Figure it out, it has to work

A sentence for a method

Alexander sums up his way of being in the world in one sentence: figure it out, it has to work. A need appears, an obstacle comes up; he looks at what he has to hand, what he already knows, what he has seen others do, and he puts it together until it works.

Swiss army knife

For about ten years he worked alongside his mother in the family company, a business of three to seven people. He learned everything there: secretarial work, sales, marketing, contracts, client and prospect management, accounting, payroll, recruitment. He even did the deliveries. Seven days a week, often twelve to eighteen hours a day.

The machines

At about seventeen, he watched a computer technician at work. He learned by watching, then tinkered, programmed, tested, broke and repaired. He became the company’s IT man and system administrator, and built in dBase the management tools the business needed.

Six and a half tonnes of salmon

The company also started selling to works councils: salmon imported directly from a Scandinavian producer, in fillets of 900 g to 1 kg guaranteed at the same price. Tens of thousands of letters went out; in the first year, 6.5 tonnes were sold. Alexander then ran the business alone for about six years, extending it to foie gras, duck, goose and regional produce.

Samantha and Terry

In the middle of those working years, Alexander became a father: Samantha was born in 1991, Terry in 1993. The Swann name passed to a new generation.

Poker

In the late 1990s he began playing poker. He would go through every era of the game: live rooms, online sites, then the most advanced analysis tools. He would finish second in a major tournament of three hundred players — proof, he writes, that experience is measured not only in winnings but in resilience, reading and adaptation.