This is one of my all-time favorite quotes taught to me by a very infamous man named Charlie Weldon. Charlie wasn’t anyone of big stature and certainly not of fame or fortune, but Charlie was one of those really rare people in life that was happy all the time. I never recall seeing him angry or upset with anyone over anything. Charlie worked for my dad on our family’s farm while I was growing up and was a frequent member around the camp house and fireplace before and after hunts.
When I was growing up, my older brother was a great hunter and a very good shot with a rifle. I was not a very good hunter (mainly because I would get bored too easily) and definitely not a good shot with a rifle. But, Charlie saw my early frustrations in life and coached me all the time by saying, “You can’t win if you don’t enter.”
Time and time again he would use these words to make me feel better after taking a shot and not hitting either my target or the deer I was trying to take. He would also use this a great reminder when I was looking to find an excuse not to go hunting and to do something lazy like watch TV or ride a 4-wheeler. The memory of this phrase sits with me constantly as even now, a good 30 years after I met Charlie for the first time, I still echo this phrase to myself a couple of times a day.
It was this phrase that helped me navigate a tough situation professionally that happened to me last week. Our company had been prospecting, recruited, and finally hired a very high caliber guy who had been the #2 guy in marketing for a very large automotive dealer group. This individual left the group and wanted to come with us after a short stint at a nonautomotive marketing job because of his love for our industry. We already have a tremendous senior level team but this guy would have been the icing and the cherry on top of an already impressive cake.
So, he came on board and we set our sights on even more aggressive growth. Then, a month in, the phone rang and his old boss came calling.
I will leave this person anonymous, but he is a very large name in racing and car dealerships. And while our new team member passed on the first couple attempts to pry him away, eventually we lost out and he went back to the organization he knew and was comfortable with (plus a lot of money and lot of perks).
I found out all this was happening on a Friday afternoon, hours before leaving to go celebrate a good friends 40th birthday and thought to myself, “I can either get over this or let this ruin my day.”
That old phrase, “You can’t win if you don’t enter” came to mind over and over as I thought to myself that I was glad I took the shot at hiring this guy rather than sitting by and doing nothing. Even if I shot and missed, I still entered the game and there is a lot to be said for people who spend their lives doing that.