All posts by Keith Thompson

A Father’s Love

Family

A father’s love can be discussed in both the natural, and also in the spiritual. The spiritual part is easy to discuss because God loves us without any conditions and with a love that is so pure the Bible cannot even explain its true intensity. It is perfect in every way.

In the here and now is where it is difficult. I personally believe a child can forgive his/her father of all types of shortcomings except for love. You could have a scoundrel for a daddy, but if he loved you, there is the ability to move past his actions. A child needs to know that their father loves them. That simple. If you are reading this blog post, I hope that you have great memories of your father and great moments that will stand the test of time.

I have seen many adults that cannot seem to move on in life because they are trying to achieve something they will never accomplish. Having their father’s love. In my life, I have had a lot of great examples to follow as well as some bad ones. Everyone gets to choose the paths of their life, and what they want to be remembered for. I have some family members that will be remembered for good and then others that will be remembered for bad.

I can tell you that when my children were born, I knew exactly what I wanted for their life and the kind of father I wanted to be. I had many examples in my family as well as outside my family to know which I wanted to emulate. My daughters would know without question that I loved them and would die for them. They would know there was no holding back, no mystery, no reservations, and no questions. I choose to give my daughters an upright, transparent, and pure father’s love.

Many people struggle later in life because they either cannot forgive or they cannot forget their childhood. If you had a bad example of a father, literally the only way forward is to forgive him. Yes, actually say the words out loud by yourself, “I forgive you.” Then, take an inventory of all you are blessed with and made a decision. That’s correct, make a decision. Make the decision that the bonds of your past childhood will no longer tear at your heart and that you choose to literally walk away from your past; choose to walk into the life you want for your children. So many times people emulate what they see in their parents and that causes another generation to be no better that the last. Choose to be the generation of change for your family.

It is a funny thing, but the Bible says that love never fails. You know what? It is true. When you act in love, even though you may not want to, you will never have to look over your shoulder at something you said or did in the past. Acting in love is one of the most heart-healing things you can do.

So in summary, your childhood does not define you unless you want it to. You get to choose to make your children’s childhood great, and you get to choose to break the generational patterns in your family. KT

Sometimes the hardest time to sell is when you don’t have to

Career

I have been in hotel real estate for 25 years. I can count on one hand the hotels that owners should consider holding indefinitely and pass on to their children. All the rest of them are a commodity that should be viewed exactly as such.

I had a client a few years ago that could have sold his hotels at what I believed to be the highest value factor of all time. He was making good cash flow and made a very poor judgement that the future of those hotels would remain sound. A smart guy once told me that everything should be for sale except, of course, our family and our moral foundations. This particular client had a portfolio of hotels that were average at best and located in a market where new development had very few restrictions.

You already know what happened to this client. He did not sell his hotels and choose to hold the real estate; he ultimately lost control of his hotels to his lender and it devastated his company.

It is always too easy to sell when you have to, but it is another thing altogether to sell when you would rather keep it. It is in those times when the decision to sell should always be viewed on what I call the risk curve. One should ask himself several questions, including what will this investment be like in 5 years if the market changes or if the underlying economic fundamentals change.

In our hotel real estate world, the only thing you know to be true is what the market is today. I cannot tell you how many people make the wrong choice based on what they think the hotel income will be over the next 5 years. No one knows what the economic climate will be like, what interest rates will be like, etc.

At Hotel AG, we believe that sellers ought to be sellers when there are buyers. Simple, right? I ask sellers to put on a buyer’s hat and tell me what they see. At the core of the reasons a buyer buys, it is because he can get a loan today, and he can see some upside in his investment. When all the upside is gone and the deal starts tracking downward, it is almost impossible to sell.

I believe a seller should always know what the value of his holding are and always know a number that he would transact at. We were selling a Marriott hotel in mid-2007, and the hotel was brand new. We had a REIT (real estate investment trust) as a buyer and the price was in the stratosphere at the time. The seller gets on a conference call with the buyer and begins to tell the buyer how to run their company and really shows himself on the call. The buyer backed out of the deal that same afternoon, and the seller now owns the same hotel 8 years later; it is worth a fraction of the price we had presented him. This seller earned a master’s degree on what never to do again.

My advice to sellers is to recognize that the market cycles up and down and to make decisions he/she would be proud of if the market changes. Sometimes selling for 90% of what you may think the deal could possibly be worth in the future is better than being faced with a downturn and then having your options limited.

All you can do is to make the wisest decisions you can with the data you have, but most importantly, one needs to trust their gut and heart because very seldom are those two factors wrong. KT

Living in the Past

Life

I want to speak to you spiritually for a moment. Many people cannot forgive themselves for past event(s) or period of time in their life. It keeps them from moving on in life. The spiritual part is that if Satan can keep you living in the past, he doesn’t have to worry about you in the present.

The hardest forgiveness is not when you forgive someone else; it is when you attempt to forgive yourself. If an event or a period of time in your life keeps you from living your life now, you must make a decision.

A pastor I listen to quite often tells the story of a married woman that needed some counseling. They met and she started to tell him all her history about who did what to her, what was said, who hurt her, etc. She then told him all the wrong things that she was consumed with guilt over. When she finished, she thought he would give her a hug, tell her God loves her, tell her he would pray for her, and tell her that everything would be all right. That is what everyone said to her when she told her story before.

The pastor looked at her and asked her to write down a date and time she was going to “decide” to quit letting her past control her. He asked will it be 6 months, two weeks, 5 days or today? He asks her how long do you want to cry over the past. He said until that date and time, you can cry your eyes out and lay on the floor and kick the heels off your shoes. What he said shocked her so badly that it made her mad and she proceeded to tell him how bad a counselor he was and yada, yada, yada. He just sat there and let her vent. Somewhere in her venting she grasped what he was trying to tell her. The answer to her past was HER decision on how long SHE would let it control her. Once what he had said began to penetrate her spirit, she saw the way through all the living in the past.

Sometimes you have to draw a line in the sand and tell Satan this is the line and that you are not going beyond that point. It is a decision that frees you from your past, unlike anything else you could ever do. Forgiving yourself is one of the hardest things to do, but it is a “must-do” action that many people need. KT

Sometimes you just don’t get the job

Career, Life

Yesterday at Hotel AG, we lost a piece of business to a competitor. The competitor is a much larger company than Hotel AG, but it is never fun to lose. These situations are difficult to accept, but you basically have to understand that you will not be hired for every job or every piece of business.

The real issue is how you handle it if it happens to you. The carnal side of you wants to say something or do something, but in my experience, it only hurts you. I believe you have to just be a gentleman and move on. What many people do when these things happen is say something you can never take back; the result is it usually harms the relationship.

Last night when I thought about this, I had to put myself in the client’s shoes. Frankly, knowing all the components that went into that decision led me to believe that hiring the other company was the best thing for that client. Furthermore, I realized that if I had been in their shoes, I would have done the same thing. Ha. This doesn’t help if you are working up a good case of mad because you are basically siding with the client!

So, I had to just understand that God is in control and not me. In the movie “Rudy,” the priest says something that is very profound. He tells Rudy “In all my years as a priest, I have come up with two indisputable truths, one–there is a God and two– I am not him.”

I believe taking an inventory of where you are in life and how you got there is always a wise exercise. It is amazing how humble this can make you. As you look at the string of events that lead to where you are in life, I believe many of us can see the hand of God that has protected you and in many cases, kept you from situations that could have ended badly. I have this spiritual vision of God placing his hand on my back to help lead me through the door and at other times I see his hand on my chest keeping me from going through the door. When you make decisions, you need to know where his hand is.

Years ago, I used to get so mad when a work trip flight was delayed or cancelled. I was traveling with another broker on one such trip when the flight was delayed. He looked at me and told me that maybe it was God protecting us by keeping us from being in a certain area at a certain time. That shut me up pretty quick, and I have always remembered that view point since. I remember one day I was driving home from the office, and I was in a lane on the interstate that I never drive in. Translation: I was in the slow lane. Ha. Anyway, there I was in the slow lane, and I was at peace and happy just hanging out, listening to music, and driving slow. A minute later, there was a tractor trailer truck that blew a wheel off (and I do mean the whole wheel) and that wheel hit exactly in the lane where I would have been.

Sometime you just don’t get the job, but it is important to accept that there is a reason for everything; while we may not know the reason, there is still a reason. You might have to settle down and listen to the music in the slow lane for a while, but it will all be ok in the long run. KT

But by the grace of God, that could be me

Career, Family, Life

Have you ever seen people that are arrogant and puffed up to the point that they mistreat someone who is less fortunate?

I have always had this thing deep in my spirit that tells me to never, never look down or treat someone less fortunate in a way that would be unbecoming. There are people we come in contact with that are in need or have suffered disabilities, struggling financially, or heartbroken, and they simply need someone to look at them with understanding.

I guess I am really talking about elitism and an attitude that makes the person ugly inside.

One of the greatest examples of how to look upon and treat the misfortunate was Franklin Roosevelt, who served three terms as President of the United States during the Great Depression and World War II. He was not a perfect man regarding his marriage and personal life, but he did many things that he will be remembered for. He developed polio at the age of 39 as a father of 4. While they were vacationing at their lake house in Campobello Island, Canada, he went for a swim, like he did regularly, and when he got back to the house, his legs felt a little numb. They thought it would go away, but later found that he would not recover and would be paralyzed for the rest of his life from the waist down.

Ask yourself what you would have done if you became paralyzed at age 39. Hard to imagine isn’t it? Would you just give up?

He went on to become President of the United States during the worst economic cycle the nation had ever experienced; he lead the United States through WWII and held America together. He refused to let polio determine his life and control what he could and could not do.

The main point of this blog is that during the Great Depression, when families were starving and the poor were everywhere, he got together his people and told them something that was life-altering. He told them to go out into the community and meet with many of the poor, unfortunate, and homeless and to bring him back a report on the results. He told them that when they saw these people and the condition their lives are in, to treat them with respect; to realize in their heart, but by the grace of God that it could be their own family. He told them if anyone was caught mistreating these people, they would find themselves out of work, just like them.

If you have a moment, please read the paragraph above again and let that sink into your spirit of what a life-changing direction he gave to those who worked for him.

If we looked at others with this same frame of mind, it would do us well to remember this. In my own life, having no formal education and stuttering when I talk, I can tell you without question and without hesitation, but by the grace of God, that could be me and my family.

Think about where you are, where you live and what you have; my suggestion is to never forget how you got there and never take it for granted because like the people in the story above, but for the grace of God, that could be you. KT