Good Decisions

All right team, so here we are. It is Wednesday, it’s the last Wednesday of the month of May. I wanted to give you a quote from Mark Twain. Mark Twain said that “Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.”

And I don’t know about you, but I have made a ton of mistakes. I have had a ton of bad decisions made in my life, and I have learned from them. That has resulted in me making better decisions in my future because I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’ve processed and thought through to get better at what I do.

Now, I have also taught and explained that there are other ways to learn. You can learn by others’ experiences and I believe that that also is true. You can run into situations where you can prevent yourself by learning from others’ mistakes and thinking through. Sometimes when we’re young, especially when we’re young (and I’m watching my two young boys grow up), we don’t think about consequences. As we get older, we think a little bit more wisely because of our bad experiences, because of our mistakes.

Because of those things, that’s why our experiences generate because we do think through our consequences. We recognize cause and effect. We understand that we want reward, but there is risk sometimes involved. So, we may be a little less risky as we get older. You’re not going to see me jump off of a house, off of the roof of a house, anytime soon. The reason for that is because I did it a lot when I was a little kid and it was no big deal. It didn’t hurt me nearly as bad. As I’ve gotten older, I can fall out of bed and break a hip. Okay, maybe not yet, but I’m getting to be that old.

My point is that we learn from our experiences, and we recognize that we need to grow in those things. I’m watching my boys grow and learn experiences and see things differently and stuff. And I’m seeing it here in our team too. Along with Northwest Enforcement, I’m watching leaders grow and make better decisions based on experiences that we’ve had and/or by listening to leader above them. Weighing out risk and reward and recognizing that there is a smarter way of doing something. While it might take longer, we’re doing the right way and we’re making progress.

So that’s a great thing. And so I do agree with Mark Twain. We have all made a lot of bad decisions. I believe that we have gained experience. That helps us and aids us along with our age and our maturity. Aids us in our ability to have better decisions made in our future because of the bad decisions that we’ve made. I would much rather individuals, men and women in our company and within the shout of my voice understand that learning from my mistakes is far better than making the mistake and learning it on your own. That is a powerful thing.

I love it when somebody comes and talks to me and says, “Chad, I listened to what you said, and I chose not to do this thing,” and “oh, wow, it profited me greatly.” It is really a refreshing thing to know that other people’s lives are being changed from my bad experiences. I welcome all of the mistakes I’ve made only because they have helped hone and shape me into to be a wiser, older, much older, wiser man. And I’m still, trust me, making mistakes and I’m still growing and I’m still learning.

I’m learning to also read and learn from others and read and study and watch others and learn from their mistakes so that I don’t make the same mistakes that I see others make, and that has profited me and it has profited Northwest Enforcement, has profited my family greatly by learning from others as well.

So as you go into this Wednesday and the rest of this week and we step into June just around the corner, learn from others’ mistakes. Learn from your own mistakes, grow and start making better decisions based on both your experience and the experience of others that you learn from, and you will climb to higher success and you will grow faster and have more success in a faster rate by doing those things.

Don’t be the person that has to try everything for the first time yourself because the first time you touch an electric fence, I got news for you, you’ll curl your hair. All right, hey, God bless you on this beautiful Wednesday, and remember, let’s be valuable because nothing less will do. I’ll talk to you guys next week. See you.