I write this post while flying back from Boston to Birmingham after spending five days at the esteemed Harvard Business School, finishing up a four-year program that earned me a Certificate of Management through an executive education program. It gets shown in our agency’s morning announcements each day that “JPS @ Harvard” and I can only imagine what the office chatter is about with people asking what I am doing there. 

To give some background, a colleague who runs another kind of professional service firm told me about this program when he attended in 2015 and said, “Man, you’ve got to do this.” Reluctantly, (because I swore I would never go back to school) I did the program the first time in the summer of 2016. It was such an amazing time, and I got so much out of the program I went back for another program the following year until I realized that two more course selections would make me eligible to get a certificate of management.

So, why did I keep going back?  Well, it is certainly not from a lack of things to do and having enough time in my schedule. It was a lot of sacrifice, not only on my time but also because every other course I have taken was in the summer, which ate into the time of my family vacations. Amy had a lot of patience the last few years because, in lieu of nice week-long trips, we pretty much did family vacations in a couple of days plus a weekend so there would be time for me to go to these sessions.  But each time I went, there were always ah-ha moments, and there were plenty of them. I took very detailed notes each time and would always type them up after the classes to have something I can always refer back to as I go forward in my career. But, that still doesn’t answer the biggest part of why I kept going back: to be in a room and hear lectures and stories from guys who ran companies like JP Morgan Chase, Dell Computers, Bain Capital, Honeywell and others who were 5 Star Military Generals who also had Ph.D.s, and those who had spent their whole lives in academia based on running and operating companies like mine was priceless. (Well, actually not; it was expensive, but worth every minute and every penny).

So, what did I get out of it? I got a real sense of accomplishment because hearing what other companies do and struggle with and seeing what Strong Automotive Merchandising does on a daily basis has me flying back with a real sense of accomplishment. Is everything I or the agency does perfect?  Not by any means. But are we doing things right where they really matter?  The answer is yes.

This week, I spent a little bit of time at the office where we mine and print our direct mail and equity letters.

For those not familiar with the automotive business, this is a highly detailed form of marketing that is most often done through direct mail and email.  It is also a company that we had used as a vendor for a long time but had the option at the end of 2017 to purchase and operate as our own business.

In the very beginning, it felt like you were jumping into a time warp just based on the executions and equipment that were in this company, as the previous owners had not paid it much attention, nor would they ever spend any money and invest in their people and their infrastructure. 

This week, though, I walked in as we are on the tail end of an office renovation and have a couple of new team members in the organization who are breathing new signs of life into the place. It felt very good to see what has transpired in the short 15 months since taking it over, where the normal monthly work used to average around 70,000 pieces of mail to a total last month of over 350,000 pieces of mail. The speed and energy of the place has been jolted and felt vibrant as I spent a couple of days there. While it is far from perfect and still in very humble beginnings, it is a place that has a ton of momentum behind it and is starting to really develop a set of legs all on its own.

It’s really quite refreshing. I stood back in a makeshift loading garage where we are currently running all the printers while we complete the last stages of the renovation, and I looked at it in awe of all that had been accomplished.

I smiled for a minute when I thought about all of the people (even some of our own employees from the agency who had seen this operation before I bought it) who told me how it was “never going to work” and “was not a good investment.” Not that I am a person who feels they have to be right all the time, but do think of myself as an optimist who has a keen sense of seeing opportunity. 

Sometimes the brightest and shiniest of all objects are best when they come from humble beginnings.

From very early on, the only time I use to read growing up was when I had to. Either at night before going to bed as a little kid, or during the summer for school assignments, the only time I was reading was when someone was making me do it.

Fast forward to present day and I got back into reading (again when I was forced to prepare for my upcoming Harvard classes). But the last five years have been filled with reading books about business and successful people to learn from what they did and how they did it. While I found myself doing more reading, usually motivational or work-related, I decided this year to take a different tactic.

Instead of reading about work-related things, I have started a quest to read about things that have nothing to do with work. Books about history or fiction that can give me a different perspective and take me in a different direction mentally with my reading. The goal for the year is 12 books, so 1 per month. As it is mid-March right now, I am finding myself midway through my 3^rd book, so one would at least think that I am right on schedule.

The overall benefit of reading recently has truly been a sense of relaxation.  Usually, I read at night right before bed, and I find that it is a much better experience while going to sleep if the final waking minutes of my day are spent learning about something that is totally unrelated to everyday business.

This is one of my all-time favorite quotes taught to me by a very infamous man named Charlie Weldon. Charlie wasn’t anyone of big stature and certainly not of fame or fortune, but Charlie was one of those really rare people in life that was happy all the time. I never recall seeing him angry or upset with anyone over anything. Charlie worked for my dad on our family’s farm while I was growing up and was a frequent member around the camp house and fireplace before and after hunts.

When I was growing up, my older brother was a great hunter and a very good shot with a rifle. I was not a very good hunter (mainly because I would get bored too easily) and definitely not a good shot with a rifle. But, Charlie saw my early frustrations in life and coached me all the time by saying, “You can’t win if you don’t enter.”

Time and time again he would use these words to make me feel better after taking a shot and not hitting either my target or the deer I was trying to take. He would also use this a great reminder when I was looking to find an excuse not to go hunting and to do something lazy like watch TV or ride a 4-wheeler.  The memory of this phrase sits with me constantly as even now, a good 30 years after I met Charlie for the first time, I still echo this phrase to myself a couple of times a day.

It was this phrase that helped me navigate a tough situation professionally that happened to me last week. Our company had been prospecting, recruited, and finally hired a very high caliber guy who had been the #2 guy in marketing for a very large automotive dealer group. This individual left the group and wanted to come with us after a short stint at a nonautomotive marketing job because of his love for our industry. We already have a tremendous senior level team but this guy would have been the icing and the cherry on top of an already impressive cake.

So, he came on board and we set our sights on even more aggressive growth. Then, a month in, the phone rang and his old boss came calling.

I will leave this person anonymous, but he is a very large name in racing and car dealerships. And while our new team member passed on the first couple attempts to pry him away, eventually we lost out and he went back to the organization he knew and was comfortable with (plus a lot of money and lot of perks).

I found out all this was happening on a Friday afternoon, hours before leaving to go celebrate a good friends 40^th birthday and thought to myself,  “I can either get over this or let this ruin my day.”

That old phrase, “You can’t win if you don’t enter” came to mind over and over as I thought to myself that I was glad I took the shot at hiring this guy rather than sitting by and doing nothing. Even if I shot and missed, I still entered the game and there is a lot to be said for people who spend their lives doing that.

This week amid the full speed, face paced life that I live, I took a little break to reflect on a major event in my life. Amy, my wife, turned 40 on Monday. Since we are a couple who, due to my busy travel schedule, spends most of our birthdays apart, I made it a goal months ago that I would be here for this one. With Monday being the big birthday, the weekend prior proved to be valuable time to get everything ready that I needed to for this big day. I had thought ahead and already had flowers ordered to arrive on Monday and a reservation set at our favorite place for dinner, but the little things like the balloons, cards, presents and cakes were items that I didn’t quite have nailed down.

So, the weekend was spent finding these items and enjoying my quest for finding what it would take to make the birthday a special event. While running errands and driving all over town for these, I used it as a time of reflection and made sure to think about all the milestones in life that have already come and looked to ones ahead. We both still feel and act like we are so young that it is hard to imagine telling people your age and the first number you tell them starts with a 4. Yet nevertheless, it is still quite an accomplishment.

It was a great time and a good couple of days as I had no travel on Monday or Tuesday of this week and got to spend my nights and mornings at home without the frantic mindset that I am leaving town and have a large list of materials to prepare in advance of leaving. It seemed easier and more laidback for once, even though the hectic nature at work didn’t seem to slow down at all. It felt great to take a moment out of the business and day-to-day grind to get some time to enjoy this particular milestone that Amy got to enjoy.

Even with all the hustle and bustle of a life that seems to – on most days – be running 500 miles per hour, taking a small break from it was good.

As the momentum of the year has really started to pick up and things are moving faster and faster, I am developing a deeper sense of trust in those around me every single day. As I find myself getting busier and busier, it is easier to let go of things that you otherwise wouldn’t be letting go of and allow others to make big decisions in your place.

Years ago Mike Strong, my dad, told me that people are never going to do things that you delegate to them 100 percent of the way you would do it. But, you have to accept that they will do it about 85 percent the exact way you want it done and be ok with it. Otherwise, you will spend your life trying to do every single thing yourself. This has been my motto for many years now, and my goal has been to become a master delegator so that I can continue to move at a very high rate of speed and not get slowed down by trying to be a person who has to make a decision on everything.

Having trust in others also means that you have unrivaled confidence in those around you who are in positions of leadership. In the case of my team in present day, I have never had more confidence in the people at the highest level of leadership and even a tremendous amount of confidence in the level of leaders who are just under them. This gives me the ability to move very fast and know that the people around me have my trust.

With every end of a year and start of a new year, you find yourself dealing with your own set of challenges. For me, there are always the challenges of which employees are leaving the company at the end of the year, which is a nice little middle finger from them because they always wait to receive their year-end bonus and Christmas present from the company (note: nobody every turns in a notice on December 1 – that would be too upstanding and proper – also known as the “right thing to do”). Yet, they all don’t mind announcing their quest for greener pastures once they have a little green in their hand.

Next is the challenge of me trying to find a little time to decompress and chill out with friends and family, which is a whole other set of challenges.  As a lot of my friends are clients and even some family members, you find yourself standing over the Christmas ham talking about the car business and marketing business and it never seems to stop. Then, there comes the last little gas of year-end work that always manages to get done by 12/31 even though, when the bombs start getting dropped on you around December 26, they seem like insurmountable tasks. Also, these year-end mountains to climb generally coincide with you starting to get dealt a whole new set of issues to face in beginning the new year.

Finally, comes family and the guilt associated with thinking you have a lot of time to spend with your loved ones only to realize that it is cut so much shorter than you ever imagined. Every day, it seems like one child isn’t happy or somebody is having a bad day, so you limp through the holidays feeling a little battered and sad that you failed to meet all the aspirations that you had planned for yourself when you started them.

Now that the depressing side of this post is over – you wake up, knock off the holiday hangover and get back to the business of being in business and to your surprise, it is not only raining it is just pouring opportunity. The year has started with an amazement that only rivals a few years in the past with opportunity coming in from all around. Just when you exit the holidays feeling like you have missed something or didn’t accomplish all the goals that you set out to, you end up starting off like a rocket into the new year.

If there is one thing that I love about the stresses and the demands of my life, it’s being busy.  To me, being busy is an art form, it is something that has to be worked at and worked at constantly.  I am not productive and feel that people around me aren’t productive unless there is constant motion and constant action. This need for constantly being busy can drive some people crazy, or maybe they think that I am crazy, but it is a need for achievement that I feel is important. There is so much opportunity right now and for all the people around me, it just feels energizing. The spirit and will of people who are trying hard and willing to give it their all makes this moment of opportunity pouring be something I hope to always remember.

There are few times in your life when you feel a blessing of opportunity, and there is never a good time that you can plan for it, so you just have to enjoy it while it happens.

While still gaining altitude – somewhere leaving Texas and crossing the into Louisiana – I am typing this last note of the year while traveling. Today is day 155 of being on the road in some way, shape or form, and unlike a lot of years past, I am not coming home to end the great December travel rush tired and exhausted. Even as the last few weeks especially have seemed really rocky for me professionally, I don’t have the feelings of exhaustion and fatigue that I normally have by the end of the year.

A couple of things that lead to this new state are things like a new diet (which I started back in September) and a new outlook on life and business. A dealer I was with earlier this month said, “This has been the longest/shortest year of my life,” and he meant that while it has been a long and tiring year, it has flown by. I don’t disagree with this statement, as while many things have happened this year in record time. There have also been some big hardships that just flat out make you want to hang your head. But, with a different outlook on life and business combined with a new feeling of power from a healthier lifestyle, I am eager for what challenges are coming next and what great things are to come.

In 2018, I doubled down on my investment not just of money but also of time in helping people. Human capital is the greatest asset that I have and without great people, there is not a great company and a great reputation. Great people truly make all the difference in the world. While spending more time and energy in developing people, I really feel that this has also made a difference in the lack of exhaustion that I feel and the harnessed power. My professional life improves as the people around me improve. My fears are couched as the people are who are around me become better, and life is simply more enjoyable. Even though sometimes my frustration runs high with people, 2018 will end with a sincere sense of accomplishment in the fact that I am better because the people around me are better.

But, just like everything in life, you do have disappointments. While I continue to write this note as the plane has topped out at about 37,000 feet and we pass through Louisiana east towards Mississippi, the thoughts of the ones who didn’t make it along the way and didn’t survive the year are also in front of me. Career Casualties are tough to deal with if you are a leader who is truly invested in the betterment of people around you, but they are going to happen, and you have to accept it and understand not to let it cloud your vision of the future. My dad always says that too many people fail in this world because they focus too much on a small little ripple in the pond that is usually an issue or problem, and they fail to focus on the horizon at all the things they should be focused on. I find myself in the trap of this sometimes, and while he is a constant reminder not to focus only on the negative, I still have to remind myself daily not to let it get to me. Nobody is ever going to do things exactly how you want them done, but you have to accept they will do it at about 85 percent as well as you want it done and allow them to sometimes surprise you by doing it better.

When you have a big body of water in front of you and your job is to watch over it with all your focus and attention, you cannot let yourself get caught up looking at the ripples made from rocks that fall in the pond. The key to success is to be the master of the big picture and not get held up on the smaller stuff.