0:Dark:Thirty

Old habits really do die hard... Like getting up long before the Sun decides to shake off the night's comforting darkness. Or, getting home long after the Sun has gone to bed itself.

That's been my routine for so long I can't remember a different time. It started on Saturday mornings with my Dad. Up at four o'clock in the morning, dressed and out before four-thirty, fishing on the sand at Jones Beach on Long Island, on the road and at work in Bensonhurst before seven. After we moved to California and found ourselves - me included, this time - back in the automotive service business in a 24-hour service station in Santa Monica, the cycle of short - very short - nights and long days returned. Only, there really aren't any 'set' hours in a 24-hour service station. At least, there weren't when we first opened in 1966.

We would go to work early and leave whenever we were done, regardless of the hour. Add the occasional "missed shift," where someone fails to show up and you find yourself working twenty hours and not just the 'normal' ten, and the boundaries between work and life began to evaporate, and not so slowly.

Years ago, my father determined that the day went more smoothly if we started it with breakfast: sort of like easing into the pool slowly, rather than just throwing yourself headlong into the icy water. Subsequently, breakfast became a ritual - even when no one was talking to each other!

There was a simple and inherent wisdom in that when you think about it. Even when we were at war with each other and not speaking - which didn't happen often, but did happen - someone would ultimately have to say, "Please pass the salt..." And, the fire that fuels most family feuds would ultimately die out.

This 'tradition' of early morning breakfasts continued for the better part of forty years, through countless restaurants and greasy-spoon breakfast emporiums. It transcended family battles, good times and bad, here in Simi and before that, in Santa Monica, and it served our family well.

Now, that I'm the only Schneider still standing at Schneider's Automotive, it is a tradition or habit or whatever it is, still.

I'm up before six, regardless... Regardless, of whether it is Monday morning with a 'solid' day on the books or Saturday when I could actually 'sleep in.' But, there are differences... With the exception of one or two of the regular places we ate for years where a basic breakfast club formed - and, even that's not the same when you find yourself sitting by yourself in a booth that once accommodated four or five - eating alone is different: not the same.

I still get up early... too early, probably. And, I still eat breakfast... albeit, a protein shake or a bowl of oatmeal. But, I find myself dining alone for the most part.

I still leave the house in the dark and most nights won't return until long after the Sun has gone down. But, now, I head straight to work after fixing breakfast and try to get as much paperwork and planning done before the phones start ringing and the people start coming in.

You would be surprised at just how much you can get accomplished - how much more you can get accomplished - without interruption: without distraction!

And, that's what I've been doing for the past hour or so: that is, of course, with the exception of chatting with you.

I've done the deposit. Finished signing the payroll checks. Planned for the rest of the week, more or less. Worked on our marketing plan for the coming year. Thought about the conference call I have scheduled for later on this morning to identify training for the Industry, big "I," conference scheduled for this coming October. Finished up my notes for the presentation I will deliver in Santa Barbara later on this evening. And, still managed to reflect on breakfast with my Mom, Dad and whoever else dropped by.

Not a bad morning when you think about it. Especially, when you consider that it began at 0:Dark:Thirty in the morning...

Complacency...

There are few things in the world that get me crazier than average. Average drives me nuts!

No one I know strives to be average, at least no one I actually want to know or continue to have a relationship with.

Striving to be average is all about giving up, coasting, taking the easy way out, accepting 'good enough' as good enough. It's about complacency... accepting things as they are because doing nothing is less complicated and takes far less energy than doing anything.

I'm not talking about someone who is trying the best they can but can't prevail because of circumstance, limited opportunity or limited ability. I'm not talking about the people who can't do any better or try any harder... By definition, they are trying as hard as they can to be the best they can be; to do the best they are capable of doing.

I'm talking about the people who could make a difference, who could do better: but, after careful consideration, choose not to. Generally, at the risk of putting themselves or someone close to them in danger of some sort. They would rather work at 'getting by,' than work at getting better. And, I think what bothers me most of all about this social or cultural phenomenon is that it seems to be growing.

People come by the shop to take an order or solicit our business either representing themselves or other companies and they just barely manage to follow the script as if showing up was enough. They don't bring anything of value to the relationship, they don't create anything of consequence, they don't move information up or down the pipeline. Hell, sometimes they don't even say Hello!

I can't live like that. I don't think I would even if I could: could, as in allowed. I'm not wired that way and neither are any of the people I work with. They are constantly trying to learn more, get better, accomplish something significant, overcome obstacles, attain success. Now, they may choose to define success a little differently than the majority might define it. Their success isn't always about 'stuff' or money. More often than not, it's about that feeling of satisfaction that can only come from doing something extraordinary. And, extraordinary rarely occurs without a serious compliment of exertion.

I think the answer is not only simple, it's obvious. This level of performance - Or, perhaps, more appropriately - this level of non-performance, should no longer be accepted as adequate by anyone anywhere anymore. Complacency should be banished, and its practicioners and advocates no longer tolerated or accepted.

I think I'm going to give it a try... And, the sign at the driveway will read: Average No Longer Tolerated Here!

Because It Gives Me Peace...

I'm relatively new to this 'Blogging' stuff.

I tried my hand at it in August... unsuccessfully.

I really didn't have a handle on what it was supposed to be all about, but that didn't stop me. Although, it probably should have. I was subsequently inspired to try again by my son who is more or less keeping an electronic journal of his preparation for the 2010 Tempe Ironman event, Seth Godin and Tom Peters.

Reading my son's blog (theironmadman.blogspot.com) and becoming addicted to Seth Godin's have helped me to understand that there is no right or wrong way to go about this which has in turn quieted my perfectionist neuroses to a manageable level: You know, that not so small voice that demands everything you do is done flawlessly lest someone find out you are somehow less than you appear to be... somehow less than you think they might think you are.

Did I just say that out loud?

The result of of this exploration has me taking another run at it, first on my company's website: schneidersauto.net, and then again here. Realistically, I haven't decided if the content will be the same, similar or different. You know, one focused on our automotive service business, the automotive aftermarket, broken cars and broken people: more or less the heart and soul of the columns I have written to the industry for the past twenty-five years, and my 'other life...' the one that begins and ends on the other side of the driveway at 607 E. Los Angeles Avenue; a world of family, friends, kids and community.

Realistically, it isn't all that easy to separate the two. I lean toward obsessive/compulsive behavior... a lot. And, tend to carry my professional life home with me every night and every weekend mixed in with the stack of papers and folders I drag back and forth every night. In fact, I'm sitting here right now bracketed by one of the 6 1/2" x 9" spiral notebooks I've started carrying everywhere on the left pull-out writing surface of my desk, and that five-inch stack of papers and folders I just mentioned, crying out for attention on my right.

It's Sunday and I just finished watching a digital recording of the The Sunday Morning Show, something that has more or less become a ritual around here: a recording because I refuse to get up at "0:Dark:thirty" in the morning to watch it when it actually airs, and a ritual because it is something that both my wife and I take great pleasure in doing together.

The motivation for this post is something that was said upon the conclusion of this week's episode and my subsequent response. After my wife and I finished talking about what we had just finished watching, I got up and started toward my office. She asked where I was going and I told her, although there aren't all that many choices in the small, 4-bedroom tract house referred to with love as "the Baronial Estate," purchased new thirty-six years ago.

She asked me why... And, I told her I was heading to my office to write. After all, that's what writers do.

She asked me why... And, without a second thought, I replied... "Because it gives me peace!" And, at that moment I achieved a blinding insight into something a dear friend and client said to me more years ago than I care to remember... "Work is prayer..."

Suddenly, I realized that work is prayer and that the purpose of prayer is to elevate; to communicate with powers in the universe greater than one's self. And, that through this dialogue we can achieve peace - Or, at least, I can: if not on demand, then, at least, at times! And, even though I may be writing about something that happened in the "real" world, the world in which I struggle to confront every day - the very act of writing about it transforms whatever it was that happened into something somehow more objective: something, somehow less personal and subjective. And, there is a very real kind of peace to be found in that simple transformation. There is a very real peace to be found in moving from the direct to the indirect...

So, in a way, my ultimate reason for my return to blogging is somewhat selfish: it is at least in part a search for the kind of peace most of us are probably struggling to find. In another, it is totally altruistic: altruistic in the sense I hope that by sharing my search with you, you may discover a door or a window leading to the kind of peace you are struggling to find.

Who knows... We may even find what we are looking for together. But, right now, it's time to pray: time to work for the peace I seek! In other words, I have a deadline to meet...

More later...