Success – Do the Common Uncommonly Well

Hey team. All right, so here we are. Beautiful day. A good friend of mine sent me a quote. JD Rockefeller said that the secret to success is to do the common thing uncommonly well. Do the common thing uncommonly well. And that just struck me as awesome.

Why? Because we have some core values and we have a core purpose that says be valuable. Nothing less will do.

Sometimes the common thing—the habits that we have, the simple things that we do—get up, make your bed, go to work, and do your tasks as they need to be done, and you do them so well that you continue to advance yourself and you continue to grow. It’s worked for me.

I’ve told people for many, many years, if you want to be able to outshine more than 50, 60, even 70, maybe 80% of people in this world, all you have to do is show up and do your job. It’s all you’ve got to do. You just have to show up consistently and do your job.

Having run a security company for many years and seeing so many people not do their job—not want to—and I’m not talking about just our company. I worked with people that just didn’t show up and do well. Even in the military, I saw people that just didn’t show up. They didn’t excel because they didn’t want to try. They wanted to give up, they wanted to take the easy course, they wanted to find shortcuts in life.

There just aren’t any shortcuts in life. For every person that somehow stumbles on to “winning the lottery” of jobs or whatever it is, the end result is they tend to peter out. We don’t see their name in lights. It’s people that stick to it and do the hard things and do the common things with excellence every day.

We have so many of you. If I was to sit here, I’d be here all day just naming off the excellent things our team members are doing. I love sitting in meetings and hearing—yes, some of you are going, “You like sitting in meetings, Chad?” Seriously, I don’t necessarily always love sitting in meetings. However, I do love sitting in the meetings where I hear about you.

When Sonia or Wendy or Cody or one of our other team leaders—or when I’m sitting down and talking with Sean or Carrie or somebody that’s a leader in our company—and they talk about what great work other people are doing, I love it. I love how so many of our team leaders focus so intently on other people doing well.

I can’t even remember the last time I sat down with one of our leaders and they talked about themselves, saying, “Oh, I’m so awesome. I’m doing so great. You’re so lucky to have me, Chad.” Nobody does that. Instead, I hear about all the wonderful things that our team leaders are sacrificing, doing, and putting forth effort to accomplish.

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. We have a number of you that are doing the common thing uncommonly well, and that is success. You’re growing, you’re leading, and you’re advancing yourself and this company forward.

A lot of people think that maybe people in my position are looking to advance the company. The company’s advancement happens because of the advancement of its people. That’s almost kind of a good quote. I might need to work on it a little bit, but that’s a pretty good quote. The company’s true advancement truly happens because of the advancement of its team.

So why do we have an audacious goal of 75% of our team members having been here three years or more? Because in our industry that’s uncommon. How do we get there? By doing the common things so well—by caring for you, loving on you, by being a great company that loves its team and cares for its people. That’s how we’re going to get there.

By having leaders that are focused on teamwork, not just the work itself. Team-focused people who are hired and brought in to be focused on the team will advance the company because they themselves are feeling advanced. That is the beauty of what I think Northwest Enforcement is. Our goals are about advancing you, making you a better person than you were yesterday.

You get the importance of service to others before yourself and watch yourself rise because of your service. That—oh, that’s another kind of cool quote. I’m just coming up with these things. It’s a beautiful day. God bless you guys. Thank you for doing the common thing so uncommonly well.

If for some reason the words out of my mouth are challenging you, making you feel like, “Oh man, I kind of failed. I kind of got talked to last night. I got chewed out a little bit by one of my leaders. Maybe I’m not doing the common thing as well as I should be,” then use this as a springboard for advancement. Keep doing the common thing really well.

Get up, do your job, do it well, do it to the best of your ability, and the company will advance. You will advance. We will all advance. We will rise together because of each other’s hard work and dedication to each other and our community.

God bless you guys. Have a wonderful week. I’m enjoying mine. I’ve got a little hay fever right now, but it has been an epic time for me and my family to unplug a little bit. Obviously not totally unplugged because here I am on vacation doing videos for you—because you guys are on my mind quite a bit and I do think of you from time to time.

All right, God bless you guys. Have a wonderful week. Be valuable. Nothing less will do. Keep doing the common thing uncommonly well. See you later.