Football this past weekend had some rip-down-the-goalposts firsts, we’ll get to those in a moment.

Recently, our company celebrated another first: 100 new clients added in one year’s time.  This feat is something I view with a great sense of accomplishment from the big-picture viewpoint.  While some of the new clients invited us to make a presentation, others were referrals, many were just solid prospecting by our team.  My hope is nobody overlooks all the Mondays through Fridays, week in and week out over the 20-plus years it took for our team to have this opportunity become a reality.  Did I believe it would happen?  Never a doubt!

The successful people who I have learned from, and been fortunate to work with, always displayed determination.  No matter what came along, they faced it head-on.  The key takeaway, as I saw it, was they learned from day-to-day experiences, and filed away all that had occurred so they would seldom be surprised down the road. Everything was a lesson – big or small was not a qualifying consideration.  Looking back, my automotive advertising career began in Direct Mail, not necessarily the ‘glam’ department.  But it was this learning experience that would become key to my company’s survival some 20 years later.  Never underestimate the why of your life!

My years traveling on the road took me to places that were a far cry from metro destination points, but the knowledge I gained from the dealership owners, managers, salespeople, and even the media people in those smaller markets, was priceless.  It was understanding how to effectively make every dollar count.   We never stopped working to create the most value for the client,  and each process we discovered to create value was learned first-hand and kept in personal journals.  The number of times I have adapted this knowledge to big-city dealers is countless.

I opened by pointing out that this past weekend for football fans was historical in regards to ‘big’ defeats.  In fairness for the underdog schools that pulled the upset, a true tip of the hat, you never doubted.  For the teams and coaches now feeling the hot seat, the lessons of our 100-new-clients-acquired need to be applied.  You cannot allow all the good that you have built to be defined or derailed in a single moment.  This is one of the times sports really is like the business world.  The longer you play, the more chances there will be a setback, and what you learn from a loss is often more important than a win. Success is not granted or given

There was a recent baseball game with the home team’s young ace just mowing hitters down, in fact, a no-hitter. So, when the team manager walks to the mound, and signals the bullpen to make a pitching change, the fans go crazy…there’s no changing pitchers in the middle of a no-hitter! Oh yes, there is – when the pitcher is a generational player with years ahead of him…if his young arm holds up.

What’s the lesson here? First, let’s assign the roles: as a business owner, you are the manager. Your employees are the pitcher and the team. And those fans booing could be your stockholders, your board, or truth be told, company naysayers who for whatever reason were not supportive of the decision to change. Of course, they feel entitled to let you hear it.

Playing the part of manager, I would never give one thought to sending an assistant coach out to make the pitching change, and I would answer any sports writer’s question. When you are the driving force behind a decision to change, your confidence level needs to be at 100% to take the credit for success, or the blame if it fails. Everyone in your circle of influence, as you map out change, needs to be made clear of your ‘why’ vision – the Big Picture. When its your company, change is seldom about two or three more innings, but the far horizon.

Considering change is a mental speedway. You need to have guardrails, but I am not a fan of restrictor plates. Always be open to discussion, critical as well as positive. But when you are not satisfied 100%, time for action. I believe nurturing an asset like our young pitcher and allowing him to grow into his full potential is no different than evaluating your business processes, practices, and people, including those that appear to be running out of fuel. It is all about timing. The bottom-line short answer: if the change I am considering is going to help us get better, it has got to be done. No better example than when THE college head coach swapped QBs at half-time – from a veteran to an unproven freshman – and won a National Championship, saying the change was their best chance to win.

The manager sure did pull his pitcher and it was a good change: more young pitchers out there with sore arms than no-hitters. You cannot be overwhelmed by the moment. You sometimes must revise good practices so they endure and flourish over the long run. Look down that road, meet new challenges without fear…embrace change!

Competitive excellence are two words that I have never put together in the same phrase until today. A long-time trusted friend, business partner, team leader, and mentor of mine sent me a quote today titled Competitive Excellence. It was in reference to an article about how the Ritz-Carlton, for the first time many years ago, won a very prestigious award, basically an award that gave them the highest rank of any client-related service industry in their field. When asked what this award meant to them for all their years of hard work and accomplishment, the owner of Ritz-Carlton said it simply meant this: “We’ve got to be better tomorrow.”
Competitive excellence is something a lot of people don’t understand. Many people in sports, life, and in certain achievements, reach a certain level. They reach the pinnacle, they reach the top of their game, and they decide to let up. They think that they’ve done everything there is to do. They’ve reached the final mark. They’ve reached the highest level. And from there, that’s it. But competitive excellence is reaching that milestone, reaching that accomplishment, and waking up the next day knowing that there’s more to do.
See, if you’re not waking up every day with a mindset of competitive excellence, if you’re not waking up every day trying to be a little bit better than you were the day before, you’re going to end up being inadequate. And from day after day of being adequate, then you’ll accept mediocrity. And from mediocrity, it becomes less than normal, subpar, and downright not very good.
Competitive excellence is very hard for some people to realize because they wonder when you’ll ever stop. They wonder when enough’s good enough. They wonder if they can ever do anything to achieve the ultimate goal. But that’s not it. It’s not that you can never be pleased. The ultimate goal is that you’ve got to strive to be better. True competitors that are in it for life are always trying to be better. They always try to do more. They always try to be more. And they never, ever stop. That is the true essence of competitive excellence, and it gives me a renewed spirit and mindset to wake up tomorrow and be better than I was today.

What is normal, anyway? I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week as I consider what a new normal looks like for me. Before, it seemed I was always stressed, always moving fast, and always dealing with issues that seemed insurmountable at times. But as I’ve taken a break from alcohol, I’ve started to put my life into a different and better perspective. I’m settling into a much more peaceful place I would call a new normal.

I don’t really know if anything is normal in the world anymore. This morning, while taking my daughter and her friend to school, we had a conversation about the recent school shooting in Georgia, and I found myself at a loss for what to say. My only thought was to ask them if they felt safe at school, to which they both said no. The best thing I could come up with was, “If you see somebody that bothers you or something that you think doesn’t feel right or seem right, tell somebody. Don’t hold it in.” That’s the new normal. Driving your daughter to school and the thought crossing your mind: Let’s just pray that this isn’t the day that somebody walks into a school with a loaded firearm. That is the new normal.

Another new normal for me is happiness. I completely changed gears. I find myself much happier even when things go wrong, even when things seem out of place, and even when situations happen that are out of my control. It’s okay. I’ve learned that it’s going to be okay. And I think that’s another new normal. A new normal is also waking up happy every day with a smile on my face, thankful for a good night’s sleep, and enjoying what’s going to come from the day. It may not all be good, but a new normal is a sense of feeling—feeling a sense of refreshment in the morning. That’s a new normal.

So, I don’t really know what normal is anyway. But one thing I have found over the recent days and weeks is that I am experiencing a new normal of feeling better. That’s something to feel good about.

There are two types of people in this world: the winners and the losers. That is a very simple statement, yet something I heard a few months ago and have really been thinking about as I go through my days and weeks. I entered this week with a winner’s mindset, with the thought that what we are doing is the best there is. We are unstoppable, and nothing can knock us off of our pace and our place at the top of the podium. And then I went to work, realizing that to stay at the top of the podium, you’ve got to keep working, keep trying, keep trying to be the best you can every single day.
And I think that’s what separates people. If you look at people in the world today, there are truly two types of people: those who have a mindset that they’re going to win, that they have no other choice but to win, and those who question their ability and ultimately come out and lose.
This may offend some people by thinking everybody can be classified into winners or losers. But think about it for a minute. You either know going into something that you are the best prepared, that you are going to get whatever you want and you will win. It’s your challenge at all costs. And then there are other times you enter into something wondering if you should be there, if you can make it, if you can cut it, if you can hack it.
That to me is what the winners and losers are all about. Two types of people. One type of mindset. Are you a winner or are you a loser?

This isn’t to say that anybody in this world or in this environment is a loser, but it is to try to make people think that if you put your mind to winning, you can win at anything you do. If you put your mind that you may fall short of winning, you’re probably going to fall short of winning at everything you do.
I picked up this quote while in Europe over the spring, with the two types of people in the world coming out of all the European conflicts over the last 500 years. And it is true that those who set out to win and truly believe they can win more often than not will win.

The more I go about each day, in each new journey in life, the more I realize the collection of stuff that you take with you. One takes stuff in the form of memories. Memories of childhood, memories of wonderful events, and sometimes memories of not-so-wonderful events. But your memories contain parts and pieces of your life that ultimately end up in what I call stuff.

Then you have stuff that is tangible. You have stuff like your house, your car, your desk, your computer, and your phone. All of these things are stuff that you have, and you interact with on a daily basis. They become a part of your life. What does this stuff really mean? This stuff, to me, is not about meaning but is symbolic of how you go about doing what it is you do on a daily basis.

Another element of stuff is people. Yes, I realize I’m referring to a human being as stuff, but if you’ll bear with me, you’ll see my point. People are filled with stuff. Good stuff and bad stuff. Meaningful stuff. Not-so-meaningful stuff. Stuff that makes you feel good comes out of people. Stuff that makes you not feel good also can come out of people. But you’ve got to realize and recognize that all people, just like yourself, carry around an immense amount of stuff.

And the last stuff, the last element of stuff, is all in your mind. What occupies your daily thoughts? What occupies your ambitions, your dreams, your prayers, your hopes? It’s all filled with stuff. Stuff in the form of where you want to be in five years, where you want to be in ten years. How do you want to be remembered when you’re gone? All of this is just random stuff. And the cool thing about stuff is there’s always more of it.

You take some of the hardest things in the world, analyze them, and sometimes you find the greatest solution to anything is just how simple you can make it. When things get complicated in my life, both business and personal, I always try to go back to thinking about what is the simplest solution or simplest thing I can do to solve the situation. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But I’ve always tried to keep things just purely as simple as possible.

Keeping it simple takes a big focus. Many times you overthink things in your mind. You think through too many scenarios, too many different outcomes, too many different ways to solve a problem, when usually the simplest answer is always the winner. It takes a very smart person to keep things simple, and the more I grow, the more I see, the more I come to know in this world, the easier I find that the answer usually lies in something simple.

Whether it’s a situation that happens to you or somebody else, you can usually look at the root cause and boil it down to one simple thing that can fix all your problems. Now, I’m not saying that everything in the world can be looked at in such a simple manner, but oftentimes I think as people, we overcomplicate things far too much. I think we rationalize and overthink things way too much. I think we, in general, just sit there and think about things way too much. Part of freeing your mind and freeing yourself comes with simplicity.

We’ve all heard the phrase “keep it simple, stupid” or the KISS method. I think there is a lot of value and understanding that goes into this. The simpler you keep things, the easier they seem to become. The simpler you keep things, the better your thought process is, and the more things you are able to expose and open your mind to. In a lot of ways, the simpler you keep things, the happier you will be.

I’ve never been afraid of taking a new path. In fact, exploring new roads and blazing new trails has always intrigued and inspired me. While it may seem like I’m just risk-averse or somewhat of a daredevil, it’s really more about the adventure. Taking a new path doesn’t mean going into something blindly. It means venturing into something where you can envision the future and have a sincere hope that it turns out as you imagine.

Taking new paths, I believe, is what sets me apart from many people and why some don’t understand the directions I take. I’ve always been willing to try new things, adopt new approaches, and explore uncharted territories. Yet, I’m still rooted in the consistency of maintaining the fundamentals of good blocking and tackling.

I have a sense of adventure and a desire to try new things. I enjoy seeing new outcomes and gauging how well things will work once they’re realized, which is why taking a new path is always so intriguing and inspiring to me.

Don’t get me wrong; new paths can be frightening and troubling. Sometimes, they are fraught with uncertainty, but they are always fun. Whether you know the outcome, can predict the outcome, or have no clue how things will truly turn out, it is always entertaining, intriguing, and inspiring to take a new path.

You go through life, you go through your day, you go through your week, and you have so many ups, so many things that are positive, so many things that make you ride high. So many things that make you feel invincible and unstoppable. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you get hit with something from the side—a down.

Now, it’s just naturally part of life that you’re going to have ups and downs, and you always hope you have more ups than you have downs, but you always have to put it in perspective. You always have to remember that just when you are ahead, just when you think you are on top, just when you think you are absolutely unstoppable, something is going to hit you out of left field. You hope that you can get through it and get past it quickly. You keep your positive mindset and positive energy, but you always have to be expecting that as good as you think you’ve got it, as good as you think you’re doing, as good as your life is going, something unfortunate is going to happen at some point.

This is not to be a naysayer, not to be a Chicken Little and think the sky’s falling, but just to remember—and even remember to celebrate—the greatness, the good things, the wins even more so. Because, you know, at some point you’re going to have a day, you’re going to have an event, you’re going to have a situation that is not the way you wanted it to turn out. You know that no matter how good things get, there’s always something that you’re going to wish didn’t happen the way it happened. And in the end, that’s what keeps the balance of the ups and downs all together.

The key to managing the ups and downs is always keeping a positive mindset. Always keep that unstoppable pep in your step. Always keep that sphere of influence over yourself where you feel like you’re unstoppable. You feel like you’re on top all the time. And with that, that’s how you can win every day.

As I run through life pretty fast, sometimes I have to remind myself that guardrails need to be applied. Guardrails are not the two metal rails on the side of a road that keep you from going off a cliff. The guardrails I’m talking about are the mental and physiological boundaries one needs to put on themselves to keep their life in check.

Sometimes you run a little too fast and might run into a guardrail, but the great thing about having a guardrail is it brings you back to the center of the road. It brings you back to a place where you can thrive and go very fast for a very long time.

I’ve lived my life and career a lot of times without guardrails, and usually, like any good road without a guardrail, sometimes your car goes over a cliff. But you can always bring it back and find a way to drive with guardrails. The figurative meaning of this is to put boundaries in your life. Know when it’s going too far. Know when you’re going too fast. Know when you’re going out of control. But also know and respect the proper speed, the right energy at the right time.

To me, that is what putting guardrails on the road in front of me is all about. You have to respect the guardrails. You have to know that when you’re getting too close, or things are getting too unsteady, you’re going to have to brake. You’re going to have to slow down and refocus. But know that the guardrails you put around yourself are only going to help you in the long run. They have for me, and I think about guardrails constantly and how I need to apply them in my daily life.