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Up Your Average is the “no nonsense” podcast made for interesting people who think differently. Learn to navigate your life with unconventional wisdom by tuning in to Keith Tyner and Doug Shrieve every week.
I think it's really critical that you pay attention to who's around you when you go to that first job because you don't owe them your life. You don't owe them your future. And if you can't find a mentor, the the question that I wrote beside mentor was who cares? And if you look around and you can't find an answer
Keith:to that, you probably need to shorten your say.
Caleb:Welcome to the Up Your Average podcast where Keith and Doug give no nonsense advice to level up your life. So buckle up and listen closely to up your average.
Keith:Good morning.
Doug:What's up?
Keith:Beautiful day
Keith:in Carmel and it's Doug's day.
Doug:Man. Yeah. Caleb greeted me this morning with some heavy metal YouTube version of happy birthday with my name in it. That just made my day.
Keith:Made me smile as well.
Doug:Those kids in the Internet.
Keith:I don't even know, like, what to expect when we look to the future with the Internet and all
Doug:the Awesomeness. Yeah. That's what we're going to expect, some awesomeness.
Keith:Yeah. I mean, I remember the little sketchy little cartoons people would run through the copier at work. They'd sneak it through the copier, and then they'd it to you, the little funny things. Yeah. They were real, like, grayed out.
Keith:And who knows how long it took to get those, and they're sneaking them around the office.
Doug:Just as creative.
Keith:Yeah. Everybody's gigging. But Just as creative. Back to how fast the memes come out now. Unbelievable.
Doug:And you can make your own.
Keith:I can't.
Doug:Like, I was sending our pastor memes of Nolan Ryan wearing a Yankees uniform last night.
Keith:I created all by myself. Nice work, Doug. I'm proud of your advanced technology. Yeah.
Doug:Me and my friend, Chad.
Keith:Chad GPT. I did see that some of the original workers at ChatGPT cashed in some shares
Doug:Oh man.
Keith:For billions of dollars. I bet they're at the Ferrari dealership this morning. Yeah, they may have only worked it like a week. Twelve months. Yeah.
Keith:It's insane.
Doug:That's so cool.
Keith:On this chat GPT.
Doug:I always thought I should have been a dentist, but, yeah, maybe we should have forked at chat GPT. That's great.
Keith:So we created, we being me, a fictitious character for which we are going to throw some ideas at you all, probably indefinitely, maybe for the foreseeable future. My friend met me when I was 16. He grabbed me by the collar, lifted me up against the wall, scared the tar out of me. He lifted all 140 pounds of me up, so wasn't as significant as today. But with that process, we met many years ago.
Keith:His Catholic name is William Paul, and he retired this week. And so our fictitious character is named after William Paul, and that's who Paul Williams is. So Paul Williams, you can go back we can go backwards and forwards with Paul.
Doug:Yeah. And last week, we covered what it would be like to what was he? 60 at the time?
Keith:His first day in retirement.
Doug:Yes. At age 60. So he retired young. Yes. And we had some counsel advice and thoughts for him.
Keith:And today, we're going to turn the dial back for young Paul Williams. We're going to put him back to his first day of work. So that might look like he was maybe not going to college. A lot of young people today Okay. Aren't going to
Doug:I was gonna ask you the details. So we're gonna talk about his first day of work. And we're saying he didn't go to school.
Keith:We're not. We're saying it's just whatever he chose. He could have chose the traditional college route or not, but he's starting his first day. And so my homework assignment for Doug on this important day was to
Doug:Which I got about six hours ago. No, maybe twelve.
Keith:I'm thinking 24. So it was three pieces of advice for this young person, and it could his fictitious wife was Bridget, right?
Doug:Yeah, Bridget.
Keith:So it could be for either one. We're not sexist in this advice.
Doug:That's right.
Keith:I'm just picking Paul Williams because that's who was retiring. And so before we jump into your advice, I got his actual advice.
Doug:Oh, bring it.
Keith:Yes. So, I sat in the retirement party this week and I really loved that. My experience through my career is that doesn't happen much anymore.
Doug:Yeah.
Keith:My dad retired in, I think, 1989 with a bunch of years experience at Whirlpool, and that was the leading edge of not having a personal retirement party. They had 10 people in a party at once. Yeah, so there's like four hundred years of experience walking out the door on that day. And before that, I think they had an individual retirement party where they honored the person for their time. And then as more and more corporate growth and corporate structure kicked in, I think they just gave you a watch and a gift card and maybe took you to lunch or something.
Keith:But this was a literal party and it was really fun seeing the celebration of who he is and who he was for that organization. So, his three pieces of advice: one was to listen. That threw me back to our friend Ken Moore, who said, You will make more money by listening than talking. That's good. And listening, what would you tell people about listening?
Doug:It's really difficult, especially when you're young, at least it was for me, because I wanted to prove myself and tell everyone how much I knew.
Keith:And and there's a proverb that says, even the fool
Doug:is considered wise when he keeps
Keith:his mouth shut. Right?
Doug:Yeah. And I and I knew that, but I still kept going.
Keith:Well and and you not only listen with your ears, but you can listen with your eyes. People's body language will tell you things you might not otherwise know. And if you're a young employee, it is really worthwhile paying attention to what your eyes and your ears are telling you.
Doug:Yeah. Yeah.
Keith:So that was piece of information number one that Paul Williams offered about his early career that he'd do over. Number two was to make a decision. Okay.
Doug:It's a good
Keith:one.
Doug:Yeah.
Keith:Man, that one was packaged to me as a young employee by a guy named Mike Hames at Texas Instruments. I'm forever grateful for Mike's influence in my life. And he sat me down one day and he said, Keith, it is easier to get forgiveness around here than permission. And he was basically telling me, make a decision. And when I thought of what he told me, I was like, oh, most people are not going to make a decision.
Keith:And I'm willing to take the risk and and the heat for making a bad decision. And so that probably was one of the things that elevated my career that I was willing to say, I'll do that. I'll try that.
Doug:You go through 12 grades, and the teacher has always told you what to do and when to do it and how to do it. But to go into business or whatever profession you're in, you just quickly learn that there's no adults in the room anymore. And so you have to speak up, you have to make a decision.
Keith:So that was pretty wise too. And then his third the essence of what he told me, the third one, is that mistakes are teachers.
Doug:Yeah. Yeah. And Are you the one who taught me about paying tuition to Wall Street?
Keith:Yes.
Doug:Yeah. Yeah. That that that's what I hear when you said that.
Keith:Not only paying tuition to Wall Street means if you make a mistake in the market or a perceived mistake in the market, learn what happened and how you could not repeat that more times than you need to.
Doug:Yeah. I've made some that were at first perceived but reality.
Keith:They were real
Doug:mistakes. Man. Tough lessons.
Keith:I I am humbled by what the market has taught me over the years. It's taught me not only with real money, but in relative to the lives of people that we help.
Doug:And
Keith:so there's things I'm pretty adamant about when I help people because I just know that if you go wrong on this particular decision, it can be very devastating to the long term effects. So, yeah, mistakes are great teachers. So then there is another person I sought out their advice. Back in 1997, when we started Gimbal Financial, there was an aggressive business man that counseled me on how to move forward. And he's one of the more aggressive people that I've met over the years and been on Okay.
Keith:The he was supposedly, he wrote the playbook for the divestiture of AT and T.
Doug:Nice. Okay. Okay. I think I know who we're talking about.
Keith:Yeah. He was he he he's retired now. He was aggressive, but I asked him the same question.
Doug:I'm curious what he says because he told me something once that was really good advice. And so this is not the advice that he would have done then.
Keith:This is the retired version of him thinking back. I don't think he has regrets, but how he would have done it differently. Yeah. So number one was ruthlessly pursue Christ. Wow.
Doug:I wasn't expecting that one from him. No. That's okay. That's interesting.
Keith:And that doesn't I don't think he was even saying you have to throw that into
Doug:Like ruthlessly.
Keith:Yeah. You don't have to throw that into your like, peers' opinion of you. But as you spend your time ruthlessly doing it, it's gonna affect how you do your job is what I think he said. I'm pretty
Doug:sure that was one of, like, Jim Merce's three top three.
Keith:Was it?
Doug:Yeah. Like, what was pursue God or trust God or something like that.
Keith:I was I was really encouraged by that. Then he said push away self ambition.
Doug:Dang. He must have had his coffee. These these are good.
Keith:That's really hard if you're a young go getter, right?
Doug:Like you want to not go the universe. Yeah. That's that is wisdom.
Keith:And then he said he would put time boundaries in. He would only give the business so much of his time.
Doug:That's interesting.
Keith:Because I assume that he learned that the hard way that it cost his family because he didn't. And he's in other words, he's saying protect your family.
Doug:Yeah. Yeah.
Keith:So those were two people's thoughts. So now I brought to you, Doug.
Doug:Well, you know, grandpa grandpa George Shreve was a hero in my life. And my family, through my great grandma owned a beauty school. My cousin owns it today. But Grandpa George would teach classes on on how to be a hairstylist. And like every business, being a hairstylist, a lot of it is about trust, and likability, and product, what you get out of it.
Doug:But so grandpa would teach people to become professionals. So they would be leaving school after learning from him, and they'd hit their first day on the job. And one of the things that he would tell me is he said, Doug, I can teach anyone to cut hair. I can teach anyone to style hair, but I can't teach attitude.
Keith:Man. So
Doug:that's the first thing that comes to mind.
Keith:So before we go on from that, can somebody teach themselves their attitude or learn about their attitude then?
Doug:Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And you can learn from friends, people you trust, books you read, videos you watch, podcasts you listen to? Absolutely.
Keith:I think of that a lot.
Doug:Probably ruthlessly pursuing Christ.
Keith:That would affect your attitude, I'm sure. Probably. Yeah. Mean, it's model of humility and And adventure and courage. Passion.
Doug:Yeah. Yeah.
Keith:And so your attitude man, I think it was Zig Zig Ziglar. Remember him?
Doug:Yeah.
Keith:I think he said your attitude will define your altitude or something like that. Yeah. That was a Zig Ziglar.
Doug:My grandpa used to wear a sweatshirt on Saturdays. He'd loosen up a little bit on Saturdays. Every other day looked like what I picture Ralph Lauren to look like. I mean, you know, a good looking guy in suits and stuff, cutting hair. But he would wear a sweatshirt and it said carpe diem.
Doug:I always liked that seize the day.
Keith:That's beautiful.
Doug:That's good attitude.
Keith:So so you can't teach attitude. So bring a good attitude. So what would you say? Secondly,
Doug:I believe this was Bob Warren, who straight up told me this, but yet it's been modeled for me many times in my life. And it's it's just that, hey, if you want to go to the top, you you start by serving. And so that could be picking up trash in the parking lot. There is literally no job beneath you. And no matter what your last name is, no matter what part of the neighborhood you grew up in, or what what high school you went to, servant leadership.
Doug:That's, that's, that's going to take you places.
Keith:That, again, is probably not modeled a lot in today's culture with social media. Social media seems to be that idea of looking in a mirror, which we talked about a few weeks ago is what about me? Yeah. And so coming out of the gate serving, man, it seems like you would have had to have that modeled for you before you even got to that first day of work.
Doug:Right. Yeah, you the same guy who gave you those three, you know, great pieces of advice. He once told me, you don't know what you don't know. And so unless you've seen that servant hearted model modeled before you or you've read about it, it would be impossible to pick up.
Keith:Boy, it is it's an honor to work with people with that here at Gimbal. I can't say enough for the people that we have. Not only today, but a lot of we've been around a lot of those people. So servant attitude is it's it sounds like a cliche thing, but I don't think you can fake it. I think it's either real or it's not.
Keith:And and so it goes back to the first attitude too. Like, you have an attitude, but to be a servant with it is really a good good thought. Yeah. What's next?
Doug:The third is relationships are so important. And so on your first day, go take somebody out to lunch and and get to know somebody. Let them know you because, yeah, you know a bunch of stuff and all that and you're going to learn a bunch more stuff. You're going to become an expert in your own field. But the relationships are key because without those you really don't have anything.
Keith:Boy, I think of the idea of relationships and the longevity of them. And I ran into a young man this morning, and he was gonna have coffee with me Wednesday, and he had to reschedule it so he could have coffee with somebody that's a friend of his that he sees about every six months. And what I told him is I think Dalton is 28 or 29. I told him that you're about ready to hit the fast lane in your 30s. Yeah.
Keith:And those friendships can go away pretty fast because of neglect. And I just would encourage you to be intentional at keeping those things plugged in because it's really hard once the kids start coming along and responsibilities at work and marriage and all those things that the friendships can kind of get tossed to the wind.
Doug:Yeah, I think about that often with especially with my college and a couple of my high school friends is like, I think, could I be friends with these guys today? How would I even meet these people? Right? And it's just such a blessing to have had those foundations of wins and losses to have celebrated when we were young, and then grow over time through wins and losses together.
Keith:I think even with this idea, what like, it's not written in my notes anywhere here, but what I think if I were looking to start my first day of work, I think I would be more inclined to go somewhere where I have to go to an office rather than work remotely because you have an opportunity to go take somebody to lunch.
Doug:That didn't even, like, cross my realm, but you're right. Yeah.
Keith:I mean, there's there's I'm sure there's all kinds of jobs out there.
Doug:Right.
Keith:And maybe if you're my age, you don't mind doing remote because I've got my network. But if you're Caleb's age, you really need to build a network. Mhmm. It's hard to do over a a Zoom screen, I think.
Doug:Yeah. Right. I mean, you're
Keith:not there to have the jokes, the laughs. You don't get all that that builds the relationships when you're doing a Zoom.
Doug:Did you come up with some?
Keith:I have more than I cheated and went with more than three, and I thought I'd throw the first my three that came to mind. I probably had 20 when I think about it. Yeah. But I said first communicate well, which most people don't when they start. Because part of that's listening that we talked about earlier, so you don't listen well.
Keith:And then part of that is speaking well. And speaking well means to guard your words so you don't say too much. Right. Or say things out of emotions or say things that are hurtful. So, that's hard to learn without having somebody that you're sitting and talking to and realizing I might have to say, I'm sorry, Doug, I didn't mean to say that or whatever.
Keith:It's listening, speaking, but also writing. And people have told me, You really write well, Keith. And I said, Well, if you looked at the index of all the articles I've written over all the years, and then you went back to the beginning, I probably didn't write well.
Doug:Maybe you wrote good.
Keith:And a shout out to Ken Moore. I'm sure he doesn't watch this, but we had lunch with him last week, and he told Caleb and me that whatever I started doing in June, it's the best writing he's read. That's really cool. Yes. I was shocked.
Doug:That's a trophy. Well, was shocked that he even took
Keith:the time to read the answer.
Doug:He's the guy who went to Harvard.
Keith:Correct. Correct. So practice is how your communication skills so we are kicking that off for young Caleb Monday at 03:30. Oh, we are? We are.
Keith:He is going to the Crew Car Wash headquarters. Oh, 03:30 Monday until 7PM. Oh, nice. For the world famous Dale Carnegie course.
Doug:Oh, that starts this I thought that was November. That's great.
Keith:Yeah. Libby, did you start at 03:30 in the afternoon?
Doug:Yeah.
Keith:I did not know that. That's some commitment. 03:30 to seven.
Doug:Libby's all in. She's gonna name her next dog Dale.
Keith:I like that.
Doug:That's what she said.
Keith:I like it.
Doug:Yeah, communicating well. Skid, writing, speaking, all that.
Keith:The culture is taking you away from that. If you're young and you're starting it, you've been taught to not talk on this but to type on there.
Doug:Right. Yeah.
Keith:And I think you're gonna do yourself a great disservice if you don't learn to talk on it. It's intimidating if you haven't done it, but I think it's gonna add value to your future if you can learn to talk on the phone. And that's part of communicating. And if you're texting, that's probably fine for culture. But even taking the time to write a personal note, I just can't imagine how far that's going to put you in front of other people to send a thank you note.
Doug:Yeah.
Keith:And and it will get people's attention. Secondly, I would find a mentor.
Doug:Big time. That's good.
Keith:Within within that organization.
Doug:Yes. That's that's good.
Keith:And what that when I was thinking about that, what that'll tell you if there's nobody there to mentor you?
Doug:Time to move on.
Keith:Maybe. Time to move on. Down the road. And and I would when I got into the business world, I thought two years was the minimum that you had to stay somewhere, and that might have been on the short end. I think people expected you to stay five years.
Keith:And today, I think you don't have to give them even that long. I think the span of what you do and I'm not talking about disloyalty, I'm just saying about discernment. I was talking with this young Dalton today and telling him what we were going to talk about. He goes, I'd be curious how many career like, how many jobs a person had at your age, Keith? Like, many employers?
Keith:I don't know. What do think? Four? I would think four.
Doug:Yeah.
Keith:Yeah. But I think, like, the average person Caleb's age 40? Oh, I don't know. So maybe eight. Like eight would you think it'd be 40?
Keith:I don't know.
Doug:I'm just saying it's going to be more.
Keith:Yes. Yes. And I don't think it's necessarily the Caleb's of the world's fault. Think I that corporate America
Doug:It's just is different. Yeah.
Keith:AT and T was Indiana Bell when we started helping people, and it was like a family to them. But then corporate America changed their objectives and became focused on the growth of profits. And being profitable is a really valuable goal. The growth of profits, I think, devalues human life. And if you're going to focus on the growth of profits rather than just being profitable, I I don't think you deserve to have the people around as long.
Doug:And it could be, especially with the rise of blue collar creativity and entrepreneurship, maybe it's less than four. Somebody coming out of school could start their own business as an apprentice welder or electrician and then maybe they move on quickly to their own company. I I don't know. It'll be exciting to watch that.
Keith:I I think I think it's really critical that you pay attention to who's around you when you go to that first job. Because you don't owe them your life. You don't owe them your future. And if you can't find a mentor, the question that I wrote beside mentor was who cares? And if you look around and you can't find an answer
Doug:to that, you probably need to shorten
Keith:your say. Even they may be paying you great, but you're gonna make a mistake if there's nobody there that you can say who cares and answer that. You're gonna make money, but you're gonna become disenchanted and not look to the future with a lot of hope.
Doug:Yeah, that's good.
Keith:That second third goes to the back of my business card, but third is like what you do. And it's kind of what you said, Doug, that I used to say do what you like, and then Mike Rowe convinced me that's foolishness because I can't play pro basketball.
Doug:Right.
Keith:So, but I can like what I do. I remind myself that every week when I push the trash cans out.
Doug:That's good.
Keith:Because I honestly believe I could be the best trash man in Fisher's because I could have a good attitude towards it, right?
Doug:That's
Keith:cool. Like, I frame when I look at my trash man or woman, I don't think I've ever had a female, but I'm just saying I give it trash people that that I just respect what they do.
Doug:You line up those cans so that they can be picked up.
Keith:I just can't. I've been in New York City when the when the trash is stacked up and the smell and the flies and how and I've seen, like, the strikes. And I'm just grateful for the trash people that take care of our house. Just I appreciate what they do. And so then I can appreciate what I do, and I could learn to appreciate I think any role in life.
Keith:And I think everybody can frame their own life that way, but you have to choose to like what you do.
Doug:It's true. And if
Keith:you don't it's what your grandpa told you, you can't can't give you the attitude. Have to choose your That was that was the conclusion of my three. But I wanted to go over the back of our business card with you one more time, because I think
Doug:This business card, by the way, these are these are Keith's thoughts. These aren't Doug thoughts. These are Keith's thoughts. And, and the Shree fam, each one of them has these five principles somewhere at their house. Even my son in college has it framed on his desk.
Keith:Wow. That's humbling. And these are the principles that I would offer as a financial advisor to a young person, even somebody retiring. The first one was think differently. And I think if you can look at a situation and think differently as you go into that employer, you're going to add significant value because, particularly if you go to a government or a large organization, there's so much groupthink that those things lead to deterioration in attitude and growth and possibilities.
Keith:So, trusting that you can bring value by thinking differently is huge. Buying wisdom is the second one on there, and that's looking for a mentor, finding people that can help you. I said like what
Doug:you do. Buying a book to read.
Keith:Getting a good book. Absolutely. I'd say live adventurously. Didn't hype on that so much when I was given my pieces of advice. I think part of that adventure might be just diving into your job initially till you get your feet on the ground instead of looking for all the vacation time.
Keith:Realize that that time will come. And I can do it on weekends or whatever, but be willing to sacrifice some of your free time early so that you can have the control later on. And then live generously. It is easy to think that when I arrive, I'll be generous.
Doug:Yeah. Yeah.
Keith:And today's a good day to live generously as you look to the future. But those are those are What was the last one? That was it.
Doug:Yeah, that was it? Yeah. Oh, generosity wins.
Keith:Okay. When I think about that excitement of that first day at the office, it is full of possibilities. There's full of ideas and things that you can do. And there's all kinds of advice I think that we could bring to you as young people. If you're the young Paul Williams jumping into that first day, reach out to us, send us an email.
Keith:And if you happen to be one of those retired people that can reflect back on that day with some wisdom to send to us, email Doug, email me, and we can help the young folks that were cheering on with the wisdom that you have because there's plenty of things they can do that can just turn the dial a little bit and add value to their whole career. What else, Doug? Anything else for Mr. Williams?
Doug:I would tell Mr. Williams that he might have his first day a couple more times. And so if you're 50 and you're having your first day today, all of these things still apply.
Keith:Absolutely. And if it's your first day of retirement, maybe some of these things still apply to that. Well, thanks for hanging out on this special day. We wanna throw special celebration to number 50 for Douglas. So, Doug, have a great day, my friend.
Doug:Thank you.