If you’ve ever seen the movie 8 Mile, you were exposed to a powerful lesson that you may not be aware of.
To refresh your memory, Eminem plays this poor white rapper who engages in rap battles, and during the last battle, as the underdog, he acknowledges all of his weaknesses and mistakes and just owns the other guy.
In essence, he uses a technique called “Stealing Thunder” to defang his opponent and win the competition.
While I don’t like the man Eminem has turned into, it was a pretty epic takedown point in the movie.
I believe it illustrates what stops people from actually reaching their full potential.
That is the assumption that – because you have a past, you’re unworthy.
But it’s flawed thinking.
You gotta stop thinking about mistakes as failures and instead, think of them as learning opportunities.
Even if you lost money trading options as I did one time ($3500 gone), you can’t never try something new again. That would be crazy.
But worse than that is not owning up to your mistakes.
Because it can lead people to see you as ego-driven and self-centered.
And not someone who has the interests of others in mind.
I think women have the ability to push their egos aside pretty easily.
Must be due to their innate nurturing abilities.
But some of us guys don’t reach emotional maturity until we’re well into our 40’s or never in some instances.
That’s why men need strong men to guide them.
And yes, it can be hard to break young men out of the allure of the trash culture that’s so easily accessible.
Current culture teaches them to aspire to be like movie stars and the latest pop music idols.
Who most, inevitably, get caught going down the wrong path.
With drugs, promiscuity, infidelity, violence…Whatever it is. Many men assume, incorrectly, that engaging in these activities is “living the high-life.”
But they’re wrong.
And that’s exactly why they need viable alternatives to model.
Could that be you?
If you struggle attracting and retaining tow truck operators, you might think about taking a more active role in their lives.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve made mistakes in the past.
You don’t have to be perfect.
But you can’t expect more from your employees than you expect from yourself.
So, if you have vices or aren’t a paragon of virtue, you might want to work on yourself first.
And it’s vitally important that you do.
There is such a void of leadership today that just being a good person and taking an interest in your employees’ lives can make a huge difference.
All it takes to get the conversation started is asking them about the things that you deem important.
“How’s your family?” “How old are your children?” “When’s your wife due?”
And then follow up.
Relationships and trust are built over time. And if you do it right, you’ll be wealthy beyond just the dollars in your bank account.
When you think about how you want YOUR family and business to be, 3 or 4 generations into the future, you instinctively make better decisions today.
How valuable a gift would it be to instill that type of forethought in just one other person?
Don Archer
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