Who has been the biggest influence on your life? My father.
This is an extremely personal story, but when I was in grade school, I was on the football team. I had a really bad day at practice one day — just a horrendous day — and I left in the middle of practice and went home. My father was sitting there and he said, ‘What are you doing? Why aren’t you at practice?’
I said, ‘I just had a bad day, kids are giving me a hard time, I can’t do anything right and so I just left.’
He goes, ‘Well, you got to get back there and show up. You can’t just quit or leave.
‘Yes, it can be painful and it’s going to be difficult for you to walk back into practice after you walked out, but the longer it takes you to do it, the more difficult it’s going to become.
‘There may be a time where you don’t ever do it; you don’t ever go back.’
And that was probably the biggest life lesson I learned: No matter how bad things go, and no matter how embarrassed you are, you have to face your fears.
So if I make mistakes in a management position or I embarrass myself, I have to face it and recognize that. You might have to apologize or whatever; you have to do the right thing. But you have to face it first and then do the right thing as part of that process.
