oil.
Two days later on my way to school the engine seized. That was bad.
That meant at least one of the pistons got so hot it warped and stuck within a cylinder wall. And that stopped the engine for good.
I called around to get an estimate for repair. If I recall, the cost was somewhere between $3500–5000, which was just about what I paid for the Jeep in the first place.
I asked my parents if they would help pay for it. No.
So again as a stubborn (and naive) teenager, I told them “Screw you guys. I’ll fix it myself.” They told me I couldn’t do it– both because they didn’t believe I actually could, and they didn’t want me to. I did it anyway.
So began the process of rebuilding an AMC 258 Straight Six engine.
I won’t go into the details, but it took almost an entire summer. It involved renting things like a cherry picker (a crane that can lift an engine out of the car), extreme mood swings and buying lots of tools. Side note: at the time Sears Craftsman were the best tools for the money, but their quality has gone way down since.
I visited machine shops, hole-in-the-wall parts shops and spent a lot of time on the phone ordering parts by mail. There was no Internet then. Or cell phones. This was the 80’s people.
By the end of the summer, my rebuilt engine was back in the Jeep. It started right up, then died.
Started, died.
Crap.
Luckily, I got some help from a good friend (turns out the timing angle needed a slight adjustment), and we got it started. It was loud, and it sounded SO good.
I drove that Jeep through college and for a couple of years after before I sold it. I was living in Chicago, and when I wasn’t moving it once a week for street cleaning, it sat parked and collected trash (it had a soft top with no locks). So I sold it. It was gone, and I was sad.
Four things I learned from the experience.
When you build an engine, no matter how much Goop you use, your hands remain constantly dirty. (If you haven’t heard of it, Goop is industrial strength hand cleaner. I’m sure it’s really bad for you).
Just like building a cabinet from IKEA, you will end up with extra parts and have no idea why.
When you understand how something really works, you can fix just about anything that goes wrong with it. When you get how each small part works within an interconnected whole, you get ideas on how to make the whole thing work better. And you can do that without a manual.
Being an expert is not a prerequisite for doing most things. Performing surgery or flying a commercial jet are some big exceptions I can think of. I’m sure there are many more. But that’s not the point.
You don’t have to be an expert to do something big.
If you want to do things, big things, the barrier to entry is unbelievably low. The ability to create a film or a show and distribute it to a vast audience is within the reach of anyone with an iPhone and the internet. You, by yourself, can create a simple product, build and open a (virtual) store, create the marketing, then plan and buy media to advertise. The cost is your time and (depending on your media spend and caffeine intake) approximately a year’s worth of Starbuck’s lattes.
You don’t need to be an expert at any of this stuff to do this. In fact, if becoming an expert is your goal, then doing it is the fastest way to become one. You could spend a year and read twenty books about how to make videos or how to market online. Or you could take that time, effort and money and actually make a video or market something online. And you’ll end up in a far better place.
When you understand the whole, the gestalt, the big picture (whatever you want to call it) that’s when you really can understand how to do things better. Or, better yet, how to re-engineer the whole process to do it in a completely different and infinitely better way.
If you want to have impact on something big–like a brand, a product, or even an industry–understanding the underlying systems and processes that make these things work is critical.
And to understand how things work, you have to do them.
So do them. And please don’t listen to people who say only the “experts” can do things.
Don’t listen when they say you don’t have the experience needed to do something. It’s by doing that you GET experience.
Even if you fail, you learn. Rebuilding the Jeep by myself probably ended up costing more than if I paid someone to do it. But the experience was invaluable. I freaking built an engine! But I also built confidence. And that’s more important than anything.
About me: I’m a Partner/Creative Director at Teak in San Francisco. I’m from Colorado, moved to Chicago for 8 years then settled down in San Anselmo, California (the birthplace of mountain biking) with my wife to raise two amazing kids. I’m a huge fan of the Chicago Cubs, Denver Broncos and Peet’s Coffee.
This is me on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Read my previous Medium article here.
