All posts by Keith Thompson

Superman pose

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It is common knowledge that we can physically make an action that will change our emotional state. This is a pretty deep subject that will take a week’s worth of talking to fully cover, but I will try to summarize it in a few paragraphs.

I heard someone talk about the Superman pose on a show the other day and it caught my attention. It basically means that while no one is watching, you strike a superman pose for 2 minutes before you go into a sales pitch, job interview, presentation etc. The physical aspect of head held high, chest poked out, feet wide apart and hands on the hip actually changes your emotional state.

Don’t laugh because many parts of this are true. Now I probably won’t be doing the Superman pose, but there is a real factual and spiritual truth to making a positive physical gesture even when you don’t feel emotional like it. It is like going into a meeting with a brisk step and smiling boldly and reaching for a hand shake, many times will set the precedence of the meeting. The opposite is going in shy, head lowered, reserved, sitting with your legs crossed and your arms folded over. It tells the person you are meeting with that you may be fearful.

The emotional atmosphere in most meetings and presentations is set within the first 2 minutes. I personally know that this is factually based and so very true. See, I stutter when I talk and the more confident I am the less I stutter. When my self-esteem falters in front of people, the more I stutter. Therefore, I have instinctively known for many years that I can fake my emotions out by making a physical bold gesture. It is incredible to feel your emotions about a situation actually began to change when you physically force them to change.

I know this sounds foreign and complicated and almost like a bunch of baloney, but please listen to me here. You can physically outsmart your emotional state by just “starting” to act (even though you don’t feel like it) positive and bold. So the next time you are going into an important meeting break out the superman pose before you go in. KT

Winning is not about muscle, it is about heart

Career, Life

In the movie Rocky V, there were two statements that are worth repeating. In the movie Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) is broke and has lost all his winnings from the other championships when he starts teaching and training this your boxer named Tommy Gunn. Tommy Gunn goes all the way to a championship fight, but fires Rocky as his sponsor right before the fight. The young fighter goes on to win the title, but everyone says he is not as good as Rocky was. He challenges and taunts Rocky to a fight and they end up in a street brawl to settle the matter. In the course of Tommy Gunn’s taunting, he punches Rocky’s brother in-law Paulie and knocks him down. Rocky looks at Tommy Gunn and says (this is 1st statement) “you knocked him down, so now why don’t you try to knock me down.”

Well, the Rocky music started playing and yep Rocky basically whips this young boxer in street and goes on to win the day and the hearts of all the people. It is pure Rocky on the screen.

The 2nd statement happened a little before the fight when his wife Adrian tells him “winning is not about muscle, it’s about heart.” Well, in all 5 of the Rocky movies he had heart. Ha

Why am I telling you about this old movie? Because winning is not about muscle. It is in fact about heart and it is about looking your opponent in the eye and saying gently, take your biggest shot. Your opponent could be fear, anxiety, self-esteem, and doubt, past failures, health or many other examples. More times than not, your biggest opponent is simply fear.

Having heart is the young father that loses his job and goes and gets 3 part-time jobs to take care of his family. It’s the young mom who will stop at nothing to protect and provide for her children. It’s the salesman that simply won’t quit. It’s the person when challenged to the max, pushes through to the other side. It’s the person striving for significance that just won’t quit. It’s the person that is handicapped or the person that just received a bad report from their doctors who says in his or her heart to Satan, “go on, shoot your biggest shot.”

In almost every company in the world the leading salesman is the one that just won’t quit and the one that beats down fear every day and just keeps going.

Sometimes we all need to watch an old Rocky movie because deep inside every one of us is the will to win. Most of the time the difference is the motivation. I have always believed if you can figure out the why, you can figure out the how. Finding the “why” could be one of the most important things you will ever do because that is the purpose that will drive you forward. KT

In business, there is only one boss

Career

Sam Walton who founded Walmart said “in business there is only one boss. The customer. He can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

I was reminded of this over the weekend dealing with a business situation. It is so easy to forget the most important thing in business is the customer. Without him or her, you have no business. All you have is debt, liability, office rent and employees you have to pay. The customer is the boss of everything.

That said, this doesn’t not mean that you should put aside your moral values and honesty. Every now and then, I have had to fire a customer because I refused to do what he was asking me to do. This is rare, but it happens from time to time. In the more broad sense of business, it is the customer that defines whether you will be in business or not. If the customer doesn’t trust you and hire you and or shop with you, you don’t really have a business.

Never forget that the way you feel when you call someone and get their voicemail is the same way your customer feels. The way you feel when you cannot find a phone number on a website is the way your customer feels. The way you feel when you call some business and the receptionist just transfers you to someone’s voicemail without telling you the person is not there, is exactly the way your customers feels when this happens to them. The way you feel when you call someone and leave a message and they call you back in 2 days is how your customers feel.

Many pitfalls in business would be averted if people would just treat the customer the way they wanted to be treated. So simple, isn’t it?

Carl D. Silver was a very successful business man in Fredericksburg, VA, who was born in 1925 and passed away in 2011. Carl owned hotels, shopping centers, car dealerships, retail centers, office and pretty much all types of commercial real estate. He was the most successful real estate investor in Virginia. One thing that always intrigued me about Carl was that we would return every call before he left for the day. It was just his thing. I would call his office and his staff would do just about anything to not have to leave Carl a message. I would just politely tell them I only wanted to leave a message for Carl because I knew Carl would call me back before 5pm. Without fail, I could set my watch for Carl’s return call. Carl did this throughout his business life until he was well into his early 80’s. This was a business decision he made as a young man and never stopped doing it.

The internet, email, texting, websites, social media are so available and so easy that sometimes people in business forget that the phone still works. Customers respond very well, even if you answer the call and ask if you can call them back in an hour. It’s the personal touch or the heartbeat of business that we never need to forget. By and large your customers want the same thing you do: to be treated with respect and gratitude for their business. KT

Football and Life

Life

To a guy, football is a lot like life. You train, struggle and sweat to play the game, but you love every minute of it and know it won’t last forever. You learn to play it as hard as can because the time when you can effectively play football will come to an end one day. Therefore give it all you have and don’t leave anything in the locker room and give it your all on the field.

Several statements by well-known college coaches are listed below.

John Heisman said, “Gentlemen, it is better to have died a small boy than to fumble THIS football.”

Bear Bryant/Alabama said, “I make my practices real hard because if a player is a quitter, I want him to quit in practice, not in a game.”

Alex Karras/Iowa said, “I never graduated from Iowa but I was there for two terms, Truman’s and Eisenhower’s.”

Bowden Wyatt/Tennessee said, “My advice to defensive players is to take the shortest route to the ball and arrive in a bad mood.”

Shug Jordan/Auburn said, “Always remember, Goliath was a 40 point favorite over David,”

Bobby Bowden/Florida State told one of his players, “Son you’ve got a good engine, but your hands aren’t on the wheel.”

Duffy Daugherty/Michigan State said, “Football is NOT a contact sport, it is a collision sport. Dancing IS a contact sport.”

John McKay/USC said, “We didn’t tackle well today but we made for it by not blocking,”

And finally, Lou Holtz/Norte Dame said, “Motivation is simple, you eliminate those who are not motivated.”

I don’t know what all this means in your life today, but I thought I would share these with you today so you can find some humor or motivation. KT

Coming out of your shoes

Family, Life

We go on this annual camping trip to Vogel State Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains every year during the 4th of July week. Elaine and I have been going as a family since 1981 and her family went every year when they were growing up.

There are very few traditions in our lives that mean more to us than this annual trip to the mountains. There are so many memories of my daughters when they were growing up and those trips to Vogel. There is probably 25-30 families that we know and are friends with that all go this same week. All of our children have grown up together. It is like stepping into great memories every time we go.

We have had many dear friends that have passed on that were a part of Vogel. Real heroes in our lives. One person in particular was Bobby Brannon who passed away several years ago. He was the glue for our group of friends and he was bear of a man who when he saw you, you were going to be hugged whether you wanted it or not. When I refer the term “hug” that is maybe a little understatement. When Bobby Brannon hugged you, it was full double arm wrap and squeeze that left no doubt that you had been properly greeted.

One thing that has been a constant at Vogel is nightly softball games. Bobby was always the leader in organizing the games and after his passing the duty has fallen to Uncle Billy (as all the kids call him) and Alan (Billy’s brother in-law).

The term “coming out of your shoes” started with the nightly softball games. The early game is always with the little kids and then the adults get to play from 7-8pm each night. The distance from home plate to the creek is only 250 feet and easily reachable for a home run. That is until age begins to settle in and your body doesn’t react like your mind remembers. When we were all young we would get up to the plate in the adults game and literally swing so hard that on occasion we would come out of our shoes. In this game you did not hold back and you went for the creek or even the campsite on the other side of the creek if you really wanted to show your stuff. Uncle Billy, Charlie and Bert (Charlie’s son) were always the creek hitters. Me, I was hit or miss (literally) but on the rare occasion was rewarded with a creek ball.

These memories and these friends are priceless to me because I remember each year and the memories from each year and I can replay the mental video of those times. The older you get, the more mental videos we all have of Vogel and the sweeter they become.

When we would play softball, we would often play in loafers (I did), sneakers, flip-flops and whatever you had on but on the occasion you would see someone swing so hard that they would lose a shoe in the process. Sometimes in life you just have to give it your all and swing as hard at the ball (or life) as you can.

These memories of Vogel become more dear me to me the older I get. Traditions are a good thing for families and children because they help us find roots in who we are and where we came from. Don’t hold back when you swing at life and just maybe you will look behind you and see a shoe you lost. KT