Decisions Not Conditions

Hey team. All right, so here we are. We’re back. It’s a beautiful early morning. The sun will be coming up here soon. Looking forward to getting together with y’all and spending a couple of minutes. I just recently got back from vacation. And I have to get a few more videos done because we’re running into September here and school’s getting ready to start. I don’t know about you, but it seems like summer ran pretty fast.

So let’s talk about something kind of cool—something I read recently. Victor Frankl said, “Decisions, not conditions, determine what a man is.” What makes you, you, is not about the circumstances. It’s not the condition you’re in. I’ve had more than enough opportunities in my life to sit down and interview and talk to people about the decisions they made and why they made them. Many times, when somebody made a decision, they would always blame somebody else. They would always say, “Well, I did it because.” Or, “It’s not fair because,” or, “I didn’t know that it was that bad of a situation.”

I’m talking about all kinds of different things. From having an affair to stealing on the job, taking something from a client or the government, and so on and so forth. It’s the decisions that we make. And it’s our character, really, that it boils down to. It’s one of the reasons that at Northwest Enforcement, we guide our principles and focus an awful lot on our core values of who we are and what we’re about—being valuable because nothing less will do. This involves a lot of different things, including integrity and transparency. It is the decisions that we make that frame who we truly are.

It’s not about the conditions we’re under. You can be crushed, you can be hungry, you can be out of gas, all kinds of things. But if you go rob a bank, that defines who you really are. As opposed to saying, “I’m going to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.” When nobody else is looking, I’m going to be the person who, when I’m at my worst, I’m going to be my best. When I’m at my best, I’m going to still be my best. I’m going to do the right thing regardless of my circumstances, regardless of the conditions that I find myself in.

If we, as a company, decided to cheat our clients because we’re having a bad month, that would define us and our leadership. Whereas doing the right thing every single time, even if we make a mistake and the month isn’t looking so good financially, we still make the right decision to give the client back some money because we didn’t do the job the way we were supposed to. One of the reasons Northwest Enforcement got started is because I worked with a guy who was cheating his clients, and I knew that was wrong. I wanted to start a company to do it right because cheating your clients is wrong. Cheating your staff is wrong.

I worked for a guy who told me the dog ate his checkbook—no joke. Cheating your staff is wrong. So, it’s the decisions that we make in the positions we’re at that determine who we are. It’s not the condition we’re in—good, bad, or indifferent. It always comes down to a decision: What are you going to do, and are you going to do the right thing regardless? Are you going to make the rounds on post because you’re supposed to, not because it’s raining outside or not raining outside? Not because it’s 85 degrees with a humidity of 75%, or it’s perfect conditions at 72 degrees, a little overcast and cloudy, and no big deal.

The decisions that we make every single day—even if it’s, you know, spending an extra five minutes on break because nobody’s looking, or taking a little cat nap for 20 minutes that turns into 70 in the back room where there’s no cameras—hopefully, no, just kidding, don’t do that at all. Do the right thing at every turn. The decisions you make pave the way for your success or your failure. Every time you cut a corner, you will cut bigger, deeper, more corners, and it catches up with you.

All right, so on this beautiful day, guys, God bless you. Have a wonderful rest of your week, and I will talk to you guys next week or next Monday or next Wednesday, or the following one. I’m always here. God bless you guys. I’ll see you next week. Oh, remember, hey—be valuable. Nothing less will do. Wa second.