Perhaps the hardest part of my job and life is managing all the different personalities that are in my sphere of existence. The dynamic of having four kids under the age of 7 is a nonstop management of different personalities and emotions. Then you add on it my company which has over 100 team members with different layers of experience, where usually the most experienced require the most time to manage their different personalities and needs. As if this weren’t enough, then there is my primary role of operation, which is managing clients, which creates a whole different level of management of people and emotions. It’s kind of like you run on a hamster wheel at 200 miles per hour, and you find very little time to manage yourself because of all the time you spend to manage the needs and personalities of someone else.

I have to admit that I crave the need to be constantly involved in doing something to stay busy, but I also admit that it would be nice to take a break from dealing with people sometimes. (Going back to the second sentence that even when I take time off and am not working there is still the management of little personalities that are by far the most important to me). But as there is a need of mine to constantly be busy at something which is in my nature to make quick decisions, it is also tested over time that the more I methodically and slowly navigate issues between all the different personalities the better the outcomes will be.

The trick to managing so many different personalities that I have found is to never let yourself get too emotionally involved. When you let your emotions run faster than your own ability to be level is when I find the most problems occur. Catering to so many different thoughts and opinions by those around me can sometimes be equal to a judge that is hearing both sides of a court case. You try not to pick a side based on what you like, think, or your own bias, but you try to remain as steeped in common sense as you possibly can be at all times. (Doesn’t always happen that way). But I find the outcome is always greater when you have time to be level headed and think through all the different situations that these different personalities throw at you.

What you have to remember as you manage all the personalities that you deal with on a daily basis is that everyone has their own agenda and will sell you on why their way is the right way. And what generally happens is people tend to make decisions that favor those who are more similar in nature to themselves. The moral of all this and the situation I found myself dealing with today reminded me that a big part of managing is dealing with all the different types of personalities. And you will only be effective in managing these personalities as you are at managing your balance of emotions and ability to hear and see all sides of a situation.

This is the one time of year when, for a few days, there is actually a chance to sit down and reflect on how thankful I am for everything in my life. As I think through all the struggles, challenges, successes and losses, there really is so much that it’s a shame we only take one day out of the year to celebrate.

When you are constantly moving at a very high rate of speed, it can be hard to take any real time to stop and think about all the blessings that you have in your life. But sometimes, I am just thankful that I am so busy and able to move at such a high rate of speed. It is rewarding for me to be able to go to so many places and do so much and have a family and an organization that allows me to do such.

Even if there isn’t much time in your life on a daily basis. Even if things are so crazy and somewhat chaotic all the time, I urge you to stop and take a few minutes over the Thanksgiving holiday to truly think about how thankful you are for your life and all that is in it.

While traveling earlier this week on business I had such long flights to make that I parked my own plane and flew the airlines. All the flights were direct flights and the times seemed to really work for my schedule so it made perfect sense to travel this way to be more efficient.

On my last flight before I got back home, I was sitting in seat 3B. After boarding the plane, I pulled out my computer to read emails and send some things out before we took off. Working feverishly up until the door closed, I was typing, texting and getting everything done that I could to make the best use of my time. Then the door closed and I put my laptop up and took my AirPods out and sat back in my seat and took a deep breath.

About a minute later, I opened my eyes and the guy in seat 3A reached over and introduced himself and shook my hand. He immediately launched into talking about his travel, where he was from, where he was going, and after about 30 seconds I starting thinking to myself, “oh boy, I’m sitting next to a real talker and this is going to be a long ride home.” So once we got up in the air, I pulled my computer out and started working again. With a laptop on my tray table and a notebook in my lap, it was going to be very hard for this guy to interrupt me. But through the flight, I finished all the work I could possibly do and then put my stuff back up and opened myself up to more conversation from my neighbor in seat 3A.

The guy started talking about his businesses, which ranged from everything from computer software to underground drilling to operating a casino on an Indian reservation. And I have to admit that my bullshit meter was pegged thinking this guy can’t possibly be for real.

Then he quit talking about business and started talking about his kids.

He told me he had three boys ranging from 15 to 25 years old and gave me some of the most profound advice I have gotten in a long time on parenting. He said, “No matter what you do, tell your kids constantly that you love them, and no matter what they do, you will always be there for them.” He talked about how kids are afraid of things and how they are going to make mistakes and that no matter how bad a mistake, they are always your kids and you will always love them. Then he said more. He talked about telling your wife the same thing. That marriage is the most difficult thing you will ever navigate in your life and that as long as you tell your wife constantly how much you love her it will make your life better.

As if that wasn’t enough, he chimed in on the subject about how much time you spend with your wife and kids by saying, “I have made a successful career, built great businesses and amassed a lot – but all of these things have stolen my time. I’m sitting here being very blessed, but the one thing that I have robbed myself of is my time.” That’s when I knew that the guy in seat 3A was put there for a reason. It was a reminder that I needed to hear all of this and hear it at such a busy/important time in my life.

I think that I, like a lot of people, am guilty of taking things for granted. And while being chatty on a plane isn’t something that I can say I like to do, I think this was one of the greatest reminders of being sure you have your priorities straight in life. There will never be a way to get back lost time.

You may think that this picture is taken from one of those Facebook or Instagram sites that shows up from time to time in your feeds trying to sell you motivational artwork or posters (the truth, probably, is you need something more to motivate you because you are looking at social media too much not and focused on the task at hand). But I’ll save my soapbox on positive motivation and brag on my daughter Lilly Grace for a minute. This isn’t something I found on one of those sites selling the flashy motivational artwork and not anything that I created or came up with, but something that 7-year-old Lilly Grace Strong wrote on a Post-It note and taped to the back of the seat that faces her in Amy’s car. She was going to a gymnastics class that was kind of intimidating to her and she came up with this image all on her own and, without anyone knowing, went out to the car and taped it to the seat in front of her.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in a lot of areas, but for this one, I will take zero credit for this act of motivation. While I read a ton of motivational stuff and spend a lot of time working on staying positive, I have never taped a motivational note to my mirror, put anything in my wallet or kept something of motivation on my desk. I simply just have never been one of those kinds of people. My mind wanders so much that I wouldn’t focus on it even if it were right there looking me in the face.

I would never have thought of something like this at age 7 and certainly never put it where anyone else could see it. Like her, I was very shy at that age, but what I lacked that she possesses is a mode of confidence and a way to will herself to stay positive and not have a fear of things that are difficult.

In our Monday morning account team meeting, we had a quote on screen from Henry Ford which said: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” While it was on screen I thought to myself, that would be a great quote to put on the wall in my children’s bedrooms so they could read it every day and develop a sense of confidence at an early age. As I think of this note, that makes me so proud of my daughter I think it is my responsibility from this day forward to always teach my kids the power of something that truly motivates them.

For the last 5 months, I have been dealing with something very difficult. Just in a time when my life feels fully together with a great balance of family time, work and success at an all-time high there has been a snake in the grass that jumps up and bites me periodically.

By now you are thinking, this guy has some type of issue or habitual problem coming to haunt him, but it is quite the opposite. One of my largest clients –and even more, someone who has become a very good friend – has turned into someone so manipulative and calculating that I am not sure I can even recognize them.

I do my best to work 24/7, meaning I’m always turned on and looking at emails and details that it takes to run my business around the clock. There really is no work/life balance. But as I have gotten far better at it this year, there are still moments when you get sucked into dealing or seeing problems that arise. That is when this client always seemed to appear out of nowhere with damning remarks, comments so gruff that your father never spoke to you in this way even in your wildest teenage years. This would place me in a really bad place while trying to enjoy a day off or afternoon with the kids, or even the best yet – an email sent at 9:22 p.m. on a Friday night asking for a copy of our contract because they were so unhappy.

So on Saturday, September 7^th, I took a long walk in the woods at the lake with my son, Hudson. This was the morning after the 9:22 email, and we had a great hour together. We saw deer running across the road. Hudson picked up sticks and jabbed at dinosaur bones (really just a dead deer’s skeleton, but dinosaur bones sounded much cooler) and enjoyed a nice hour together away from the world, ringing cell phones and nasty emails from this client that I will call the dragon.

Well, today, after much anticipation and many days/nights of plotting my next move, I finally slew the dragon. And I did it in a way that was called gracious and eloquent. The dragon breathed a lot of fire for a long time. The dragon was a really good friend of mine – or so I thought before their ego, greed and lack of character took over. The dragon was a source of great revenue, but at the end of the day, I decided it was time to slay the dragon. Nobody is certain of the future and what it holds, but one thing is certain: that living for what you want and need out of life is far better than being captive to a dragon.

As I progress through my life and career, things seem to get infinitely bigger.

The challenges and hurdles seem to get bigger. The victories and defeats seem to get bigger. The mere task of trying to get all the kids in the car to go to dinner is a monumentally bigger task.  Everything just seems to be bigger in its scope and scale.

I used the phrase “climbing mountains” because now it seems that one week doesn’t go by where there isn’t a substantial mountain to climb. And the mountains aren’t to be thought of in a bad way, but a lot of the mountains I am now climbing are substantial opportunities that have presented themselves for me to grow both in my personal life and my career.

It’s either the mountain in the form of a very big meeting, new business presentation, personnel issue or sometimes all of the above, but they all are presented in my path as I try to navigate each week. This isn’t to sound like a complaint, because I love the thrill of always being “on” and always having a new obstacle in my path to overcome, but it still can sometimes seem overwhelming that every week and sometimes even every day there is a mountain in front of me to climb.

The key things that I find myself doing to climb these mountains are in no particular order, but as follows:

1. Always stay positive. Even when you want to be negative, DON’T LET YOURSELF GO HERE – just stay positive.
2. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Always be on top of your game mentally, but don’t let the tiny details spin you out of control.
3. Trust those who are around you and help you. Don’t try to over-control everything, but give direction and let people go execute on their own.
4. Don’t look too far ahead. You have to first climb the mountain that you are on before moving on to the next one. Know what your end goal is, but you have to climb one mountain at a time.
5. Take time for those around you. Recently, I have refocused to tell everyone I know happy birthday, check on old friends and just try to be a better and more approachable person. This makes you feel at ease when the world is spinning so fast around you.

There will always be mountains to climb. Just take the time to enjoy the hike, and appreciate the fact that they are still coming your way.