Obstacles and Failure

I have a great group of salespeople working for me at our company who never cease to impress me. They take their jobs very seriously, put in a lot of extra effort and bring a great attitude to work every day. But being a salesperson isn’t easy. In fact, it can be downright difficult and demoralizing at times.

Recently one of my salespeople came to me very discouraged. He had put in a ton of effort on a project to improve the lighting at local apartment community. He surveyed the entire complex, photographed the existing light fixtures, took foot-candle readings at night, and then prepared a detailed written plan for upgrading to a new LED lighting system. His recommendations were excellent and would greatly improve the light levels while saving thousands of dollars per month in electricity. The customer was so impressed they decided to move forward with his recommendations. However, they also decided to send his written specifications to several other lighting companies to bid on and unfortunately a competitor came back with a lower price using cheaper Chinese import fixtures. Despite my salesman’s advice to stick with major brand fixtures with a strong warranty, the customer chose to save a few dollars.

I could see the disappointment in his eyes and hear the discouragement in his voice but I wasn’t about to validate his negative feelings. So my first question was, “Did you thank the customer?” He looked at me funny. “That customer gave you such great gifts”, I said. “He gave you experience, helped you develop your product knowledge and moved you one step closer to long term major success in your career.” I could see by his bewildered look that he wasn’t getting it, so I offered to explain.

For ten years I played baseball but really sucked at hitting. I would either strike out or ground out and it was extremely discouraging. Finally, I got tired of failing and got serious about practicing. For nearly two years I took hitting lessons every week and hit thousands of BP pitches until my hands were permanently calloused. My confidence grew along with my skills and not long ago I found myself in the biggest game of my life. It was the final game of the MSBL World Series in Phoenix, bottom of the 10^th inning, with two men on, two out and the scored tied. I should have been nervous but because I had practiced so hard, I felt relaxed. The first pitch was a slider and I opened up too early in my swing and missed it badly. I realized my mistake and stepped back in. The second pitch was an inside breaking ball that just caught the corner of the plate for strike two. I realized my mistake, thought about it, and then stepped back in. I had made two mistakes and the count was 0-2, but I knew from my mistakes exactly what I needed to do. When the next pitch came, I was ready for it and drove it to left centerfield for a base hit and a walk off win! In a way, failing is what gave me the experience I needed to finally succeed.

I could see my salesman smiling as I finished my story. And although he may have been being a bit sarcastic, he said, “You’re right, I’m going to send that customer a thank you card right now!” I just laughed and told him you may not always get what you want but remember this… Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted!

Dear Lord,

Help me to remain humble through obstacles and failure…

But hide not from my eyes the prize that comes with victory!

~ from “The Salesman’s Prayer" by Og Mandino 

Timing

Last week somebody mentioned to me the expression, “Timing is everything”, and I agreed. Actually, timing is important and wouldn’t it be great if every good thing we ever wanted to have happen, happened exactly when we wanted it to. However, that’s rarely the case. But maybe the proper timing is happening… and we just don’t know it!

I’ll give you an example.  When I was a young boy, around 14 years old, I kept having this recurring dream about a girl. In my dream her name was Debby and she was perfect in every way. Since I kept having the same dream over and over I figured it had deep meaning and that someday I would surely marry a girl named Debby. Well, none of my girlfriends in High School were ever named Debby, but in the back of my mind I knew someday I would surely meet her. By the time I was 21 though, I was anxious to get married and start a family but I still hadn’t met my dream girl named Debby. So being young and dumb and very impatient, I married someone with a different name, and did it on my timing.

Unfortunately, that marriage had problems from the start. But I gave it a great effort and stayed married for 16 years before I finally gave up and asked for a divorce. I am not sure why I got married in the first place and I am not sure why I stayed married for so long to the wrong person, but maybe it was God’s plan for it to happen that way. Because fortunately for me, three years later I found and fell in love with my true dream girl and guess what…her name was Debby!

I have been married to Debby now for over 20 years and I can truly say I have never been happier. She has been the best wife any man could ever want and I think the reason we both feel like we know and understand the meaning of true love…is because we were both in long term marriages before with the wrong person. We learned a lot from that experience and we both grew and matured so that when we finally came together, the timing was right. I realize now that God will bless me when the time is right and most importantly, I need to trust His timing not my own!

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day so I wrote my wife a poem that reflects the story above. I hope she liked it and I hope she never forgets that she was and is and always will be my “Dream Girl” forever.

Joe, Debby & Family - Valentine's Day 2016

Dream Girl

The very first time that I had the dream,

I was really very young, only fourteen.

When my dream girl appeared for the very first time,

I began to feel flush like a vintage rose wine.

My dream girl had dark hair that was silky and long.

Her smile was wide and her laugh was strong.

And I knew right away she was perfect for me,

For my dream foretold who my dream girl would be.

My dream girl would be pretty with a “Girl Next Door” look.

She would be smart and witty and love to cook.

She would love to play softball and climb a few trees,

And she wouldn’t even cry if she skinned her knees.

My dream girl would be kind and loyal to a fault,

even willing sometimes to lock her feelings in a vault.

She would put herself second to others every day,

being designed by God in such a deep loving way.

I kept dreaming that dream and feeling that desire

to finally meet her and passionately light her fire.

But more than twenty years passed without any luck

And so many times over the years, I felt truly stuck.

And then it happened like a crazy surprise.

And all it really took was for me to open my eyes

For my dream girl was close, as close as a friend.

It seems my days of loneliness were about to end.

And now that another twenty years has passed,

You know how they say that love doesn’t last.

Well they’re not only wrong, they couldn’t be wronger

Because our loves grows deeper, every day, ever stronger.

The girl that I dreamed of back when I was very young

(and I know this is going to sound kind of far flung)

But she was part Italian and loved olives and lace,

You see my dream girl’s name is Debby Dollface!

Three Kinds of People

I really enjoyed Super Bowl weekend but I actually had as much fun on Saturday as I did on Sunday… and here’s why.  Two of my young grandkids came over on Saturday and we spent the whole day together on the beach playing catch with a football, playing whiffle ball baseball, skipping rocks in the water and doing cartwheels in the sand. Jack is 9 and Andie Rose is 7 and I have to say they are two very different people.  Jack is all boy, mechanically inclined, really smart and always on the go. Andie Rose on the other hand is more laid back, super sweet and super cute, and basically attaches herself to me when she comes over, which I don’t mind at all. She is very loving and caring and although she is much smaller and younger than Jack, she is the one who ends up taking care of him.

Watching my two grandchildren play and interact reminded me of something. You know how some people are dog people, and other people are cat lovers. Well, in my opinion there are actually three kinds of people in this world - dog lovers, cat lovers and people who have a heart big enough to love all types of animals. Andie Rose falls into that last category and I am not just talking about loving animals, I’m talking about having a heart big enough to love all types of people in the world as well.

While we were sitting on the patio Andie Rose showed me a photograph of her new cat, Gracie, and it reminded me that I had a cat once when I was young. I lived on a ranch when I was 14 and often rode my motorcycle to school or hitch hiked if I was out of gas. One day I hitched a ride home from a truck driver with a huge 18 wheeler freight truck. As we neared my parent’s ranch, my pet cat jumped out across the road and the truck’s tires instantly made several crunching thumping noises. I knew it was bad. I asked the driver to let me out because that was my cat that just got ran over and I wanted to see if he was okay. The truck driver started to laugh at first (obviously that cat was now flat) but then he realized that he had just killed my pet and began to feel bad. He said he was sorry and as I exited the truck I tried to act tough. I told him it was okay because my cat, Old Weird Harold, was always out hunting rabbits and I figured he was "gonna get ate" by coyotes some day anyway. But as I walked down the road and spotted what was left of my cat, I started to cry. I found a piece of cardboard and carried Old Weird Flat Harold all the way up our long winding driveway, crying the whole way home. Fortunately, my Dad was there so we talked about what happened and then we buried my cat down by the stream.

I didn’t tell Andie Rose the story about my flattened cat because it would have made her sad. People like Andie Rose are unique because they have the ability to internalize the pain going on inside others and will typically go out of their way to offer their sympathy, help and love. I’m not saying dog people are bad or cat people are bad. All I’m saying is… I don’t know what path Andie Rose will choose to take as she experiences life in this world, but I do know the world will be a better place with people like her in it. 

Andie Rose and "Gracie"

Lots of people talk to animals… Not very many listen, though… That’s the problem.

~ Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

A Thousand Words

You know that old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Well, it’s a true apothegm, but the interesting part of that expression is to realize that those thousand words are going to be different for every person that views the picture. Perhaps we need to remember that saying when it comes to using modern communication techniques like texting and email… because a thousand different viewpoints can occur every time we send out a written message, especially a short one.

Recently I sent a text message to a relative thanking them for a Christmas present they sent me. The response I got back was, “You’re welcome”, but it also included a short sentence that could easily have been either a cordial suggestion, or more likely a biting criticism. As it is with all text messages and emails, you can’t look into the person’s eyes, nor can you get a feel for their body language or tone of voice, and you certainly can’t have that natural give and take that occurs when you’re having a conversation in person. So what did that short sentence really mean?

I stared at that text message for quite a while and thought about our relationship over the years and what might really be the “message within the message”. Unfortunately, I do not have a close relationship with this particular person and we probably never will be close because we’re two very different people with different values and different priorities. I guess what bothers me the most is that this person doesn’t like me and has made that clear to me for as long as I can remember. I wish things were different, but I realize after trying many times to make things better, things are not going to change.

Anyway, I have this rule that if I get a message that upsets me, I sit on it… and don’t respond for at least 24 hours. I think it’s a good rule because if I respond when I’m upset, I usually make things worse. So I sat on that message for a while and then decided to take the high road and believe it was meant to be positive. I chose to respond back in a very positive manner laying out a lot of detail and hoping they would truly feel the sincerity in my words. Maybe I was being naïve, but it felt good to send a positive response instead of a negative one. In fact, recently I read several bible stories involving Jesus forgiving people who wronged him and how He washed the feet of the disciples instead of the other way around. I think the genius of those examples are that they show us that the burden of “bridge-building” falls on the strong one, not on the weak one.  

And you know what happens? More often than not, if the strong one volunteers to wash the feet of the weaker one, both parties end up getting down on their knees!

Here’s a picture that’ s worth a thousand words.
It’s a self-portrait by a skilled Chinese Artist, painted
only weeks ago at the tender age of 92. Look into those eyes.
They reveal decades of life, love, wisdom and courage!

The weak can never forgive, for forgiveness is an attribute only of the strong.

~ Mahatma Ghandi

Tears for Fears

I’m pretty sure I’ve told my wife “I’m not afraid of nothin” plenty of times. But I also have to admit it isn’t true. There are plenty of times when I’ve been afraid because being scared is natural and normal. But is being scared ever a good thing?

When I was young I was fairly small for my age. In fact, in Junior High I was one of the smallest kids and one day during PE class we were just finishing calisthenics when one of the older, tougher kids in the class punched me in the stomach, dropping me like a rock. I will never forget the kid’s name, Curtis McGuffy. He was always getting in fights at school so I made it a point to do my best to stay away from him. However, I guess he found me that day decided to introduce himself in his own unique way.

It took me several minutes to catch my breath, wipe away the tears, and pick myself up off the ground. Surprisingly our teacher never noticed what happened and when he broke us up into groups, unfortunately I ended up in Curtis’s group. There were 5 boys standing there as I approached and immediately Curtis challenged me to a fight… right in front of them. I was scared silly, my legs were shaking, and I was positive if I accepted his challenge he would beat me to a pulp. So I backed down and walked away. When I got home that night I couldn’t stop thinking about how bad it felt to be humiliated in front of my friends. For weeks I felt ashamed and hated going to school. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore so I sought out my Dad for advice. He told me being afraid is normal and walking away from a fight you can’t win is smart. That didn’t seem to help very much. But then he asked me to think about this question. “What if instead of someone threatening you, they were threatening one of your friends?” I answered back immediately, “Well I’m pretty sure I would jump right in there and help him.” My Dad just smiled and said, “I think you’re gonna be just fine!”

I thought about what my Dad said and understood what he meant about protecting others. His advice was always the best. So from that day on I made two decisions that would help me enormously the rest of my life. I decided no matter what I will always protect my friends and also that I would never ever again allow fear to cause me to walk away from a challenge. Sure enough, two weeks later a friend of mine was getting pushed around by a bigger kid and I jumped right in the middle. I got pummeled and beat up pretty good for about 5 minutes until the coach broke it up, but I got up off the ground with a big smile on my face and a round of high fives from my buddies. I didn’t win the fight but I did succeed in protecting my friend…and I noticed there was nothing humiliating at all about that!

Obviously getting into fights at any age is a bad thing, so I would never encourage anyone to hurt another human being. But fear does have a purpose and a message that we can learn from it. Being afraid is a normal and probably a good thing, allowing it to control our lives is not!

I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. 

Fear, to a great extent, is born from the story we tell ourselves, 

so I chose to tell myself a different story…

~ Cheryl Strayed (from the movie "Wild")

Better Days

I told my wife I was going to cut back dramatically on baseball in 2016. I still love it but I’m getting older and at my age it’s so easy to get injured…but so hard to heal up. More importantly, it would give me more time to spend with my wife on the weekends, which I know she appreciates.

I truly meant what I said to my wife. However, last week while we were having a romantic dinner at Nick’s Restaurant the subject of baseball came up and I casually mentioned that some of my buddies were leaving in a few days to go to the annual Pro Ball Baseball Camp in Phoenix. She was quiet for a moment and then looked me straight in the eye and said, “I want you to go too”. It caught me by surprise because I hadn’t even considered it. But my wife knows me better than I know myself and obviously loves me deeply, so before dinner was over my plans (our plans) now included a four-day trip to Phoenix.

My wife went with me because we can’t stand to be apart. In fact, over the past 22 years we have only been slept apart three nights total. While I practiced baseball with my friends and dozens of pro baseball studs like Alan Trammel, Jeremy Barfield and Lee Tinsley, my wife wandered around the Hotel alone waiting for me to return each evening. Her willingness to make sacrifices so that I can have fun will never cease to amaze me…and inspire me.

Speaking of inspiration, this camp is held at the Padres Spring Training Facility in Phoenix. This is where “real” pro baseball players practice each spring and we actually we get to use their locker room, eat meals cooked by their regular chef, and have access to their amazingly gifted trainers. The locker room itself reeks of baseball tradition and memories and I have to admit, just putting on a uniform in that room gave me goosebumps. The other thing that you can’t help notice throughout the locker room is the proliferation of inspirational messages. It reminded me that this locker room will soon be filled with eager young men, busting their butts to achieve a goal that less than 1% of people ever achieve.

The one sign that caught my eye and stuck in my mind was this one. “What are you going to do today, to be better than you were yesterday?” I thought about that message and how it doesn’t just apply to baseball players, it applies to anyone who is striving to achieve a goal. It also occurred to me that if I pondered that question each morning and applied it to my life every single day, I could probably accomplish any goal I set for myself.

On the long drive home I kept thinking about the sacrifices my wife constantly makes for me and decided to set a new goal for myself, to become a better husband. That evening I did all the laundry for her, cooked her dinner for a change, and rubbed her feet for several hours while she watched the Golden Globe Awards on TV. I’m never going to be “Husband of the Year” material, but at least for one day… I found a way to be better than I was the day before!

Righting The Wrongs

A brand new year is starting so it’s a good time to reflect on all that’s happened over the past 12 months. I don’t actually like to dwell on the past because I prefer to be constantly looking forward but it is a good idea to take stock from time to time of what’s happened in my life and what I’ve learned from it.

As I think back on 2015, three bad things stand out. 1) From a world view standpoint, there’s a lot that went wrong including terrorist attacks right here in nearby San Bernardino. 2) At the local level, a close friend of mine was laid off at his company where he worked for over 35 years. It turns out the owner laid off everyone over 50 so that he could improve his bottom line. 3) On a personal level, one of my best friends turned his back on me, and of course the motivation behind it was money.

All three of those events could easily make me lose my faith in humanity…but not if I take the time to reflect on what went right. 1) Recently my wife and I drove through a Del Taco Restaurant and when I handed the man at the window my money, he told me to keep it because the people in the car ahead of us paid our bill. I guess it was a random act of kindness and I don’t know why they did it, but it sure made us smile! 2) Not long ago I was visiting a customer and as I was leaving he handed me a box of expensive ballasts. He said he had accidentally received them by mistake and wanted to return them to us. What a nice surprise! 3) Last week I was at Trader Joe’s and my bill came to exactly $25.00. I handed the cashier a twenty and a five and as I grabbed my bag to leave, she said, “Wait, you gave me an extra $20 bill”, and handed it back to me. Honesty is always surprising…but it shouldn’t be!

You could easily make the argument that the three things above that went wrong were worse than the three things that went right, but that’s not the point. The point is that when we look back on life, we need to realize that a lot of things do go right on a daily basis and that there are a lot more good people in this world than bad. If we make it a point to notice the positive things that happen in life and pay attention to all the good people that surround us, we can’t help but feel good about the world we live in.

So what did I learn from looking back at 2015? I learned that there are always going to be bad people who do wrong no matter what. And while we might not be able to right those particular wrongs, we can go out and do our best to do what’s right by everyone we come in contact with. You know that old saying, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Well maybe it should be “Two rights can overcome a wrong!”