I started my career as a writer as a speaker…

In other words, the first thing I wrote back in the Fall of 1984 was a kind of “State of the Service Industry” presentation for the Equipment & Tool Institute. Having a “hands-on” person come to speak to them about the industry and the important role the right equipment can play had become a tradition. As it turned out, the person originally chosen decided not to take advantage of the opportunity and I was the second choice, or maybe the third: whatever the number, I was the backup technician who said, Yes.

There are a couple of things worthy of mention here. First, I was a very angry, frustrated and disillusioned 38-year-old technician with two small children, a house, a dog, a fairly new family owned and operated automotive repair business and a bone to pick with the ‘greater’ automotive service industry for all the inequities and injustice I felt I was being forced to endure.

Second, I had absolutely no idea what was expected of me. No one established any ground rules: things I could or should write about, and the things I shouldn’t. No one indicated there were any industry taboos – things that were just not discussed in polite society or public gatherings. No one even told me how long the speech should run other than to say I was scheduled for the hour before lunch.

Now, Me: unsupervised and uncensored, can be a very dangerous thing!

Left to my own devices, with little or no understanding of what was expected of me and less supervision, resulted in a presentation that filled the fifty-five minutes allotted with an itemized laundry list of just about anything and everything that was wrong with my industry: everything you just weren’t supposed to talk about and it caught everyone in the room off guard!

Their reaction was terrifying! There wasn’t sound to be heard in a room filled with hundreds of automotive industry executives. There wasn’t a cough. There wasn’t a sneeze. It was a silence lasted what felt like an eternity… And, I just stood there not knowing what to do until someone finally just stood up and started clapping.

Within a few seconds the entire room was standing and clapping, and I still didn’t know what to do.

When I returned to the shop following the presentation one of the first customers to ask how everything went was a clinical psychologist. When I told her about the standing ovation she just smiled and said, “Ah, hahhh! A Maslow moment… Your life will never be the same!”

I had no idea what she was talking about. I asked what she meant by all that, and she proceeded to explain a little about Abraham Maslow, the concept of self-actualization and the “Hierarchy of Human Needs.” Frankly, I still didn’t know what she was talking about until she said that the standing ovation was a “Maslow Moment,” and that I would be chasing it: trying to recreate it, for the rest of my life.

I told her that just wasn’t me, and that while I really enjoyed the moment for what it was: I really couldn’t see myself “chasing” it.

Cut to 2010, about two hours ago, and a presentation I just finished delivering in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, to a couple of hundred shop owners for a large warehouse distributor. Those shop owners were with me. You could feel it in the room! They understood what I was trying to tell them and they ‘got it!’ You could tell from their answers… You could tell from their questions… You could tell they understood by their body language… After more than twenty-five years, you can just tell!

No one stood: no one had to! That wasn’t why I got on an airplane and flew cross country. I’m not even sure whether or not there was any applause: but, there didn’t have to be! I wasn’t there for the applause. I was there to help other people who do what I do benefit from the mistakes I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learned… And, everything suggested that they heard every word of what I had to say.

It was powerful! It was incredible! It was moving!

Perhaps, it was a kind of “mini-Maslow!” But, if it was, it was one of the best possible kinds of Maslow experiences anyone could possibly have because I wasn’t chasing it, and it didn’t just change my life… It changed a bunch of other lives as well, and it just doesn’t get any better than that!

I like being challenged… Really, I do. And, there appears to be an infinite number of challenges to confront and overcome just about every day when you own and operate your own automotive service business.

I like multi-tasking – Yes, I’m a man who is not only capable of doing more than one thing at a time successfully; I’m someone capable of doing whatever it is I’m doing well as well, no matter how many whatevers it turns out to be!

I like hard work. I even like working hard. As a matter of fact, I prefer it. The day goes by much more quickly when you are passionately involved and deeply committed.

I really like the people I work with and the customers and clients who come to the shop and make my professional life possible as well.

I enjoy the relationships I have with our suppliers… even when I don’t enjoy them. And, I love the industry I am a part of even when I hate it: and, there are times when it feels as if I’m hating it more…  and, more often, than ever before!

In other words, I like just about everything there is to like about what I do; where I do it; who I do it with and who I do it for. That should make me a pretty happy guy! Certainly, a guy who is happy more often than not… And, I am.

Unfortunately, however, I’m willing to bet it doesn’t always seem that way… At least, not to someone looking in from the outside. Why? Because doing everything I’ve mentioned above simultaneously can be stressful!

Wait a minute! Scratch the “can” in that last sentence! Using “can” instead of “is,” can be misleading because it “IS” stressful. “Can” almost makes it seem optional and it isn’t. Consequently, there can be no “can” about it!

If I seem a little stressed at the moment it’s only because I am. I got home late after a long afternoon where even I’m not sure what I was doing beyond whatever it was I had to. And, while I think I may have gotten it all done: getting it all done within the time frame in which it had to be done did not come without a price and that price is the way I feel right now!

I’m not whining about it… It’s the path I’ve chosen. I just wish the walk wasn’t as brisk at times. That way I might be able to get a handle on where I am and where I’m headed. OK, that’s a bit of an exagerration.  I do know where I’m headed: it’s the distractions along the way – the detours, potholes and roadblocks that make me nuts! That, and the fact that you can’t see very much when you’re working that hard and moving that fast. And, that’s where loving what you’re doing and who you are doing it for becomes critical, because you couldn’t survive on a constant diet of stress; at least, not for very long. There have to be moments of quiet coupled with moments of clarity. There has to be an abundance of satisfaction. Otherwise, all the “other stuff” would eat you alive.

So, if I seem distracted at times or I begin to act erratically; if I appear tense or driven, or it seems I’m moving in too many different directions at the same time, or it looks like I’m doing too much, it’s only because I am or I have. If it looks as if I don’t know where I’m going, if only for a moment: it’s probably because I don’t… for that particular moment. But, that’s OK… if only for the moment.

I know where I’m going. I’m moving out. I’m moving forward. I’m moving up. How do I know? Because up is the only direction you can go when you like what you do, who you do it with, where you do it and who you do it for… And, I do!

Ask anyone and they’ll probably tell you the very same thing.

There are few things in the world that get me crazier than average. Average drives me nuts!

No one I know strives to be average, at least no one I actually want to know or continue to have a relationship with.

Striving to be average is all about giving up, coasting, taking the easy way out, accepting ‘good enough’ as good enough. It’s about complacency… accepting things as they are because doing nothing is less complicated and takes far less energy than doing anything.

I’m not talking about someone who is trying the best they can but can’t prevail because of circumstance, limited opportunity or limited ability. I’m not talking about the people who can’t do any better or try any harder… By definition, they are trying as hard as they can to be the best they can be; to do the best they are capable of doing.

I’m talking about the people who could make a difference, who could do better: but, after careful consideration, choose not to. Generally, at the risk of putting themselves or someone close to them in danger of some sort. They would rather work at ‘getting by,’ than work at getting better. And, I think what bothers me most of all about this social or cultural phenomenon is that it seems to be growing.

People come by the shop to take an order or solicit our business, either representing themselves or other companies, and they just barely manage to follow the script, as if showing up was enough. They don’t bring anything of value to the relationship, they don’t create anything of consequence, they don’t move information up or down the pipeline. Hell, half the time they don’t even say Hello!

I can’t live like that. I don’t think I would even if I could: could, as in allowed. I’m not wired that way and neither are any of the people I work with. They are constantly trying to learn more, get better, accomplish something significant, overcome obstacles, attain success. Now, they may choose to define success a little differently than the majority might define it. Their success isn’t always about ’stuff’ or money. More often than not, it’s about that feeling of satisfaction that can only come from doing something extraordinary. And, extraordinary rarely occurs without a serious compliment of exertion.

I think the answer is not only simple, it’s obvious. This level of performance – Or, perhaps, more appropriately – this level of non-performance, should no longer be accepted as adequate by anyone anywhere at any time anymore.

Complacency should be banished, and its practicioners and advocates no longer tolerated or accepted.

I don’t know about you, but I think I’m going to give it a try… And, the sign I place at the edge of the  driveway will read: Average No Longer Tolerated Here