It makes sense that Ferruccio Lamborghini was a Taurus.
Say what you want about how much stock to put into astrological signs and what they say about people, but every Taurus I’ve ever known has been more obstinate and determined than the rest of the general populace. Once a Taurus gets an idea into their head, no one and nothing is going to force it out.
Take Lamborghini, who prior to 1963, had been building a respectable if fairly anonymous fortune as a manufacturer of tractors and air conditioners Italy, meaning he had absolutely nothing to do with the world of luxury sports cars for which he’d eventually become famous.
It was, of all things, a feud and a slight that caused Lamborghini to charge into the auto market. Already a car enthusiast, he complained to Enzo Ferrari – creator of the auto line of the same name – about the performance of his latest Ferrari purchase but was dismissed as a poor-driving amateur who simply didn’t know how to drive his car. Suitably insulted, Lamborghini decided to put his manufacturing know-how to use building cars and was dead set on beating Ferrari when it came to style, speed, performance and wow factor.
All it took was poking the bull. After that, there was no stopping him, and five-plus decades as a world-class car maker was the result.
Thing is, if you take the insult from Ferrai out of the chain of events and put it on someone in Lamborghini’s inner circle to rationally convince him with business plans and market analysis that he could succeed as a car maker, it’s a good bet he’d have been unconvinced or lost interest pretty quickly.
Bulls go where they want to, and trying to push, force, or otherwise coerce one into going in some other direction is an exercise in frustration and futility. It’s best to just keep them happy and stay on the safe side of the horns.
There’s something to learn here, too, about people of all zodiac signs and the many relationships we build while running businesses big and small. Whether we’re talking about an employee or a client, the ideal situation comes when we collaborate, and actions are taken out of mutual motivation. If you’ve got to do a hard sell job on anyone to get them to take action, then—according to my incredibly stringent Ray Seggern math—about 80 percent of the time, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.
This is not to say action won’t happen, but you’re building mismatched intentions and expectations that can compound over time. If you’re forever trying to get someone to act the way they’re not wired to – even if you’ve got a mountain of proof that it’s the best move – things are bound to get tough.
At that point, you’d better have taken some matador training to keep yourself from getting gored.
Back to Lamborghini for a minute. The car that became his first worldwide sensation was initially known as the P400 and was a marvel of curves and speed that truly let Ferrari know he had a rival.
Of course that car got a different name pretty quickly, and the words Lamborghini Miura have become a storied part of automobile lore.
The name Miura came from the line of Spanish bulls bred for excellence in bullfighting. There’s something fitting about Lamborghini knowing that something truly beautiful could come from the heritage of letting bulls go wherever they want.