Category Archives: Career

I will see the goodness of the Lord in the here and now

Career, Family, Life

My oldest daughter, Lanie Beth, shared a scripture with me that is really really powerful. The passage is Psalm 27:13. In the New International Version it reads, “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

Translation, “I will see” the goodness of the Lord in the “here and now”

So many people go to church all their lives and only expect to see God’s hand and his goodness when they die. This passage says that I will see it, meaning while I am alive in the here and now.

In Psalms 23, it says in verse 5 that “he will prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Well, your enemies are not in heaven rather they are right here on earth in the living. Get the image of the Lord preparing a table/feast for only you in front of the people that mean you harm while they have to watch. Your enemies will know that God is with you.

In Malachi 3:10 &11, says “If you are a tither, he will rebuke the devourer for your sakes.” This means if you are a tither, God will have your back and rebuke and handle those people who try to bring you harm.

I heard a Wall Street portfolio fund manager say during an interview that tithing was the best investment you will ever make. I believe this is true. The bible speaks to people that make money and lose money as though they had holes in their pockets. I believe tithing is the umbrella of God that will cover you over a life span. It doesn’t mean you will always make the right decision and never make a mistake, rather it means that in your later years you will look back on your life and see that God was with you and your decisions more times than not and that he protected and insulated you.

All three of these passage speaks to God being involved in our lives in the here and now and not just when we get to heaven. He loves you as a father and wants the best for you and your family but he will not force himself into your life, rather he will wait for you to call on him. KT

Putting on the dog

Career, Life

In the Deep South there is a term called “putting on the dog.” This term means before someone comes to visit or before I meet someone, I am going to wear the nice clothes I have and clean the house or the office. In other words I am going to impress these people. It is similar to the term “putting on the Ritz” but somehow in the south the word Ritz and dog got switched up. Ha

In the movie “Sweet Home Alabama” Reese Witherspoon’s mother tells the New York Mayor (played by Candice Bergen) that if she had known the Mayor was coming to her house she would have “put on the dog.”

This stuff cracks me up. You wonder where that saying came from. Can you imagine the first person that said that term to someone? They probably just looked at them and wondered, what is he talking about? Well the term somehow stuck (not with me) but with other southern folks and it means to do your best.

I think in life we should put on the dog every day, meaning we should do our best and try our hardest to be all that we can be. I am not talking about having ego and arrogance and wearing fancy cloths and trying to show off. What I mean is to be the best we can be with every person we meet and every task we undertake. If you are writing an email or a presentation, write it the best you can. If you are on a conference call with a client, really focus, prepare and do your best.

We have another term in the south called, “winging it.” Winging it is the opposite of preparing and doing your best. Some of the greatest relationships people have in business today were probably formed because they were not casual in their approach to the client. A client knows if you are prepared and he/she can see through a person that is winging it.

So in life and in business mentally put on the dog or in other words try your best in everything you do and you will succeed far more than you fail. KT

Race horses and plow horses

Career, Family, Life

My brother in-law Ted Phillips is one smart guy who I respect and love greatly. We were having lunch today and he said something that was very insightful and so very true.

He said you could take a race horse and hook him up to a plow and keep him in that environment and the horse would eventually think he was a plow horse.

The next time you are with the wrong crowd and you know you are with the wrong crowd, let this race horse image be clear in your mind. You need to quit letting yourself become the person you don’t want to be.

On the human side, it is about putting yourself in the right environment in order to reach your potential. I heard a guy say one time that you will be in five years based on the books you read and the people you surround yourself with. That statement is mostly correct, but God can and has done great things in people’s lives even thought they were in the wrong environment. Children have come from bad home situations and went on to accomplish great things and people have been with the wrong crowd and come through that time period to be what God intended them to be.

I remember some years ago that I had a set of friends from church that were not healthy for me to be around. They were complainers, they talked about other people, basically 9-5ers at work and they were lazy. I began to move away from them and began spending much less time with them because I instinctively knew that they were not good for me.

Let’s take it a step further and use some very simple examples we all know. If you hang around people who drink, you will drink. If you hand around people who do drugs, lie, cheat and steal, you will do drugs, lie cheat and steal. It really is that simple in life. This does not mean you can’t have a cup of coffee with a friend who is a bonehead without becoming a bonehead. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that if you desire to spend a lot of time and be around only boneheads, you may just find yourself one day being a bonehead.

Let’s do another easy lay-up. You as a parent are very careful about who you let your children spend time with. Maybe even your parents talked to you about who you were spending time with? It really is a simple thing to understand yet we as adults somehow believe we are not influenced by the people we spend time with. Go figure.

The power of association is a very important area of our consciousness and we all need to be aware of its existence and the quite hold it can take on your life before you knowing it.

It has been said that small minded people talk about other people, average minded people talk about things, and strong minded people talk about hope, plans, and ideas. I believe that is very true.

Ok class, it is time for the quiz on what you have read here today. Ha.

You know what I am saying. Be careful who you let close to you and your family and your children because it is very important to choose to be around people that speak of hope, plans, ideas, dreams, health and being all that God intended for them to be. So don’t look up one day and find yourself behind a plow when you really should have been a race horse. KT

Be Bold

Career, Life

This is something I used to tell my daughters when they were little. I remember telling them this before they would leave for events they were involved in, dates, try outs, sports teams and generally regarding how to live their life. I would even say it as I prayed for them. It seems that the term has become quite popular these days and used often in advertising, retail and even has been made into bracelets.

I was with a good friend one time in Maryland and he had a prescription that he wanted to drop off at the pharmacy to be filled. I asked him if was going to drop it off and come back later and he said “no I am going to get it filled right now.” He told me that many things in life can be handled much better if we act bold and give the appearance of what we expect. I thought about this while he in fact walked into the pharmacy and got his prescription filled within a few minutes. The people at the pharmacy just simply did as he requested. He was bold yet kind and polite at the same time. He just went in with the attitude of expectancy.

This is a fine line of life but a very true and very important lesson. If you have confidence when you start something, it usually sets the attitudes and the way things will go as compared to going in with your head down and shy.

The funny thing is that boldness comes from “acting” bold even though you may not feel it at the moment. It is like when the bible speaks of “calling things that be not as though they were.” It means that the way you actually feel can be changed by how you act like you feel. Let me say that again. The way you actually feel can be changed by how you act like you feel. Therefore even if you don’t feel bold at the moment, by acting like you feel bold somehow changes you to actually feel bold. It is a mental and physical decision rather than an emotional decision.

As many of you know, I stutter when I talk and I have been like this all my life. I have learned that acting bold and acting confident helps my speech. If I let my guard down and go into a meeting with my head down I seem to stutter worst. When I do to myself what I am saying in this blog, I am actually making myself feel bold and confident even though I may not feel that way.

Jesus Christ told us to “imitate” him and I can tell you he was never beaten down or felt inferior and shy. The opposite was in fact true, in that he was always bold and never backed down to anyone. So I guess if you need to imitate anyone, Jesus Christ is the best example there is. It also goes without saying that if you are a Christian, that Jesus Christ lives within your heart, therefore imitating him doesn’t seem like the wrong thing to do.

Be Bold in everything you say and do and be the example God wants you to be. KT

At some point you don’t have the experience

Career, Life

This was a statement that Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots, made last week in an interview. If you follow football, you know that the New England Patriots are playing in the big game in a few weeks.

What you may not know is that Tom Brady is 37 years old and has played NFL football for 15 years. In football years, a 37 year old playing in the NFL is clearly in the outside realm of age.

When I read the statement in the news it gave me pause because it is a very profound statement. It means there is a time when you are effective at what you are doing, and there is a time when your ability to continue being effective changes. I was reminded of this last week in Miami at a presentation. I was presenting Hotel AG to a group of 15 bankers in a conference room. I was doing what I have always done and about halfway through the presentation, I realized that I was 20-25 years older than everyone else in that room.

I may have thought I was still effective, but that presentation would have been much more effective had I sent one of the young bucks to handle it. I call it the magic years. What I mean is there is a period of time in your life when you are most effective; the real challenge is knowing when that period is still ongoing or that period has passed. I have had clients in the hotel business that were very successful for a period in their life. Some of those same people tried to do it again, thinking they would be as successful as the first time only to find out that the magic has passed.

So, the comment from Tom Brady was really spoken out of wisdom that he was at the end of one career and probably at the beginning of another. I believe the real wisdom is to know and accept changes in our lives and embrace the fact that there is a time to be effective in certain areas of our lives and a time to begin to be effective in others. I think of fatherhood and obviously my role as a father has changed to be more of an encourager, counselor, and helper to my children as compared to the role I played when my daughters were young.

You ask what my point is. The point is to know where you are so you can be as effective as possible without continuing to try and live in the past and on past accomplishments. KT