Goal Setting: From a Ninja Warrior and an Industry Legend

Speaker 1: 0:00

Tell me about Ninja Warrior. What was it like? Because that's the one where it's like an obstacle course that people train like forever for and it's very specific and the same for everybody right, are we going?

Speaker 2: 0:11

Because I'll give the.

Speaker 1: 0:12

It's recording, but this might be our intro. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 0:14

I mean, it's wild. It's literally a crazy obstacle course that they bring around the country and the world and you try to hang in the air, air leap and not drop yeah, and is this the one where, like people have like ping pong down kind of falls and they're pretty dramatic? That one's wipe out, so that one is kind of more geared towards the fail. Yes, exactly, uh, ninja warrior, there's some epic fails, but it is real deal. It is as top tier of a sport as there exists.

Speaker 1: 0:48

What's the hardest, hardest part.

Speaker 2: 0:54

I would say there's different stages of it. I would say one is for me it was becoming comfortable in the air. I played sports my whole life, but I played lacrosse, played ice hockey soccer baseball yeah, I played

Speaker 1: 1:05

every single sport.

Speaker 2: 1:05

You're on the ground. I played sports my whole life, but I played lacrosse, I played ice hockey, soccer, baseball. Yeah, I played every single sport and you're on the ground.

Speaker 2: 1:07

So that took a while to start to like you compete in the air, um, and then just, and there's parallels to everything, there's comfortability, and then there's also you got to have the strength, the ability to do it. So that just takes time for your body to adapt. But I think that's what's also so cool about it is you do adapt, like if you commit, if you don't pull up short, if you don't make excuses, if you just keep showing up, you pick up your head and your body is doing something that you didn't think it could do.

Speaker 1: 1:40

How long did you train?

Speaker 2: 1:42

Six years was when it was really maybe even too much so the number one priority in my life, um, but uh yeah. So different seasons of intensity through that. But I always viewed it as once and I had kind of an interesting journey with it where I wasn't an athlete first, I was a host, but once I flipped the switch to be an athlete with it. Where I wasn't an athlete first, I was a host, but once I flipped the switch to be an athlete with it, I never wanted to take my foot off the gas because it's just so tough to. I honestly I was terrified to lose it, to lose the strength, to lose the athleticism. You know I'm not 18 and also it took so long to get it. So for me that was a motivator to in the off season keep going hard.

Speaker 1: 2:25

Yeah, what do you think, larry? Is this going to be the next step for you?

Speaker 3: 2:28

I think that's great to hear.

Speaker 1: 2:30

Uh, I really appreciate it because I have a fear of heights, which means I have an excuse now for why I'm never going to be able to do ninja warriors.

Speaker 3: 2:36

That's why I was. I was all about it until I heard that. So doggone it. I see you doing it.

Speaker 1: 2:43

It's worth a shot yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:49

Maybe you want to put retired ninja warrior Wannabe, I think up and coming Shoulda, woulda coulda. That's right.

Speaker 1: 2:58

Welcome to Auto Care On Air, a candid podcast for a curious industry. I'm Jackie Lutz, content director at the Auto Care Association, and this is Carpool Conversations, where we collaborate on today's most relevant power skills. We're all headed in the same direction, so let's get there together. So welcome everybody to another episode of Carpool Conversations. We are embarking on learning about the 10 pillars of professional growth, and so today we're going to be talking about goal setting, and I have with me I can't think of two better people for this. I have an industry legend, larry Pavey, coming out of the woodwork, who is the former CEO of Federated Auto Parts Group and recently retired, but hasn't been retired long enough for us to not ask him back as soon as we were in his hometown. So welcome.

Speaker 3: 3:57

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 3:58

Thank you for being here. And then I have Alex Weber, who is a speaker, an author and a ninja warrior or is it American Ninja Warrior? Both work.

Speaker 3: 4:08

Both work yeah, and a host.

Speaker 1: 4:11

Now or before? Before. Before okay, I am curious about that. So you were a host before. What qualified you to be a host before you were a ninja warrior.

Speaker 2: 4:20

Well, that's a loaded question because I have a belief that no one's qualified for anything. Truly truly, I get to that. You're opening a box there that I don't know if I should jump right into, but why not? Sure, we're in it. Listen, there are people who care about what they do. They show up every day and they do a good job. And there's people who don't. And I don't care. The certificate on the board or how much you paid to go to a place I've had. I've been in plenty of pretty intense offices, Uh, you know. Hey, I'll just start out with it. The doctor who missed my mom's cancer had plenty of certificates, the really fancy logos, so I don't think anyone's qualified for anything.

Speaker 1: 4:56

I have a feeling. A lot of people feel that way, but don't never put words to it, cause I think I agree with you.

Speaker 2: 5:02

Well, I hope that it empowers people to say I'm going to do it. And that's literally how my hosting journey started. Was I saw it, I thought I think I could do this. And so many good things in life begin with that feeling that I'm sure Larry's experienced in the heights that he's gone to, where you just have this feeling like I think I could do that. A lot of people feel that was standup comedy, but the difference is the fork in the road is do you show up and take a chance on that or do we rationalize it and then, a month later, I think I could be good at that. A year later, the window closes. So for me, I just had the bug of I think I could be good at this, worked up my courage. I first moved to LA, left every family and friend I knew, paid my dues, took chances and there's a lot of different micro stories in there but in taking chances and betting on myself, eventually got the biggest opportunity I ever had, which was to host for American Ninja Warrior.

Speaker 1: 6:01

So so is this a goal. So that was you said that that was your dream, so that had to be like a goal of yours to host something or, and I also think this and, uh, you know we all get to know each other.

Speaker 2: 6:12

I loved Larry's perspective on it, but I I think goals also reveal themselves. You know, like I love Conor McGregor and, and people are going to, I love the laser focus of I am going to do this and I see it with every fiber of my being. I think that's super powerful. I also think goals reveal themselves, meaning I moved to LA to be an actor. I stunk at it, I stunk, but in doing that it revealed. I guess I just didn't think, oh, there's a such thing as TV hosting and that's kind of how I am with my friends, and then it became a goal. So I think setting out on goals is so powerful One you might get it, or one it might unlock the actual goal but, we'd never get that if we stand on the shore.

Speaker 1: 7:00

Yeah, like you almost have like step goals until you get to like, and then you discover what your ultimate goal is.

Speaker 2: 7:05

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:06

And I love that I have you too, because you obviously have this incredible journey that a lot of people would look at like kind of out of their reach, like no one dreams that, a lot of people don't dream that big Right. And then I have Larry here, who is more of a traditional career of a lot of the people listening. Um, I don't know if you always dreamed about being the CEO of one of the larger companies in our industry or not, but like you know, yeah, I did.

Speaker 3: 7:28

You had to see it right. It was always my dream.

Speaker 1: 7:31

No no.

Speaker 3: 7:32

So I had a great opportunity a few years ago to mentor a bunch of. We set up a program for high school dropouts to try to get them back and get them their degree and get them some work experience, and so on the first day, you know, I did a question and answer with them and they said so when did you know like you wanted to be like the president of a company? And I said, listen, when I was like you sitting in school, I didn't even know this existed, I had no idea. So you're right, 95% is just showing up, doing your best, putting your head down, and all of a sudden you know, you look around and good things are happening.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Yeah, good things are happening. But did you always know you wanted to lead? Like, did you always have that bug? Like I'd be a good leader? Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3: 8:20

I think knowing is different from you know, liking it, liking working with people, dealing with people, being able to go with the ups and the downs. I think you know leadership is. I'm not sure you know. I mean you hear about born leaders. I'm not sure there are necessarily born leaders, but there certainly are people that have the wherewithal and the consistency and the attitude that makes it maybe easier to do that. And certainly you know, I'm listening to you and I would have thought you would have been a great actor because you know. But you know, at the end of the day, I think we all find you know, we come to those forks in the road where we make decisions on are we going to go left, are we going to go right? And whichever way you go, if you go hard, you know you're going to be more successful than you know. You could probably choose either one in a lot of cases and be fine.

Speaker 1: 9:14

Yeah, I think it's, you know, such a big part like kicking off the goal setting conversation is. I think people struggle, I think you know you kind of get out of high school and people are like, ok, what do you want to do? And it's like I don't know, I haven't tried anything yet, so like I don't really know what I want to do. But then we're at least my generation all pushed into college. Four-year degrees, right, that was the big thing back then. We, you know, trades, weren't considered, you know, as high as a college degree. So we all went into college.

Speaker 1: 9:42

I never knew what I wanted to do in college. I had a four-year full ride so I took it, but I didn't actually know why I was there and I couldn't tell you one thing. I learned, frankly, but I had this four-year degree and you get done with college and I'm like I still don't really know what I want to do. So I think it's really hard for people to think about goal setting. At least for me, the freeze part of this is like, okay, I don't know yet. Still, to this day, I still don't know what my goal is. I love what you just what we kind of got into, alex, when you were like you know, kind of like the step goals, like what's your? Okay, maybe you don't know what you ultimately want to do or be, but maybe what do you, what's your next thing, or where are you being driven towards? And when you're trying to think of your next step, like, what kind of things are you looking for? Is that a hard question?

Speaker 3: 10:34

I feel like we're doing rock paper scissors. You're looking through the windshield. I'm looking through the rearview mirror.

Speaker 2: 10:39

Well see.

Speaker 1: 10:40

I feel like Larry's got the answer here. Go ahead, larry. Yeah, yeah, please, please, please. So okay, please, please.

Speaker 3: 10:46

So okay. So you know goals change. I mean, my goal last week was helping my granddaughter learn how to use the potty, so that was that for her.

Speaker 3: 11:06

But I think you know, as I kind of went through my career, you know, and I'm going to be honest and it may sound, you know, not good for this session, but you know but things came to me faster than I ever anticipated, so I didn't make a lot of goals. My first job I went to work for a warehouse distributor. I was 22 years old and I worked for a man who I had great affection for and he taught me a lot. He was a great mentor and so he was in charge of like 20 stores and like drove around, wore a suit and tie, and I thought to myself, if I work really hard and I pay attention, I think I could have his job. Because he was about 45 years old, I think I could have his job in 20 years. And he quit two years later and went into business for himself and they gave me his job and you know, was I prepared for it? I mean, I was two years when I was thinking it was going to be 20. So you know, and then you know that led to something else and led to something else. So it was always, it was always kind of be prepared, but the timetables could be vastly different.

Speaker 3: 12:04

And in my cases, you know, I remember, you know Fred Mancheski, I worked for Eklund for most of my early career and Fred Mancheski called me in one day and they had bought a brake business and it wasn't doing very well and everybody said you know, we're probably going to shut it down. And he said, larry, I want you to run it. And I said I thought you were planning on shutting it down. He said I am, but he said I thought you were planning on shutting it down. He said I am, but he said I'm going to give you an opportunity. And you know, maybe you can turn it around. And so you know, a year later we decided not to shut it down and kind of. The rest was history. So you know, a lot of times it's just like I said before showing up, being available, being able to take on a challenge, and just kind of what you said in a little different world.

Speaker 2: 12:53

Well, I resonate so much and I'm so curious. I had a very similar journey with lacrosse coaching, but I'm so curious what you know if you had to say what was one of the biggest things that you did in that takeover Takeover might be the wrong word.

Speaker 3: 13:08

Turnaround. Oh yeah, you know I was asked about that a lot, so it was pretty simple. I got we had lost 14 percent pre-tax the year before. I got seven people in a room and said I need two from you, two from you, two from you, two from you. It was just math. But no, the reality is it was trusting people, which is the key to everything right? So it was trusting people, it was enabling them, it was giving them what they need to be successful and then staying out of the way. And I mean it sounds simple, but that's pretty much it.

Speaker 2: 13:43

That's so cool to hear and you know, I definitely truth is truth, right, and it doesn't matter the space that it exists in our family and our work and sports. Uh, it's truth. So I took over lacrosse program. Uh, I was really young to have that job. I was named interim head coach at this really intense high school in Los Angeles, but they, they'd never won a playoff game. It was just kind of like a kind of a a wash the sport honestly there, um, but so many of the exact things I mean. One was I was fortunate to get really great assistant coaches who were just awesome and truly actually connecting with the players and it sounds like you you had a connection with those people. But, uh, yeah, that year they never want to play off game and we won the LA championship. Um, no-transcript man.

Speaker 1: 15:27

There's just a ceiling. If you're trying to do it alone, that's a really good tip. It's like you know, if you do, even if it's not your you know 20-year goal, maybe it's your one-year goal. Maybe look around you and find people who are doing what you want to do, or look at your own circle and be like do they have the skill set that I'm trying to develop in order to get to that next step? That's really what events like this are for.

Speaker 1: 15:49

We're at AutoCare Connect in Phoenix and a huge part of it is connecting and it's the networking piece of it and getting that right group around you and helping you know we're helping you, connect you with them. It's a huge piece of it. What's? What's another thing, like another tactical tool that that people could really use. When they're looking one year down the road or at their near-term goal, what do they need to be thinking about? So it's their, it's their, it's their circle. It's like what skills, skills you need to get to that spot? I mean, is it being more assertive with it? Are you talking to your manager? Are you you know what are some of the more tactical tools? Larry, you've promoted a lot of people, yeah.

Speaker 3: 16:29

So you know one of the things and I said it before when we were talking the you know, perceiving your potential, I think, understanding uh, yourself, um, your strengths, your weaknesses, what you need to do to improve, um, you know, self awareness is a great thing and when you start talking about I, I remember I talked about my first boss and I remember I went to him, I was kind of feeling cocky and thought I was pretty smart and so I was making $1.10 an hour. So for anybody looking at this, there's probably nobody old enough to remember when minimum wage was $1.10. So I told him I needed a raise and I told him, if I didn't get a raise, I was going to probably have to go work somewhere else. And he suggested that maybe I follow that logic and go work somewhere else. And he kind of reminded me that I was pretty young and I was just getting started and even though I had had a pretty quick start, I wasn't all that far and it was really a great.

Speaker 3: 17:25

I remember being sad and hurt and thinking I'll quit just to show him Right, and that's kind of the. But then I also and he, lucky for me, took me aside a little later and said you know I might've been tough on you, but here's the deal and explained it to me and really taught me about self-awareness Understand where you are, what you want to accomplish, put a plan together on how to get there. It maybe isn't a five second give me a razor I quit. That may not be the best strategy, but I think self-awareness give me a razor, I quit. That may not be the best strategy, but I think self-awareness and there's lots of tools in the industry for you know evaluations and assessments so I think it starts with that, because to truly get better and improve and make the best of yourself, you kind of have to know what the baseline is and where you're starting from. So what?

Speaker 1: 18:13

your strengths are, I think we did a podcast with Todd Hertzler recently. He's with Bosch and he said they had this whole conversation about how, like, you really need to focus on your strengths. Like, put your energy in your strengths that doesn't mean you can't work on your weaknesses, but like, your strengths are what are going to get you to that next level. Those are the things that are going to be in your most natural, you know, place in your life and it's where your natural talents are going to shine. It's what's going to start setting you apart. It's not going to be by focusing on what you're bad at. So, like that self-awareness piece, like what you're saying, maybe, if you're looking down the road at your goal a year from now and you see, you know, think, if you know what your strengths are, you've done those, you've taken those tools to heart and you've done that work and you know what your strengths are, it's actually a good time to assess, like, is this goal the right goal? You know, is this the right path?

Speaker 1: 19:07

Because I know, like, just as an example, a practical example, I was on a path in my previous role for a little while. There I was doing marketing communications. I was their global head of marketing communications, and for a little while there I was also leading their market intelligence, which is obviously more of a data side versus creative side, and I think I found out really quickly, even though I wanted to be, like at the time, like a CMO someday, that was kind of like the obvious goal, right. No reason for that, other than I think that's the top and I want to be there, and you have to have that market intelligence piece in order to do the CMO position. So I'm like, good, I'll learn these skills.

Speaker 1: 19:39

But I learned really quickly that not only am I not naturally good at market intelligence, I don't actually like it. So I mean, maybe that's a practical thing too, is that you can try things that you're not naturally good at too. You might find that maybe you are, or it it kind of helps, steer you in a different direction or kind of help you find what your career goals should look like. Yeah, so, um, alex, some practical stuff from you. Um, you've done some pretty big things with your life. I would consider big, and they're they're very public right. So, like, did you always want to be an author? Did you always want to be a keynote speaker?

Speaker 2: 20:19

Well, um, that's kind of you to say those things. I mean there's, you know it's gosh, I I think it's just important to um, you gotta, like I I'm saying to myself, I have to acknowledge both sides, because we live in a society where it is you know, it's kind of a cliche to say the highlight reel, but it is but you know, there's often a dark period that you got to kind of go through and either that's the learning or the hard work, or the dark work, or the uh, even the pain that, like leads you to wanting those things so super proud, um, yeah, and you know, I all of those different things, whether it was coach of the year or American Ninja Warrior, the book, or there's some other things that I'm very proud of too, but I think the biggest thing that led to all of them was the leap of faith of, for whatever reason, I really care about this. I don't know why I care about it. I can dissect it and people want to talk about your why, and that's awesome. I'm sure I could, you know, figure it out, but it's in me and I want this so badly. And anytime I've listened to that.

Speaker 2: 21:32

I used to write on my, I wrote on my whiteboard good things happen when you go all in and to me I really liked that expression because I think it's honest and you don't know what those things are going to be. You don't know if you're going to get your goal. You don't know if it's going to lead to something else. You don't know if, because you did this goal, you might fall on your face. But it means you make this relationship or you learn this thing about yourself, or, to your point, you learn this skill set that you're good at or you're not good at. To your point, you learn this skill set that you're good at or you're not good at. But it all begins, I think, with our choice of how much of ourselves do we want to give to this? And that's really the only choice that we get in this life is how much of ourselves do we want to give to these things that we care about?

Speaker 1: 22:18

Yeah, you know, I heard so I really love speaking too. I get to do like speaking engagements a lot throughout the industry and so a few times I listened to like a public speaker like podcast, and one of the things they're like the number one thing that they see is people who want to do a speaking engagement. They're obviously super nervous. Maybe they're facing a fear. They do all the prep work, they do it and then they don't show up again the next day and it falls off, and so there's something about consistency and training yourself to do things that you don't want to do. There's literally a part of your brain that grows when you constantly are exposing it to something that you don't necessarily want to do, but it gets you closer to your goal, and that consistency is so key.

Speaker 1: 23:00

I see it all the time with people on social media. A lot of the keynotes that I do are about being more present on social media and having like a digital presence, and I see so many people who want to. They genuinely want to and they ask me for advice. I give them advice. They try a post, they get really brave and they do a video or something, and, of course, the algorithm doesn't like them yet because they've never posted anything before, so they don't get any likes or they don't get any visibility on it, so they quit. And it's like that consistency in those dark times, like what you were saying, where it's like that's where the progress happens, like that's that's. You know, that's what's going to separate you from everybody else is can you keep going when things are?

Speaker 2: 23:39

dark. Yeah, a hundred percent, as long as you see that goal.

Speaker 1: 23:42

Yeah, what else, before we kind of like start wrapping up what are what are really kind of like any, do we have any other kind of key tactical things that we can lead people to when it comes to goal setting?

Speaker 3: 23:54

Yeah. So I think um, uh, you know we've talked a lot about kind of individual goal setting and yourself I think you know there there is a big picture at the end of the day. And um, I was fortunate early in my career in 1991 or 92. Um Eklund had a a deal with Kawasaki where we exchanged managers, so we got to go to Kawasaki plants and learn the Japanese were doing a lot of cool stuff and so I got to go to a Kawasaki plant.

Speaker 3: 24:21

I thought I was a really smart young guy and so I remember I went and I'm watching and they're making motorcycles and they're painting the frames and they go through a drying process and they go around to the top and they come down a chain and there's this little lady who's like four feet six inches tall trying to take these motorcycle frames off of this rack and she can't do it. And so every time one comes down, which is about every 30 seconds somebody has to go over and help her take it off. And the plant manager there was a translator, he spoke japanese, didn't speak english, but I said to him after a while she's in the wrong job, huh, huh, and he goes, no, and I said, well, she obviously can't do the job. And he said through the translator well, not by herself. And the idea was she was in the wrong job, but she was in the right job to promote teamwork. And what they were trying to accomplish was bigger than one person taking motorcycle frames off, right. So it became.

Speaker 3: 25:23

It was a great lesson to me that you know you got to think past because I came out of, you know, measure everything down to the and and and. So this was a thing where they were developing a culture that ended up. I learned a tremendous amount from it. So it's again one of the things that I say is, as you go through and you look at measuring things and you look at goals and you look at what you're trying to accomplish, sometimes you got to look at what are you trying to accomplish in a bigger way and I and I think that's and it and it doesn't matter, it can be the lacrosse team, it can be the manufacturing floor, it can be, you know, whatever you're doing, this podcast there's, there's always a big picture that you're trying to accomplish and keeping the eye on the prize, I think is important.

Speaker 2: 26:06

Something that and I love it so much. You know, humility. I think that's my what I'll say to that too, because I hear it so much, and what Larry's saying of going to Japan and just being humble to realize this is a great lesson and I'm going to receive it, and I think that was so much. My journey with American Ninja Warriors. I quickly realized, you know, I'd played division one sports. I was an All American, but then I'd stopped doing sports.

Speaker 2: 26:33

The world said you're a former athlete, so I stopped and then had to become an American Ninja Warrior and I remember going to train at the gym and those first nights of failing so badly. It was so humiliating I would, my hands were ripped, I was so frustrated and I really realized if we're going to keep doing this, we have to have humility. We have to just show up, learn from people, be oh. And this is I think this is a tactical one. I think that we as humans rationalize that we don't actually want to go for something anymore. We don't want this goal, but really we don't want to go through this sticky, dense, hard, uncomfortable period of trying to get good at something when we're adults who have reputations and other people are judging us and are they filming it, and so I just think humility is a really powerful and tactical way to go forward.

Speaker 1: 27:33

Yeah, my previous company would call that the messy middle.

Speaker 2: 27:36

So good.

Speaker 1: 27:37

Because there's always something between like okay, you got the burst of faith, I'm gonna take a leap of faith. You did that beginning part, you're doing it, it you're trying. And then there's this messy middle part, before you get to the exciting stuff at the end, and that messy middle is what separates people. Yeah, yeah, um. So let's just go around the room real quick. If we were to, um, hope that you you know everybody gathered one takeaway. What do each of you hope? That that is the biggest takeaway that they should take away from this conversation and start working on tomorrow. What is it?

Speaker 3: 28:13

Well, I mean, that's a that's a big question, but so you know, I think, at the end of the day, don't limit yourself. If we're talking about your own personal goals, don't limit yourself. You know, I think the one thing that Alex said, one of the things that I learned kind of early on and again it was a lesson, because you know, you come into this world thinking that you know so much and you know you can do mathematics, so I could do. You know, if you can do 10 a minute and there's 60 minutes and you know I can do the math and so, but what you find is that that's really not the limiter.

Speaker 3: 28:51

And I remember, you know, I was on the factory floor with some guys and I said so this is a machine limited process. It says we can do, you know, 32 an hour. And they said, if you say so? And I remember saying, well, no, that's, that's, that's the deal. And they said, if you say so? And I said, okay, well, what if I didn't say so? And they said, well, let us show you. And they showed me right, because they knew, they knew the process inside and out, they knew how to trick it, treat, and so what I learned is that anybody can do it. You know, you think about an athlete running anybody kick, you know the last hundred yards. They can't run a marathon at that speed, but they can do extraordinary things for short periods of time. And if you, if you just kind of remember that in your life and your work and your goal setting, there's a big difference that can be done there yes, that's a good one oh, I mean, I would say get brave.

Speaker 2: 29:47

Um, it's tough, and even as we're doing this, I'm inspired for a dream that I have um, that I gotta get messy with. Um. I just think that as we progress in life, we get really clever at locking up our bigger dreams. Limiting ourselves to Larry's point and I think you know I say before any goal can be real, it needs a chance to appear. And so I would just say gift yourself a chance to just go for a long walk, or give yourself a weekend, or or you probably already know it in your heart right now, but just say what do you really want? You know, and be honest about it, and then start to move towards it with a sense of urgency.

Speaker 1: 30:30

That's a great way to put that.

Speaker 1: 30:32

Yeah, and I think, for mine, I think that there's almost like you should find some pride in the messy middle, like while you're being, while you're getting humbled during the messy middle, you know that that is what's going to end up making or breaking you and it's what makes or breaks a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 30:49

It's the people that get through the messy middle that end up on American Ninja Warrior right, who end up, you know, winning that lacrosse game. They end up the CEO. It's the people that went through those dark times but didn't stop. And I think you should almost look at it like kind of be proud that you're in the messy middle and every day you have your head down, just kind of like pushing through it and keep going, like that's really something you should be very proud of and feel kind of like honored to be able to do. I saw something I just shared it on LinkedIn recently, but it was, you know, be honored to be challenged, like being challenged is an honor because, it's going to grow you and, as you set your goals and align them to your company, that'll help you too.

Speaker 1: 31:34

You know, it's kind of an honor to be challenged, and I think I actually really related to that saying in my head about this podcast Like it's an honor to. This is a very new podcast. We really started from scratch on it. So, um, you know, I kind of looked at it like, oh, it's an honor, the challenges are an honor, yeah, yeah. But thank you guys so much for this. This was such a good conversation. Now I want to go figure out what my year goals are. I don't even know.

Speaker 3: 31:58

You're very welcome.

Speaker 1: 31:59

Larry, one question we wanted to make sure we left with you was, as you're retired now, looking back on your career, of course, obviously we're not letting you leave too quickly. But what do you know now that you wish you knew? Then, what can you tell all the up-and-comers in our industry?

Speaker 3: 32:26

Well, I mean some of the things I think we just talked about. But, um, and, and certainly you, you continue to learn. But I think the thing, um, humility is a great one. I think get better every day at whatever you're doing. You can always improve.

Speaker 3: 32:34

You know, I I tell a story in uh again, it was early nineties. So we had this break business. It wasn't doing very well, had a lot of great people, luckily that uh that were supporting the business and and did whatever it took to make it work. So we got better. We got better Three, four years we had gotten some new customers and things were going really well. And again, you kind of get cocky. So I guess my message for what I know now that I didn't know then is don't get cocky. You got to improve, you got to earn it every day and you got to go in every day.

Speaker 3: 33:06

So customer called me one day and he said, larry, you know you're missing this brake rotor for whatever. And I said, well, that vehicle is only six months old, like those aren't going bad yet. And he said, well, you know, your, your competitor down here has got it. And I said, oh, that that's that guy's. He's a little guy. He probably went to the dealer and bought a couple of them just to put them in the catalog and he said to me oh yeah, you're probably right, cause I remember when you used to do stuff like that and I thought, man, you talk about a lesson. I mean I'm still telling the story cause it still stings so bad, but it was a great lesson about. You can't ever get comfortable. I don't care what you're doing, you got to get up every day and figure out how to get better and if you do that you're going to get. You know you're going to find success without looking for it that hard.

Speaker 1: 33:52

Yeah, go all in.

Speaker 3: 33:53

Like.

Speaker 1: 33:54

Alex said yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:55

That's so good.

Speaker 1: 33:58

You can use that in your keynote later.

Speaker 2: 33:59

Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1: 34:05

It later. Yeah, I like that, I like that.

Speaker 2: 34:06

It's so true, it's so true.

Speaker 3: 34:07

Yeah, thank you guys.

Speaker 1: 34:07

I really appreciate the time, thank you. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Auto Care On Air. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode, and don't forget to leave us a rating and review. It helps others discover our show. Auto Care On Air is proud to be a production of the Auto Care Association, dedicated to advancing the auto care industry and supporting professionals like you. To learn more about the association and its initiatives, visit autocareorg.