A while back, a really good friend of mine who’s a very successful car dealer told me a story about confidence.

He was talking about people like him, people like myself, and that we’re really not the smartest people. We’re really not the most innovative thinkers. We’re really not the people who have created anything that’s going to change the world. But the difference between us versus most people was confidence.

It’s having confidence in your decisions. It’s having confidence in your daily life. It’s having confidence simply to do anything that you’re trying to do. A lot of people overthink things in their life. They overthink things about their career. They overthink personal situations. They overthink day-to-day responsibilities. But sometimes simplifying something down to the simplest form and having confidence is all you need.

People can smell confidence – whether you have it or don’t have it – from a mile away. People learn how to read people who are confident. You have to be careful with confidence so it does not come across as arrogant, egotistical, or like you’re just trying to brag, but having confidence and knowing the confidence you have in yourself is the real difference-maker for a lot of people.

I was very glad I had this conversation with my friend a year ago because it totally changed my perspective on how I talk to people and deal with people who are trying to build up their confidence.

Confidence can be lost, but once you understand confidence, it’s something that you can never have taken away from you. You may have good days. You may have bad days, but having confidence in yourself is the greatest gift of all.

I read a stat years ago that talked about airplane pilots and the time they spent flying. It said that if you spent 1,500 hours doing the task of flying a plane and you became good at it, then if you spent 3,000 hours at the task of flying a plane, you became great at it. And if you spent over 5,000 hours flying a plane, you were considered an expert pilot.

As I thought about that stat today, I thought about a phrase: “Just keep at it.” Everything doesn’t go your way every day. Some days are better than others, some weeks are better than others, some months are better than others. But if you have a commitment to yourself and you have a mindset that you’re never going to quit, that you’re just going to keep at it, then at some point you’re going to become great at what you do. At some point, you’re going to become an expert. And then at the final point, you’re going to become a master.

I thought about that today as a parallel to my career. I don’t think I’m a master at anything. I really just think I’m a lucky son of a bitch who’s found a lot of good people to work around for a really long time.

But what I think it reminds me is this: you just have to keep at it. This isn’t a never give up, never quit, never die type of post. It’s about getting your mindset tuned to being consistent. Always trying to go beyond. Always trying to do better. Always trying to improve what you do and how you do it every day. And I think if you do that – whether it’s 1,500 hours in the cockpit of an airplane, 3,000 hours behind a desk in an office, or 5,000 hours out in front of clients – then at some point you’re going to master the art of all the things you get to accomplish in life.

I think being a master at something is going to give anyone a great sense of accomplishment.

Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right either way.”  Maybe because I spent some time in my Ford dealership this week and was faced with challenges and obstacles, I found myself going straight to a negative place.

Entering into a whole new type of business with unknown areas to look at and inspect, you see an entirely different set of issues than the ones I have grown accustomed to in my other business.

But as you look at every issue, you have to address it with a can-do attitude. For a minute, I found myself thinking that there was no way to win. That these things were going to engulf me like some kind of wildfire. But after taking a step back each time and remembering what brought me there, I flipped the narrative in my mind to a can-do attitude.

This is something ingrained in each of us from some of our earliest memories.  The book “The Little Engine That Could” – I vividly remember being read to me by my mother, and the lines “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” It was a cool story when you were three, but it has a payoff and a life lesson now at 43 that is something I just can’t help but smile about.

Each day throws us challenges and situations that we think we will never get over and never get past.  But when you get served with these each day, go back and channel your inner 3-year-old self and just remember “The Little Engine That Could.”  Because after all, whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right either way.

It never ceases to amaze me what can happen in your life. In a single day, you can see so many emotions coming from so many different directions. This isn’t because of any one situation or recent action, but while traveling for the last six days I have had an enormous amount of time to reflect on all the life events that can happen – many of which occur in a single day.

Let me unpack just a few of the feelings brought on by some of these life events:

Life events bring enormous joy and appreciation

Life events bring success and a sense of victory

Life events bring anger and frustration

Life events bring fatigue and exhaustion

Life events bring sadness and mental turmoil

Life events bring friendship and respect

Life events bring sorrow and anxiety

Life events bring thrill and jubilation

Life events bring failure and fear

Life events bring peace and freedom

These are just some of the feelings that I know I go through on certain days, and I have felt all of them over the course of this week. No, I’m not close to having a breakdown, but quite the opposite. I have a renewed sense of peace and confidence in my life gained by simply watching all these feelings flow in and out of my day.

I just wanted to share these in case anyone else is having some or all of these feelings. My message is it will all be okay. Just keep enjoying life.

Last Friday, I walked through 1712 Salter Road for the final time. It was a piece of property in a house that my father, Mike Strong, moved into when he was three years old and had been in my family for 75 years.

My grandparents raised four children there and resided in the home for the rest of their lives. Then, I moved in as a go-between resident in between flipping real estate projects in my early 20s just so someone would live in the house and not let it sit idle. I ended up really enjoying it over a couple of months, the summer after my grandmother passed away, and I bought it from her estate when I was 25 years old. I’ve lived there for the last 18 years. It’s the home that I welcomed my new wife to come live in. And together we welcomed all four of our children to live in over the last 11 years. Like so many things in life, it was very hard to come to the realization that we had simply outgrown the house. That we simply needed more than two shared bathrooms and three bedrooms for six people to live in. While it did create space and a tremendous family environment, we had simply come to a point where it just wasn’t going to last us anymore.

So I decided to turn the page. It was a very hard and emotional decision. A lot of feelings, a lot of thoughts about ‘Do I keep it?’ ‘Do I sell it?’ ‘Do I preserve it for my children?’. But at the end of the day, nothing lasts forever. And while everything somehow has to come to an end, the Strong Family legacy at 1712 Salter Road has finally come to an end. A place where hundreds and hundreds of visitors and guests have flocked over the years. Parties, holidays, get-togethers, and simply just hanging out with neighbors have been a mainstay of our lives.

As it officially comes to a close with the money hitting my bank account today, it is with a peaceful heart that I say goodbye to 1712 Salter Road and all the many memories it created.

I left Sunday afternoon to start my travel for the week with a pretty aggressive schedule. Five different cities, five different states, three days, and a lot of things to cover.

Already tired from a pretty strenuous month of travel, it occurred to me while traveling this week: I want it very badly. I want to win very badly. I pushed myself to limits that sometimes are near exhaustion because there’s just so much in the world I want to do.

I think some people think I might be a little crazy for it, but other times they may just not even think about it at all. But when you push yourself and you want something so badly, it’s like you can feel it. Like you can taste it, like you can see it, but you don’t feel like you have it. And I think that’s why when I think about all the different things I do, all the different things I try, why I want it so badly is what drives me.

Now, the funny thing is, I don’t really know what “it” is. But what I really feel is that there is something out there, something more to accomplish. Something more I need to do. Something more I need to discover, so that I push myself to the brink of exhaustion simply because I want it so badly. It is kind of ironic that all this has happened this week as we go into Labor Day weekend – a long weekend. A time to recharge, and a time to appreciate everyone’s labor around the country.

So when you think about it over the weekend, think about your “why” and your “it.” Why do you want it so badly?

While just bringing to a close one of the greatest summers of my life, I have to admit, I’m really feeling good about the power of a routine.

Don’t get me wrong, this past summer was the best I’d ever spent with my wife and children. We went to more places, did more fun things, and had more shareable and lifetime experiences and memories than any other time in our lives. We were in different states, different countries, and different time zones – all culminating with a final farewell trip to the beach right before getting back to school.

But now that we are back in school – and actually for once, every one of my kids is going to some form of regular school – I have to admit, a few weeks in, that it is really great to have the power of a routine. Going to bed a little earlier. Waking up a little earlier. Having a set list of priorities and tasks every day that don’t exist in summer. Things like taking kids to school when I’m in town and picking kids up from dance and various sporting activities really make me relish how great it is to have a routine.

I think as people we have a routine mindset. We are better when not left to our own distractions and devices. Generating the power of a routine can be great in so many ways.

In a way it’s refreshing, but in a way it’s also very disciplining to know that you’ve got a new list of responsibilities every day that you cannot avoid. It’s been a really great summer, a really magical time in my life. However, I’ve really enjoyed the last couple of weeks of just getting back to simple, simple routines.

The other night, while putting my young son Ford to bed, I was begging him to calm down and get ready to go to sleep. He was ready to stay up and play and I simply told him, “Buddy, I’ve got a big meeting tomorrow. We need to go ahead and go to bed.” He looked at me with the weirdest face and said, “Dad, if you’re the boss, why do you have to go to meetings? And I laughed and said, “Someday, son, you’re going to understand all of this.”

The truth, and what I want Ford to understand, is that you may be at the top of the organizational chart, but you also have the responsibility that comes with that. It means the 12 hour days back to back. It means traveling late nights and weekends. It means all the meetings, all the stress, all the decisions that all have to be made in very short order.

Kids don’t understand it. And quite frankly, I’m kind of glad Ford doesn’t understand all that goes into my day to day role and responsibility. But it was funny to watch his face in amazement thinking that just because you’re the boss, you don’t have to really do anything. If you only knew the truth, which you will one day find out, it’s that the pressure and demands that come at the top really are what drive you to do better. I hope he’ll understand, and maybe one day he’ll read this note.

A banker asked me Monday morning how our year at my company was going. I paused for a minute, then said, Best ever start to a year, on top of a best ever year last year that followed a best ever year the year before.” I didn’t mean to rattle it off that quickly, and it was not something that I had rehearsed, but just came naturally as that is the truth. Since that interaction, I have been thinking about my comment over the last couple of days, trying to figure out why this is the case.

Then, while sitting at dinner last night out of town for work, my wife sends me a text that says, “Home run!” I knew my son Hudson had a baseball game, and then a few seconds later a video followed of his first home run of the season. While watching the video and wishing I was there, I witnessed the following:

His first swing was a great swing with lots of energy but a complete miss.

His second swing was a great swing with even more of a cut and a close miss.

His third swing had that sound of an aluminum bat going “ting,” and then the ball completely disappearing off the screen.

Then, all you heard was yelling and cheering, and the camera dropped because the person filming was cheering hysterically.

I hate I missed the homerun and the look on his face when he ran home, but there is one glaring lesson I have learned from this moment:

No matter what every day throws at you, keep swinging.

Regardless of how many times you miss, keep swinging.

Don’t ever let anything get you down, just keep swinging.

The reason that business is so good right now is that over the last 3 years, regardless of what has come at us or faced us, we just kept swinging. And the payoff is very real.

While flying tonight on a work trip, I was thinking about all the things that lie ahead of me for the week. While I don’t like to travel every Sunday, there is something cool about rolling out on a Sunday night to wake up in a new city on Monday ready to rock and roll. It’s hard to leave the family behind, but I never sleep well on Sunday nights anyway, so maybe this will be a welcomed change.

While watching the sunset out of my window, I thought more deeply about all the shit I have going on around me. I started to get nervous for a minute, then remembered that stress and anxiety are what fuel me, so it really isn’t a bad thing. For all the different challenges mentioned in my last post, they really are what drive me.

There is a phrase I started using years ago (“Never Stop,” which is kind of fitting for me) that resurfaces in my mind. I never really stop until I have to. Either mentally or physically, I sometimes hit a wall and then things stop, but unless that happens I just keep going and going. Each day, each week, each obstacle is a new mission, and it is my job to get around them and find the best way to get through them.

This week, there are vultures flying everywhere and certain tasks that I have to accomplish to get to the end of the rainbow on Friday afternoon. Each minute of each day will require decisions that have to be made, things that need to be said, and things I need to keep quiet. But all in all, it is what keeps the whole train moving. There are projects and people that will occupy my time and thoughts, but all can be managed by my greatest weapon – my cell phone. My phone is my lifeline in more ways than one – and a trusted advisor to carry out many things.

To everyone: enjoy your week. Of all the weeks you have in your life, this is one of them. So, you might as well use it to your advantage.