Slow is OK

Hey team, all right, so here we are, another Monday. I got this little meme. This thing I found on Facebook and stuff. It’s a picture of the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise is about to cross the finish line, and the hare is coming down the hill behind him. The little caption says, “No matter how slow your progress, you’re still a way ahead of those that are not even trying.”

So maybe you feel like, “We just finished January.” Maybe you set and made some sort of life-changing new resolution, maybe you’ve had some trouble. Maybe you’re seeing the progress being really slow, maybe you started reading books like I talked about, and you’re finding yourself making some progress, but it seems so slow. You’re wondering if you’re going to accomplish and be able to stick with this.

Or maybe it’s a diet, or maybe it’s something else. Maybe you’re trying to save money for a vacation. Whatever it is you’re trying to do, our core value of resolve is about just sticking to it, continuing on. Progress is consistency. Consistency. You just keep making a little bit of progress, and before you know it, you’re climbing that mountain. Those old proverbs, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it was built through time over progress. It’s those kinds of things.

So, you are way ahead of those that are not even trying, those that aren’t even getting up off the couch. You’re making progress. Because you’re out there hustling and making it happen. You’re working at it. You’re accomplishing it, no matter how small it is. It’s about those constant habit-forming traits of consistency, of continuing to try. When you get to the end of a year and you look back, you will have accomplished great things.

Like I said, reading 12 books a year takes 10 pages a day. 10 pages a day, simple as that. You read 10 pages a day, you’ll read about 300 pages a month. That’s about a book every month. At the end of the year, you’ll have 12 books behind you. Imagine that, imagine reading more books than maybe you read in the last decade in this year. All because you did it one bite at a time, 10 pages a day.

Imagine putting $100 a paycheck, $50 a paycheck, $25 a paycheck. I don’t care. Away. At the end of the year, $25 is 300 bucks. What are you going to do with 300 bucks? Well, maybe you’re just going to compound that interest and save 300 next year or go to 50 and add 600. Now you have 900 at the end of two years. Maybe you’ll go further than that and keep paying off debt. Maybe you’ll save for a vacation and take your family somewhere. It’s about that consistency, and remember, you’re a lot farther ahead than those that aren’t even trying.

There are a lot of people in life that aren’t even trying. Because they don’t have that consistency. They don’t have that motivation or desire to see something. They have a dream, they have a wish, they have a whatever, but until you apply yourself and take those steps consistently day after day, you don’t actually make any progress. Because you will still be behind anybody that is. So, every step you take, you’re making progress, and you might be slower than somebody else, but you’re not competing with somebody else. You’re competing with who you were yesterday. The more you remember that, who’s your competition? The guy in the mirror, that’s it.

And no, that’s not me trying to sing a Michael Jackson song to you. You are fighting with the guy in the mirror. And I’ve had people ask me, “Who are your competitors in security?” I don’t compete with other security companies. That’s not my focus. That is not where we’re at. I’m competing with the man I was yesterday. The company I was yesterday. What can we as a team improve on to be a better company, on what we want to do consistently? That’s all I care about. If we happen to be the greatest security company in the world, great. I’m not concerned with that. I’m concerned with being better than I was yesterday and continuing on consistent improvement as a team for the greater good of our community. That is our focus.

I want to be better for you. I want to be a better leader. And I want to take care of the people that the good Lord has put in my charge. I want to take care of you. I want to continue to inspire you. That is why I do Wednesday. That is why I do Monday Message. That’s why we do these things, to inspire you to think differently about what you can do differently to be better for you, to be better than the person you were when you brushed your teeth yesterday morning. That’s all I care about, is helping you find your place, your purpose, and get after it.

So, God bless you. Remember, be valuable because you’re really, regardless of where you work and what you do, nothing less will do than being valuable. So continue to be valuable, continue to make progress one step at a time, and you’ll be ahead of all those that aren’t trying. God bless you. I’ll see you next week.