Survival.

Samuel Lyman Atwood Marshall (July 18, 1900 – December 17, 1977) was a chief U.S. Army combat historian during World War II and the Korean War.

If you ever look at animals, from the creatures (like rats) you might live nearby, to your family dog, to the birds of prey that swoop down so they can bring a small herring homeward to their high-nests and fledgling families in the marsh, you'll notice that most of them don't enter an area without 360-ing their space, sniffing the air or pawing at the dirt.

They're always, and I mean always, assessing the safety and danger of their world. They can be snuffed out any minute so they've developed a world-weary world-wariness that adds to their survivability.

Back when I was a cub in the advertising business, I remember sniffing out danger in the form of phone calls at 4PM right before the long Memorial Day or July 4th or Labor Day weekends.

There would always be some crisis that needed un-crisising and if you picked up your desk phone you were on the hook for a weekend in un-air-conditioned fluorescence while the rest of your friends were at the beach or watching a ball game on television.

The old hands had learned to sense danger from those calls. They learned how to skirt it. Us young dopes were usually on the hook.

In short, like creatures in the animal kingdom, creatures in the ad kingdom learned to sniff danger in the wind and scurry away in the shadows. I remember one long-legged writer who sat in the office next to mine when I was on my way to becoming a big cheese. 

She wasn't the best writer at avoiding work. But she was the best writer at avoiding writing. She'd leave her Diet Coke on her desk, her IBM Selectric II running and her expensive scarf on her chair. To all appearances Marcia would be right back--it seemed she was out powdering her nose in the Womens' Room. In reality, she was gone for four hours, down at the Subway Inn or the Tip-Top Tap drinking her Diet Coke, but with rum in it.

I've read in more than a few places that most soldiers fighting in WWII, despite all the celluloid you see with grizzled faces unloading machine guns into fields of Krauts, never even fired their guns. According to someone called S.L.A. Marshall, the majority of soldiers in WWII never fired a shot against an enemy. 

I remember working for an advisor-led financial services company back in the "oughts." The CEO said to me, "If I could get my people to work three days and play golf two, rather than play golf three days and work two, everything would be fine."

In short, like the animals I mentioned above, most of our species try to avoid work and the sweaty entanglements it entails. 

I've grown out of that propensity--especially since I started running GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company. Usually I say, "I'll do it," because doing it takes less time than either finding someone else to do it or hiding. Many mornings I start my day with 17-20 three-minute assignments.

My father never actually said it, but he might have and I quote his unsaid quote nonetheless.

"You don't make any money saying "no" to clients."

Of course I do some times. Dignity. Self-respect. And dumping cut no ice with me. But the way to get work is to do work. And work is the only way I know to make a living.