All posts by Keith Thompson

Be who you is

Career, Life

A country preacher once said something that is one of the most intelligent things I have ever heard.

He said “be who you is, because if you ain’t who you is, you is who you ain’t.”

Ok, class dismissed. Ha

So many times in life we are tempted to try and be someone other than who we really are. What the country preacher said is so very true and one of the greatest pieces of advice you can ever hear. Just be who you are. That advice is good in our personal life as well as in our business life.

The best I can tell, education can only take you so far. Wisdom and understanding is really what we all should be seeking. Education teaches you the knowledge of a subject but it is wisdom and understanding that allow you to know how to use the knowledge.

I like looking at the history of successful people and how they made it. The following is a list of a few billionaires who made it and never graduated high school. Not college, high school. John D Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Francois Pinault and Richard Branson never graduated. You know John D. and Henry Ford’s history but did you know the guy who invented Gucci, Christie’s, Samsonite and Puma was Francois Pinault who quit high school because all the kids made fun of him for being poor? Did you know Richard Branson suffered from dyslexia and quit high school at 16 and went on to overseen 500 companies? These were just a few billionaires. You would be surprised at how many successful tech companies were started by high school and college dropouts.

My point is this. Like the country preacher said, just be who you are. Education is great but the two things we should seek is wisdom and understanding. It is those two things that enable you to become who you really were meant to be. KT

The business of improving

Career

In business, it is not a good idea to think you don’t need to improve. We can all name countless businesses, concepts and brands that no longer exist.

I heard this business quote the other day that was spot on. After some research, I found it was written by Grant Tinker who is 91 years old and in the 80’s was the chairman of NBC. The tern is “First be best, then be first.” I might need to write that again, “First be best, then be first.”

If there was ever a business quote that deserves some attention it would be that one. So many companies want to be first in their market that they forget to be best. They put their focus on the wrong thing. What really makes a company stand the test of time is the product itself and how well the company executes the delivery of the product. Take Starbucks for example, the product is why people go to Starbucks because it sure is not their fast service or snazzy employees. Guests can overlook a lot of faults if the product they get exceeds their expectation. It is like waiting for your order in a restaurant longer that you should but when you get the food, it exceeds your expectations.

When I think of this subject I think of companies like K-Mart, Sears, Blackberry, Kodak and Lincoln, etc. who all had the lead on the market and for many years, led the market but somewhere along the line, they quit improving and quit growing.

At Hotel AG, I doubt we will ever be the best because the company would need a much smarter leader than it currently has. Ha. That said, our goal is to be the best we can be and to remain relevant as the markets and cycles shift. We can never be good enough to stop trying to improve.

If you have ever eaten at a Cracker Barrel restaurant you will notice hanging on all the walls are advertisements from business that for the most part, have ceased to exist. I call it the walls of shame. Ha. The point is that in many those cases, the owners of those businesses thought they had arrived at success and had a product and distribution that would stand the test of time. Well, it don’t always work out that way.

The best I can tell, in business, you have to have your head and heart in the game. You can’t be standing on the sidelines watching, rather you have to be in the thing. The quote “First be best, then be first,” is a very very good example of how to run a company. It means to keep your focus on being the best and then just maybe you will have a chance to be first. KT

Taking the mask off

Life

Many people wear a mask to cover up who they really are. Some of these people go through their whole life wearing a mask to cover up what they don’t want anyone else to see.

Have you ever met someone you know in your heart is the genuine article? It is so refreshing to see people that don’t march to the beat of someone else’s drum. People who talk, act and look exactly like they really are. People that wear a mask think other people can’t detect the misdirection. The truth is, God put in every one of us this thing in our spirit that I call the tuning fork. If you think of a tuning fork and how it works, once it is hit against something, it basically begins to hum a perfect key so the musician can tune their instrument to the perfect pitch of the tuning fork. They have been around for 300 years

That same tuning fork (metaphorically speaking) is in all of us. When you meet someone for the first time, it is that thing inside you that confirms or warns you that the person may or may not be who they want to portray that they are. We have all experienced this on some level when we meet someone new, there is just an easy or uneasy feeling in our spirit. If something is not right, it cautions you to be careful and move slowly. Whether you heed the intuition or not is your choice.

I have a family member and a friend that are both like this. It doesn’t matter what they say or do, there is this (I call it) invisible fog that surrounds them. In both cases, I love them but I am always on high alert anytime I am around them. If you can imagine a spiritual antenna, (I know it is silly,) but when I am around them my antenna is standing straight up and on full alert. It is telling me something is wrong and to be careful and move slowly.

I think the answer to this is to first get real with yourself. Get alone and get honest and real with who you are. Once you know who you are, make the decisions you need to make in order to start getting your heart and face in harmony. When you can finally do this, you can then take the mask off and let the world see and experience the real you. Once you are the real you, you will never want to go back to wearing a mask while trying to be someone you are not. KT

The difference between work and life

Career, Family, Life

Work is that thing you do to make money and life is all the other aspects and moments.

Seems so simple, yet so many people miss life thinking about work. I have always admired people who have mastered the ability to be mentally where they were physically. What I mean is, when you are with your family, are you really there or somewhere else in your mind? Be engaged when you color with your children or read stories at bedtime or just sit together in front of the fireplace. The term is to “be there” and I think that term says it all.

The invention of the blackberry to the workaholic was like getting hooked on crack cocaine. People in business renamed it the crackberry instead of the blackberry because people would bring it home and look at it constantly. The IPhone just exacerbated it with all the fancy apps, videos, texts, emails and Facebook etc.

Trust me when I tell you, when you get older in life, you will not remember all the work you did when it was family time. What you will remember is all the family time you missed while your mind was on work.

My late father in-law had the ability to turn it off when he left work and be fully engaged when he got home. I went fishing with him a number of times and I can tell you for a fact, when he was fishing, he was NOT thinking about work. When he fished, by God that man fished like his life depended on it.

The point of the blog post is to be there in the moments of your life. They are the things you will remember as you get older. KT

The essence of leadership

Career

The essence of leadership is summed up in just several key points. Get involved and stay involved with your business and your employees. Be honest, approachable and transparent in all your dealings. Do what is right and lastly, protect your brand.

These points are all relatively self-explanatory except the last one, protect your brand. We all have a brand regardless of your job, classification or status in life. Let’s say for example you work for one of the airlines. You are known by your brand, meaning are you a hard worker, easy to be around and an honest employee? That is how you are known and therefore that is your brand. Take the person who is always arguing with his boss, in conflict with fellow employees and just a general unpleasant person to be around.  He has his brand and it is not good.

A brand is what you are known for. We sell hotels and work with a lot of brands like Holiday Inn, Marriott, and Hilton etc. Each one of the brands stand for a different guest experience and a different standard of expectation. To change the brand perception is a very difficult thing to do and many times froth with failures. We had this local restaurant 15 years ago that had 3 or 4 locations and they were all these big log structures with a mid-market priced menu and very good food. Many times we would go there and wait in line to be seated. The owner really had a great business model and his average entrée was between $8 and $11 dollars. Fast forward 3 years and the owner decided that if he was doing so well in the mid-market segment, just think how much better he could do with higher priced items, fancier plates and a new menu.

You have already guessed how this story ends. We went in one day and there was no line and we thought, that’s odd, but went ahead and were seated. We looked at the new menu which was largely the same items but they were now $15-$17 dollars. Yep, his business died, the restaurants were closed and it was over, all because he didn’t know and respect his brand. He wanted to be something he wasn’t.

In summary it is critically important to know who you are and what you do well. In business it is even more important to know who you are and who you are not. Walmart is known for value, Volvo is known for safety and I could list 20 businesses with their own market perception.

In life and in business, be real, be approachable, and be honest with others and with yourself. Most importantly guard and protect the good things you are known for or in other words, protect your brand. KT