A Beacon of Light in a Dark Week

A Beacon of Light in a Dark Week

by | Nov 15, 2018

When I was younger, I always thought people were full of crap when they talked about how dark gloomy weather got them down. I was so full of piss and vinegar that I thought, you are just old and tired.  Well, maybe now I’m the one that is old and tired but would prefer to call it being more “seasoned” than anything. With that, the weather everywhere I have been this week has been just that – very dark. It’s been raining every day, cold and windy. Plus, with the time change a few weeks back, it is literally dark when I leave the house and dark well before I get home. This kind of weather is the reason that some animals hibernate, and somedays you feel like you want to be one of them.

Add to the equation for the week a wife who is sick with the flu, a couple of grumpy kids and, oh yeah, a trip out to Iowa where the high temperature was 21 degrees and you can feel like you’ve got a double punch to the gut.

But. in all that darkness and time when you just feel like nothing is going to be bright and full of life, you get an email at 8:09 on a Tuesday morning.   

Now, as an employer and person in full-time hustle mode, I do my absolute best to be sure to show a spirit of gratitude to all our employees on their birthdays and work anniversaries. I usually try to do it when I start my day with a phone call or email if I cannot reach them on a weekday and usually a text or occasional phone call on a Saturday or Sunday. I will be the first to admit that I am not perfect and miss some people’s special days, but it is something that I work at constantly to show our team a real sense of appreciation.   

Now, back to Tuesday morning at 8:09 a.m.   

I get an email from a person who was celebrating one year with the company. And the email was one of the most inspiring things that has ever been sent to me. An employee who was celebrating their first year with the company started out by telling me how glad they were to be there and can’t believe a year has flown by so fast, and then that was it! That was all that person said about themselves and spent the rest of the paragraphs in the email telling me how much they admired how hard I worked, the hours I worked, the commitment I had to the organization and how rare it was to find someone like me who worked so passionately at what they did.   

It was breathtaking.  I was totally elated not for the praise, but for the sense that someone made the point to tell me how much gratitude they had for what I was doing on a day that should have been devoted to what they were doing. My breath was also taken away because I always try to be the person who reaches out first, and this person beat me to the punch. It was still early in the morning, and I had been busy preparing that morning since about 6 a.m. for a big meeting in Iowa (where, yes, I was still freezing). Not only did this person beat me to the punch, but they beat me over the head with a sense of appreciation so sincere that it is something that I never will forget.

This person changed the shape of my mindset for that day and many days to come in what otherwise would have been a very gloomy day.   

Some People Don’t Understand Passion

Some People Don’t Understand Passion

by | Nov 9, 2018

One of the things that breaks down both people and organizations is complacency. That attitude of “well, it’s almost good enough” or “it doesn’t really make a difference if I try any harder” are the leading causes of death among prosperous careers. It is one of those things that, when you see it, you have no choice but to stop it and provide new direction.  That to me is the difference in being passionate about what you do or being complacent and accepting average results in what you do.

Those who do not understand passionate people are usually either unhappy or unwilling to do anything more than the least bit possible to succeed. The unhappy are usually spotted because they are negative, have bad attitudes, poor work ethic and usually spend as much time complaining about the people who work with passion as they do actually performing their own work. The unwilling are simply the ones who are just happy getting by with no extra effort. They usually don’t have great expectations for their own self nor do they see any runway for a great future if they were to work harder and try to really make a difference. To sum it up, people who do not understand passion generally fail at work and life when they are placed around a group of passionate people. They cannot keep up the pace with those who have passion for all things, nor can they stand to see others move that much further past them.

Now, insert a person who is truly passionate and here is a list of words to describe them:

  1. Ambitious
  2. Hungry
  3. Energized
  4. Eager
  5. Willing
  6. Aggressive
  7. Never Give Up
  8. Positive Attitude
  9. Accepting
  10. Relentless

Some of these words may seem threatening, but for myself being a person who is very passionate, these traits are things that are necessary for people who really want to succeed around me. I am also not naïve enough to think that everyone who I associate with will be a person of passion, but for those who really want to grow and take themselves to another level, this is probably the number-one prerequisite. The passionate person is one who never gets defeated when they hear the word “no,” and never backs down when they are up against a challenge that is truly greater than they are capable of handling. It is a person who is unwilling to give up and usually accepts more fault themselves when things go wrong rather than point fingers at other people. The passionate person is one always eager to learn something new and continually looks for a new way to do something.

The traits above for a passionate person embody the simple reason why some people just don’t understand passion. There is oftentimes a war between the complacent person and the passionate person, and you probably don’t have trouble guessing who will win that war. The person of passion. They will work harder and try harder, thus, generally, they are the winners when faced against someone who lacks passion. Not that everything in life has to always be a war, but generally these two mindsets do not bode well together, and at some point, chaos will erupt.

Passion will win against complacency every day. Even passionate people will sometimes fall into a period of complacency, but they will always be able to pull themselves out of it in the right circumstances. There is no moral to this story or groundbreaking conclusion to this article. The whole point for those who read it is for them to be able to analyze people of passion and people of complacency, and to see why they will never be able to get along.

Political Ads Are Almost Over

Political Ads Are Almost Over

by | Oct 29, 2018

My decision over which political party I was going to be for was pretty much made as soon as I can remember seeing TV ads. I remember who my dad was for and pretty much always sided with him because that is how I was raised and what our family stood for in beliefs. Now, being older and having time to weight all the decisions and see how the world works, I still pull for the same side, but every election season I will watch keenly to see who is doing the most mudslinging during the political season.

It seems that now there really isn’t anything off limits to a politician, and they will spew anything they want to about an opponent, which always makes me watch in a little bit of disbelief that society has gotten so ruthless. There is nothing that an opponent won’t say about another opponent, and the end goal is only to see who wins! It just doesn’t make sense to me.

But nevertheless, it is an entertaining time to watch all this go on, and then be able to – in a matter of a couple days – see what the outcome will be.  This goes hand-in-hand with my thought that people are much nastier to people now than they were years ago. For a generation that has been raised on texting instead of talking, I guess it is all that you can expect.

“The Underdog”

“The Underdog”

by | Oct 18, 2018

So many people cheer for “the underdog” to win against bigger and better opponents. They cheer for the underdog generally unless they are someone who has something to lose, i.e., a position, award, status or championship – because nobody likes to be outdone and see somebody else take their glory. For Alabama football fans, it has been a very long time since being called or even considered an underdog. But going back not too long ago, things were quite different and there was not such a position of dominance. I love how you can correlate just about anything in life and business to football, even though my underdog story for this week has nothing to do with football.

In an organization, especially one like mine with a lot of “high need for achievement people,” you have egos larger than Alaska, and you will meet a lot of people who have never been wrong about anything… ever. But, every so often, someone or something comes along that knocks the “top dogs” off their positions high above the podium of “how great thou art” and steals a little bit of the glam.

I cannot go into specifics because then there would be no secrets to protect the innocent “high need for achievement people” with this story, but I will cover it in broad strokes. Take a person who has never been the same as the others and may have even caught a little flack for being a little different and working at their own speed. This person came in and did something that few of the top team (you know who – the “high need for achievement people”) have been able to do. It absolutely mortified everyone and left people in awe over what had just happened.

One of my favorite quotes in the world is this: “There are three types of people in the world; those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who stand around and wonder what just happened. Which one are you going to be?”  This quote is evident in “the underdog” who went out and made something happen, and even though I wasn’t in the office, I am willing to bet there was quite a bit of wondering what had just happened.

There are a lot of times where people tell me, “I don’t envy being in your position.” But this is one time where I love being in my position because getting to sit back and watch this all go down just makes me grin. It makes me grin because I see an underdog who just had a big win and it makes me grin because I know everyone is about to work a little bit harder to get themselves and their “high need for achievement” personalities back on track.

The One Trait I Hope My Children Grow Up To Have

The One Trait I Hope My Children Grow Up To Have

by | Oct 12, 2018

Everybody has lots of traits that make up who they are and how they act. Some traits are passive in your life and some are dominant. Different situations in your life will cause you to demonstrate actions that are generated because of the traits that make up your inner self.

As I myself am a highly-functioning, need-for-achievement kind of person, there are many different traits that make up who I am and how I act, and they can vary on a daily basis. But, every time something bad or unfair happens to me, which usually does now about on a monthly basis, there is one trait that I look for and am always waiting to come out. That is the trait of resilience. If there is only one trait that my kids grow up to get from me, I just want it to be the trait of resilience. That ability to pick yourself up when something knocks you down, bursts your bubble and breaks your spirit. The ability to bounce back and not do so with a false persona or a game face but a real inner ability to push yourself quickly beyond the bad and get back to the good.

Usually, each month – and sometimes each week – present me with some type of crisis. A great employee decides to quit for another job. But rather than just turn in a notice of resignation they throw you under the bus, poison other people and create animosity and adversity within the organization. Or, when a client who you have repeatedly over-delivered for and totally over-serviced by your efforts sends you a termination notice; just as you finally have your organization where you want it, you are now thrust into survival time. Maybe beyond work, when something happens to a friend or family member like them telling you they have a very serious illness and have a low chance to survive or that their marriage is coming to an end. Regardless of the situation, the bigger it seems you get the more of these issues you have hitting you in the face all the time.

That is why over the last year I have developed such an admiration for the trait of resilience that is very strong in my body and mind. It’s not always the most pleasant thing in life to get to deal with all this controversy, but you sure learn to respect and appreciate your ability to come back from it.

Shot on the Trail

Shot on the Trail

by | Sep 28, 2018

It must have been nice to be a cowboy back in the 1800s. Sure, there were things like shorter life expectancy, illnesses that couldn’t be cured and every now and then a pack of wild Indians would come and try to kill you and steal your horse.  But it had to be a much simpler way of life and thought process than we deal with today. Sometimes when you are going wide open, 90-to-nothing, you don’t have time to recover when you get “shot” while you are traveling down the trail.

What is the trail?  Today in my world, the trail is what I like to call the journey through a week and through life. Some people call it a journey, the road, a mission, a voyage but to me when I’m out and about I like to refer to it as being on the trail. And no, in case you were wondering I am not a golfer and am not talking about a golf trail. To me, the trail is encompassing of all the places that I get to go to day in and day out, along with all the people that I get to meet while out working and traveling.

So what does it mean to get “shot on the trail”? This is when something bad happens and it happens while you are living your life on the trail. One day it may be a call from the office saying that a great employee has turned in a two week’s notice, or an email from a client saying that they respectfully no longer want to use your company’s services. Also included are when you get some really bad news about something or a client is madder than hell about something that you did or didn’t do. The list can go on, but you get the idea of things that I consider to be getting “shot on the trail.” We use to employ a company motto that said, “No Bad News on the Road.”But with the increasing power of communication devices and also how often I am out on the road (or in my case trail), we have done away with that motto because there simply isn’t enough time in the office to deal with all the bad news. Nowadays, the bad news and mishaps just hit you when they want to hit you.

The bad part about getting shot on the trail is you generally have more time to think about what just happened and sit there and ponder why it all just happened to you. It’s easy for bad things to happen, but you are moving so fast that you can easily forget them. It’s not always that easy when you have days to think it over or long hours in the plane or in a hotel room with nothing to do is think about it. So occasionally you have moments of weakness, moments of emptiness, moments of elevated anger and sinking moments when the news is so bad you just sink into your chair and wonder if you will have the power to get yourself up.

There is no moral to the story or easy way to recover from getting shot while on the trail. The best advice I have for myself is to keep on moving and try to move at a higher rate of speed after being shot than you were before you were shot.

No Pressure

No Pressure

by | Sep 19, 2018

I don’t know what I love more about college football: Spending Saturday afternoons and evenings watching the games (usually watching the Crimson Tide dominate some weary opponent), or watching the countless hours of ESPN and other networks that all seem to really up their creative “game” this time of year and produce really awesome commercials. Being in the business of creating commercials, it is a time of the year that always gives me more creative energy and drive just from seeing what else is out there.

Being in a role that comes with an enormous amount of pressure (even on a good day there is still immense pressure). I like the commercial on ESPN that has been playing recently that goes through the intensity of college football and being a fan. The commercial ends with Jimbo Fischer, the coach of Texas A&M, walking out of the locker room, and he simply says, “No pressure.”

It’s a bold yet defining moment in the ad and a fantastic way to bring it to an ending. What I love about this ad is how many times a week I find myself saying the same exact thing to myself. In the first four days of this week, I will physically be conducting meetings in 22 different dealerships. That averages a little more than five per day and not all being in the same city. All of this is getting done while trying to monitor the day-to-day operations of the home office at a very high level, clean up details and answer questions from last week’s meetings, and get fully prepared for the meeting schedule I have next week (which isn’t a whole lot lighter).

I try to instill in those around me to have a mental toughness that doesn’t let pressure get to them or bother them. It can be easier said than done, as pressure can make anyone crack or have a bad day/week. What I have found as the easiest way to get away from pressure is to simply know that is coming (expect it) on a daily basis, and know that you are going to have to find a way around it.

With all that I have in my life from businesses, a wife and four kids, to an active sporting and recreational life on the weekends, you simply have to find the best way to control pressure. Otherwise, it will control you.

New Energy = New Hours

New Energy = New Hours

by | Sep 13, 2018

So, I’m over a week into my new diet. If you are curious about it, just read the last blog post. I still don’t know why I waited until after Labor Day to start it.

This diet consist of eating smaller meals (pre-packaged) multiple times per day and what is classified as one lean-and-green meal a day. The cool part about this diet and one that people kid me about a lot is this: While I am traveling during the week, I generally only find time to eat one meal a day anyway. So, this diet is perfect for me and gives me self-justification as to why I can go through the day traveling all over the place and simply not stop to eat.

But, what I am finding is that I have a whole new level of energy, which to me equals a whole new amount of work that can be completed. It’s odd, but as an already self-diagnosed “workaholic,” there are even more hours in a day that I find myself working, and it is really a great feeling. I have the ability to focus more on certain tasks and ideas, all while being genuinely more enthusiastic and engaged at just about everything that I encounter. It’s really hard to imagine that something so simple like changing your way of eating and limiting the amount of bad food you consume can make such a change, but I have to admit that it 100 percent does.

My favorite parts of this new diet in order are as follows:

 

  1. Midnight Madness.  I can work late into the night and over the past couple of days have found myself working well into midnight and sometimes longer.

 

  1. Up & At ‘Em.  It’s easier to wake up in the morning and I am more energetic right from the get-go. It doesn’t take as much time to “get moving,” as I call it, in getting going before I leave for work or a meeting.

 

  1. Act Faster. I am more proactive in accomplishing tasks. Whereas before the last two weeks I might have put something off for a while,  I now want to tackle it faster because I have more energy.

 

  1. Clearer Thinking. I have better thoughts and more clear ways in my mind to look at situations and issues.

 

  1. Never Stopping. I feel like I have my never-stop mentality dialed in a little more than it had been in the past.

Sometimes I don’t last super long on diets or in following a plan, but so far so good. I really have a great mindset right now about the coming weeks to see how far I can take this thing.

Feelin’ Better

Feelin’ Better

by | Sep 7, 2018

There is something about a four-day work week after a Monday holiday that just makes you feel better about everything.

This week was especially “better feeling” for me as I started a new diet on Tuesday which is basically a physical and mental cleansing of sorts. Yes, Tuesday is an odd day to start a diet and a lifestyle change, but very wisely to her credit, Amy (my wife) convinced me that trying to start a new diet before Labor Day weekend was going to be a blatant mistake. So, I wisely listened to her advice and here goes nothing.

Some people think that my job and what I get to do is totally glamorous.

I’m not going to lie; there are parts of it that completely rock and sometimes make me wonder, “What in the hell did I do to deserve this?”  These can be things like taking clients to wonderful restaurants for extremely nice dinners, having drinks in some of the coolest bars around the world and getting to be good friends with the dealers you do business with on a daily basis. Occasionally, you luck up and take a client to a great sporting event like a game at Yankee’s stadium, Fenway Park or just a good ole Alabama Football game. Then, there is all the flying. I love to fly. Planes have amazed me ever since I was a little kid, and there is nothing more that I like to see than a sunrise at 30,000 feet or a sunset flying home at the end of a long day, or just flying over middle America and looking at all the rivers and fields that make up our country.  Yes, there are parts of what I get to do that are simply amazing.

Then there are the parts of my job that would kill a lot of people.

Landing at midnight after delayed flights only to find there are no rental cars left. Figuring out your Uber driver is so drugged up they cannot even speak, and wondering if you are going to die in the back seat of a Corolla on an interstate. Eating dinner out of a vending machine in a crappy hotel because there is nothing else open and you forgot to eat that day. Having food poisoning from one of the “world class” restaurants mentioned above and having to go to a meeting where you can barely stand and can’t keep down any fluids. Landing in a city for a meeting and turning on your phone only to get an email that a client is firing you. Going halfway across the country to meet someone only for them to start the meeting off with, “This isn’t going to work out.” And, last but not least, waking up at 2 a.m. before you have to get up at 4 a.m. to catch a flight and not being able to go back to sleep. For all the glamour, there sure are some parts that completely suck.

So, why am I “feelin’ better”?

  1. My new diet is a form of clean living / lean and green. No processed foods, low carbs, portion control, all natural, no oils, no fats, no sugars and no alcohol. The first two days were stunning to my system, but the last two really have me feeling and sleeping better.

 

  1. I’ve spent four consecutive days in the office, and they have been rejuvenating. While I’m never in the office for a full week, this week was a blessing because I dealt with some issues that needed to be addressed, got caught up on a ton of projects and burnt up the phones calling clients, prospects, friends, basically anyone who would talk to me.

 

  1. My thoughts have caught up with my vision. After my recent time at Harvard it has been a whirlwind. Family trips, business trips, back to school, getting used to four children – my life has been even more chaotic than usual. But this week, while cleansing myself, I thought a lot about things that affect my future, and I feel very good about the direction that things are headed.

 

Nobody probably ever admits burnout until they are far too burnt to ever recover. While I am nowhere close to being burnt, it is so refreshing to take a step back, cleanse your body and mind and begin to focus on what the next chapter looks like. And, in case you were wondering, my goal with this diet is to lose 20 lbs. Stay tuned for that – more to follow.