There’s a story of a traveler who was on a journey from one village to another. As he was walking, he noticed a monk tilling the ground. He asked the monk the following question: “I’m traveling from the village in the mountains to the village in the valley and I was wondering if you knew…
Think back on all your extended vacations. How many times did you take the rental car to the car wash? I conducted an official survey of a select group of leaders who have high attention to detail. I added their combined total of lifetime rental car washes and placed their numbers into my special spreadsheet. The total…
In 1995, Mike Tyson was released from prison after serving a three-year sentence. His promoter Don King was eager to help him regain his title as boxing’s Heavy Weight Champion of the World. For his first fight, King arranged for Tyson to fight an unranked, lowly regarded boxer, named Peter McNeely. It took “Iron Mike”…
So, there I was, managing a 3.5 million dollar shop in Largo, Maryland. For three months, I had a pressing need to hire another technician. While my colleagues and competitors complained about car count, I struggled to get the cars out that I had! But things were about to change because “Steve” had just accepted…
In chapter two of their book Extreme Ownership, former Navy Seals Jocko Willink and Leif Babin wrote about their experience initiating Navy Seal officer candidates. The final week of testing was referred to as “hell week.” They observed an interesting trend during one of the hell week sessions. As part of their initiation, the candidates…
John Wooden was the legendary coach of the UCLA Bruins. His basketball teams won 88 games in a row and 10 national championships! Bill Walton was the best player on the team and one of the best in the country. Wooden had a rule in place where he didn’t allow his players to grow a…
The year was 2012, and I was frustrated. I was frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t move “Jack.” Jack is a shop owner who was failing to achieve his profit goals. He and I would speak every week, but the results didn’t change. We improved his pricing, but never experienced the payoff. We implemented new processes but failed to see the performance. We…
If you Googled the phrase, “To throw under the bus,” an image of my six-year-old son Eric would appear! He’s infamous in the Twiggs household for throwing his older sister Erin under the bus! If I ask, “Eric, why haven’t you gone to sleep yet?” His reply, “Its Erin’s fault, she keeps talking to me!” “Eric,…
“I’m thinking that one session of repair order audits will instantly solve my Average Repair Order problem!” “I’ve been in business for thirty years, but I’m certain that my upcoming thirty-minute coach call will forever fix my business!” “Follow up calls don’t work! I made one yesterday and my car count has not improved!” Can…
So, there I was. I had just arrived in Florida for a weekend getaway and checked into my hotel. The bad news was that it was getting late, and I was getting hungry. The good news was that my hotel had an in-house restaurant, and it was a premium steak house. I knew it was…