This weekend at the age of 55, Adam Andrzejewski (pronounced: Angie-eff-ski) passed away.
Adam made his money, an eight figure fortune, in selling telephone book ads. This was during a time when that industry was already said to be a lost cause.
9,999 out of 10,000 people would come up with any excuse to not touch that dog of an industry. But Adam was different. He understood that if you just do the basics, day in and day out, and keep doing them, then 95% of the risk of failure is removed. It’s that simple.
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You don’t need to be novel. You don’t need to be sexy. You don’t need to be newsworthy. You just keep doing the basics day in and day out and 95% of the risk of failure is removed.
I suspect there was no dog of an industry in the eyes of Adam.
As further proof of that, by the time that many members of the middle class with a few dollars to protect had given up on Illinois, Adam was busy starting a non-profit called For the Good of Illinois.
He teamed up with local activists and taught them how to access the checkbooks of their local government entities, especially their local schools — and to use the internet to introduce radical transparency.
Years old sweetheart insurance deals suddenly went out for bid. Fringe benefits that no one ever knew about disappeared. Where money was being spent suddenly came under public scrutiny in a way it never had before.
All Adam did was to shine a spotlight on government finances by 1.) getting access to the checkbook (a public record), 2.) having a look through it, and 3.) applying pressure by sharing interesting details with reporters covertly, in social media, openly in the media, and perhaps also making a little commotion at a meeting or two about it.
He was a lot of fun to watch in action. He knew a good formula when he had one. And he had one. Every concerned citizen, local and national, can still do that same thing, but the more local, the better it works.
He ran for governor based on the momentum of the effort, but his heart never seemed to be in it the way his heart was in it for bringing radical transparency.
For some 15 years I have watched with joy as Adam focussed on very basic things and did them over and again.
In an era in which government says we should all be open books, entirely transparent in our private lives, while insisting to us that government was entitled to top secrecy, Adam brought that same level of radical transparency nationwide. He simply got a hold of the checkbooks and then told the incredibly embarrassing stories that were hidden in the numbers.
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If you can get a checkbook, you can tell an embarrassing story of government mismanagement. It always works that way. So they fought him on even seeing the checkbooks, and some did so every step of the way, but Adam ultimately won.
All any of us need to do in order to embarrass a public official is to get the numbers. Many of their lives are so out of touch with how everyone else lives that simply looking at the checkbook is enough to produce shameful stories.
It really works. Hardly anyone in government is immune from it. Used properly, it becomes a potent leverage point for pushing them to be better.
Adam understood how to make it look so simple, because it was: select an area of life, focus on it, do the basic things, do them every day. 95% of the risk of failure is eliminated. You will succeed.
So many activists fail because they will not do just that. They fail in business. And they fail in activism. Adam was a success and a model and a true joy to watch operate.
Anyone who cares about individual freedom can learn from his impressive example. Thank you for that example, dear Adam.
