Translated from English by S. E. Borich according to the edition: IACOCCA: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Lee Iacocca with William Novak. - N.Y.: "Bantam Books", 1986.

© 1984 by Lee Iacocca

© Translation, 2005 Designed by Potpourri LLC, 2014.

* * *

Dedicated to my beloved Mary for her courage and devotion to her family

Words of gratitude

Usually the author thanks all the people who helped him in the work on the book. But since this is an autobiography, I would like to thank those people who helped me in life - the true friends who stayed by my side when my whole world seemed to be falling apart. They are Bishop Ed Broderick, Bill Curran, Vic Damone, Alejandro de Tomaso, Bill Fugazy, Frank Klotz, Walter Murphy, Bill Wynn, and my barber Gio. This includes my doctor, James Barron, who has helped me keep my mind and body in harmony.

My thanks go to the team of people who stepped away from cozy retirement to give me a helping hand at Chrysler: Paul Bergmoser, Don de la Rossa, Gar Locks, Hans Mattias and John Naughton, and my young co-workers Jerry Greenwald, Steve Miller, Leo Clemenson and Ron de Luca, who left high-paying and trusted positions to help me save a dying company.

In the thirty-eight years I've been in the auto business, I've had three secretaries who still make me look good. The first of these was Betty Martin, a talented woman who made many of the Ford employees look very pale next to her. The second is Dorothy Carr, who left Ford the same day I was fired and joined Chrysler with me out of solidarity, even risking her own pension. The third, my current secretary, Chrysler veteran Bonnie Gatewood, deserves to be ranked with the first two.

I am grateful to my old Ford friends who stood by my side through my darkest days: Calvin Beauregarde, Henk Carlini, Jay Dugan, Matt McLaughlin, John Morissey, Wes Small, Hal Sperlich, and Frank Zimmerman.

I would also like to thank Nessa Rapoport, my publisher, who has contributed greatly to the success of this book, and the people at Bantham Books for their hard work, especially Jack Romanos, Stuart Applebaum, Heather Florence, Alberto Vitale, Lou Wolfe, and of course or to my dear collaborator William Novak.

It is completely unnecessary to say how grateful I am to my daughters Katie and Leah, who are the whole meaning of my life.

Foreword

No one was as surprised as I was when this book topped the bestseller list in its first week of publication. People began to ask me why a book that has no sex, no violence, no spies is selling so well.

I can honestly say that I did not know the answer to this question, because until now I was considered only a marketing genius.

This is just the story of a boy from a decent immigrant family who studied hard and worked hard, who experienced both great success and great disappointment, and whose life ultimately turned out well because of the eternal values ​​​​he learned from his parents and teachers, and the fact that that he was lucky enough to live in America.

No one could have imagined that such a book could break all sales records, but that’s exactly what happened.

I realized why this happened when I started reading the responses from readers that came in by mail. Their number sometimes reached five hundred a day, and every evening I took thick stacks of letters home from my office.

I have found that the key to the book's success lies on the surface. After all, most of the people who wrote to me lived lives that were very similar to my own. The setting of the book does not take place on the ocean floor or the surface of the moon, but in those places where they all happened to be.

I received a ton of letters from people who, like me, had been kicked out of a job after years of excellent service or who had lost a loved one.

Some people in their letters told me about their parents who moved to America from other countries and managed to establish a decent life here (many letters included checks for the restoration of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty). They talked about how much they owed their parents for their hard work and sacrifice, and their determination to make life even better for their children.

I received letters from people who expressed how much they loved America and how worried they were about the economic and trade policies of the United States, which, in their opinion, were leading the country to collapse.

Letters came from schoolchildren and people in their late 80s, from corporate presidents and the unemployed. It seems that the book touched each of them in one way or another.

Thousands of people have written to me saying that they have learned a lot from reading this book, but none of it compares to the lesson that I learned from reading their letters.

I realized that the true spirit of America is a pragmatic optimism that everything will work out in the end, but only if you fight for it and make certain sacrifices.

The chapter “Restore America Great” caused the most comments, as it touched on a very burning topic. Americans are not going to put up with their secondary status in the world. Perhaps this problem does not bother some of the statesmen too much, but the correspondence that comes to me convinces me that the American people will not tolerate such a situation.

I wrote this chapter in a state of deep disappointment that America is going downhill more and more. But after reading the readers' letters, I realized that the people of this country have enough common sense and determination to prevent such a development of events.

The final word is about the Statue of Liberty and what it meant to the millions of immigrants for whom it was a symbol of America. These people - our fathers and grandfathers - burned their bridges behind them to build a country that has now become one of the wonders of the world.

They left us a legacy to be proud of and an example to follow. Sometimes it seemed to me that we were gradually losing our understanding of the greatness of this example and were unworthy of bearing the title of their descendants. But every evening, looking through the next batch of letters, I realized that we belong to the same breed of people.

introduction

Everywhere I go, people constantly ask me the same questions: “How did you manage to achieve such success? Why did Henry Ford fire you? How did you get Chrysler back on its feet?"

Unable to find a suitable answer to these questions, I usually used the standard trick and said: "When I write a book about this, you will know everything."

Over the years, I have repeated this phrase so often that I myself believed my own words. Ultimately, I had no choice but to write this book, which I have been talking about for so long.

Why did I write it? Of course, not in order to become famous. The TV commercial for Chrysler already made me more famous than I wanted to be.

In the process of writing the book, I did not set myself the goal of getting even with Henry Ford because he fired me. I have already done it the old American way by winning the market battle against him.

The true purpose of writing this book is to tell the story of my life at Ford and Chrysler with the utmost honesty (including to myself). As I worked on the book and reflected on my life, I kept thinking about the young people I met while giving lectures at universities and business schools. If this book gives them a real picture of big business in America today and gives them at least some idea of ​​the goals worth fighting for, then all this hard work will not be in vain.

Prologue

Here is the story of a man who has achieved considerable success in life. But the path to it was not easy. Of all my thirty-eight years in the automotive industry, I remember one day most vividly that had nothing to do with the creation of new cars, or with advertising campaigns, or with profits.

I started out in an immigrant family and worked my way up to become president of the Ford Motor Company. At that moment, I felt like I was on top of the world. But then fate told me: “Wait a minute. We haven't finished with you yet. Let's see how you will feel after flying off Everest!

On July 13, 1978, I was fired from my job. I worked for Ford for thirty-two years and served as its president for eight of those years. I had no other jobs at that time. And all of a sudden, I found myself unemployed. It was a lousy feeling. Officially, my contract ended in three months, but, in accordance with the terms of my “voluntary” resignation, at the end of this period I was supposed to be allocated an office until I found a new job.

On October 15, my last day on the job, which coincidentally coincided with my fifty-fourth anniversary, a driver took me to Ford headquarters for the last time. As I left the house, I kissed my wife Mary and both of my daughters, Katie and Leah. The family was very worried about these turbulent months at Ford, which literally drove me crazy. Yes, I am responsible for my own destiny. But what does Mary and the girls have to do with it? They became innocent victims of the despot whose name was emblazoned on the corporate building.

Even today this pain does not leave me. Imagine a lioness with a brood. A smart hunter will never touch cubs. But Henry Ford made my children suffer, and I will never forgive him for that.

The next day, I got into a car that took me to my new office. It was in some sort of warehouse on Telegraph Road, just a few miles from Ford headquarters, but for me it was like being on another planet.

I did not quite clearly imagine where it was located, so I did not immediately find the right building. When I arrived, I couldn't even find a parking spot.

As it turned out, this event attracted a lot of people. Someone had taken care to let the media know that the deposed president of Ford would be here this morning. Correspondents crowded around me. A TV reporter shoved a microphone in my face and asked, “How do you feel in this warehouse after eight years at the top?”

I couldn't find an answer to him. And what could I say? Stepping away from the TV cameras, I muttered under my breath:

"I feel bad."

My new office turned out to be a tiny closet with a small desk and a telephone. My secretary, Dorothy Carr, was already there with tears in her eyes. Without saying a word, she pointed to the cracked linoleum on the floor and two plastic coffee cups on the table.

Only yesterday we worked with her in conditions of ultra-luxury. The president's office was no smaller in area than the largest apartment in the hotel. I had my own bathroom and even living rooms. As a senior executive at Ford, I was served by a waiter in a white tuxedo, whose services I could use throughout the working day. Once I was visited by relatives from Italy, and I showed them where I work. They thought they were dead and ended up in heaven.

Today I was millions of miles away from it all. A few minutes later, the warehouse manager came into the office on a courtesy visit. He offered me a cup of coffee from the machine in the lobby. It was a very sincere gesture on his part, but the ambiguity of the situation made us both feel awkward.

For me, this was tantamount to exile to Siberia, to the most remote corner of the empire. I was so confused that it took me a few minutes to realize that there was absolutely no point in me staying here. I had a telephone at home, and someone could always deliver my mail. It was not yet ten by the clock when I left that building, never to return there again.

I suffered this last humiliation much more painfully than the fact of dismissal itself. My hands were itching, but I couldn’t decide who I should kill—Henry Ford or myself. Of course, I did not seriously think about either murder or suicide, but after that I began to drink more. I felt like I was falling apart at all the seams.

On the life path of a person, thousands of small, and possibly large, obstacles await. They become peculiar moments of truth, a time for summing up. I found myself in this situation, wondering what to do. Reconcile and go to rest? I was fifty-four years old. By this age I was already able to do a lot. I was financially secure and could afford to play golf for the rest of my life.

But I felt that it was not mine. I needed to pick myself up and get on with my work.

Everyone in life has times when something constructive is suddenly born in the most unfavorable environment. There are situations when everything around is so bad that it’s time to grab your fate by the breasts and shake it properly. I'm sure it was that morning in the warehouse that made me accept the offer to head Chrysler just a few weeks later.

I could bear my personal pain. But to endure deliberate public humiliation is too much. I was full of rage, and I had only two options: either to turn this rage against myself, which would have the most destructive consequences, or to use this energy for more productive purposes. “Don't get angry, don't take everything so personally,” Mary kept repeating to me. During periods of high stress and in difficult situations, it is always better to find something to do to release your negative emotions and direct the accumulated energy to something positive.

As it turned out, I got out of the fire and into the frying pan. A year after I signed the contract, Chrysler was close to bankruptcy. More than once I myself wondered how I managed to get into such a mess. The mere fact that I was fired from Ford was extremely unpleasant. But on top of that, go down with a ship like the Chrysler?! I clearly didn't deserve this.

Luckily, Chrysler got back on its feet. Today I am a hero. But it all started that very morning in the warehouse. My purposeful efforts, luck, and the help of many good people played their part, but, be that as it may, I managed to be reborn from the ashes.

Now listen to how it all happened.

Part I
"Made in America"

Chapter 1
Family

My father Nicola Iacocca arrived in this country in 1902 at the age of twenty. He was poor, lonely and confused. Arriving here, the father knew only that the Earth is round, and even then only thanks to another Italian guy named Christopher Columbus, who was ahead of him by 410 years with an accuracy of almost one day.

When the steamer entered New York harbor, my father saw for the first time the Statue of Liberty, that great symbol of hope for millions of immigrants. When he next crossed the ocean and saw her again, he was already an American citizen and with him were his mother, young wife and hope. For Nicola and Antoinette, America was a country of freedom, where one could become anyone, if only one really wanted to and spared no effort to achieve this goal.

This is what my father never stopped teaching his family. I hope I was able to teach this to my daughters as well.

I grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. There was such a close relationship in the family that sometimes it seemed as if we were all a single being, consisting of four parts.

My parents always tried to make sure that both my sister Delma and I could feel our importance and uniqueness. There were no such concepts as “too difficult” or “too troublesome” in the family. Father could do a dozen different things at the same time, but he always found time for us. Mother spared neither time nor effort to spoil us with dishes that we especially liked. Until now, when I visit her, she always cooks my favorite - chicken soup with veal meatballs and ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese. If there were an international competition among the greatest Neapolitan chefs, she would be among the best.

Like many Italians, my parents always openly expressed their feelings and affections, not only in the family circle, but also in public. Many of my friends are unlikely to hug their father. They seem to be afraid that such a gesture diminishes their strength and independence in the eyes of others. However, I hugged and kissed my father at every opportunity and considered it completely natural.

He was a restless and enterprising person, who was constantly drawn to everything new. Once he bought some fig tree seedlings and managed to grow them in the harsh climate of Allentown. He was also the first person in our small town to buy a motorcycle, an old Harley-Davidson. Unfortunately, my father’s relationship with the motorcycle did not work out. He fell off it so often that in the end the bike had to be sold. After that, he no longer trusted any car that had less than four wheels.

Because of this damn motorcycle, I never got a bike. Every time I wanted to ride, I had to borrow a bike from one of my friends. But my father allowed me to drive a car at the age of sixteen. So I became the only child in Allentown who went straight from a tricycle to a Ford.

My father was very fond of cars. He bought one of the earliest Model T Fords and was one of the few Allentowners who knew how to drive one. He constantly fiddled with the machines and tried to somehow improve them. Like any owner of a car at that time, he gradually accumulated a lot of worn and punctured tires, and for many years he was occupied with the thought of how to extend their life. Until now, as soon as I hear about some new invention in the tire industry, I immediately think of my father.

He was in love with America and tried his best to get closer to fulfilling his American Dream. When the First World War broke out, he volunteered for the army, partly out of a sense of patriotism, and partly, as he later admitted to me, out of a desire to influence his own destiny in some way. He worked too hard to get to America and become an American citizen, and he feared that he would be sent back to Europe to fight in Italy or France. Fortunately, he had to serve at the Camp Crane Army Training Center, just a few miles from home. Since he felt confident behind the wheel, he was assigned to train drivers of army ambulances.

Nicola Iacocca came to America from San Marco, a small town in the province of Campania, located 40 kilometers northeast of Naples. Like most immigrants, he was full of ambition and hope. For a time he lived with his half-brother in Garrett, Pennsylvania. Then he went to work in a coal mine, but he did not like this job so much that he quit the next day. He later liked to say that this was the only day in his life when he worked for someone else.

He soon moved to Allentown, where he had another brother. In 1921, he saved up enough money by doing odd jobs, mostly by mending shoes, that he was able to return to San Marco to pick up his by then widowed mother. It so happened that he brought to America not only his own, but also my mother. While in Italy, this bachelor, who by that time was already thirty-one years old, fell in love with the seventeen-year-old daughter of a shoemaker. They got married a few weeks later.

For many years, journalists did not get tired of writing about the fact that my parents spent their honeymoon on the Lido coast in Venice and that I was named Lido in honor of this happy time. This is a very beautiful story, but it has one drawback - it does not correspond to reality. Indeed, my father and mother went to this coast, but this was before the wedding, not after. And since my mother's brother was also with them, I doubt that this trip was all that romantic.

Traveling to America was not easy for my parents. Mother came down with typhus and spent the entire voyage in the ship's infirmary. By the time she arrived, all her hair had fallen out. By law, she was to be sent back to Italy, but by that time her father was already quite a punchy person and knew all the ins and outs in New York. Somehow, he managed to convince the immigration authorities that his fiancée was just seasick.

Have you lost faith in success? The book "Manager's Career" by Lee Iacocca is what you need! You will find out what the author went through to achieve heights in his career!

Greetings, dear visitors on a successful site! 🙂

Book by Lee Iacocca Manager career”is a personal autobiography of the author himself, who became a legend of American management. The book tells about the life path of Lee Iacocca, as well as the formation of the American automobile industry.

A powerful book before your eyes Manager career”, which tells about a person who has reached very high heights in his career, namely at Ford! Also, this legendary businessman managed to save the Chrysler automobile company from bankruptcy.

But on the path of life for Iacocca, everything was not as smooth as it might seem to you. Initially, Lee Iacocca also had to go through difficult times in his life before achieving this grandiose :).

Autobiography of Lee Iacocca Manager career”- today it is considered a very valuable textbook on crisis management, which is even read in institutes. Even though a lot has changed in the automotive industry since this book was written, Lee Iacocca's insights and valuable advice are still useful and valuable to us.

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Abstract

Lee Iacocca is one of the most famous representatives of the US business world in the last twenty years. His autobiography is a best-selling book that chronicles, in a lively and entertaining manner, the rise of a gifted and acumen manager from student trainee to head of the world's largest auto giant.

Lee Iacocca
Manager career

Prologue

You have to read a story about a man who had more success than he was due. But he also had to endure very difficult times. In fact, when I look back on my thirty-eight years in the auto industry, the day that sticks most in my memory has nothing to do with new cars, promotions, and profits.

Starting my life as the son of immigrants, I worked my way up to the presidency of the Ford Motor Company. When I finally got there, I felt like I was in seventh heaven. But then fate warned me: “Wait. That's not all. Now you have to find out what feelings take possession of a person who is thrown from the top of Everest!

On July 13, 1978, I was fired. For eight years I served as president of the Ford Company, and in total I served in this company for thirty-two years. I had never worked for any other company before. Now all of a sudden I'm out of a job. The feeling was vile, I was turned inside out.

Officially, my term of service expired in three months. But under the terms of my "retirement" at the end of this period, I was supposed to be given some position for a while until I find another job.

On the last day of my tenure as president, October 15, the very day I turned 54, my chauffeur took me to Ford Motor International Headquarters in Dearborn for the last time. Before leaving the house, I kissed my wife Mary and my two daughters, Cathy and Leah. My family suffered terribly during the last painful months of my stay at the Ford Company, and this made me furious. Perhaps I myself was to blame for what happened to me. But what were Mary and the girls guilty of? Why did they have to go through all this? They were victims of the despot whose name was inscribed on the company headquarters building.

Even today, compassion for the pain they experienced does not leave me. It's like a lioness with cubs. If the hunter has a modicum of kindness, he will spare the little ones. Henry Ford made my children suffer and I will never forgive him for that.

The very next day, I drove my car to my new assignment, a gloomy warehouse building on Telegraph Road, located only five miles from Ford's international headquarters. But for me it was like going to the moon. When I got there, I didn't even know where to park.

Manager career Lee Iacocca

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Title: Career manager

About The Manager's Career by Lee Iacocca

Lee Iacocca is a truly legendary personality. This is an American manager who has made a dizzying path from an unwanted descendant of Italian emigrants to the president of Ford and the chairman of the board of Chrysler Corporation. His life is indisputable proof that nothing is impossible for a talented, strong-willed person. The book “Manager's Career” is his autobiography, which instantly became a bestseller. In it, this top executive in the engineering industry talks about how he achieved success and shares his personal recipes for effectively managing a large business.

Lee Iacocca, in addition to being a brilliant manager and brilliant leader, managed to create the legend of the American automobile industry - the Ford Mustang. Cars of this brand are still very popular among car enthusiasts.

Let us note that part of the book “Manager’s Career” is occupied by the author’s thoughts about Henry Ford. Their tone could not be called positive, since they disliked each other. In general, the section dedicated to dismissal from Ford is very emotional. However, if you put negative emotions aside, then you have the opportunity to learn many recipes and tips from a real leader. After all, this man came to the Chrysler Corporation when it was actually on the verge of bankruptcy. Lee took over and revived this giant of American engineering.

The book “Manager's Career” tells about the role of the individual in an honest, legal business. Lee Iacocca gives a very interesting account of his career as a senior manager. His advice is practical and applicable to our realities. For example, there are chapters devoted to how he cleared up his public speaking inhibitions. These recommendations can be taken into account immediately. He also shares his many years of experience as a leader who supervises a huge number of people. The explanations are very easy to understand and understandable.

Definitely “Manager’s Career” is a must have for a person who plans to develop as a manager. Moreover, this autobiography can and should be read more than once, each time finding timely recommendations there.

On our website about books, you can download the site for free without registration or read online the book “Manager’s Career” by Lee Iacocca in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and a real pleasure to read. You can buy the full version from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For novice writers, there is a separate section with useful tips and tricks, interesting articles, thanks to which you can try your hand at writing.

Quotes from the book "Manager's Career" by Lee Iacocca

Management is nothing more than getting people to work. The only way to set people up for vigorous activity is to communicate with them.

It must be remembered that anyone who buys anything - a house, a car, or stocks and bonds - will justify his purchase during the first weeks, even if he made a mistake.

I still love the game of poker and win often. It's a smart game to learn when to take advantage, when to fold, and when to bluff.

Contrary to what the textbooks claim, the most important decisions in corporations are actually made not by collective bodies, not by committees, but by individuals.

Failures are a natural part of life, and we must carefully choose how we respond to them.

Be patient - the sun must rise again. It always does!

The most significant thing a manager can do is hire new employees who are fit for the job.

In life you need to be able to endure a little grief. You will never know what true happiness is if you have nothing to compare it to.

If I had to describe in one word the qualities necessary for a good manager, I would say that they all boil down to the concept of “decisiveness”.

You may have great ideas in your head, but if you don't know how to bring them to the minds of your listeners, you will not achieve anything.

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Lee Iacocca

Manager career

You have to read a story about a man who had more success than he was due. But he also had to endure very difficult times. In fact, when I look back on my thirty-eight years in the auto industry, the day that sticks most in my memory has nothing to do with new cars, promotions, and profits.

Starting my life as the son of immigrants, I worked my way up to the presidency of the Ford Motor Company. When I finally got there, I felt like I was in seventh heaven. But then fate warned me: “Wait. That's not all. Now you have to find out what feelings take possession of a person who is thrown from the top of Everest!

On July 13, 1978, I was fired. For eight years I served as president of the Ford Company, and in total I served in this company for thirty-two years. I had never worked for any other company before. Now all of a sudden I'm out of a job. The feeling was vile, I was turned inside out.

Officially, my term of service expired in three months. But under the terms of my "retirement" at the end of this period, I was supposed to be given some position for a while until I find another job.

On the last day of my tenure as president, October 15, the very day I turned 54, my chauffeur took me to Ford Motor International Headquarters in Dearborn for the last time. Before leaving the house, I kissed my wife Mary and my two daughters, Cathy and Leah. My family suffered terribly during the last painful months of my stay at the Ford Company, and this made me furious. Perhaps I myself was to blame for what happened to me. But what were Mary and the girls guilty of? Why did they have to go through all this? They were victims of the despot whose name was inscribed on the company headquarters building.

Even today, compassion for the pain they experienced does not leave me. It's like a lioness with cubs. If the hunter has a modicum of kindness, he will spare the little ones. Henry Ford made my children suffer and I will never forgive him for that.

The very next day, I drove my car to my new assignment, a gloomy warehouse building on Telegraph Road, located only five miles from Ford's international headquarters. But for me it was like going to the moon. When I got there, I didn't even know where to park.

It turned out, however, that many people had already gathered there and showed me where to park the car. Someone alerted the media that the ousted president of Ford Motor would be reporting to work here that morning, and as a result, a small crowd gathered to greet me. A TV reporter poked a microphone in my face and asked, “How does it feel to be assigned to this warehouse after eight years in the top job?”

I was unable to concentrate to answer him. And what could I say? When I finally managed to move away from his television camera, I muttered the truth: “It feels like I’m up to my neck in shit.”

My new “office” was a small room with a small table and a telephone on it. Dorothy Carr, my secretary, was already there with tears in her eyes. Without saying a word, she pointed to the cracked linoleum floor and two plastic cups on the table.

Only yesterday we worked with her in the most luxurious surroundings. The president's office was the size of a huge hotel room. I had a private bathroom. I even had my own holiday apartment. As a senior manager at Ford, I was served by waiters in white uniforms at all hours of the day. One day I brought my relatives from Italy to show me where I worked; The whole situation made such a deafening impression on them that they thought that they had already finished with the earthly vale and moved to heaven.

Today, however, I felt like I was a million miles away from those apartments. A few minutes after my arrival, the warehouse manager dropped in to see me in passing, paying me, so to speak, a courtesy visit. He offered me a cup of coffee from the vending machine in the warehouse. It was a noble gesture on his part, but we both felt awkward at the incongruity of my being here.

For me it was Siberia, a link to the farthest corner of the kingdom. I was so stunned by all this that it took me several minutes before I realized that I didn’t have to stay here at all. I had a telephone at home and mail could be delivered to my home. Before ten o'clock in the morning I left the warehouse office and never returned here again.

This humiliating position in which they put me at parting turned out to be worse than the fact of dismissal itself. It was so disgusting that it made me want to kill someone, and I didn’t know who exactly, either Henry Ford or myself. Murder or suicide still didn’t seem like a real solution to me, but I began to drink a little more than usual, and my hands were also shaking more. I truly felt like I was falling apart.

While you walk through life, you come across thousands of narrow side paths, but really wide forks that determine the choice of the future path are very rare - this is the moment of critical testing, the moment of truth. I also found myself faced with this choice, wondering what to do. Should I have given up and retired? I was fifty-four years old. I have already achieved a lot. I was financially secure. And he could afford to play golf for the rest of his life.

But this did not seem fair to me at all. I knew I had to pull myself together and get to work.

There are moments in every person's life when something useful is born out of misfortune. There are times when everything seems so bleak that you want to grab fate by the scruff of the neck and shake it hard. I am convinced that it was that morning in the warehouse that pushed me a couple of weeks later to agree to accept the post of president of the Chrysler Corporation.

I was able to endure my personal pain. But deliberate public humiliation was beyond my strength. I was stifled by anger, and I had to make my choice: either turn this anger against myself with the most disastrous consequences, or mobilize at least part of the energy generated by anger and try to do something fruitful.

“Don’t go crazy,” Mary convinced me, “pull yourself together.” In times of severe stress and unhappiness, it is always best to get busy and channel your anger and energy into something constructive.

Meanwhile, it so happened that I fell from the frying pan into the fire. A year after I joined Chrysler, it was on the verge of bankruptcy. During this first period of service at Chrysler, I was repeatedly amazed at how I could get myself involved in such a mess. Getting fired from Ford Motor Company is bad enough. But going down with the Chrysler ship would be too much.

Fortunately, Chrysler came out of its death game alive. Now I'm a hero. But oddly enough, it all stems from that moment of truth I experienced in the Ford warehouse. Determination, luck, the help of many good people allowed me to rise from the ashes. And now I will tell you my story.

Made in America

My father, Nicola Iacocca, came to the US in 1902 at the age of twelve, a poor, lonely, frightened little boy. He used to say that the only thing he was sure of when he landed on the American coast was that the earth was round. And it became possible because another Italian guy named Christopher Columbus was ahead of him by 410 years, almost to the day.

As the ship entered New York Harbor, my father saw the Statue of Liberty, that great symbol of hope for millions of immigrants. During his second visit to America, he was already looking at the Statue of Liberty as a new US citizen, but he had with him only his mother, his young wife, and only one hope for the future. For Nicola and Antoinette, America was pictured as a country of freedom - freedom to become what a person wants to become, of course, if he really really wants it and is ready to work hard for it.