I was always told growing up that there are three kinds of people: wolves, sheep, and sheepdogs. The monikers should seem fairly obvious, but I’ll explain: your average human being is a sheep. The sheep being inattentive, oblivious, and just following the crowd is prey to the wolf--who wants the sheep or what the sheep can offer. The sheepdogs are the ones who watch out for the wolves, always wary. You can’t be a sheepdog if you’re not paying attention to the world around you. Pay attention when someone opens a door in a convenience store. Pay attention to your finances, your checking account and your cash flow. There’s no excuse for ignorance or obliviousness. You overdraft at a three dollar coffee and ask yourself what happened, well, you weren’t paying attention.

It wasn’t tithing, at that point we began giving what we believed we could spare beyond what it would take to keep the business and ourselves afloat. It wasn’t too long after when we had a meeting with BB&T, our bank at the time. I had great financials, a business plan, so I went in and met with them—they said they’d get back to me in a few days. Their eventual response—“Well Larry, we love your business, it’s doing well, but we can’t loan you any money because your cash flow is so poor.”

My wife has always said I am a very passionate person, the most passionate person she has ever known. She isn’t talking about the thing you may be thinking of, but if you’ve ever seen me eat, you can tell I am very passionate about that. I absolutely love food. I don’t have a real wide pallet, but what I like, I like. This can sometimes have a negative impact on my waistline and what have you, but the takeaway here is that when I focus in on something, I hone in with a passion most humans will never know.

As we explained earlier, with waves water appears to move forward, in reality little water is going anywhere. The thing about life is, we may think we’re going somewhere, we may think we’re going somewhere fast, but so often that is just spent energy. In the open ocean, friction is generated which becomes energy. It’s interesting how that fact is so germane to our life philosophies. This process is called transitions, something we in our own lives are familiar with.

I was taught this concept years ago, back at Stripling Blake some time in the 80’s. It was introduced to me as a management protocol, suggesting we invest in other people’s EBA’s (emotional bank accounts) by doing nice things, treating them positively, doing what we can to build relationships and morale. Another part of this touched on the subject of making withdrawals, when you had to request something of someone or you needed something from them. I began to apply this process, this concept of an emotional bank account to my life. I began to carefully invest in the people around me, most especially my wife.

I see that with business that loyalty isn’t a guarantee. You can work your nose to the grindstone and you’ll be dropped if you’re just a margin off. Pick up the phone and say, “hey man what’re you doing? I’ve been loyal to you and you’re taking advantage of me.” Take another look and those prices may have changed. I struggle with this because loyalty is deep and complex--it’s one facet of character that people don’t truly appreciate. If someone has demonstrated consistent loyalty to you and you take advantage of them, you’re not being loyal, you’re breaking a trust.

People only seem to remember that last order.  Maybe it’s because people can send an email or leave a nasty voicemail and it’s out of the way, dealt with. Years ago, things were different; you had to look a man in the eye and tell him why you weren’t going to get this next order. It’s the kind of situation that works both ways, in establishing that relationship between provider and customers. Life has become more about the dollar than about the quality for some companies; some people want the first class experience at coach rates. The problem with that is how unrealistic those expectations are.

As we sit and wrestle with ourselves, we have to reflect on what is crucial. So much of our lives get lost in a lack of perspective. We could have a great family, we could have a hard-earned job, but nothing takes away that sense of accomplishment and achievement faster than the cold, creeping grasp of past mistakes. There’s so much to be thankful for, even in the smallest of things.

Let’s make this personal, in a universe so great and vast, you’re going to be the only you that has and will ever exist. To draw even greater perspective, if we take the average of 100,000,000,000 stars per galaxy and the average of 6 planets per solar system, that equals roughly 6,000,000,000,000 planets per solar system, and I won’t bore you with the moons. The fact that your collection of carbon and other elements exists, consciously here on this earth is incredible. Just think about that in the overall scheme of that. It’s so hard for our minds to wrap around that.

There are plenty of times when I don’t care, and then there are times when I do. I begin overthinking things, begin to initiate that process and I realize that it’s my perception of what others think of me that is weighing so heavily. It’s not even known quantities of deprecation from my peers or strangers that cause this self-doubt; it’s worrying what others MAY think. I have to remind myself that I can’t know what they are thinking, and I can’t let myself get engaged with this perpetual circle of anxiety.

Look around at all this stuff, if someone doesn’t care; it shows a lack of engagement with their struggles or their peers. Where are their thoughts or ambitions? Should we care more? Rather than a brusque or discourteous dismissal, imagine if we took the time to pay attention to what’s going on around us and engage with our peers or strangers. Imagine what we might learn or experience.

I came up the stairs one day and see this girl, Kay, she was crying. I asked her what was wrong and she says, “They’re laying everyone off.” I didn’t have any real idea of what she meant. So I start walking through this sea of cubicles, and in a plant of about 125 people—it’s a good-sized lumberyard—that makes for a lot of cubicles. Being the low man on the totem poll, I had my space all the way in the back.