The marketer in me has named the events of this week “Corona Mania” as the world seems to have gone crazy over the spreading of the novel coronavirus. Think what you want about the illness and hysteria, but the bottom line is it has rattled consumer confidence and shaken the stock market to its core much like someone holding you upside down and shaking all the change out of your pockets.

While every time my phone now rings now it is usually a situation of chaos either from a client or from the office, I am reminded of a couple of sayings that people have taught me over the years that are comforting in times like these.

“When the going gets tough – the weird turn pro”  (Dennis Johnson)

Dennis has been around me my entire career, and when recessions hit or tsunamis take away inventory for dealerships for months or gas climbs to $5 a gallon, there is Dennis always with a smile on his face saying this is the time “when the going gets tough – the weird turn pro.” Meaning that this is when really weird and creative people are able to turn on another gear that allows them to stay out ahead of everyone. It has been a guiding wisdom that I have used many times in the past on days when you just think things are too tough.

“You have to remain calm when everyone around you is acting crazy”  (Mike Strong)

Coming from a guy who went out on his own to start his own company only to learn a couple weeks later his wife was pregnant and then a few months later there was an oil embargo, Mike has weathered a lot of crisis in his career. In talking to him today, he reminded me that when everything is going wrong around you and people are panicking and acting crazy, you have to be calm. I remember when 9/11 happened and I was in college and called him to ask what to do, it was the calmest I ever remember him being. He gave me very simple instructions, told me what to expect and then said call back anytime I was afraid. One of the most intense people I know taught me how to be the calmest person in the room when things get crazy.

“Tough times never last, but tough people do”  (General Patton)

Possibly the greatest military commander of all time who survived 2 world wars and pretty much sealed the defeat of Nazi Germany in the winter of 1945, General Patton was one tough individual.  The stories about him being somewhat crazy are probably not too farfetched, but he definitely was one of the toughest men to ever fight for America and believed that tough times were only temporary and tough people would outlast them.

“A day doesn’t make a week, a week doesn’t make a month and a month doesn’t make a year”  (James Hodge)

I met Mr. Hodge back in 2009 when we were just coming out of the recession. He had a number of dealerships and hired me at one of them first and said if I did a good job I would have a great career with him and if I didn’t he was going to fire me. After working for him for a while and creating a lot of success, one of his stores had a very bad month. Everybody thought it was the advertising, but he sat us all down and said “a day doesn’t make a week, a week doesn’t make a month and a month doesn’t make a year.” I have used that phrase at least a couple hundred times since he told that to me, and we’ve had a great partnership ever since. And now that he has passed on, his grandsons and I have an even closer bond.

All this to say that in a week with as much turmoil as this week has brought, words of wisdom like these are good to have floating around in the back of your mind during times of crisis.

It can be a blessing and also a curse, but I spend an absolutely obscene amount of my time in an airplane and probably 2/3^rd of the time I am flying by myself. While it is a blessing to be able to be in so many different cities in a week because of air travel, it is also a lonely damn place to spend day in and day out.

Sure, the pilots are on the plane with me, but traveling solo can in many ways be a form of solitude. No matter whether you are having a good day or a bad day, once you pass through the clouds you always see blue skies and sunny days. Another thing I love about flying is the weather can be total garbage below you, but up in the air it is always great.

Flying alone gives me time to work, time to think, and also time that moments of my life are ticking away. But at the end of every day, there is always a beautiful sunset that makes you smile back out the window and think about life and how amazing it is to watch the sunset from 30 something thousand feet. With all the chaos, phones, texts, emails, problems that you have to deal with on a minute-by-minute basis in your day, there is nothing like ending your day with that great big fire ball in the sky as it sinks across the horizon and fades below the earth.

There is an old saying that reads “everything isn’t always sunshine and roses,” but at least for me most days, there is sunshine.

On my 18^th birthday, my dad gave me 2 books and said, keep these with you for the rest of your life.  Book #1 was “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, and book #2 was “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale. Over the summer after my 18^th birthday, I read these books as he instructed, but have to admit that was 21 years ago so the details are a little cloudy. Also at the time of originally reading these books, I was much more interested in getting ready for my first semester of college and all the other things that you do when you have just gotten out of high school.

So while I was picking out books to read this year, I put both of these back on my list, and last week I started rereading “The Power of Positive Thinking.” It is very unique how this book now gives me a totally different perspective on things and plays so much more of a role in my everyday thinking. What I had forgotten was how many references there were in this book to prayer as being the common ingredient in positive thinking and how you really set your mind to think positive when there is a proper balance of asking God for help in your daily routine of being positive.

Maybe the piece that is hitting the closest to home for me today is where it talks about how to deal with people who aren’t treating you right and aren’t being fair to you. To summarize the chapters, it says to be positive and appreciate them even though they are not doing the same to you. Why this hits home is I am watching my daughter go through 2^nd grade and see how some people choose to treat her and the nervous energy that it is causing. Just like every parent, I think my daughter is so unique in that she is incredibly smart, beautiful, and has a great sense of humor. As I watch her go through these steps of life and see some friends be mean just for the sake of doing what kids do, it creates a rage that I want to go find the parents and smack them around and show them who is tougher. In life and my career, I have gone toe to toe with some pretty rough individuals and – not that I have a fighting complex – but really have developed the confidence that I am not afraid of anyone or anything.

But as I read this book, it is teaching me to not think that way because it simply isn’t positive. Sure, I could crush these kids’ parents like a fly. But what I need to do is every time something bothers me about the way other kids are treating my daughter, I need to pray for her and pray for them. This week, while traveling all week away from home, I have thought many times about my little girl and prayed that she is having a day of peace and prayed for those who are not giving her peace. It is a different mindset for me, as many people who know me in work and in life know that there is usually more chaos than peace in my wake. I say all this to give myself a written reminder that the next time some kid is ugly to my little girl, my first thought cannot be to go grab the kid’s dad by the throat and scare the crap out of him. The next time this happens I hope that the feeling of peace will come over me again and keep my thinking positive.

After coming back from the hunting trip of a lifetime, I am now officially on a mission to grow the business in 2020.  You are probably thinking that it’s getting a little later of a start, but not really. My hunting will shift focus to a different kind of animal – that of an automotive dealership that has complex challenges and needs the help of an organization like mine that can provide a service that is above and beyond what other competitors offer.

The best time to focus on growing is when people are buying. January and February, which are traditionally slow car months, felt especially that way this year as there was a lot of interest from dealers but not really a lot of buyers of goods and services. Well, that is all about to change as we have rounded the corner of Presidents Day weekend and are heading into the end of February and beginning of March.  Just as we saw on Groundhogs Day, there are only a couple more weeks until spring, and that not only affects the weather but it affects the automotive market as well.

The best part about my mission is having gotten over whatever form of debilitating cold I had to start the year and gotten all of our plans set for our current clients with a great cadence. We are now in a position to go out and turn over new rocks and find more opportunities.

For the last 6 days, I found myself in Argentina on a hunting trip that was like nothing I have ever experienced. Having never been to South America before, I very much felt like a stranger in a strange land. Even while I had several friends on the hunt, it was a time and place where I felt very much alone. Seeing a country with a totally different look, different people and different cultures was truly an experience to make you realize just how big the world is and how much of it I have yet to see.

Having time to think about things and see new things gives you a whole new perspective on the world and the things around you. While a lot of the time was spent hunting. there were many differences in the everyday life that I am accustomed to seeing. To see a farmer ride a horse instead of a machine was truly unique. To get to watch people cook outside on an open flame that wasn’t from a fancy barbeque grill was also very interesting. To have no wifi, internet and cell service for 4 out of the 6 days may truly have been the neatest part because I was able to get out of touch with the world for a few minutes.

It was fun to focus on hunting and have that be the only focus of how good your next shot could be and how far to lead a bird with your shot to make the best hit possible. This was definitely a time like none I have ever experienced since being an adult. The last week was truly a settling experience as I was able to settle down for a couple of days and not have my universe revolve around clients, coworkers, family and friends. Don’t be mistaken, I missed all of them very much and am glad to be back. But being – for lack of better terms – alone in a faraway place did a lot of good for my soul and rest.

Being a stranger in a strange land was very unique and truly broadened my horizons on parts of the world that were completely foreign to me before.

While holidays, vacations and family time are some of the best days you will ever spend, they cause my mind to lose focus and it is a real adjustment trying to get back into the full speed of a traveling, working, selling routine. Some people like to tell me my mind never stops working, but that is far from the truth. There are times, especially around vacations and holidays, where I am able to unplug the wires and just let things be.

But this for me can be tough to get back in the swing of things because as things happen so fast, it is hard to jump back aboard a train that is moving at 90 miles per hour. Getting re-focused for me is a process and takes some time to maneuver so it doesn’t immediately lead me to a point of exhaustion.

1. Making a List – The #1 thing to get re-focused for me is making a list. It needs to have every detail or task that I need to complete and needs to be complex enough that I can have a visual snapshot of all that I need to do.

2. Not All At Once – Again, people who know me would think the opposite, but a big piece to getting refocused is not taking on everything at once. You need to spread out the items and do so in a way where you can achieve a lot of small victories along the way to tackling really big things. Especially as you get readjusted, you aren’t going to be at full speed on day 1. But work at a rate that you can steadily increase and feel yourself making progress.

3. Delegate – Even for people who are not good delegators, when you are coming off vacations, holidays, etc., this is a time when sometimes you are forced to delegate. There simply isn’t always time to do everything yourself, so picking out tasks that others can handle will free up your time to be better at what you are doing.

Without holidays, vacations and family time, life really wouldn’t be worth living. They are vital in so many ways that they are needed for you to continue dealing with everything that life throws at you. The ability to refocus and ramp back up after them is what takes an artform to manage.

The last 25 days have been weird. After living so much of my life away from home out on the road, it was refreshing and exhausting to have been at some since the middle of December. I love the holidays and the time spent with my family, but being conditioned to be out traveling and working so much of my life, I do have to honestly admit that it felt good this week to get back out on the road.

My time over the holidays was enjoyable but also had its woes, as I got very sick right after Christmas and it wasn’t until this past weekend that I got to feeling better. With getting older, it also takes a lot longer to recover from being tired, worn out and sick, which is how I started 2020.

But all that is behind me, and I feel fully charged up about all the opportunities that are at hand in the coming year. New clients mean new opportunities and new people to get to know. Also, with new things come new challenges which have their own unique set of abilities.

I’m not sure if this year will hold as many days on the road as did last year, but regardless, I plan on outworking and outperforming the efforts of 2019.

Work it. Make it. Do it. These three phrases represent not just our 2020 agency theme, but the motto that allows many to succeed year after year.

The team at our agency works with the endurance of athletes, the acumen of entrepreneurs, and the creativity of entertainers. Our scientists manage hundreds of data lists, our artists create thousands of graphics, and our authors pen millions of words of content every year. With this level of talent, it is still our day-to-day predictability in following processes that makes us succeed.

We will spend this year studying successful people of all backgrounds. From Thomas Edison to Oprah Winfrey, we will spend time examining what building blocks these giants used to create success beyond what many can even dream of.

It is easy to set resolutions at the beginning of the year. But it takes tenacity and vision to keep this motivation for all 12 months. To quote one of our featured figures, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, “We do today what they won’t, so tomorrow we accomplish what they can’t.”

2020 is the year to Start Strong, Finish Strong.

It’s times like these when I’m flying around looking out the window of the plane and reflect on the year. The ground is so far down that I can’t really tell where I am as the sun is starting to set on the day, but all I know is that I’m going from one place to another at a very high rate of speed.

The piece of paper is still in my notebook from last week where I marked up some of the company’s accomplishments for the year by going through all departments and figuring out how much work we did in 2019. The numbers are scribbled from one line to another as the information all came in at different times and I was forming an outline with my thoughts, but things like: 2,300 TV/radio spots produced, 200 million marketing emails sent, over $10 million in paid search and over 5 million mail pieces stick out as impressive numbers. But as I continue to fly, it is the search for what this all means that occupies my mind.

The truth is, I have been running this fast for well over a decade. And while the numbers I just read are impressive, they probably excite other people more than they excite me at this point. When I was just starting out, all that I wanted was to grow to have a very large company. With no real thought of what that looked like – it just needed to be big. Then, somewhere along the way as we were growing and probably stumbling over ourselves, despite how fast we were growing, my mind centered around not being big, but being the best. There couldn’t be anybody out there that was better than I was, and I would work harder and burn the road up more to be sure of that.

Then, just as fate would have it, when a few years back I felt we finally clicked and were both large as a company and better than anyone else out there, I shifted my view and the only real focus I had was at winning. Having always been mildly competitive, that started to change to be fiercely competitive almost to a fault. A friend of mine was comparing me to my dad the other day (who knows us both and has followed our careers) and said the difference between you and Mike is that he was more interested in money and you are more interested in winning.

So, as the sky outside starts to turn darker and night is setting in around me, I circle back to the original question, and it was, “Did I accomplish anything?” The numbers look impressive and those around me look happy, but it is sometimes a challenge when you search for meaning in life gone most of the days of the week, traveling at 500 miles per hour, what you are really accomplishing.