Cyril Huze Blog – World's Number One Source For Custom Motorcycle News

Marilyn Stemp. Editor Of Iron Trader News and Sturgis Rider Daily.

“The best advice I’ve ever received? There’s no question it came from my father, Frank Weisser, a man of wisdom, patience and humor. His optimistic outlook colored my life as a child and still graces my days as an adult. My dad gave me many good bits of advice, but the one I come back to and use the most in my daily life connects to a time when I was a super-shy child who rarely spoke. (Yes, I hear the guffaws – hard to believe, but it’s true!) See, as the youngest of five kids and the avowed baby of the family, my needs and wants were anticipated so I seldom talked. By the time I started school, the world was my oyster and I was petrified of new people and places.

My dad, outgoing and gregarious, knew this wasn’t the basis of an engaged and happy life, so he offered this advice: “If you want to talk to someone you don’t know just ask them about themselves. People love to talk about themselves! When you part company with the person they’ll walk away thinking, ‘Gee, that Marilyn is a swell girl”, even though they talked about themselves the whole time.”

He was right, of course. A few leading questions and I was soon making friends and coming out of my shell. All these years later, I use that advice almost every day as I find myself in new situations, meeting people and striving to learn their stories so I can write about them. And yes, I’ll admit it; talking seems to come quite naturally to me these days. Maybe that particular skill was in my genes after .”

Jeremy Cupp. Custom Builder LC Fabrications.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Dan Fitzmaurice. President Of Zippers Performance Products.

“35 years ago when Zippers was a smaller company resources were extremely precious. We have been blessed with valuable advice from many great people in this industry. A stand out is former owner of Sifton and founder of Red Shift Cams, the late Dick Hilferty, He gave us some of our best advice during that critical time.

Zipper’s world has always been built around performance, before our team would embark on development of a new project Dick taught us to pause and think about what resources we were proposing to commit to build this new product. Thru Dick’s experience and advice we used a series of questions to validate a new project.

· Will the product provide an outstanding result, experience the customer expects?
· Can the customer achieve similar results as we obtained in our testing?
· Will it be durable?
· Cost to develop vs what you can sell
· Is the cost-value of the product ratio understandable
· And lastly will what we learn from the development of this project leading to the development of another product or kit?

He showed us all lights should be green on each questions to leverage the highest percentage of success for Zipper’s to proceed. The last question kept us from committing resources to what I would phrase as the development of a cool product yet could be a dead end platypus of a product that will not lead to another product or a developed skill useful to the company.

Unless you hit the lottery resources are finite and must be used wisely or you’re not running a business. This lesson makes us think before allocating resources put into new products lead so they lead to future products satisfying our customer’s needs for many years to come.”

Jay Allen. Emcee Of Major Motorcycle Events In US And Abroad. Holder Of 24 Land Speed Record in Bonneville

“The best advice I ever received came from two people I’ve never met! A Blind man and a Miner. My hometown in Bisbee Arizona is a copper mining town. My home was built in 1904 and it was a boarding house for the underground miners. Its called “The Palace.” Back in the 1920s the resident in room 2 went uptown for supper and was approached by a blind man for a donation by handing the miner what looked like a business card called “BLIND MANS ORIGINAL POEM” The miner went back to his room at “The Palace” and this is the crazy part, When emptying out his pockets, the card fell into a crack of the baseboard which couldn’t have been more than 1/64th of an inch! Some 70 plus years passed and I removed the baseboard only to discover The Blind Man’s card! So,from The Blind Man to The Miner, from the Miner to the baseboard and then to me.

These are the words that profoundly touched me. “BLIND MANS ORIGINAL POEM. HOW YOU PLAYED TTHE GAME”. “When you’ve climbed up the Golden Stairs my friend, and you’re standing at the Pearly Gate and St.Peters thumbing through his book. For the questions just as to your fate, he will not ask your religion, friend or the land from whence your father came. As for questions, he will ask but one. Not your score, but how you played the game!”

Jeff Nicklus. Motorcycle Manufacturer, Jeff Nicklus Desperado Motorcycles.

“The best piece of advice I ever received was from my Father who owned a very successful car dealership. He told me: 1- Never borrow money from anyone or any institution unless you always keep enough cash on hand so that at any given time you can write a check to pay the note off and tell the note holder to piss off. 2- Never trust a bank or banker. Tey are always out for themselves and never have your best interest at heart. 3- Never involve family members (outside of your wife and children) in your business. T,hat is like trying to mix oil and water, it never works. 3- Never involve an “Investor(s)” in your business which can be more difficult than involving family members in your business. 4- People will tell you that in business you must watch every dollar. That is total bullshit. You must watch every penny, and if you do that the dollars will take care of themselves. 5- If your business is successful you should enjoy all the fame, if it is not you should likewise suffer the defeat without sharing either with anyone else.

I have also one piece of advice I have given myself: “Never offer a Dealer Floor Plan.” If the dealer does not have their own line of credit, then they are not financially strong enough to be my dealer. Every major motorcycle company that has failed is because of a “Buy Back style Floor Plan”. In almost 21 years of being in business I have never had to buy a motorcycle back.”

Taber Nash. Custom Builder, Nash Motorcycle Company.

“My dad told me as a boy “not to do things half-assed and too hustle.” That always stuck with me. Whether it’s working, trying out for baseball in high school, on and on… and now in life taking care of my family. Whenever I go to do things, this advice rings in the back of my head. Later on I received some more pieces of advice that I always take in account to try to improve. For example: “be yourself, but be your best self”, “use your God given personality and talent to do good”, “be the best you can be”, “there are others out there you will look up to, but you are not them, you are you.” And also “the small detailed things that you say and do, people watch and listen”, and “don’t be a follower be a leader.”

John Herlihy a.k.a. Rogue. Journalist, Sturgis Motorcycle Hall Of Fame Member.

Since one of the things I am is a photojournalist I would have to say Lou Kimzey one of the founders of Easyriders magazine because he was the first getting me involved and continued to teach and mentor me through the years.

I had been a contributor to a short lived motorcycle publication named “COLORS” that was directed to the street biker and clubs. It was also the publication that started sharing information about laws that in my opinion were not in the best interest of motorcyclist. Lou Kimzey had seen the magazine and contacted me and asked me if I was interested in working for Easyriders. I explained that I did not know much if anything about journalism and he told me he would teach me. He said “It is easier for me to make a biker a journalist than to make a journalist a biker” Lou’s advice was: “research your facts and write the truth.” He went on to explain that I would not be able to make everyone happy with everything I wrote but the truth is what would make me different and people want to read my articles. I started with the second issue as a contributor and still submit to them on occasion.

At the time, I was President of the HUNS motorcycle club Mother Chapter in Bridgeport Connecticut. I had access to people in motorcycling that many others did not – the clubs. One of the major issues was the Mandatory Helmet Law and Easyriders became involved in helping to share information on what people around the country were doing to fight this law. Lou and Joe Teresi were very much involved with me pursuing the search for truth, eventually leading me being inducted into the Sturgis Motorcycle Hall of Fame Freedom Fighter Section in 2005.

Cyril Huze

“Personally, from a wonderful grandmother who raised me and told me when I was a teenager “to never be impressed by somebody’s wealth, especially by those who have received wealth without work.” But to understand the world in which I am living “to have relations with people in all socio-demographics and from different cultures, but only if they are authentic.” I am very proud to have friends all over the world, from unknown to very rich successful business people and celebrities, all sharing the same characteristic of being authentic. I never stop learning from  their very different experiences. They made me very tolerant and understanding of different cultures and values. Also, from the same parent, to enjoy every possible moment of my life because ”sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”

When I was working in advertising in Paris and New York, from my mentor, the President of Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), at that time ranked the most creative ad agency in the world: “The more you are willing to try, the more opportunities you will seize in your life…and the more opposition you will get.” In my life, I started several businesses with no failure to this day. But each time I observed that some try to discourage you, often for the wrong reason: they hate a new idea that they didn’t have before you and try to destroy it. I remind them this quote from Winston Churchill: “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” So, if you are convinced of something good, listen to advice, fine tune your idea, but still try it…or you will regret.

In our business, like in all businesses where ego is a big part of the scene, it always amazes me that some think that tearing someone else down builds them up! There is a wonderful quote about this from Greek philosopher Socrates: “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.” I was advised many times in my life to privilege relations with those people always working hard at looking for new ideas. They stimulate your creativity and I often benefited from the way they think and are able to go around personal and business obstacles.

At work, I am a very disciplined and organized person. And it comes from a motivational speaker and business consultant that I met when I was very young, around 22, I think. His advice was to list every evening, if possible chronologically, all personal and professional tasks I want to accomplish the following day, and to add 1 or 2 more that I know I can’t probably achieve this same day. Then, in the morning, to challenge myself to reach at least 1 more task than all those I consider a “must do.” Because, as he told me “if you are not in advance, you are late”  and “the world belongs to those who wake up earlier.” It’s all about making the maximum things happen each day of your life. It’s when I started the ritual of waking up at 5.00/5.30 a.m and going to sleep quite late, and for sure the reason why, during these last 10 years, 7 days a week, I didn’t miss to this day any early morning deadline to update the news you read in this website…”

I may continue this series after Daytona Bike Week. All professionals of the industry are invited to send me and to share with all readers the most valuable advice(s) they received, those that helped and shaped their personal and professional lives.