Everyone On the Bus...Beep Beep!

Jim Collins talks about how important it is to get the right people on the bus and in the right seats and then determine where the bus is going. In business this means you have to hire the right people for your organization to do the right job. Then and only then can the bus get to the right destination.

Often times, especially in small businesses that are growing very rapidly, we realize we need to hire people and QUICKLY! We have jobs to do and we can't do them all. So we start hiring team members left and right. Before long we realize that some of the team members we hired were not great choices. Or we might see where the team member is a great person and we love them in the business but not necessarily at the job they are doing.

The trick is to make sure you have the right people on the bus...i.e. the right people who will fit in with your company's culture and core values, who shares your vision, and also seeks to achieve the same level of success.

Then you must make sure when you find the right people you have them in the right job. Putting an introvert in a high pressure commission sales position might not be the best idea or putting a extrovert in a cubicle staring at a computer screen all day might not be a good choice either. If you have someone who is great at numbers but has a tendency to overlook details then perhaps your accounting department is not a good fit there either.

Once you get the right people in the right seats on your bus I am sure not only will the bus get to the destination it needs to but it will also be a much more pleasant ride on the way there.

If you have not read Jim Collins book "Good to Great" I highly recommend it.

Life and Lemonade...

When life hands you lemons you can't just make lemonade without adding a little bit of sugar to the mix. For me this means we have to handle the challenges we face in life with a positive attitude or else we just get stuck with lemon water instead of lemonade.

Many times in life and in business I have faced obstacles and setbacks. Some of them were because of choices I made and some of them were completely out of my control. The only thing I could control 100% of the time was my attitude once the trouble started.

It is hard to always look for the silver lining or to dance in the rain or to be the bigger person but in the end doing those things makes the entire situation more bearable. We have to let go and let God take over the things that are out of our control. We have to forgive and move on in order to heal. We have to learn our lessons and hope for a better tomorrow.

I know this may sound very "Pollyanna" to most of you but the truth is the alternative is going down the dark, dreary, and negative road that never leads to anything positive. If we consistently choose to find the good in every situation, if we continue to be positive, and if we remember that "this too shall pass" then while the path we choose may be dark and dreary for a while it will end up in a better place than the one headed to Negativetown.

Choose kindness, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, and grace in every situation. Look for the good in both the situation and in people. Add a little sugar when life gives you lemons and then sit back and enjoy the lemonade once the time comes.

Criticism Comes With the Territory

Aristotle said "To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”

If you have ever achieved anything, won anything, or made anything of yourself personally or professionally you have undoubtedly faced some levels of criticism. Especially in today's age of technology more people feel like they can be blunter and more opinionated about more things thanks to anonymity.

I personally have faced my fair share of criticism in all aspects of my life...everything from the way I color my hair to the way I lead my team to the way I parent my child has been criticized by at least one person at least once. Growing up in a small Texas town, I am pretty used to it. However, that doesn't mean it doesn't still sting even if you get used to it.

My family and our business has also heard criticism over the years. I used to let every comment cut me to my core but over time I have learned to remove my anger from the comment, look to see if there is any truth to it, and then act only if necessary.

Ken Coleman says in his book One Question "Criticism often calcifies its victims, causing them to retrench. But if one remains teachable, words that seem a curse can become a great gift."

Some of my toughest critics have been and some still are my biggest supporters. This list includes but is not limited to...my dad, my basketball coach in high school, several college professors, a few of my closest friends, and all my counselors. Just because someone criticizes you doesn't mean they are waging war with you. Sometimes they are wrong and sometimes they are right. The trick as Coleman said is to remain teachable.

Of course some criticism is just downright mean (especially those who criticize anonymously can be particularly cruel). If that is the case then God gave us an amazing tool to help with that...the delete button! Delete. Delete. Delete.

Take Your Kid to Work Day...

I am lucky Dotty can come with me to work just about any day. My staff is always so good to her, the customers enjoy talking to her, and for the most part she is fairly well behaved.

I grew up going to work with my mom a lot too. I guess you could say it is a family tradition. Of course my mom used to make sure there was a tv with about three or four channels for us kids to watch and now Dotty just brings her iPod or Kindle and watches whatever she wants, wherever she wants. So times have changed a little thanks to technology.

I remember growing up having a love/hate relationship for going to work with my mom and Dotty has the same feelings. For a kid work can be boring, especially in the summer when there are pools to swim in and friends to play with. However I know that occasionally bringing Dotty to work with me is good for her.

While I don't stay as long as I normally would or do all the things I really need to do, Dotty does see me and my team working hard. She gets to listen to some of the challenges we face and occasionally she and I will talk about them on the way back home. I am giving Dotty some of the best gifts my mom also gave me...I am giving her my time and my example.

I learned more about how to run a business by watching my parents and especially my mom than I ever learned in any business class in college. I learned by watching Mom interact with her team and her customers. I learned by her talking to me about our real world problems and issues not by reading about some other Fortune 500 company's issues. I learned from her how to work hard but how to be a good person and treat people well at the same time she was trying to make a successful business grow every year. I learned how to become the next generation by watching her live it out day after day.

Other than a few government reports that had to be done, my mom rarely sat down and told me HOW to do things at the Pecan Shed. She simply showed me them when I was little and as I got older she would start to ask for my thoughts and opinions. She led by example and I followed the old "monkey see; monkey do" method of learning.

My mom wasn't perfect just like I will never be. I do a few things differently than she did, but for the most part I still stay true to the core values she taught me. We still offer what we think are some of the best pecans in Texas, we still try to maintain the highest level of customer service, we still treat our team like family, we still expect high standards, we still love what we do, and we still put family first.

I never feel guilty about taking Dotty to work with me. The way I look at it some "on the job training" can never start soon enough. Plus, I pay her well. She can have all the fudge and candied pecans she can eat!

Be Passionate and Be Good At It

In an interview with Ken Coleman for Ken's book "One Question" John Maxwell says that in order for people to find their niche (aka calling or purpose) in this world they must find out what they are passionate about AND what they are good at doing. To be one or the other is not enough.

If you are passionate about singing but can't carry a tune then you end up on one of those early episodes of American Idol. We all have seen those individuals who sang their little hearts out, hurt our eardrums, and yet were still shocked when they didn't make it to the next round. I too LOVE to sing but I only do so in the shower or with my 8 year old daughter in the car. I don't even make people in church suffer. I simply hum softly. I have a real passion for singing but I know I am not any good at it so you won't see me trying out for the next big singing reality television show.

If you are good at something but not passionate about it you end up being the CEO of a company who makes a great living and has a lot of success but secretly wishes he/she was somewhere else every single day of his/her life. I was pretty good at my job in Human Resources when I worked at the hospital but I spent the vast majority of the day alone in my office staring at spreadsheets and doing computations on the calculator. While I loved my coworkers; I truly disliked the lonely job. To this day I don't like spreadsheets and have a real mental block when it comes to numbers of almost all kinds.

When I graduated from high school and even college I swore up and down I would never work for the family business. I wanted a "real job" where I wore heels and suits and didn't work weekends. What I found out was I didn't love the "real" job, my feet hurt, I missed my jeans, and I still worked some weekends to help my mom and dad out when I could.

In 2004 when my mom wanted to "retire" and my parents asked me to run the retail store I happily agreed. While I still need to improve in many areas of the family business, I think I am fairly good at it and I know I have a passion for it! In fact, when I first started I had so much passion for it I often would tear up when I talked about the history of the store and how far we had come. I still do sometimes but I hide it much better these days.

I have other passions in life...volunteering, writing, reading, gardening, and others...but I use those passions to keep me from being a workaholic. My true passion will always be the family store.

I was reluctant to follow my passion because I thought it should be "bigger" than working in the family business. What I didn't realize at first was my passion was only as big as I wanted it to be. I have big plans for the Pecan Shed in the next decade or so...I just hope I am good enough to see them come to fruition!!!

What are you good at and passionate about? Have you found your niche yet?

Time...It is All a State of Mind

In her book (that I truly LOVE and have personally listened to on Audible at least five times) "You are a Bada** - How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life" - Jen Sincero talks about how time is really just a state of mind. She uses the example that if you have two weeks to get something done it usually takes the entire two weeks but if you have two days to get the same thing done you can actually do it in only two days.

This really struck a cord with me. I always feel like I never have enough time...to work, to play, to relax, to stress, to laugh, to cry, to breathe, to live, etc. When in reality I have the same 24 hours in a day that Newton, Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Oprah, Gandhi, Jobs, Disney, Hepburn, Ali, Armstrong, Chanel, Ford, Ruth, Sinatra, and even Seuss had or have.

What matters is what I do with my time.
What matters is that I don't see my time as limited but rather full of limitless possibilities.
What matters is I find the time.
The time to work and play. The time to stress and relax. The time to laugh and cry. The time to breathe and live.

I get to choose what I do with my most precious gift...time. It is so precious because we can never get more of it...once it is gone, we can't get it back...and because it is the best gift we can give to others...our time.

How will you spend your time today?

Positive Attitude vs. Talent/Education/Experience/And More

When it comes to hiring and evaluating a team member a lot of businesses will look strictly at talent. They will also consider education, experience among other factors. But to me the most important attribute any team member can have is a positive attitude.

I can teach a team member a lot of things about business...especially my business. I can educate them, give them the benefits of my experience as well as their own experience, and everyone has a talent for something. However, if a person by nature is negative, pessimistic, or ill tempered those things are harder to change, improve upon, and flat out get rid of.

I would rather have a team member with a B or even C level in talent or work ethic who also has an A level in attitude than a team member with an A level talent or work ethic but who has a B, C, D, or F in attitude.

And I am quite positive about this fact.