Hello everyone and thank you for listening to episode 4 of The Blue Collar Executive podcast.  I am your host Lewis Taulbee, Jr.  Today I want to talk about being happy and content with who you are, where you are and who you are with because that is the true meaning of success.  I have heard several wealthy people asked to define the word success, and I have yet to hear any of them include a huge house or a fancy car in their definition. You can have all the money in the world but if you're not happy and content in your life, that's not success.  On the other hand, you can be broke butt poor, but if you're happy and content in your heart, congratulations, you're successful. 

We'll talk in future episodes about always striving for more while staying content.  Today let's just chat about staying true to yourself and being happy with that.  I was fortunate to learn at a young age that it's impossible to be happy and content if you're not being true to who God made you to be.  I'll never forget the first time I attended my first executive board meeting. I remember looking around this long mahogany wood table and feeling so out of place.  I was definitely the youngest and certainly the least polished in the room.  Heck I had just learned how to tie a tie a few days earlier, but using my dad's can-do philosophy I was given an opportunity as an executive with this company and I wasn't going to turn it down.  I remember looking around the table at all the older and more sophisticated professionals and just wanting to sink down in my chair, but I sat tall and sipped my coffee and ate what I believe to be the first bagel I'd ever seen.  Back home we ate biscuits for breakfast and Coca Cola was my go to morning beverage, but neither of those were an option at this meeting.  When it was my turn to speak I passed around an agenda that I had prepared, but unknowingly I'd misspelled the word restaurant.  I heard chuckles from a couple of the food and beverage guys so I paused and looked at them.  They continued to heckle and laugh about my error.  Until now my instinctive mechanism was to bust them in the mouth.  I at least had enough sense to know that probably wasn't the right thing to do here.  The chairman scolded them and told me to continue.  If I wasn't already nervous enough, now I had this in my head.  I trudged through it and after the meeting I went straight to my office and closed the door.  I was humiliated and in that moment I realized I didn't fit in.  I was so proud and thankful for this opportunity.  Although I wasn't the typical suit and tie businessman, this is where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.  I convinced myself this was just part of the bootcamp and continued to buy more suits, worked on my political correctness and used spell checker a whole lot more.  However, every day instead of getting easier, it was becoming more and more of a struggle to just fit in.  I decided I needed to call dad.  Now dad was 150 miles away and I knew he didn't have any idea of what I even did.  Somehow he was always able to drop a nugget of hardcore truth of exactly what I needed to hear.  He asked how it was going and I said, well they tell me I'm doing good, but I don't feel like I fit in.  It's a different class of people here.   Dad just laughed and said, yeah, I'm sure you're like a hundred horse tractor and half acre field.  I had never heard that analogy before, but I knew what he was saying.  So I choked back my pride and said so you're telling me I don't belong here.  I was surprised when he responded I didn't say that.  Not fitting in isn't a bad thing, unless you want to be them.  I thought, well, I kind of do want to be more like them, but he continued and said, look, I know you want to be a successful businessman, but you can't manage any kind of business pretending to be something you're not so drop your plow and show them how much faster and deeper you can plow a half acre field by not fitting in.  Dad was right as usual.  God has a purpose for all our lives.  Yes we will be uncomfortable from time to time but just because we don't fit a certain mold doesn't mean we don't possess the gifts and talents to be great.  The next morning I had another executive board meeting.  I walked right by the table of fruit and bagels and said good morning to everyone sipping their coffee and tea.  I then sat down and cracked open an ice cold Coca-Cola and I reached into my pocket and pulled out some delicious mini chocolate donuts.  I looked around the table expecting some wisecracks and snarls, but no one even seemed to notice.  When it was my turn to speak I just went unscripted and just spoke conversationally.  To my surprise it felt like everyone was more attentive.  It was like a ton of bricks were lifted off me.  It was in that moment that I realized I didn't need to be this image of how I envisioned a businessman to be, I could just be me.  One of my favorite quotes is from the late Zig Ziglar.  He said, people will listen to you because they like you, but people will do business with you because they trust you.  I can never expect people to trust me if I'm not being honest and true to myself.  To this day I have never tried to be someone that I'm not.  I know there has been many times I made coworkers and bosses cringe because I'm not exactly politically correct and certainly am not the most polished in the room.  At the end of the day though I am who I am.  What you see is what you get and I sleep well at night.  It reminds me of when God told Moses to go talk to Pharaoh and Moses said surely you're not talking to me.  I can't even talk plain.  Well, he may not have been the most polished speaker in Egypt, but we all know how the story ends and I would say he was successful.  Let me share this simple little story that I heard many years ago.  There once was a man who netted three trout from a mountain stream and carefully placed them side beside on this thick patch of grass.  Now before he removed them from the water, they were like a liquid ballet in motion.  Fluid, graceful, vibrant, alive, but after he netted them out it was another story.  As the trout lay on the grass, they were motionless.  Their eyes were fixed. They gasped for air and they looked and acted stupid.  The man noticed that they seemed unhappy so he started talking to them hoping his encouragement would change them.  Little fish he said, don't be sad.  You'll like the grass.  Just try it out for a while.  No movement, no response, no change.  He explained that he was certain the fish could adjust and that they would prosper in this grass.  He liked the grass why shouldn't they?  Still the fish didn't blink.  They just laid there looking dumber and dumber by the second.  A little boy approached and exclaimed, what are you doing?  Put them back.  They can't be all they've been created to be out of the water.  Finally convinced the man carefully placed each fish back in the stream.  After splashing for a split second, all three swam away, effortlessly.  Again, it was like a liquid ballet.  In that moment, the man realized that no matter how long the fish laid there, they would have never adjusted to the grass.  They would have never been satisfied no matter how much he or anyone else coached them and told them otherwise.  Even if the fish tried to convince themselves, they could never learn to like the grass.  They would never prosper and would eventually die.  I warned you it was a simple little story, but I think the moral is perfect.  We've all felt like fish out of water at some time in our life.  If you have a prolonged dissatisfaction and you're not using the God given gifts that you have or fulfilling the passions that are inside you, maybe it's time to start listening to your heart or the voices of others if they're telling you that you were created for another purpose.  Remember as nice as that grass was those fish were dying inside because they weren't where they were supposed to be.  Bottom line is never try to be something that you're not because no matter how high you may rise in doing so you will never achieve success.  I'm reminded of when Paul was trying to preach to the crowd in Galatians One.  He said, am I saying this now to win the approval of the people or of God?  I've always thought that maybe that's when Paul as a new preacher had the revelation that hey I just needed to be true to myself and true to God and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.  God made every one of us individuals.  We all have unique skills and talents that he gave us the freewill to do with them what we want.  If you don't believe that look at the billions and billions of people that have walked on this earth and never has there been two people with the same DNA or fingerprint.  To sum it all up all paths have puddles.  If you're on the right path keep dancing in the puddle and just keep on trucking but if you feel like the mud just keeps getting deeper and harder to trench through, maybe it's time to either build a bridge or find a new path.  Remember if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.  Whatever you do, wherever you find yourself, always remember to live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly and leave the rest to God.  With that, we conclude another episode of The Blue Collar Executive podcast.  I hope you found some value in it or at the very least entertaining.  Thank you so much for listening.