Iowa-Centric

I know that I have a tendency to repeat myself, but sometimes something comes up that is worth mentioning again, and this is one of those.  Today I want to take a moment to point out and be grateful for the way that people from the Midwest, and especially Iowa, treat each other.  In the same vein, I will give a nod of the cap to Maine, because when I've spent time out there with my sister Jaye, I've found Mainers to be very similar - they just speak a little funny.

In the last month, as I've looked for where my next passion will lie, I have run into some of the most genuinely nice people that you would ever have the opportunity to meet.  Folks have gone out of their way to introduce me to others and make sure that I am receiving everything that I need to move forward.  In several situations, people have taken time to come to a meet-up they suggested just to personally handle the introduction and ensure that the meeting got off on the right foot.  How amazing is that?

My family and I have moved six or seven times since the kids were born and we have also lived separately for a couple of extended periods.  Everywhere that we've been, we had the good fortune to meet great people and live in nice neighborhoods.  But in all of those moves, I knew I would find my way back to Iowa.  It was always about the people and the way they are interconnected.

I have to share an example.  My first day or so in this new endeavor, I had lunch with a businessman I've known for several years.  The meeting was scheduled before any of this change occurred.  I told him what had happened, and that I was exploring several options, including buying a business.  Without hesitation, he took out a pen, and on a napkin at the restaurant, wrote the contact info for an accountant and attorney I should speak with.  What an amazing gesture.  Now, fast forward 5-6 weeks to earlier this week.  My phone rang and it was the same acquaintance, wondering how things were going.  I got him up to speed, telling him that I've been working with his accountant as we look at the business purchase.  Then he tells me that he has been thinking about it and knows another person I should meet as part of my networking.  Today ... plans are made for coffee, all three of us, early next week.  This is true generosity ... Iowa values ... the right way to take care of people.

Now for the flip side of the way things work.  As you might know, I am pretty good in the kitchen.  Not brilliant, but I do all right.  Well, the day before Thanksgiving, I will be "lecturing" on sugar cookies at at the home of a man I met just this last month. I've never been to his home before.  How does this happen? As you meet new people and get to know them, all of a sudden there is a discussion about cookies and the next thing that occurs? Signed up as a guest lecturer ... on how to make sugar cookies.  We will have a ball, and trust me, I'll be making a bunch of sugar cookies between how and then. But that experience continues to point at the way that we are here.  We introduce you to others that can help your career AND invite you over to make cookies.  Like the sign on the way into my hometown said, "Just Naturally Friendlier."

If you're reading this from another state or another country (because the reporting shows that there are some of you out there), tell me about where you live.  I'll include your note in a future blog.  Looking back, about every three months something wonderful happens in Iowa to remind me about this topic, so send your thoughts and I will use them.

On a final note, I have to tell you about my daughter's twenty-first birthday.  I know she felt fully celebrated as the event went from about noon to the end of the day. Friends and family from all over stopped in to see her.

But, what I want to tell you about is a little place that we happened into on Saturday afternoon.  It is in the East Village of Des Moines and is called the Up Down: Des Moines Arcade Bar.  What a blast from the past.  They are a bar, but the fun part is that they have a bunch of classic arcade games as well.  I thought it was 75, but their website says 40, and it's only 25 cents a play.  If you want to play Pacman, Frogger, Galaga, or any of the classics, they are there.  And, to top that off, we got there for their happy hour. Two-for-one tokens.  Oh my, we were in nerd heaven.  So, next time you are in the East Village looking for something to do, I highly recommend Up Down.

Have a great week.

Reset

Many times we reach a point in our lives where we need to re-set the things we've always done.  I find myself at that point right now.  About 4 weeks ago, the decision was made that I would no longer be on the team at DMB Supply.  This came as a bit of a shock, but, we can either let life run over us, or we can get up and decide what will be next.  I have decided that it is WAY too early to let life run over me.

Now, a month into this, I'm here to tell you that I have learned some fascinating things. Well, maybe these are ideas that I have relearned, but they are worth talking about.  So, you are going to join me today as I do exactly that.

First: folks are just genuinely good and really want to help each other.  I've been amazed by the people that have reached out to me to give suggestions, or just a shoulder to lean while I'm in the middle of the job search.  Maybe it's just the part of the world I live in, but that's not all of it.  I have been astounded that people will offer their time and invest energy into helping me find the next connection, or meet the next person that may be the one with the perfect job.  The energy that some of these folks have put into this is amazing, and I will never be able to say thank-you enough.  I will just have to remember how wonderful they have been to me.  More about that later.

Second: if you ever wonder what the power of your personal network is, find yourself in a reset.  That is one of those times when you need to reach out to the folks you've met through a lifetime, no matter how long or short, and ask for their help.  So, what this really means for each one of us is that we should constantly be working on the network that we have in place.  Authors and speakers within the business world often talk about the need for, and the power of networking, but interestingly enough, they don't always cite one important facet ... it is fun.  It is a joy to get to know someone new.  I recently met a person who grew up in Southwest Iowa, half a state from where I lived, but as we sit here today, I feel that I know him well enough, that if we ran into each other at an event, like the State Fair (because everyone goes there) we would actually stop and talk.  I met another young man just the other day, who is going fishing on the Skunk River and told me about how people in Keokuk county were pretty protective of "their" river. Some things around Sigourney never really change. I know exactly who he was speaking about and told him to use my name the next time he ran into those guys. Networking at its best.

Finally - thinking about how to ever say thank-you enough to those who have stepped up: This experience has impressed on me - one more time - the necessity of paying it forward.  The people who are helping me right now will probably never need this exact kind of help from me, so it would be impossible to repay their kindness directly, but they get that.  In fact, they don't even think about that.  All that is important to them is that they are helping me, and when someone else reaches out to me over the coming months or years, I will do the same thing.  I will help.  That is what we do.  Honestly, it comes so naturally, and gets easier all the time.  So, we continue to take care of each other and be happy with the fact that we made someone's life better in the end.

So, that's what is going on in my world lately.  We are going through a reset and I have confidence that when all is said and done, I will come out on the other side, doing something fun that will let me make another company better and give me the chance to help others.  I remember back to the late days of Payless Cashways, when we were all working to help others land in a better place in the world, after the bankruptcy.  Then, when the last of us left the organization, there were a ton of folks that were out there ready to help us.  Once again, in the middle of this reset I find myself so thankful for the friends that I have, and the acquaintances that surround me.  Thanks so much to all of you.

One final note - my daughter turns 21 this weekend.  Do you just wonder where the time goes?  That is another thing that I'm thinking about today.  Send me back some of your thoughts on the subject.

Cascading

Does it ever happen to you?  Every single time I start a project, either at work or at home, it happens to me.  Are you curious, yet?  Let me explain with an example.  I need to replace a wax ring on the toilet in the basement of the house.  Simple enough, right?  Oh no.  Since I am going to have to pull the toilet I might as well think about what else needs to happen.  Well, honestly, I've wanted to replace the shower with something a big larger.  So I need to hire someone to come in, pull the shower, and tile the area for the bigger shower.  After all of that work is complete, the vanity will look tacky and need to be replaced. The paint on the wall outside the bathroom will be old and discolored since everything in the bathroom is now fresh and new.  Get the picture?  The next thing that I know, I am replacing the doorbell button on the front door as a result of needing a new wax ring for the toilet.  How does this happen?  How do we stop it?

Whether we call it creep, or mushrooming, or cascading, it just happens.  Keeping the scope of a project in check is difficult.  This is the same whether at work or home.  I really believe that it all starts with complete clarification of the project, probably best captured in writing.  The other critical issue is to make sure that you have the right people involved in the decisions.  I know of multiple occasions over the years when I thought that I knew the scope of a project, only to find out that I had been very, very wrong.  In starting to consider the downstairs bathroom project, I discovered that my thoughts had been less than complete.

The good part about cascading is that once you know it is going to happen and you embrace the fact that you can't stop it, you can plan for it.  If you take the time, and put the effort in, you will be able to come up with a very complete list of all of the likely items that will be involved.  In my wax ring project for example, I know that there will be demolition, some rough carpentry, tile setting, and painting.  Then come the items that I always add, because it just seems that they happen.  In this case, there will be electrical work and plumbing work, even if, at the beginning, it doesn't seem as if those are an issue.  So, at the end of the planning process, I can have a pretty complete list of all of the things that will be involved. This does get easier as you do more of it.

I bought my first fixer-upper house in 1989.  I was working at Payless at the time and thought I had all of the bases covered.  I'd been through the house, and determined it needed a new roof. I had gotten estimates and commitments from all of the folks that needed to be involved.  Then I bought the place and told them we were ready to go.  Rick Vertz looked at me and said, "You actually bought it?  Ah crap, I never thought that would happen."  The first morning, right off the bat, Rick went through a soft spot in the roof that we didn't know was there.  Twenty-four hours into it, I thought I was living in a war zone because of the way the place looked and wondered if I had lost my head.  At that point I was just beginning to understand the truth of cascading.  Four months later we completed that first project, but as only a good cascading project will go, I had also replaced a furnace and redone part of the main wiring in the house. I was fully immersed in my understanding of the process.

It seems that the best idea is to get comfortable with the fact that a project will go places you can't imagine and plan as well as possible for it.  In the end, hopefully you will end up with a good outcome and all of the work is worth it.  Most, if not all, of the projects I have taken on over the years have come out well.

Okay, enough of that for the moment.  I actually have a Toybox story to tell you this week.

Apparently I've become a collector of extraneous lumber and wood from the people I know.  In the last few weeks I have received two separate phone calls to tell me that someone has wood product they don't know what to do with and don't want to throw away.  There are those of you who are forever agonizing over animals that need a home.  You read about a rescue animal on Facebook and will do anything possible to reach out and help.  Well, apparently I am the same about wood.  I just can't stand to see it go to a "bad home" or worse yet, be disposed of.  If anyone is looking for a very nice bunkbed built out of red oak, or a 4X8 piece of MDF with laminate on one side, laid up to be used for the front of a cabinet, call me. I have both of these things.  I am the collector of distressed, or extra, wood products. Given time, I will turn these products into something else.  However, if someone can make a good home for them as they are, I would be happy to see that work.  Think about it, maybe you could use a handmade oak bunk bed.

Pickle Dish

Isn't it amazing how the tiniest moment in a day will bring back a flood of memories that make you really consider the singular moment and its relationship to those memories.  This happened to me this week when I found myself thinking about my Grandma Jo's pickle dish.

Any time we had a family gathering at my grandparent's home, a ritual was involved in everything: where people sat, what time people arrived, what food they brought to share, in what dishes they brought it (another story sometime), and the dishes we used to serve food at the "big" table.  I had quite honestly never thought of it.  I just knew that when we were setting up for a meal, you opened the sideboard and there were certain dishes used for certain things.

And then, in the late eighties a new person entered the mix - Sara.  The first time we went to something at Grandma's, the table was set as usual. Things were where they belonged. Though the dishes hadn't been filled yet, we all knew what went where.  About then, Sara came to me with the pickle dish cradled in her hands.  She asked if I knew what is was.  My answer was as sure as the rising of the sun - it was the pickle dish.  What kind of crazy question was this?

Sara explained to me that this was a crystal dish that had probably come over from pre-war Europe and it would be a shame if we accidentally broke it.  That completely changed the value of the dish for me. It went from a common pickle dish to something that needed to be treasured and set aside. So, with this new found information, I went to Grandma to ask if maybe we should rethink the decision about using this, now valuable to me, dish for the meal at all.  Grandma answered as only she could, telling me that it was only a dish, that we put pickles in it. She explained that if we didn't use it, it would have no value at all.  She went on to tell me that if it broke we would find something else to put the pickles in.  Okay, there was something to think about.

Since then, there have been a couple of times in my life that by many current standards, I had very little in the way of wealth or personal belongings, or even personal security.  I remember when we closed Payless Cashways and I was looking for a job. I wasn't having much luck and was so worried about things - money, the house, all of it.  But when I talked to my kids about that period of time, they said that what they remembered was that dad was home and they got to have hot breakfast every day.  Perspectives, eh?

Something in this last week made me think about all of this.  Not really just the pickle dish, but the conversation with my grandmother.  When she pointed out to me that if you had something and did not use it and enjoy it, there was really no value there, I learned a lesson.  It wasn't a long conversation, but it was powerful and I know that it molded the way that I moved forward.  I also know that there are times that it frustrates those around me.  Life isn't really about stuff, and the things that it is about should be important to you on a daily basis.  I know there had to be a story around that piece of crystal, but I never heard it. That wasn't important to her.  The importance that pickle dish held was when her family got together, they would used it to pass the pickles around the table.

So, what do I do with this today?  I continue to talk about enjoying the things and the opportunities we have.

Take a day and eat on the good china, or wear your best dress to the grocery store.  If it makes you smile, then why wouldn't it be a good thing to do?

I remember what this looks like, it was the joy on Grandma Jo's face when she finally sat down at the dining room table to enjoy a meal with her family.  It was the joy of passing the pickle dish around, not because of its intrinsic value, but rather because of what it meant in Grandma Jo's world.

A quote from Seth Godin in the last week or so, "Here's conventional wisdom:  Success makes you happy. Happiness permits you to be generous.  In fact, it actually works like this:  Generosity makes you happy. Happy people are more likely to be successful."

Go out and find some joy, even if nobody else even sees it.

Peace Officers

Depending on your age, you might call them cops, police, the fuzz, or pigs; but I call them peace officers and I think that we ask more of them today than ever before. I grew up in a County Attorney's home and one of the places I played as a child was the county jail.  When there were people around my kitchen table in the evening, there was a better than even chance that at least one of them was a peace officer.  When it was time for me to learn to drive, my mother didn't handle the duty.  She asked our Sheriff, J. "Bud" Wallerich if he would take care of it.  Bud taught me to drive by showing up at my grandparent's home one Saturday morning.  He loaded me in the driver's seat of the squad car, took me out driving for about three hours and when we returned he announced to a relatively panicked Betty, "Don't worry, he can drive."  This was the kind of relationship I had with the peace officers in my community.

The interesting thing for me is that when I was a youth, and did something wrong, our local officers reprimanded me personally, in private, rather than using the law. I thought that it was because of who my parents were.  With time and distance, I've come to think of it very differently.  I believe that it was because they knew me as a person, a relatively responsible young person. Because of that, if I found myself in a bit of a jam, they helped me out.  Now (and remember I am a child of the 60s and 70s), if I had been out marching, protesting and throwing rocks, and these same people knew that, I am pretty sure their treatment would have been different.  Aren't we all like that? If someone treats us with disrespect, it jaundices the way we think about them.

So, you may ask me what led me to these thoughts today.  There have been a couple of things that I heard lately.  First, a story about a little girl, who when asked what she was going to be when she grew up, her answer was, "In jail."  Wow. She's only known the dark side of life. The second thing was a plea to tell our children that police were to be trusted and were our friends.  I was blown away by both of these, thinking that this really is the way we are training our children.  When I grew up, you always knew that if you were in trouble, you could find a peace officer and they would help make things better.

Not so very long ago, when soldiers returned from overseas, they were jeered at and even spit upon.  Fortunately those days are behind us.  Now, generally, if someone sees a soldier they look at them with respect.  It is not uncommon to be in a plane and see someone in first class offer their seat to a traveling military person.  I've seen this twice in my own travels over the last year or so.  During the same time, the way that we treat our peace officers seems to have gone the other way.  We don't treat these people with the respect they deserve and then wonder why they don't live up to the standards we want to hold them to.  One activity feeds the other and we need to break out of the cycle we have begun.  In an emergency, one of the first people who will rush into it to are your local peace officers and we need to appreciate that now ... when they do it ... and afterwards.  

The next time you are at HyVee and one of the members of the local force is eating lunch, smile and say hello.  Talk to your kids about them being the "good guys" and people you can count on. Show your kids what respect looks like. It will be amazing how that will actually help to make it even truer than it is today.  It only takes a little change to start making a big difference.

In honor of TBT, I am including a picture of Bud Wallerich.  He is in the middle.  He is the man who taught me to drive, and when I was laid up with a really bad leg injury, he came to my house and taught me leather craft so I would have something to do.  Our peace officers still have this kind of passion for the people they serve today. We just have to help release it by giving them the respect they deserve ... as humans and as peace officers.

Holding Court

There are times I love living in a smaller community, not because things are all that different, but because it is just easier to see what's going on.

Today I'm thinking about the group of older men you typically find in a coffee shop, breakfast place or even a convenience shop - just talking about the world.  I like to refer to this as "holding court." There is always one gentleman who is in charge of the group. Others gather round, but he is the focal point.

Two great examples.  A week ago today, I had to run up to Shell Rock, Iowa, to meet with a customer.  On the way, we stopped in Albion because Brian needed coffee and I needed to stretch.  We stopped at the Casey's because, well, that is the only choice in Albion.  Upon entering the store, we encountered all of the things that you would expect in a Casey's, plus one.  In the back of the store by the coolers, was a group of about 5-6 men who had actually built themselves places to sit out of cases of beer.  They were in a circle and were completely engaged in the happenings and politics of the town. The person who sat the farthest back had probably arrived first, and was in charge of the direction and pace of the rhetoric.  I found myself wondering about the group, so on my way out, I asked the lady at the register about them.  She said that she'd only worked there three years, but in that entire time, they were there virtually every morning for a couple of hours. The membership changed throughout the day and had changed over the years, but the group was always there.  So, this must be a small town phenomenon, right?

Fast forward five days.  I went to Kansas City for a meeting and stayed with my son and his wife (okay, that is still taking some getting used to).  They'd been great hosts and offered me the coffee maker before I headed out the next morning, but I didn't want to figure out a new/different pot.  So, even though it is not my way, I stopped at Starbucks.  And what should I find at this relatively metropolitan Starbucks?  You guessed it.  A group of men sitting at tables on the patio having a very similar conversation to the one I'd overheard in Albion.  In the middle of the group, there was most certainly a dominant individual.  It was hilarious to listen to them, because the conversation was the same as I'd heard earlier that week.  Local color and politics and how the world could be fixed.

So, I have to ask, is this a universal human behavior?  Is it somehow etched into our DNA?  As I ask this question, I think backwards.  When my kids were swimming, they had a tendency to draw people around them to talk and laugh and be together.  Just like the men who came together in Albion and at Starbucks.  Thinking further back, I remember that I always had a favorite place to eat breakfast wherever we lived. In Lees Summit, it was Neighbors; In Des Moines it was Boswell's; in Humboldt it was the restaurant on the north side of the street in Dakota City (I can't remember the name); and finally, in Sigourney it was Jack's Town House Cafe.

I went to the Town House with my Grandfather for breakfast and he always sat on the same stool at the counter and they always had his breakfast ready for him when he sat down.  He had already worked the room, making sure to talk to everyone before he even got to the stool.  He probably perfected the concept of "holding court" while moving around.  And when we were done with breakfast, he always knew everything that was happening in the community.

If I stop and actually get honest with all of you, I might have to admit that I've probably instigated some of this as well in my own time.  In high school, we all sat at the same table in the same seats every day. We talked about what was happening that day and what had happened the night before (probably even MORE important).  Then in college, there was a group of us who met at the same time and the same table every day for meals.  There were typically others who joined on a hit or miss basis, but the core was always there.  If someone missed a gathering, we followed up to make sure nothing was wrong.

Maybe this is all the equivalent of the early tribal council and the way that information was passed from member to member.

So, do you suppose that this goes back to the time of cavemen?  Is this so ingrained in us that we do this to cope with life that comes at us?  Is this something that those of us who don't participate are really missing out on?  I have so many questions and so few answers.  I do think it is worth more research though and I would like to know what you see and what you think.  Let me know where you see groups like this and what you think they are talking about.  If you are the member of this type of group, tell me a little about who you are and I will share.  Let's get to the bottom of this cultural phenomenon.

It's Included

There are times when I realize I've been in the business world far too long.  It has caused some skepticism in me and worse yet, it's splashed all over my family.

The other day I received an offer from Menard's showing all of the wonderful things I could get "For Free" just by coming in the store.  Now, admittedly, these were all items you paid for and then after submitting paperwork you would receive a rebate, but that isn't the issue.  I will accept that full rebates equal "free."  But, and here comes the skeptic, I just don't believe that free always means free. You see, I know that someone somewhere did the math for Menard's and calculated the percentage of people who will purchase those items yet never return the rebate paperwork.  Additionally, they've crunched numbers to determine how many extra people this advertising will drive to the store and how much extra those people will spend. They probably even think they know how many new ideas those people will get and then need to come back to the store to satisfy those "needs".  Free. Sure it is.

These things are not free, they are included.  Built somewhere into the overhead of the organization and in the way that they come to market, the cost of the items given away is offset by perfectly good money we have already given them, even if we have no intention to do so.

The most perfect example is the box of facial tissues on the bedside stand in the hospital.  I dare you to look through the itemized bill the hospital will give you (on request, mind you) and find the line item that calls out the amount charged for this box of tissues.  It won't be there.  But in between the lines that you can read, buried in a higher price for something else or some type of overhead, the cost of that box of tissues is buried.  But in just as real a way as if they charged you for it, the hospital is getting the money out of you for this item.

So my family now jokes about this.  It is not free ... it's included.  This has become a kind of a rallying cry for us and it is amazing how many times this has come into play.  You are in a restaurant that offers free refills.  No, they have really just figured how many refills they think the average person will drink and added that to the cost.  You get a free buffet at the casino - do I even need to explain?  I know there are thousands of people who fight the crowds on Black Friday to get deals and free stuff.  I sit at home and buy what I need online and let them deliver it to my door.  And yes, I can hardly wait for the drones to start delivering. I know that I will be paying for that, but really, how cool.

We always need to remember that our nation was truly built on a profit model concept.  It's what makes capitalism work.  Things just don't happen without there being a profit in it, somewhere, or somehow.  Or, if they do, it isn't for long. Short of true philanthropy, there has to be a profit to keep things going.

Now I know this may make me sound like a cynic; actually, I believe it makes me a realist.  You always need to think about all of the things that you are actually really paying for and behave accordingly.  If the place where you are having dinner has free refills on soft drinks, make sure that you have many more refills than you believe the average person could drink, or drink water at no additional cost.  If you go to the "All You Can Eat Buffet," make sure that you do.  If a dealer of any kind offers to throw something in you really don't need, ask them for the price without the extra and make sure they know you understand that you would have been paying for that extra something before.

The last thing I want to leave you with today are those things that are truly free.  The smile from a spouse or a child when you do something nice for them; the tear that comes to the eye of a friend when you honestly show you are interested in what is happening with them.  The heartfelt thank you that comes from someone with an armload of groceries that you hold the door open for.  These are things that are truly free and given freely.  It happens every day, but so often they go past us without as much as a passing thought.  I would tell you to stop and think about them.  We live in a world filled with truly nice people and sometimes we need to just slow down and listen to find this out.

Don't look for the next freebie - it is really included; look for the next selfless act that someone does for you, and recognize the true value in it.

There, I am done for the day.