The Extra Mile

Hey Team, all right. Happy Wednesday! So, Kansas City Chiefs this Sunday, can they do it? I don’t know. All right, so Wednesday Workshop, here we are.

So, what are we going to talk about today? Another Zig Ziglar quote is what I’m gonna give to you guys, and it says, “There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.” And I believe that.

Have you given and driven the extra mile before?

Somewhere, somehow, to accomplish a task or goal? Maybe taking extra classes to get a diploma, working two jobs to accomplish what you’re looking for. What are the goals you’re trying to reach? Sometimes, you have to go that extra mile, do that extra thing.

Sometimes in customer service, there’s a guy, some of you, we used to have one here in Portland. His name was Bob Farrell, Farrell’s Ice Cream. He used to say, “Give ’em a pickle.” What it was about is, go that extra mile. Get it right. Somebody asked for a pickle, have you ever been somewhere where you say, “Can I get a little thing of sour cream or can I get this or can I get that?” And they go, “Oh, well, that’s an extra 30 cents. That’s an extra 30 cents, sir.” You know that’s going to be an up charge. Bob Farrell would say, just give ’em the pickle.

Just give them that little extra, that extra amount of customer service.

My boys and I, and Karen during the ice storm a few weeks ago, we found ourselves, like we often do, at Olive Garden. And my boys ordered the never-ending breadstick sauce, right? The Alfredo sauce, the never-ending bowl of Alfredo sauce for their breadsticks. And Jonathan made the comment to the waiter. He said, “Yeah, and we really like that sauce, so we’re going to probably need two…” And the guy says, “Okay, I’ll keep an eye on that.”

And when he came out and brought the first one, he brought two. He gave ’em the pickle, right? He went that extra mile. And his tip reflected that because he made an impression in that customer service, in that moment, to us, to me, to my boys. He went the extra mile. He figured out. And he did it in other ways too. He kept coming back over and over and over.

And granted, there weren’t a ton of people because of the ice storm and everything. Weren’t a ton of people for him to be serving and stuff. But he was a good waiter, and I could see that he was making an effort to go that extra mile.

I’ve seen that in different lives. I’ve seen it in some of our staff, our team members. That going that extra mile, that camaraderie of banning together and doing something extra for the client, doing something extra for another team member that works here, doing a little bit more. I’ve seen it time and time again. I see it in Christian. And I see it in Cody, and I see it in Cade. I see it. Hands down, in so many of our staff, especially many of our leaders. I have seen it in Lieutenant Miller and Captain Enos.

I have seen it time and time again. And I hear about it time and time again. That they go the extra mile for their team. That they go the extra mile.

And again, there’s no traffic jams on that extra mile because there’s not many people out there. How cool would it be to be on that extra mile and seeing so many other people there with you? And I feel sometimes that we have that here. But for you, that extra mile, what is that extra mile? What are you trying to accomplish? Maybe you’re trying to pay off some bills. Imagine if, for the next two months, you worked an extra patrol shift, an extra shift. You’d work an extra overtime shift if it was available, and you took the money from that shift and you applied it to bills or to a vacation fund or to something.

Imagine wiping out a bill and having the extra money and then you snowball it and you add it to another bill. Imagine, in 13 or 16 months from today, being debt-free. Just imagine that for a minute. How freeing would that feel? How good would that feel to you? I know what it feels like.

I remember in 2006 deciding not to buy a Corvette, I remember what it was like in 2006 to dump a bunch of money. To pay over $118,000 of debt off in less than 13 months. I know what that’s like because I put time and effort into going that extra mile, working overtime, and doing a number of things to make sure that I was taking care of my family and focusing in that way. I went that extra mile. I’ve gone that extra mile for clients and seeing our company grow. I’ve gone that extra mile for team members and seeing the blessing in their lives and watched them grow. It’s that extra mile.

So there’s no traffic jams out there. The road is long but wide and open. Let’s go the extra mile together. I’ll see you guys next week. God bless. Oh, hey, don’t forget, be valuable. You know nothing Iess will do, and that’s where we’re on the extra mile.