Humbled in Austin

Last year I stumbled upon the Tri world and was content with all of the events that took place in and around the Boston Area. While at an EO event, a good friend Dominic C. told me he had just signed up to do a ½ Ironman and it was incomprehensible to me at the time that I could even think of doing one of those. Dominic had just spent time with a bunch of Former Birthing Of Giants graduates at their yearly Gathering of Titans session at MIT. This group had invited him along for the journey and he told me I should give it a try.

I was in a similar program called EMP at MIT and was not sure how a class that had graduated so many years ago would accept a new jack, someone still enrolled, someone far from a titan or giant. Last year that group welcomed me with open arms and yearlong friendships have been formed, this year I came back to race with this group and was just humbled on the generosity and selflessness within the group. What an amazing experience and journey this is turning out to be.

We had 20 plus racers this year, down from last year quite a bit, but no worries with that. There were 4 racers this year who were competing in their first ever TRI event. To start with a ½ Ironman is quite amazing and awe inspiring. All four finished the race in well under the allowed time and all but 2 racers this year personal bested their previous showing here in Austin.

While practice swimming on Saturday, Bobby started to have some difficulty in the water. Open water swimming with a wetsuit can take some getting used to, but after spending 30 or so minutes talking him down and off the ledge Jason and others were able to keep him in the water while getting him a bit more comfortable with the experience. I learned the next morning that Jason who had just finished KONA a week earlier had registered for the race and was planning on swimming with bobby during the race to keep him focused and to get him thru the swim. That’s awesome.

While we posted 2 DNF’s for the day, they are for amazing cause. Jason just swan to make sure Booby could get thru it with out distress, Jack swam it for a workout, having been sidelined for personal reasons. Jack also ran the back half of the race with his sister cheering her on, and by cheering I mean yelling and screaming and pushing her beyond her limits.

It was an amazingly beautiful fall day in Austin, 80 plus degrees in the afternoon and sunny. Such a great day for a race. All of our athletes crossed the finish line and 4 more virgins have been converted to tri addicts for sure. Amy completed her first ½ and is now signed up to do her first full in may in the woodlands, Peter dropped 30 pounds getting ready for this event and wins the award for happiest racers of the day skipping and smiling all the way around the course. Brock made his family proud again with a great race, he claims to ride a maseratti bike with a Yugo engine but I am hear to say Yugo don’t make things that fast. Patrick personal bested his time from last year, all that training during the work day has made him a better athlete and much more focused on the things that matter in the office. Val killed it out their with her training race getting her ready for her first full Ironman in Cozamel this Nov 28^th. How does Tony swim so fast? 30 minutes, are you kidding me. There are more to mention, but the three biggies are Randy Cohen for hosting us all for an amazing BBQ dinner after the race at his wonderful home looking over Lake Travis. Randy I am now a believer, and second is Jack Daly for laying down this as a challenge sometime ago to put together. The biggest props go out to the Abernathy Brothers, Justin and Jason for organizing this and making it all a reality. Congrats to both of them for realizing one of their dreams, the week prior in their finishes at KONA, the Ironman world championships.

Here is looking forward to long continued friendships, many more years of racing together and all the new faces that will join and take on this amazing challenge, journey and experience. I am humbled in the presence of so much love, sharing and selflessness. It's clear that what we do for a living and how big our companies is secondary at best in this group and it is more about who you are and what you are. Thank you for helping to make me a better person, or at least want to become one.

Happy 50th Mom, Rock on and thanks.

Life Lessons Learned from my Mom:

I started this Blog with the idea that I would hit 50 lessons for 50 years of Parkleigh and am now very content that these are the solid lessons learned from Mom, Happy 50^th.

In thinking about this project and during the process of writing all I could think about was how nice it will be when Matthew and or Hannah take the time to come up with half as many for me someday. Thanks for having such a huge impact in and on my life.

On the Business side of things

1. Cash is king: She always has it and I seem to always need more. Thanks for being there for me. Thanks for showing me the importance of living within your means and knowing where you are at all times.

2.Buy with Passion: I have never seen her dabble when buying for the store, if she is not excited about something, how can she expect the customers to be?

3. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate: With the right people in the right seats, delegation is easy and productive. From PA, she runs the store as smooth as can be and it’s because she knows the skills and values of those around her and uses them well.

4. Inspire, Educate & Entertain: Three magic words up on her office wall ,that have come to exemplify her approach to retail and running a business.

5. Give Purpose to people and things: Let employees share in the responsibilities of running the company and have them know how that piece is important to the whole puzzle and they are empowered to do great work.

6. Make 100 bucks look like 10: Never flashy, always humble and quite different from others in my life that could always make 10 bucks look like 100. I like your approach much better these days.

7. Be a stepping stone: I have seen many come and go in and out of the doors of Parkleigh over the years, and it is always amazing to see how proud she was to just have been a part of their lives for the time they worked together.

8. Treat people well: Duh. Great Catholic up bringing where you do unto other as you would have them do to you. Easy said, however she nails it. Always.

9.Hire great people: I have been with her while she was getting great customer service and let the person know, that if they were ever looking how great full she would be to have them on her team.

10.Know your numbers: what’s in the bank, what today’s sales were, what's due to vendors, what’s coming due, what’s coming in and everything else that paints a clear picture of where you stand. Every morning she is on the computer with pencil in hand putting the numbers in her filo-fax or calendar. Every morning.

11.Give Credit where credit is due: when a product is selling very well, it’s the vendor that usually gets the credit for making a great product, having good training and running great promotions and she is just great full to be a part of it.

12.Know your place: There is always someone out there bigger, better, faster. Just enjoy the journey.

13.Communicate your Vision: Her regular communication with staff, vendors and customers is amazing and impressive. Knowing the end result makes it so much easier for smart people of staff to help get you there.

14.Power of the Team: There are many tasks that could be done better, if she were to do each of them herself. Once. In the long run the power of the group is so much stronger than the power of one. Now that doesn’t mean she can’t be found in the basement at night checking boxes of merchandise in, a task she is seen doing often.

15. Go for it: probably a repeat of buy with Passion, but if you are going to do something, do it well and do it right.

16.Ingnore your competition: She knows who they are, but when the conversation goes towards the comp, she is usually the one to say, who cares what they are doing, just focus on yourself.

17.Ask for help when you need it, not when you want it: In 15 years of selling stuff to her, I have only seen her ask for something once, people were lined up waiting to be a part of helping at that point.

18. FISH: a great book she read many years ago and is still a part of daily meetings and culture at the store. Play and have fun are the favorites for both of us, thanks for that.

19. Develop your key relationships: Top Vendors, Bank, Top Customers and Senior Staff are the easy ones and the no brainer, but her magnetism to those 100% authentic people is amazing and what makes her and the store so unique.

20. Great systems: there is a process for everything n the store and it runs like a top as a result, even while she is sitting in her office 300 miles away. Always ahead of the curve with technology, always ahead of the curve with training, always ahead of the curve.

21.If it ain’t broke/don’t fix it: Now this is where she may have a fault, but she can get 110% of the life expectancy out of any tangible thing. Ask her someday how many miles that BMW had on it before it retired.

22.Follow the leader: There are clear leaders out there in this business, they have great systems, plans and skills. She learns them, trains on them, implements them and lives them. Crabtree comes to mind as the early teacher, many great have followed and she always was open to learning what those leaders were teaching.

23.Engage your customer: 2657 Facebook customers actively engaged, music on Sundays, cocktail parties for customers, monthly calendar, e-blasts, trunk shows, tastings and samples and so much more.

24. Active in the community: I am always amazed when she says to me, I have an opportunity to be a sponsor. My first thought is how great it would be for all customers to think this way. She lives to help and give back and is always humbled and honored to be able to do so.

On the Life side of things

25.Remain Humble: In all of her ups & downs I have seen her remain steady and humble, those simple upbringings in Fredonia are also some of the greatest memories in my life as well.

26.Give Back: and not just cause every time you give something you get 10 times in return. Whether it's helping out someone who needs it, donating to a great local cause or volunteering her time, I have seen the joy and peace each of those activities truly bring her and am often very inspired.

27. Have faith in something: I have often asked the question about religion and the conversation always goes to simply having faith in something and honoring that faith in whatever way works for you.

28. Smell the roses: slow down a bit, be in the present and smell the roses. It’s always the simple things that bring her the most joy and comfort.

29.Have Fun: I might do this far more than many others, thanks. Its even in her tag line.

30. Remember you can do it: simple words of encouragement form her all my life made just about anything I tried and wanted to do possible. Still today she helps guide me with these simple words, thanks mom.

31. Be proud of your accomplishments: Not always chest bumping proud, but to the degree that is appropriate. While being proud for me for what I have done, she also taught me how to be proud myself. I am proud that she can call herself an Ironmom.

32.Simple Things: repeating theme here for sure. I am confident that if she put the 10 most important things she owned in a bag, they would all have been around for a while and none of them would have cost much money.

33.Celebrate Family: She was an only child, I was an only child and she was a single mom for many years. Now with a big family around her it is cool and inspiring to see how dedicated she can be to so many. I am happy to share her some as well.

34. Live within your means: Never leveraged, always grounded and always there for me when I was not. Thanks mom. This more than any other lesson is the one I hope to pass on to Matthew and Hannah.

35.Get the most out of good things: I have always wanted the next best, bigger, faster out of many things and in the more recent past it has become so clear how different each of us are with this one. Damn she is so much more dialed in on the thing, thing.

36.Listen to yourself: Listen to what comes out of your mouth, hear yourself. Do you like what you are hearing?

37. First things First: why would you work on the things that don’t matter. That might be an actual quote.

38. Get’er Done: That may have been a PA bumper sticker, but I have never known her to talk about doing something without actually then going forward with making it happen.

39. No excuses: I don’t want to hear about all that other stuff, what can you do, what should you do, what belongs to you. Do that.

40. Be gentle: Treating people with respect and dignity and compassion have been one of her most admired traits. This would have to be one of the traits that Grandpa would be most proud of as well.