All the Atlanta Hotel AG brokers have this thing we do when we sell a hotel. The broker that sold the hotel has to buy everyone lunch. There have been some years where we have eaten a lot of lunches together and then other years (like 2009) when we missed lunch for the whole year. Ha

Yesterday was one of those lunches together. I have a doctor friend who was also at the restaurant when we were there. His father is an attorney and in very poor health. My friend the doctor commented that he remembers fondly when his father was healthy and active, he would take all the staff out to lunch and it caused him to reflect on those memories of his dad. His exact words were “time doesn’t discriminate and to enjoy those moments.” My translation is “recognize that you are living in a gifted period because it won’t last forever.” Time will change your life and you may look back with great longing on what you took for granted. In short, recognize when life gives you a gift.

When I read his words in a text it struck me that the life we have is in fact a gift from God that shouldn’t be taken for granted. It should be recognized for what it is. It is a moment of life’s joy that you have been able to be a part of. There will be a time for all of us, when the phone stops ringing as often, the job ends and what you do every day is simplified.

Listen to me here. Even though your life may be complicated and even stressful, close your eyes and whisper a prayer of thanks for God letting you be where you are today. KT

In sales, the one thing to always do, is sale.

Every job is a sales job from working in a hardware store to being a nurse in the hospital. Everyone is a salesman of themselves. The objective is to find what it is you are selling. Is it your voice, your personality, your mannerisms, your intensity, your honesty, your work ethic? It could be all the above but make no mistake about life, we are all salesmen or saleswomen regardless of what our job is.

In any sales organization there is usually one main thing that needs to be kept the main thing. In every organization where humans are involved, there will be people that mislead you, lie to you, talk about you, try to hurt you, secretly enjoy when you fail, are not who you think they are and basically do not wish you well and success. And that’s just in the church. Ha. There are of course good people in every organization and people you can trust. That said, there always seems to be one or two people that are unhappy and they want everyone around them to be unhappy.

In every organization there is that one thing you do to get back on tract and to get past the past.

Hotel AG sells hotels and our lifeblood is new hotel listings. When you deal in transactions, any number of things can happen from buyers that back out of a deal, a seller that changes his mind, getting mislead to not getting hired. Our answer to the problem is simple, just go list some more hotels. That one step seems to be the insulator that cures all the ailments of the past. I have often said, the more you work on, the more you want to work on. When you have just a couple of deals you are working on and something happens, it can steel your spirit and your hope. New listings will always offer the salve to cover old wounds.

Let’s say you are a pastor. Your answer is to go knock on someone door. If you sell insurance, your answer is to meet with a new client today that you didn’t know yesterday. The list could go from ditch diggers to bankers. In every profession there is that one thing you need to keep in focus and never lose sight of. There are times at work where you just need to step back, refocus and go do the main thing. I heard a guy say one time that if your wet wood won’t burn, go get some more wood. That statement is incredibly simple, yet so very true. Just go get some more wood. KT

One of my very first jobs in life was at the Davis Brothers Cafeteria in Morrow Georgia. I was a dish washer. Davis Brothers Companies owned cafeterias and hotels all over the southeast. You may already know where this is going.

As a side note, I think everyone should work in a restaurant for their first job. It will force you to go get an education or better yourself so you never have to do it again. Ha

So me and my three buds are all either cleaning tables, emptying trash, mopping the floors or washing dishes. In the kitchen, the fryer and grill was right beside where we would wash the dishes. It took us about 2 hours to figure out that the fresh fried chicken was easily accessible to the person washing the dishes. Of course I never ate any of the chicken because that would have been against the rules. Right? Just kidding. I broke every one of the rules. Ha

By the second night of dish washing, we figured out that when the manager walked away, the freshly fried chicken was left unattended. I would fill a rack of dishes, eat a piece of chicken. Fill another rack of dishes, eat another piece of chicken. By the end of each shift, I had probably eaten 20-30 pieces of chicken. I also discovered that being the dish washer was much more advantageous to my appetite that mopping the floors. I therefore, became the best dish washer anyone has ever seen. I also ate more fried chicken than anyone has ever seen! Needless to say, when I went on my official dinner break,,, pause and laugh, I didn’t order fired chicken.

A couple of years ago John Davis who is the son of the founder of Davis Brothers, called to hire us to sell a hotel for him. John Davis is a great American and a really good guy. After we sold his hotel, we were talking one day and I told him about my chicken eating story at the Morrow Davis Brothers Cafeteria when I was 16 years old. We both started laughing and got a good kick out of the 40 year old story. I guess it was a good thing I wasn’t working in liquor store. Ha. KT

In our business I have met some real scoundrels over the years. We have this internal list we keep of liars and cheats we refer to as the boneheads. These are the people that are blocked from all data or emails we send out. They just simply cannot be trusted.

Abraham Lincoln said; No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar. Ha.

What a simple yet so very true statement. When you start with a fabrication of the truth, it takes a lot of memory just to keep up with all the twists and turns. Obviously when you tell the truth you don’t have to keep up with it or try to remember it.

In our business, there are several names that come quickly to mind of people I have met and worked with that I don’t ever care to see again. Sometimes it make me laugh at some of the things that people do. I remember one in particular who was selling several hotels to a public traded REIT. It was a big deal and one where the owner was going to make a lot of money. It was almost like he could not control the real person he was inside and just had to cheat and lie to get every dollar he could. The dishonesty he had was so strong and so much a part of him, he just could not control it. It was like an addiction.

The night before closing he pulls a U-Haul trailer up to one of the hotels and start loading all the supplies from soap to toilet paper and also tried to steal some of the computer equipment from the hotel. Ha. What a doofus. He of course got caught and had to bring it all back and I ask myself, why? All he did was embarrass himself and his family for nothing. He also insured that the buyer and Hotel AG would never work with him again. Was the value of those things worth the lose? Absolutely not. I guess when you are tempted to lie or cheat it is important to first ask yourself, is it worth losing my credibility over.

Your credibility and self-esteem are like a fragile egg. When you tell the truth and do what is right it is like adding a layer of hardener to the egg. When you lie and cheat it is like removing a layer of hardener from the egg. If enough hardener is removed from the egg (your credibility and self-esteem) the egg becomes fragile and will eventually break.

We all know what is right and true and there is very little gray area in life. Just do what is right and you will sleep better and have more joy in your life. KT