People will race to beat the red light with every ounce of strength they can muster. They will do so with little regard for the safety of others. It’s almost as though the instant they shut themselves off in their car or minivan, everyone else outside of that little met

If today is the last day on Earth, what would you do? Apply this train of thought to your day-to-day activities and see what happens. As I’ve drilled into your head by now, you are the only you that will ever exist. There may be people with your same name, there may be people who could be your twin, but your capabilities, interests, and choices will always set you apart from anyone and everyone else. That makes you unique.

Fortune is defined by a culmination of wealth and resources or simply luck influenced by external sources. Well, it doesn’t take fortune to make a fortune. It takes hard work, so when I tell you to make your own fortune, I’m telling you to make your own luck--that’s what will bring you success.

Life beats you down, you need to dust yourself off, shine your shoes, and get back out there. You take enough punishment from others and life itself, so even if you distance yourself from your naysayers, you can never outrun yourself. Take a moment each morning to look in the mirror and realize that you make a difference.

It’s important to give yourself the same respect you need to be giving others. It’s also crucial that you remember that while you’re not perfect, your value comes in the fact that you will be the only you to ever exist. That alone makes you unique, filled with unlimited potential. Respect your boundaries, respect your goals, and respect your integrity.

Suffice it to say, to be a man is almost to endure a shame so great that it eclipses any feeling of achievement or accomplishment. The merit of the self is lost in a sea of collected ire towards a faceless patriarchy. With the blame allotted, there’s no need to take personal responsibility when you can blame the nearest man for your latest misfortune.

As you get older, you start being able to look back through time. Back in Texas, I had the chance to pass by our old house and places we remember very well. It’s amazing how much water has gone under the bridge.

Without making decisions and choices that actively support our pursuits and help further our achievements, we face the treadmill effect--where we can make efforts, but ultimately we get nowhere as we set ourselves back.

There are two kinds of people in life, those who build you up and encourage you, and those who try to keep you grounded with their healthy dose of reality. They may tell you that “you can’t do _____,” out of fear of your failure rather than the desire to see you not succeed, but the effect is the same.

I genuinely make efforts to be a kind, considerate, and thoughtful person. In trying to be a nice person, I admit I’ve been stepped on and burned for my efforts to be nice, but by doing so I set myself apart from those who practice more unsavory methods. If you run your business with the mindset to treat your employees, partners, and customers with the same degree of kindness and integrity, you’ll create a reputation for yourself that will not go unnoticed.

It wasn’t long before my dad told me it was time to get a real job. I got an interview with this lumber company, Stripling Blake. Finally got a job there, took about a month. My official first job with that company was called “yard dog.” I packed concrete, stacked wood. It took a strong back and a weak mind. I went from packing supplies to being the youngest outside salesman by the time I was 21. It’s okay to start at the bottom. What’s important is where you want to go and how hard you’re willing to work to get there. Look at where you are now, and then look at where you want to be. No matter how steep the climb, this journey doesn’t start with you lingering in bed. Shine your shoes, put on your try-hard pants, and get to work.

Ultimately, if you like firing people then you’ve got bigger issues. It’s an interesting thought process, we push longer than we should, letting the problems stack up and making it more difficult than it needs to be in the long run. We put it off, like going to the doctor, hoping that time alone will make it better when that rarely ends up being the case.

I’ve kept this saying going strong over the years. One, drinking enough water to rival the ocean and two, if you’ve been following along with my blogs or know me at all, you’ll realize work ethic is one of the most important things to me. As a society, we are constantly dehydrated; everyone could stand to drink more water. It’s self-explanatory.

Someone asked me what the hardest part of being in business is. I thought for a moment. There are plenty of challenging things such as: customers, banks, the occasional coworker, but I would have to say for me is honestly getting up in the morning. Waking up, dusting off your shoes and shining your shoes, and heading out into the beat down of life, it becomes a whole different game—one that isn’t easy to win.

Haste makes waste--something you learn quickly in the manufacturing world. If you underperform and overcommit, you’ll find yourself in a costly bind. If you have a poor set of plans or inaccurate details, you may find yourself rushing when you’re days, weeks behind. I have beaten this drum for years. Slow and right is better than fast and wrong.

You may find yourself in a meeting where someone will be constantly chomping at the bit to share facts and statistics, and with these facts and statistics comes the unfortunate realization that more often than not, these individuals are regurgitating information they’ve pulled from a pamphlet or an article somewhere. The legitimately intelligent people are listening, watching, and observing and making the effort to learn more. These people don’t need to show off or flex their intellect; they’ve been out there in the trenches of their respective fields. Talking to them always yields a great deal more information than the types to stand in a meeting and pontificate the day away with fact after fact.

Fear of failure serves a purpose that most don’t credit it with, and that is imbuing in the fearful a will to survive. In the turbulence of the economy around 2008 through 2012, I met with several bankruptcy attorneys and other local business owners who told me I was done. As I struggled with trying to figure out what on earth I needed to do, I came to the resounding conclusion that no matter what it took, what cost, I would soldier on. If I go bankrupt I go bankrupt, if garbage is spilling over the side, it all stinks.

This story centers particularly on the events surrounding an issue I was having with a job site. One of the gentlemen working for me got on the phone with me and I just tore into him over some of the problems we were having. He was a nice, older man, and usually did a good job. He ended up being a long-term placement of mine, really a great guy, and he just took this abuse. I didn’t cuss at him, but I was entirely condescending. It wasn’t ten minutes later when he knocked at my door and asked if he could speak to me. He wasn’t nasty at all, just as calm and collected as can be. He says, “I don’t have a problem with you yelling at me, but don’t ever yell at me on the phone. If you have a problem with me, we can work it out face to face, but anyone can be a badass on the phone.” That always stuck with me, what a great life lesson that ended up being.

People take things out of context, it’s important to consider how someone might respond to your messages if they have a habit of misunderstanding or maybe they don’t know you that well. You don’t want to have to turn around and apologize every time someone misunderstands. Nothing excuses actual nastiness from an email.

Some may think that having these secrets--this insider information increases their status or worth. No, it’s just dishonest. Anything not belonging to you, any great business idea shared with you is not yours to share. Over the last several decades, I’ve really learned to appreciate people who keep their mouths shut and the lost art of keeping my own mouth shut.