Embrace, Quit, or Improve

The best golf advice I ever received was “if you’re a boogie golfer approach each hole with a plan to bogey the hole.” In case you not familiar with the term bogey, it is finishing a hole with one stroke over par.  Once I put this philosophy into place, I started to golf better.  My scores started to get closer to par!!!

(Please stick with this story even if you hate golf.  I will get beyond golf before it is over).

Let me back up a step. I’m sure; everybody has had the experience where we turn in the performance of a lifetime. 

Perhaps you have gone out and shot a round of golf about ten strokes lower than usual.   You walk away thinking you are the guy who should be shotting a 77 every time you play. 

Then the next time you play lose six balls and find taking solace in the fact that although you lost two sleeves of balls, you are a net winner because you found a random collection of 7 “new to you” balls looking for the balls, you hit out of bounds.

Granted, your “new” balls are mostly brand names you have never heard of with business logos from places you aren’t even sure what business they are in, you are still happy with your new windfall.  You almost forget the 12 penalty strokes you should be adding to your score.*  (See footnote below).

The brief moment of happiness you get from your better than the typical performance leaves you with a lifetime of failing to live up to your new lofty expectation for yourself.

I realize I’m getting lost in golf with my example above.  But the same logic applies to other areas in life. 

For example, we can apply the same logic to shooting free throws. If you are a career 60% free throw shooter and you make nine out of ten the next time you play, you are now a 61% free throw shooter.  You can consider yourself a 90% shooter if you have changed something in your approach shooting.  Otherwise, you can look forward to making about six out of your next ten shots.

Would you like me to give a non-sports example?

Let’s says you tend to make rock hard cookies or burn the cake, but one day everything comes together, and you make a “to die for.” dessert. 

I think you get the picture.

Many of us seem out of touch with who we are, frustrated with where we are, and our situation.  My experience when things go right, we attribute the results to ourselves, and when something goes wrong, it is bad luck.

So I’ve adopted a stress-reducing way to live my life, and I I want to pass it along.    

It seems we all have three choices.  Accept our current performance for what it is.  See ourselves as not cut out for the task at hand and move on to something else.  Realize we need to work to improve our performance.

I challenge you to make a list of this you are doing with your time.   Put each item into one of those three categories; Not cut out to do, happy with the current level of performance, and the things you need to improve.   

With the list of things, you’re not cut out to do, stop doing them.

With the list of things you are happy with your current level of performance, stop having

Anxiety over them, and enjoy them.

With the list of things, you want to improve, come up with an improvement plan.  If you can’t come up with an improvement plan, the item should move to one of the other lists.  

I promise if you try this system out, you will be happier with your results, and you will see improvement with several things. You will stop trying to accomplish the unlikely, and you will have a plan for improving things you have a realistic chance at improving.

By the way, golf is on my improvement list, free throws are on my happy with the current level of performance list, and baking is on my not cut out the to-do list.

*It is essential to note you do need to count these strokes when asked about your score by a fellow golfing buddy, but you don’t have to report these strokes when reporting into your wife.  A wife could think golf is a waste of money.  High scores might make her think you are a lousy golfer, and you should give up playing!  Here is a great chance to let her know you made money because you have more golf balls in your bag than when you left. 

Our 100th Birthday

On April 20^th Willmar Electric will turn 100 years old.  We had planned several parties to celebrate the milestone and the many people who made it possible. 

We have no idea how many people have helped us reach this milestone.

We know six different Chapins across four generations have owned all or part of the company.  Each of us has had the loving support of a kind and understanding spouse.  Many more of our sons, daughters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins have worked alongside the six of us as we have tried to make our family business something the entire Chapin family could put our name alongside.

We currently have over 140 coworkers who we proudly stand side by side with day after day.  But thousands came before us.

Our customers are too numerous to count.  We would struggle to count each of the individuals we have worked with at each of those customers. 

Our vendors and suppliers are also too numerous to count.  Like our customers, we could never hope to identify all the individuals from those organizations.

Nearly every project we have ever done involves several other trades.  Those other trades are an essential part of our longevity, and they have helped us more than we can list in this brief letter. 

We also owe a debt to many fellow electrical contractors who have to help us understand and improve our business.

We have enjoyed the support of countless business professionals: accountants, bankers, insurance brokers, bonding agents, and attorneys that have helped guide us to this milestone.

Numerous government officials, including inspectors and elected officeholders, have helped provide a cooperative environment where we could provide a safe product efficiently to our customers.

We have served alongside and benefited from many civic organizations, associations, and business groups who have helped us make our communities and industry a better place to live and work. 

Since we can’t put a number to all the people, it is hard to know where to start to thank this large group of people. 

Decades ago, we adopted the purpose statement of “People Making A Difference For People.” 

It is easy to understand who makes up the first group of people in our purpose statement.  We often get asked who the second group of people is we are referring to when we introduce people to our purpose statement.  With the second “people,” we are referring to all the groups of people we acknowledge above.

Every day each the first set of people works to live up to our purpose statement when we interact with each other and the second group of people.

The extended version of our purpose statement could have been, the employees of Willmar Electric making a difference for our coworkers, customers, vendors, suppliers, related business professionals, competition, government officials, and civic organization.

If you ever find us not living up to this statement, please let us know. 

More importantly, if you ever find one of our coworkers making a difference for people, please let them know, it means a lot.  Everybody likes to succeed, and your feedback will help our coworkers know they are making the difference they are trying so hard to make in the lives of others.

Sometime this year, when we are all allowed to come out to play, we are going to have the parties we already planned. 

For now, we are sending out this note to thank all the people who helped us get to 100. 

Did my 401k Tank?

I recently shared some very personal information with my coworkers.  They seemed interested, so now I am sharing it with the world. 

Last week somebody asked if I dared to look at my 401k yet.  I commented; it didn’t matter what today’s balance is because I can’t do anything with it for 8.5 years. 

(I don’t plan on retiring in 8.5 years, but I will be 59.5 years old then, and that as far as I know is the first date I could withdraw the money without penalty).

Another person commented on how this is a good time to invest because stocks are on sale.  True, but that doesn’t help my current balance go up, it only helps future balances increase faster. 

So, I am letting you know what my rate of return has been.  But notice I never just pull the data for one day, like the entire media loves to do. The markets hit an all-time high on February 19^th.  I was so excited I had a party and ate pie.   People walked around, congratulating me!  

But until we hit an all-time high again, your rate of return will always be a negative number. 

So go ahead and pull several dates and see what your rate of return is and I’m sure you will find sometimes it is good, and sometimes it is terrible.  In my case, most of the time, it is good.

So go ahead and check out your rates of return.  But keep in mind every day isn’t as awesome as my 51^st birthday.  So don’t use it as your only benchmark. 

This information doesn’t include the amount I have deducted from my paycheck or the amount matched by Willmar Electric every week. What you see above is just the return on the investments made on my behalf.

Keep saving for your retirement because someday it will come, and you will want to have as much money as possible on hand.  (But if you run a TV network only give out information that will cause people to tune in tomorrow). 

Puzzles over Books

I can remember when I was young, and the name of the town Abilene, Texas, came up. My Dad would sing this song by Bobby Bare.

Abilene, Abilene prettiest town I've ever seen
Women there don't treat you, mean in Abilene my Abilene
Crowded cities ain't nothing free nothing in this town for me
How I wish that I could be in Abilene my Abilene, Abilene, Abilene

I sit alone most every night watch those trains pull out of sight
How I wish they were carryin' me back to Abilene
Sweet Abilene, Abilene, Abilene
Women there don't treat you mean in Abilene my Abilene

Then I drove through Abilene. I have no idea if the local women are mean or not. But I can tell you Abilene isn't pretty.

My favorite part of the song is its length, two minutes, and thirteen seconds.

Last Saturday, during my wife, Sue, and daughter, Sara, pulled out a puzzle and started to work. I went over to check it out before I got started reading Simon Sinek's most recent book, The Infinite Game. I was looking forward to spending time making myself more enlightened. Have the rest of the house doing a puzzle was going to keep them from distracting me from my quest for knowledge.

It didn't work. The puzzle sucked me in.

A sign on the puzzle referred to Abilene. So, I pointed out the song. Neither of them cared about my song. But Sara, who is in college and majoring in psychology, ask if I was referring to the town from the Abilene Paradox.

I had to admit my knowledge of old country songs was better than my understanding of psychology.

She proceeded to fill me in on the Abilene Paradox. It comes from a 1974 article written by Jerry B. Harvey. (You should google it and find our more).

Let me give you the short version. In the Abilene Paradox, a group of people could all willingly agree to take action together even though none of the individual members of the group agree it is a good idea. The group just goes along with the "groupthink" because nobody is willing to speak up.

Hearing Sara walk me through this story was exciting moments. She gave me a name for one of the biggest problems I face at work. (While it was Jerry B. Harvey, but Sara was the messenger).

I was enlightened. Not by my book but by my daughter.

Eventually, I got around to reading my book, but I was sure glad I stopped to spend a couple of hours on the puzzle.

Things got so out of control, I said thank you and hugged Sara.