All posts by Keith Thompson

Korean War Soldiers

Life, Uncategorized

There was a little news article a couple weeks ago that meant a lot to me and was largely overlooked by most of the mainstream news media outlets. This is not a political blog post in the least, but one of the things President Trump was successful with during the June 12th meeting with the North Korean leader was, his agreement to return the remains of US soldiers that fought and died during the Korean war from 1950-1953. The best estimate of remains that are still in North Korean is 5,300. That is 5,300 families that were never able to bury their sons and daughters. For me, having served in the military, this was one of the most honorable actions from a President that I know of.

There were 33,652 US service men and women that died in battle during the Korean War and another 3,262 that died in the region from illnesses, accidents and other non-battle causes. The total number of young Americans that we lost in the Korean War was 36,914. To give you some context, we as a country have lost 6.828 young men and women since 2001 in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts since 911 happened on September 11, 2001.

Those men and women that died in the Korean War would be about the same age as my mom and dad who are both in their early 80’s. Think about all those families that heard the knock on the door with someone in uniform telling them their child was killed in battle.

Now, think about the significance of finally bringing these service men and women home so they can be laid to rest with their families. That is one of the things the President got an agreement on. KT

Father’s Day

Family, Life

Father’s Day is the day a dad celebrates the greatest gift he could ever receive. His children.

Of all the titles I have had in my life, the greatest to me is the title, daddy. When my life draws to a close, I want to be remembered as having been a good father. I want to have equipped my children with the necessary life lessons that will enable them to live a full and meaningful life and impact their future generations.

As Father’s Day approaches, some people have good memories to build on and other have memories they would rather not think about. My parents separated and remarried when I was young so I have two fathers that have taught me many of life’s most important lessons. My greatest hope is that I have demonstrated to my daughters what a real father is supposed to be.

I have so many memories of my girls when they were little and as they grew up. Times of pure joy of the gift they have been to me. There have been times of joy, tears, fear, anxiety, protectiveness and always of unconditional love. I believe as a dad that showing your child that your love does not have conditions, is very possibly the greatest gift you can give them.

Father’s Day is a very special day for dads because it is on that day, that you get to tell your children what a gift they have been to you and how their lives have made you a better person.  To all the fathers, happy Father’s Day. KT

Trying your best

Career, Life

I remember in high school my football coach said, all I can expect of you, is to do your best. He said when you get back on the team bus after the game, the only thing that will matter is if you left it all on the field. Meaning, you played as hard as you could.

In life there are successes and failures and I have experienced both. The failures are the ones you end up thinking about the most. It is common to ask yourself after a failure if I had done this or that, would it have changed the outcome? I believe if you can look back on a failure and know in your heart that you tried as hard as you could and did your best, knowing that, will help you work through the failure as compared to the temptation to let the failure define your future. Sometimes, failing can actually be a gift.

Abraham Lincoln lost nine, yes nine, very public elections before deciding to run for President. The question all historians have asked is, if he had won one of the other elections, would he have still run for President? The common theory is that if he had won the senate seat, he would have been content and would not have ran for President. Think about the course of American history if he had never run for President.

As I look back on my own life, my worst financial failure was the restaurant business when I was in my middle 20’s. As I look back at that time, it was that failure that caused me to look in a different direction where I ended up selling hotels instead. While no one can say with certainty what Lincoln would or would not have done, I can say for certainty, if I had experienced success in the restaurant business, I would still be in that business today working 100 hours a week.

Many of the inventions we enjoy today were the by-product of a failure. A few examples of failures that led to great inventions are, the pacemaker, microwave oven, Penicillin, Ink jet printers, x-ray images, post-it notes, potato chips, chocolate-chip cookies and Coca-Cola. So, if you have had a failure in your life that you can’t quite get over, step back and really look at your life in the context of where you are and maybe you will see God’s hand at work trying to get you to a different destination than where you thought you were going.

Mark Twain once said, “the next time you fail, think again about what you could possibly invent from the failure.” KT

Feeding Frenzy

Career

There is this place in the mountains we go where this guy has an old general store that is located next to a mountain stream. You can go out on the back platform and buy corn to feed the fish. When you throw the corn in the water, there must be five dozen big fish that all go after the food at the same time and create a feeding frenzy.

Today in the financial markets, it is sort of like that. For the period from late January to late April 2018, most all the hospitality publicly traded stocks were down in value and impacted the acquisition markets in a negative way. Over the past five weeks, most of the same stocks have rebounded in valuation causing the publicly traded companies to look again for investments. I just attended the New York Investment conference where there were more groups looking for investments, than I have seen since summer of 2007. The reason I bring this up is because the outlook in summer of 2007 looked very favorable and then the market crash began in October 2007 when the secondary debt markets began to falter. The US economy is the strongest in what could be decades and the market for single family housing all the way up the ladder to commercial real estate seems to be at valuation levels unlike anything I have ever seen.

Life and human nature are funny things to try to understand when it comes to money. One would think that a seller would jump at the chance to transact when things are good but this assumption is often incorrect. I saw this during the last market cycle where sellers instead of transacting, decided to hold out for every dollar and many of these same clients missed the window. I heard a smart guy (Jack ward) say once that “many times, the best time to sell is when it hurts the most.” He was speaking of a seller fighting the temptation of waiting for the last dollar.

I think today while the market is hot, Jack’s advice would be prudent to follow. I have seen people sell a little too early and I have seen people try to sell too late. In this regard, early is much much better than being late. KT

Life’s greatest hits

Uncategorized

This morning I was awake at 1am and couldn’t go back to sleep. As often happens in our lives, we are many times our own worst critic. This morning my mind was playing back all the times I messed up, didn’t say the right thing, wasn’t hired on deal, was talked about by others, every bad investment I made and yada, yada, yada. That ever happen to you? Of course, it has.

See, Satan’s greatest weapon in our life is the video player of our past mistakes. He knows if he can get us to complexly immerse ourselves in past failures, he can control what we do today. You might want to read those last two sentences again. If you know the enemy’s playbook, it shouldn’t surprise you when he tries to use it against you.

So, at 2:30 this morning I finally got up and tiptoed to the family room because I knew there was reason I was supposed to be up. Here it is and I will share it with you. I literally opened my iPad to the bible app I read from and staring me in the face was the following word from God this morning.

It comes from James 3: 13 in the NLT translation. It reads, “if you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with humility that comes from wisdom. But, if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. The wisdom from above is first pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. Those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.”

How is that for a word from God? KT