All posts by Keith Thompson

Perspective

Life

Late yesterday, a deal I was working on died. It wasn’t some career altering deal, but it was one that I have spent considerable time on. I was a little bummed about it, but I had done all I could do. It just failed.

My morning trek generally stars at Starbucks before I go to the office. Today I got there, and they must have been training a whole new team because cars were everywhere, and I almost just left and came straight to the office. I found a parking spot and was still thinking about that little deal as I walked into Starbucks. When I got close to the door, there was a car there with the logo of a Hospice care facility on the door.

When I saw that car and the logo on the side, I realized how insignificant money, jobs, titles and deals were. When you get to that point in the game of life where a Hospice is your next stage, all those other things just do not matter.

Perspective is a funny thing. It helps you place in order the important things in life. That was my little life lesson God showed me today. KT

Visual deception, spoof radio and the Ghost Army

Life

You might think that social media and fake news is a recent thing but let me tell you a story that you have probably never heard.

During World War II, the Army created a ghost Army of inflatable tanks, jeeps, trucks, airplanes, cannons etc., That’s right, rubber inflatable artillery fakes. They even conducted fake parachute landings with dummy soldiers they would drop from airplanes. The unit was called the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops division and it consisted of 1100 men that would put on a “traveling road show” that was designed to fake the German army into believing the American troops were attacking one area when the real troops were attacking another.

I know this sounds almost implausible but it is very true. Google Ghost Army and click on one of the videos and you will see what I am talking about. The Army staged more than 20 battlefield deceptions during the war, and all of this was very classified for 50 years until the mid-90’s. Regarding spoof radio, the army recruited people with brains and talent because their mission was to mislead, deceive and befuddle the German Army. They would transmit radio chatter and Morse code and communicate with fake aircraft that by all standards, sounded real, but it was all fake.

So, during the war the German planes would fly over an area and see US troops and artillery build up and the Germans would move their troops to that area and get ready for battle. Only after the Germans would move their troops to an area would they find out that the whole thing was fake. Ha. Pretty ingenious, right?

So, the idea that social media and network news agencies invented spoofing and fake news, think again. The US used it to win the war in Europe against Germany and to save England and America. KT

You know you getting old when…

Life

I turn 62 in a few days and you know (if you didn’t already) you’re getting old if you can start drawing social security. Ha.

I was getting dressed this morning and for some reason I connected my age and social security. It took me a couple minutes to adjust to the new information and then I looked at myself in the mirror and didn’t know the gray headed guy staring back at me.

I am on a committee at our church and the “legacy” group (senior citizens) invited our committee to have lunch with their group this past Sunday. We got there and sat at our table and I looked over the room and there were probably 200 senior citizens looking back at us. As I looked over the crowd the thought struck me that in 10-15 years, that is going to be me. Then I thought about how fast the last 15 years have gone by and I was like, ok, that is a wow moment. Then I realized that I have suits and shirts from 15 years ago still hanging in my closet and most significant, I still wear them.

My dad and I were talking one time about age and I remember him saying “man it goes fast.” When you are 20 you want to hurry up and graduate and get going in your career and life and then at 30 you want to hurry up and get that house you have dreamed of and start doing well in your career and start saving and enjoying family trips etc. At 40 you start thinking about money, finances, growth yield and debt and then at 50, it is like ok, where am I at on my plan and how are the kids doing in college and how many grandchildren will we have. So here I am at 62 thinking, goodness I’m getting old. KT

Getting beat

Career, Life

One of our main competitors beat us in 2019 in terms of dollar volume and number of hotels sold. They are also younger and better looking than we are. Ha

What do you do? Pout, cry, lay down in the floor or do you brush yourself off and get after it again. I choose door number four. There has never been an athlete or sports team that doesn’t know what it is like to lose. The key is what you do after it.

Fred Smith, ever heard of him? Probably not. He founded FedEx and when he was in college, he wrote a term paper on the idea of Federal Express and his professor told him the idea was not feasible and would fail. Walt Disney was once fired as a cartoonist because his boss said he lacked imagination. Steve Jobs was fired from his own company (Apple) in 1985 and founded a new firm called NeXT that ultimately merged with Apple and he became the chairman, again. Jeff Bezos once started a phone company called Amazon Fire and after it failed to take off, they cut the price of the phone to 99 cents and still failed.

Elon Musk was at the point of Bankruptcy when he started Tesla and they couldn’t sell the cars. After many failures, Colonel Sanders licensed the first restaurant to use his recipe when he was 62 years old. Abraham Lincoln failed in business twice and lost eight elections before becoming the President of the United States. Last one, Winston Churchill. The Germans ran nightly (yes, every night) bombing raids over London from September 1940 until May 1941. Talk about losing over and over and over! His “never Give Up” a speech will be remembered as one of the greatest of all time.

These type stories could go on for pages, but the central point is that in every story, there was a period of failure that helped define the person and their future. What if the names listed above just quit because they had failed? Just using Abraham Lincoln as the example, if he had not kept going after failure, the Unites States would probably look very different today.

Momentum is funny thing. You can’t plan for it or predict it. It just sneaks up on you and if you don’t make the most of it, you will lose it. Personally, life and business are similar in that there are ups and downs, mistakes, set backs and many opportunities to give up and quit. The key is to keep moving forward and never give up. KT

Historic Hotel Keys

Career, Life

Being in the hotel business, I have always been fascinated by old hotel keys. In the lobby of our office, there is a hotel key cabinet from the 1800s and it is full of vintage and or historic hotel keys. There are many keys (as best I can tell) that date back to the late 1800s and additionally, there are many mid-century examples from the ’50s and ’60s. In the collection are three keys from the historic Rice Hotel in Houston Texas where John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline (Jackie) Kennedy stayed the night before he was assassinated in Dallas the next day.

I also have a lot of early vintage Holiday Inn keys because I have always been fascinated by Holiday Inns because of how it was founded (the timing and reason) and who founded it. Kemmons Wilson was a small home builder in Memphis Tennessee with no formal education who came up with the idea for Holiday Inns on a family trip to DC. He went on to build the company into one of the greatest success stories of the 20th century. Also, I love Holiday Inns because for 29 years I have handled most of the hotel transaction work for the Wilson family (Kemmons Wilson’s sons and grandsons) and I just love the history and the story of their family. One time I was leaving a Holiday Inn and the towels were so thick I could hardly close the suitcase.

Many of the keys I have are from other countries and probably just about every franchise hotel brand over the last 100 years. The most comical key I have is from the Hotel Americas. The key ring weighs about two pounds and it is the size of an appetizer plate. I guess in the ’40s they had a real problem with guests stealing the keys.

So, the old adage about if these walls could talk . . . well if the old hotel keys could tell their secrets, wouldn’t they have some stories? KT

PS – the thing about the Holiday Inn towels in the suitcase was a joke. Just wanted you to think about it a little. ha