Instead of Goodbye

Don Vincenzo lived to eighty and died in his own bed. In our trade that alone is an achievement someone ought to write a separate book about. But there won’t be such a book, because the Don’s secret was a dull one. He didn’t chase anything flashy. He kept his word. He counted the money. He didn’t quarrel with people he couldn’t do without. And every morning he walked round the laundry as if he were seeing it for the first time.

A few months before he died he stopped coming into the office, so I started going to him myself, on Tuesdays, with the papers. He hardly looked at the papers. He asked how the pressers were doing, how much linen had come in, whether the hotel on the seafront was complaining. On one of those Tuesdays I told him that a young capo from the next neighbourhood had opened his third outlet in a year and was telling everyone how fast he was growing.

The Don was silent for a while, then asked, “How much of this is his?”

I didn’t know. He nodded, as if I had answered. Two years later that capo didn’t have a single outlet left.

I’m not telling you this to make you afraid of growing. You need to grow. I’m telling you because in forty years at the Don’s kitchen table what I learnt wasn’t rules. You’ve already read the rules; there are more than three hundred of them in this book, and you’ll have forgotten half by the spring. What I learnt was questions. Who’s going to buy this? Why from me? What am I promising, and can I deliver? How much will be left for us? What happens if I’m wrong? Who will find out, and what will he do?

If you remember the questions, you’ll work out the rules for yourself. If you remember only the rules, you’ll be leafing through this book in a panic on the very day something happens that isn’t in it. And that day will certainly come. Books are written about the past. Business is always done in the future.

One more thing, and this is my conclusion, not a law. There are plenty of stories in this book where luck decided, where the innocent paid, and where hard work alone wasn’t enough. But in forty years I noticed that the man who thought himself cleverer than everyone paid more often than the rest. And the ones I saw last longest were those who patiently did simple things well. Bad news for anyone looking for a secret.

Go. Do your work so that clients come back and people stay twenty years. Count what’s left in your pocket. Keep your word, even when it’s expensive. And now and then sit down at the kitchen table with someone younger. Not to teach. To listen to the questions he asks.

If he asks how much of this is his, then you’ll both be fine.