When I grow up...
Though I'm more like Chick-fil-A President & CEO Jimmy Collins who said in his retirement speech,
"I'm not a natural encourager. I, by nature, am a critic. I see things wrong. A paper clip on the floor, a misspelled word on a sign. I have tried over the years to reinvent myself from a critic into an encourager. It's taken me years to realize that encouragement is the most important thing I do."
I can spot the bad from a mile away. It's a requirement in everything I do, so it's hard to overcome.
You can't oversee an average of 35 Honda's in and out your door everyday without a critical eye for what's out of place, or what's been left undone. You can finish repairing a ridiculously complicated evaporative system using thousands of dollars worth of special tools & equipment, but if you leave a smudge on the floormat it's all for naught. That's not a negative reflection on the customer, that's just the way it is—you automatically assume that if someone was so careless to leave a smudge where I can see it, what does their work look like where I can't see it?
Then there's the guitar. In my guitar duties at Wendover Hills every song we play is a cover of someone else's stuff. And if you are covering a song, you can't just get close. Throwing out the original guitar part in favor of your own, in my opinion, is the same as deleting a verse or two and making up your own words. It's the difference between getting it right and this.
Howsabout photography? Anyone ever try it without paying attention to the whole process. Got your aperture and shutter speed set and start clicking away to find out later that everything you just shot was at ISO 1600. It's about the details and not missing a single thing, again requiring a critical eye.
My criticalness has recently reached a new high (or low). It's hard to take a photo without analyzing it then hitting delete. It's hard to have a Sunday morning where I felt good about how I played, or increasingly, what we played. It's getting harder at work to be proud of a job well done because no one has ever told you that your job was done well. Anyways, back to the positiveness of Truett Cathy I had intended to write about...
"We have an impact on our children by what we say, but particularly by what we do. They forget many of the things we say, but they observe everything we do."
"Nearly every moment of every day we have the opportunity to give something to someone else—our time, our love, our resources. I have always found more joy in giving when I did not expect anything in return."
"It's always easier to keep a customer that to replace one."
"We earned our reputation and good name relying on Proverbs 22:1, "A good name is better to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold.'"
"It was terribly unrewarding for me just to ring the cash register... and collect money."
"...you grow through the talent of others—people I have attracted through the years who make my job look easy. I divided the tasks among other people more skilled in their areas that I am, and I trust them to do the job well."
"People want to work with a person, not for a company."
"Loyalty remains one of the greatest engines of business success."
"My policy has always been to select trustworthy people—then trust them!"
"I trust my management team to run the company from the inside. Trusting them doesn't mean I never question a decision. It's good for them to realize the decision can be challenged, and that I want them to be thoughtful in their conclusions and sure of their convictions. I hear stories about entrepreneurs who control too much and are too arbitrary with the people who work with them. Business owners can be so intimidating that people are afraid to tell the the real truth. It's difficult to disagree with a tyrant; the consequences can be severe—and lasting."
"If you simply hand things to somebody you destroy his pride, and when you do that you destroy him. Let him take charity and he comes to expect charity." —Martha Berry (Berry College)
