Hello everyone. Thank you for listening to episode three of The Blue Collar Executive podcast. I'm your host Lewis Taulbee, Jr.
Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on when and where you are tuning into this podcast. I want to talk about choosing to be the best you. Yes, it is a choice. Unfortunately, all too often we choose not to be because it's the easier thing to do. Always be the good horse. Some of the best advice my dad ever gave me. I'm going to explain exactly what that means later, but it's about always choosing to take the right path. Many a time that is the road less taken. There will likely be a few more rocks and challenges along the way, but I promise the journey will always be more fulfilling and the destination will be so much more rewarding. Turning 16 was one of the most anticipated and exciting birthday milestones in my life for two reasons. One, I could get my driver's license and have the freedom of the open road. Two, I was finally of legal age to work at a real business. The concept of work certainly wasn't new to me but being able to join the workforce with my friends and receive a real weekly paycheck with a real pay stub on it, well that was. I turned 16 on January 1st and was hired by our local McDonald's later that month. I only spent one year there but learned so many valuable lessons that I still use to this day. First thing I learned was I had a deep desire within me to be a leader. I remember thinking during my interview that I wanted to be the interviewer. My first day on the job I was fascinated with the manager of the kitchen keeping everyone on task from the grill guys flipping the burgers, to the bun dresser dressing the bun, and the fry guys dropping the fries and chicken nuggets while the manager up front kept the drive through and counter lines running smoothly. I was so sure that I'd become one of them one day that I slipped into the back room where they make the name tags. I pulled out the label maker and added manager in training to my name tag. I don't think anyone even noticed or at least no one said anything. I wore that name tag from my first day on the job until the day I left. I never made the rank of McManager within the McDonald's organization, but that job was certainly a big part of my management training for my entire career. To this day, I have a great respect for all fast food workers and I encourage all teenagers to do it. At least as a bootcamp. It's very fast paced work with little time to be idle. No matter how hectic it can get, you have to maintain a positive attitude and always smile for the customer. Most cases the customer doesn't smile back. I also learned the importance of teamwork. Someone had to take the order, then someone had to call the order back. A cook had to cook the burgers while the prepper had to prep the buns. Someone had to wrap the sandwich and someone else had to put the sandwich in a bag and hand it to the customer. Timing had to be perfect and there was certainly no room for a slacking teammate. From there I went to work at a local hardware store and on my first day the manager pointed to a skid of 55 gallon buckets of drywall mud and said to stack those in this aisle and I'll be back. When he returned about five minutes later, I had already completed the task. He stared at the stack of buckets like he was in disbelief for a moment. He then looked back at me and gave me the nickname machine, which is what he would call me for the remainder of my time there. I really didn't understand what I had done to impress him. Where I come from that's normal work production. I quickly learned it wasn't the norm for many. Some employees liked to drag a job out, screw around, or find a hiding place until it was time to clock out. I couldn't do that and continued to complete every task I was given as quickly and thoroughly as I could. Don't get me wrong, I still found plenty of time to screw around with my friends, but I always made sure the job was done first. It paid off. Within my first six months on the job, I was promoted to department manager. Not much responsibility and I think I only had one employee, but hey, I had earned the title. I was very proud of this accomplishment, but it never changed my work ethic. I continued to work just as hard as I always did, except now I expected my one employee and anyone that worked with me to do the same. That is still my philosophy to this day. No matter where I am on the ladder, I will always be the hardest worker. My expectations are high for people that work with me but are even higher for myself. As I continued to grow in the workforce at various jobs, I noticed there were a lot of people with strong worth ethics, but others were just lazy. They worked harder to find their way out of doing work than actually working. I'm not a fan of lazy people, but they never really bothered me. I just always felt the world needs winners and it needs losers. Lazy people always give me the opportunity to be a winner. By my early twenties, I began noticing that the lazy people got the same pay as I did and did half the work. In some cases they did less than half the work and got paid more. To make it worse, most of the time when the boss needed something done, he would come to me and allowed the lazy person to continue to do as little as possible. One day I was feeling frustrated by this so I decided on my drive home to stop and see dad. I said, dad why is it I do the work of two people most of the time and management allows it? Not only do they allow it, but they pay us both the same yet hen something needs to be done, they always look right over the lazy people and put it on me. My dad being a man of few words just grinned and said, son they will always work the good horse to death. He then walked away. That's it. He walked on out to his garden. That's the answer to solve my frustration and explain the way life works. I just chuckled to myself and thought, well that helps. Later that evening I kept thinking of his comment and then it hit me. I had to remember where dad's life experiences came from to understand the profound wisdom of his comment. When dad grew up on a farm in the deep hills of Kentucky, a horse was used for work and transportation. It served the same purpose as a tractor or car today. So what dad was saying is when you had work to do or a trip to take you went to the barn and chose the good horse. There may be five horses in that barn and they are all provided the same amount of shelter, feed, fresh straw, but only the good horse was selected for a job. The lazier horses enjoyed all the same amenities. They were allowed to lie in the hay all day and play in the pasture all day while the good horse was pulling the plow or riding someone into town. I called dad the next morning and said I get it. I understand what you mean about being the good horse but not sure where the advice is for me. Dad replied son it's very simple always be the good horse. Once again, that was the extent of our conversation. I have always followed dad's advice throughout my life and I am thankful for that decision. Of course, the easy path is always to be the lazy horse but look at what I would have missed. I would have never left the pasture. I would have never seen the town. I would have never experienced the satisfaction of being totally exhausted from a hard day's work. Lastly, I would have never experienced the personal reward of reaping the seeds that you sew. Proverbs 10 says lazy hands make for poverty but diligent hands bring wealth. He who gathers crops in the summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps during the harvest is a disgraceful son. Proverbs 13 says lazy people want much but get little but those who work hard will prosper. So if you're rolling out of bed every morning and going into a job where you're going to try to duck out and do as little as possible, you are missing out. Someday you'll make it to retirement and you'll get about a third of what you can't live on now and you may say well, that's fine with me. Is it really? Do you not think you won't look back and say I wish I had pushed myself a little harder or ventured once or twice down that road less traveled. We all have a drive to do better and to be better in our hearts. God put that in every one of us but he left it up to us to do something with it or ignore it. The great news is there's no starting point for this. It's never too late. If you're listening to this right now, you should think about taking a new adventure or pushing yourself to be better in whatever you're doing. Colonel Sanders was in his sixties when he started KFC. If you're waking up in the morning, God is not through with you. Every day is a new adventure. So always strive to be the good horse and I promise you will be happy. That concludes this episode of The Blue Collar Executive. I hope you found some value in it or at the very least entertaining. I wish you all great success and thank you so much for this listening.