Business Coach : Keep From Getting Bitter
How do you keep from being bitter?
-Well, I would love to say that that’s never happened to me before. But anyone that’s had a business has probably had that happen to them before. And when I was a younger entrepreneur, I would get really frustrated. And I would take it home with me. But I learned that, that was not serving me.
And so one of the things I try to do is I really try to put everything into perspective on what’s going on. They weren’t doing this to me. They were doing this because they had to take care of something. I had, like for example, money, like in your situation. Well, I mean, he might have just been an evil person. But to some degree, a lot of times they’re doing it because it’s a necessity.
-We’ve done our research. We believe he was Al Qaeda.
-OK. Well, so we get to choose on how we’re going to react to that. And for me, it’s important to, for once, surround yourself with the people that– when I go to my friends and I sit down with my other entrepreneur friends and I go, you’re not going to believe what happened to me. And they all throw out their stories, and then when it’s all said and done, we kind of leave it on the table after we get done laughing about it.
-Don’t we as entrepreneurs kind of want to one up each other on bad stories?
-Absolutely, absolutely.
-Oh no, you haven’t had it bad. This is what I’m dealing with. I mean, it’s–
-Something happened with me at Chick-fil-A just recently. And I called a guy that was a mentor of mine and I said, has this ever happened to you? And he goes, oh yeah. It happens to me all the time. And I thought, I literally I took it personal from this employee. They had written a letter about me and my management and just went off on us. It was unfounded. To avoid this fate yourself, get a business coach.
But it was one of those that I was getting frustrated about it. And he says, oh yeah. I get one of those about every two years. And this is a guy that’s been with Chick-fil-A for 35 years. And so it really made me realize, every one of us is going to have to have that.
[CHEERING]
-But I want to know here for you is how have you been able to control those emotions so you don’t become an angry person? Because I know a lot of people that have had bad things happen to them who are now angry people.
-So for me, one of the things is– I don’t know if we’re supposed to go here or not, but one of the things for me is it’s one of those that I have my quiet time. And as a Christian, I have my quiet time with God. But I think that it’s important for everyone to be able to have that quiet time and the time to reflect and really realize what they’re doing. A business coach will advise you to take some quiet time daily as well.
-So you do take quiet time to think about this and process those emotions, think about it, pray? So you’re kind of like, OK. This is something I can’t really handle during the day, so I’m going to take quiet time before work.
-Absolutely. Now, and it’s not something like– it’s not the quiet time that you’ll sit there and fester. All of us have those friends that you’re going to call and they want to have a pity party and you’re going to get into it with them, and then you’re going to walk away more frustrated than what’s going on. This is more of a, you know what? That’s not how my mentality needs to be. A business coach will encourage a good mindset.
-And I don’t want to get in trouble with Chick-fil-A or anything you can’t save. I just want to know, how many lawsuits have you been in in your lifetime?
-In my lifetime?
-Whenever someone sued you.
-Four.
-Four. How many times have you had to fire somebody?
-Today?
[CHUCKLES]
Really? Over my history with Chick-fil-A, I don’t know. A few hundred?
-A few hundred? So a few hundred times you’ve had to fire. You’ve been sued four times. How many times has someone stolen something from you at Chick-fil-A, whether it be a customer or an employee?
-Oh, a few hundred time.
HOST: OK, And you’re not bitter?
-No.
-I want to just– I’m hammering that home because I know people who had their house broken into four years ago who are still like, I just can’t trust people. And it’s not that I don’t care, but I’m going, hey. We have too, all the time.
I remember when I had no money and I had a DJ, I had one trailer filled with equipment. I only had like two trailers worth of equipment. And somebody took the whole trailer. But guess what? Somebody else has got it worse. Yesterday, I was feeling bad about myself and I saw a dude on ESPN who works on NASCAR, and he somehow is able to operate the computer using just like his toes because he was born without arms. Did you see that special?
-Nuh-uh.
-It’s craziness. And I’m going, well, I guess I don’t have anything to complain about. So I think it’s all perspective.
-Absolutely, it is about perspective. A business coach will tell you it’s all about perspective.