All posts by Keith Thompson

The refrigerator door

Family, Life

This is a post I wrote several years ago and wanted to share it again. It is called the refrigerator door.

The life represented by the pictures and drawings hanging on your refrigerator door is much more important that what is hanging on your office wall. People, men especially seem to get this confused. If you are ever in doubt which is more important to you just look at what is hanging with magnets on your refrigerator door and it will remind of what is most important in your life.

At the office you can have all manner of awards, commendations, trophies, accolades and when you die all those things will be meaningless. The items hanging on your refrigerator door are what will mean the most to you when you get to the one yard line of life and began to look back over your years.

Recently, I was up alone reading at night and thinking about this very thing. I got up and walked over to our refrigerator door and began to look at our lives displayed with little magnets. I realized that right before me on the refrigerator door was the essence of my life and what I hold most dear. When I got to the office and looked at the items hanging on the walls, I realized that at my funeral none of those items will be displayed for the people to see. The items on the refrigerator door are the ones that will be seen as meaning the most to me.

Sometimes in life when the world is closing in and the lines between work and home began to merge and get confusing, step back and look at your refrigerator door. It will remind you of what is important and who is important and where you need to be focused during your living years. We all have to go to work if we want to eat and raise a family but work doesn’t have to be what identifies who you are and your self esteem does not have to be determined by your work. In fact, your greatest work is with the people pictured on your refrigerator door. KT

Failure video channel

Life

Did you know that Satan has his own video channel? He stores up all your past failures, missteps and embarrassments and he replays them as often as you will allow him. His goal is to keep you from achieving God’s best for your life. He uses fear as his main weapon and the weapon is the replaying of your past failures. When you watch (spiritually speaking of course) an old video of one of your failures, it holds you in the past and destroys your confidence and self-esteem. His plan is simple, keep you looking back with regret and guilt instead of forward with hope.

I will give you a minute to read that paragraph again.

That’s not to say that all fear is bad. Some fears (better renamed as respect) can keep you from doing some foolish thing again that was dangerous. I pause to remember the time I put on a pair of water skis and tied a ski rope to back of my friend’s truck to snow ski in the grocery store parking lot. Ha. Yep, that fear was not only real but assisted me in not ending up in the ER.

Fear of failure is debilitating. Its main purpose is to hold you in the past. If it goes unchecked and unresolved in your life, it does not stay dormant, it continues to grow and increase until you look up one day and realize it has paralyzed your life. I will not list the types of fear because we all know what they are and everyone reading this blog knows precisely the one that most threatens your joy. Everyone has one big giant.

The answer to fear is always complex, difficult and varies with every person but it always comes down to your act of will. You must be willing to fight the fear. Call the fear by name (use your words) out load. Speak to it. Tell the fear of ___ that it no longer has a place in your life. This is not hocus pocus magic, rather it is taken from God’s own word. Doing this one time is not enough, rather It must be done (said) many times when that fear threatens to come. If you are consistent in doing this, after a while the fear will show itself less and less until one day you look up and realize (by your will and words) you have defeated the giant in your life. KT

Having too many options to choose from

Life

Remember when we (55+) were little kids and we would sit in floor and watch TV with our parents. Back then you had three channels to choose from. During a mid-week night at 7 o’clock, it was either Walter Concrete (ha, Walter Cronkite) Gunsmoke or Andy Griffith. That’s it. Three choices so you were happy with your choice because you didn’t feel like you were missing something else on the other channel.

Elaine and I have direct TV with 500+/- channels which is overload enough. Last weekend we decided we needed a Netflix account and then bought an Apple TV device to operate the Netflix account with. I am telling you right now there are so many options you can’t make up your mind. When you do decide what to watch, you keep thinking about what you might be missing on one of the other channels. Ha. The other night it took be 30 min just to look through all the options of what to watch. Back when we had three choices, it was easy and we were happy. Now we can watch a different show on the TV, the I-pad while holding a IPhone watching a ball game. It’s too much I’m telling ya!  It is so much that when you do narrow down the options and ask your spouse which one they want to watch, your spouse just says “whatever you want to watch” so I go back and watch Andy Griffith. Ha. KT

Being good at your job

Career, Life

You’ve got to be good at your job before you can enjoy the rest of your life. Think about this quote and see if it rings true or not. This is primarily a guy thing and may or may not necessarily be true for ladies. For a man, so much of who he is, is wrapped up in what he does. If you look at the happiest retired men, you will find a commonality that they were good at their job before they retired. It doesn’t matter what the job was but what does matter, is how they did it.

One of the happiest retired men I know is my next-door neighbor. He was the chief pilot for large fortune 500 company for 25 years and flew to over 167 countries in his career. Before that he was an Air Force Pilot back when they used to fly around with live weapons on board in case they were called into action. Think about what a stressful job that must have been. He is 84 buts looks 64 and is very engaged in life today and in my opinion, his happiness comes in large part because he was fulfilled in his job when he was working. I have friends that were in all manner of work from a garbage company, hotels, retail development to doctors. If asked, they would all tell you that one key to moving on to a happy life is being fulfilled and doing well in their work. As a contrast, I know one gentlemen that retired from his work having done as little as he could get by with and never really giving his best. He simply put in his time and retired but it left a big hole in him that was never filled. Therefore, his retirement years have not been happy and fulfilled because deep within himself, he knows he didn’t do his best.

If we think about it, we all know this is true because we all know someone who has moved from one job to another hoping the next job will be better. It is like the old saying “wherever I go, there I am.” We also all know people who cannot enjoy a vacation because they didn’t leave their work caught up and in order. The greatest vacations are when you work hard up to the vacation so that you can relieve your mind of work while you are on vacation.

I think as you age, it becomes more important to finish well. To know you gave it your best. As you read this blog, just know it is important to do your best and try as hard as you can. It also helps you handle your emotions when you don’t get the job, promotion or the sale if you know you did your best. The hardest working person I ever met was my father in-law. He owned a fence company and he worked and sold harder than anyone I ever knew. He loved to fish, travel and camp and I remember many times being with him on vacation or fishing and he worked as hard at enjoying those times as he did when he was at work. I believe the way he worked helped him enjoy time when he was away from work.

So, in summary, give work your best effort because it will help you be engaged and enjoy all the other times in your life. KT

Vehicles

Life

I love cars and I think I need some therapy and counseling. I am thinking about checking myself into the Henry Ford Institute (not Betty Ford Institute, ha) so they can help wean me off this addiction. If my wife would let me, I would have 20 today and looking for more.

I counted the vehicles I have owned over my lifetime and can remember 61 of them. I feel sure there were 8 or 10 more that just escapes my memory. Needless to say, there has been a lot of driving going on and I am only 39 years old.

The most used vehicle I ever owned was a 1998 Tahoe that I ordered with every available option. The most joy received from a vehicle is probably the Shelby I currently own and by far, the worst vehicle was a 72 Jaguar that needed to be worked on every other day. It was probably the best looking of all the cars but that joy was quickly overshadowed by the nightmare of owning it.

Some years ago, I was selling a hotel in Nashville for a guy and when I got to the hotel, they had a Boss Mustang on the lobby floor when I walked in. After I picked my tongue off the floor the owner’s son told me his dad had a few cars in a warehouse just down the street if I wanted to go see them. It took me a while (1 second) to tell him I would love to see the cars. I was thinking 5 or 6 dusty old nothing cars behind a few old dirty garage doors. When we pulled up to the “warehouse,” it was a purpose build 100k sq. ft. climate controlled facility. It had a full-time staff that took care of the cars and a better security system that the White House. As we entered in the foyer there were double doors leading to the area where the cars were and when the client opened the doors (literally true) I almost went weak kneed. The first 13 of 67 cars was one of every color 69 Yenko Camaro that were made. Yenko Chevrolet only made 201 in 1969 and each one today is worth 300-400k.

For the second time in the same day, I picked my tongue off the floor and looked around the room and realized he had the first ZR1 Camaro, several factory Copos and one of the two actual 1969 Daytona 500 pace cars. As I looked around the warehouse there were Shelby’s, Boss Mustangs, Hemi Cudas (maybe it is Cudi for plural, ha), Vettes, GTOs, Super Sports, Superbirds, Trans-Ams, and some of the most rare and valuable muscle cars ever produced. My guess is his collection was probably worth 20-25 million dollars. When I left that day, I needed a tongue lozenge and a shower. Ha

I believe after I retire from selling hotels, I want to have a muscle car shop where we buy and sell vintage muscle from the late 60’s and early 70’s and the back-ground music playing will be Three Dog Night, Doobie Brothers and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Except for long hair, double knit bell bottoms, Woodstock and Vietnam, 1967 – 1971 could be the greatest error of cars and music of all time. KT