Truett Cathy

My family and I love Chick-Fil-A or as the kids say it Chick-a-lay. Today I ran by there to pick up breakfast (the Chick-n-Mini's are awesome!) and I noticed a book on display written by Truett Cathy entitled It's Better to Build Boys Than Mend Men. I think that's a great thought and one that I'm working hard on with my two boys.

When I went to find out more information on the book, I found a few things on his Web site that were really insightful. Here are his "7 Reminders For Building Children*:"

by S. Truett Cathy,
Founder and Chairman of Chick-fil-A

1. Every child I know who overcame long odds and grew into a responsible adult can point to an adult who stepped into his or her life as a friend, mentor, and guide.
   
2. Don’t be too concerned that your children don’t listen to you. But be very concerned that they see everything you do.
   
3. Be so consistent in your discipline that you’re boring.
   
4. Stop arguing in front of your children.
   
5. You may think children have outgrown the desire to be rocked to sleep at night. They haven’t.
6. Children will never believe in the covenant of marriage unless they see you living it with their own eyes.
   
7. How do you know if a child needs encouragement? If he or she is breathing.

In addition, since he a great businessman, on his site he has a list of 5 steps for business success:

Truett Cathy’s Five–Step recipe for Business Success
Chick-fil-A, the second-largest quick-service chicken restaurant chain in the country, gives all employees Sunday off to spend with family, to relax and to express their faith if they choose to do so. Yet, Chick-fil-A generates more sales in six days than most national chains produce in seven. Closing on Sunday is just one of the “principles before profits” ingredients in founder Truett Cathy's inspiring recipe-for-success. Following – in his own words* – are five basic principles upon which Cathy successfully built the Chick-fil-A chain.

1. CLIMB WITH CARE AND CONFIDENCE
“Every day, a framed poster of a mountain climber given to me by my daughter Trudy reminds me to ‘climb with care and confidence.’ I wholeheartedly believe in this philosophy, which is why in all my years in the restaurant business, I have never tried to overextend. I’m satisfied stepping from one plateau to the next, making sure we’re doing everything right before moving on. That way of thinking has allowed us to grow steadily into a 1.5 billion-dollar business with more than 1,200 restaurants, while responding to the needs of people around us. I know the best way to grow our business is to climb with care and confidence.” With 1,240-plus Chick-fil-A restaurants in 38 states and Washington, D.C., Chick-fil-A is the second-largest quick-service chicken restaurant chain in the nation, based on annual sales.

2. CREATE A “LOYALTY EFFECT”
“Our people are the cornerstone of all that we do at Chick-fil-A. As a chain, we believe that attracting great people helps create an unforgettable experience for our customers. It requires a lot of time and effort to make sure you have the right people working the right jobs, but we believe this is time well spent. The bottom line is that our people, from our restaurant Operators to the team members they hire, enjoy their work. Fewer than five percent of our franchise Operators leave the chain in any given year. The more we can foster the feeling that we are a group of people working together, depending on each other, the more likely we are to be loyal to each other.

* “Customer satisfaction is the payoff for spending the time to search for the best employees. Our restaurant team members have proven time and time again that going out of your way to make sure our customer has a pleasurable dining experience will build customer loyalty.”
* “This loyalty effect, the full range of economic and human benefits that accrue to leaders who treat their customers, Operators, and employees in a manner worthy of their loyalty, is at the core of most of the truly successful growth companies in the world today. And there is no clearer case study of the loyalty effect than Chick-fil-A.”
– Fred Reichheld, Harvard Business Review and author of The Loyalty Effect.

3. NEVER LOSE A CUSTOMER
“Ever since I was a teenager delivering newspapers (for seven straight years), I have tried not to lose a single customer. I treated each one like the most important person in the world and delivered each paper as if I were delivering it to the front door of the Governor’s mansion. The key to succeeding with a paper route and the restaurant business, I would later learn, is to take care of the customer. Whether on the paper route or in my restaurants, I have found that the most effective way of promoting my business didn’t cost me anything but a little kindness to my customers.”
* In 1935, at age 14, Truett delivered the Atlanta Journal newspaper to residents of America’s first public housing project, Atlanta’s Techwood Homes and developed his “people first” business philosophy.
* Chick-fil-A’s commitment to this principle is reflected in its mission statement to “Be America’s Best Quick-Service Restaurant at Winning and Keeping Customers.”

4. PUT PRINCIPLES AND PEOPLE AHEAD OF PROFITS
“I’d like to be remembered as one who kept my priorities in the right order. We live in a changing world, but we need to be reminded that the important things have not changed. I have always encouraged my restaurant Operators and team members to give back to the local community. We should be about more than just selling chicken, we should be a part of our customer’s lives and the communities in which we serve.”
* Through the WinShape Centre Foundation, Truett operates foster homes for more than 150 children and sponsors a summer camp for more than 1,600 children each year; in addition, he provides college scholarships for Chick-fil-A restaurant employees (more than$20 million awarded since 1973).
* Chick-fil-A partners with nearly 1,200 elementary schools nationwide by providing the Core Essentials Character Education Program, which teaches students one value trait each month. Additionally, Chick-fil-A restaurants are involved in the local community with activities such as blood drives, school fundraisers, family nights and children’s sports sponsorships.

5. CLOSED ON SUNDAY
“I was not so committed to financial success that I was willing to abandon my principles and priorities. One of the most visible examples of this is our decision to close on Sunday. Our decision to close on Sunday was our way of honoring God and of directing our attention to things that mattered more than our business.”

Chick-fil-A is the only major fast-food restaurant chain to be closed on Sundays, one of the busiest days of the week in the restaurant business. Despite being closed on Sundays, Truett Cathy has led Chick-fil-A on an unparalleled record of 38 consecutive years of sales increases, with its core free-standing restaurants achieving higher sales per unit in six days (with shorter operating hours) than most major chains in the industry.

* Exerpts adapted from Truett Cathy’s Second Book: Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People (2002 Chick-fil-A, Inc.)

Boise State -- what a story!

I watched the best part of the Rose Bowl between Oklahoma and Boise State last night -- what a game! Some people thought that a smaller school from a smaller conference couldn't hand with a big school from a big conference. I read this post this morning and this very much sums up my feelings about the NCAA Football Playoff meaning of this game. The following is from Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated in his recent blog post.

On paper, the 2007 Fiesta Bowl was nothing more than a minor upset -- the No. 9 team beat the No. 7 team. In reality, it was so much more than that. Boise State beating Oklahoma in a New Year’s Day bowl game is college football’s equivalent to George Mason reaching the Final Four, with one extremely significant difference: George Mason had its chance to compete for the national title; Boise State does not. Like it or not, Boise State 43, Oklahoma 42 just became the single biggest argument to date for a college football playoff.

You’re going to hear it a lot in the coming weeks. If Boise State can beat Oklahoma, why shouldn’t it get a shot at Ohio State? And while the BCS commissioners can offer any number of general arguments against a playoff, the fact is there is no reasonable answer to that specific question.

I was rooting for Oklahoma since they're in the Big 12, but man what a story and what gutsy calls. I'm glad that I stayed up late to watch this game!

2006 Year in Review

Events that I enjoyed:
* Texas football team won national championship. I went to Baylor, but glad for a Texas school to win.
* I love the Olympics and the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy was great. Shaun White was my favorite person who did well.
* I really got into the World Cup this year and enjoyed it very much.

Finance Committee -- great service and learning opportunity for me and my church.

Conference speaking -- was asked to lead a conference break-out session. It was fun to research, develop, and adjust a presentation then get to spend an hour with various folks putting all of my time and effort in front of them to help in their ministries.

Camping solidified as a family activity -- we went several times this year and really cemented camping as a "family thing."

Two specific deaths had an impact on our family. First, we had to put down Dodger, our long-time dog, this year. It was very difficult for the boys (Caris didn't get it) and they still talk about missing him. Second, our kids love Animal Planet and the death of Steve Irwin really made an impression on the kids.

Goals for 2007:
* Spend more one-on-one time with each of my kids.
* Hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt 5:6).
* Lose weight -- I want to get to at least 210 and then hopefully lower to a final goal weight of about 202-205 (according to my doctor).
* Be a more thoughtful husband and take the initiative to plan special things for my sweet wife.

November Scattershooting

Well, I really need to make time to blog more I really miss it. Here are some random thoughts in my head right now or things that have gone on lately with my family.

This last Wednesday, November 29th I was off of work to take my Mamaw to a test with her cardiologist. I wore shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals in the 80 degree high weather for most of the day. When I was taking her home around 6:00 p.m., the weather dropped 20 degrees in one hour as the cold front moved in! We had a high of 80 and a low of 36 degrees (Canadians, that's from 27 to 2 in one day)! Then on Thursday, the high was 36 and the low was 27 with rain, sleet, then SNOW! Our office closed early and I played outside with the kids making snow angels and throwing snowballs on our trampoline. My baby girl loved it and was giggling the whole time (except when she had snow on her face).

I heard today that the former Oakland pitcher Barry Zito is meeting with the Texas Rangers today. Man, I sure hope we get Zito but I think he's just posturing for some other team to give him more money. I'm excited about our new manager and the direction that we're heading but we need more pitching badly!

We had some of our family in town from Canada on Thanksgiving and we really had a blast with them. My wife's Uncle Craig married a great Canadian gal and they live up there now. Their oldest son and daughter are both married now (one in the Dominican this last Spring) and both of the couples came down to see us. We ate turkey, they went to the Cowboys football game, we ate Mexican food, danced at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth, and generally had a great time! The guys had planned on going to the football game, but Heather's uncle Terry made it even more special. He got a suite at the game and got a ticket for everyone including Granny who hadn't been out of her retirement home room in who knows how long. Channel 4 news did a piece on the whole thing and they were on TV! We couldn't find a babysitter for the kids on a holiday so I stayed home with the kids and Mamaw. It was very special for all of us.

Collin's Thanksgiving 2006

At the boys school today, Collin showed me where his teacher had posted his assignment where he wrote out "I give thanks for . . . ." I got tears in my eyes as I read what was in his little heart and I was thankful for his great witness at school.

"I give thanks for my thankful God. He tells me to become a man of God. I give thanks for my wonderful Jesus. He died on the cross for my sins. I give thanks for my wonderful family. They take good care of me. I give thanks for my cute sister. She likes to play with me."

Sorry, this was taken with my Treo phone so it's not the best quality.

It's a mouse . . . and not for the computer!!!

Well, here I am up late and wide awake. Why? Because we found a mouse in our garage tonight!!! That's the first time that has ever happened.

The weather here is starting to get colder and we found out that others are experiencing the same thing. About 10:15 p.m. Heather came to tell me that "something is in the garage!" When I checked it out, I found what I think was a "house mouse" trapped in an empty trash can. Notice that I used the word "was" since I took care of him cleanly and humanely. Thank the Lord that he was in the empty trash can! I took a picture of him, secured the lid on the trash can (which I will always do from now on), and researched it on the Web since I had no idea what to do.

After my research, I found out that drowning the critters was the best way to kill them if you catch them alive. So, I took the trash can out into the yard and filled it with water while I made a 24 hour Walmart run to get a trap and poison. I found some droppings but not a lot. However, where there is one there is probably more. I thought that it was gross, but Heather was thoroughly FREAKED OUT.

We have an exterminator coming tomorrow so we'll see how this shakes out. I'm hoping for quick and easy solutions to this problem!

Update: We had to clean out the garage really well and disinfect it. We put out some rat poison but the exterminator said that he thought it would be fine. After several weeks, we still have not seen or found evidence of any more -- thank goodness!

Budgeting experiences

I recently had the need to document our budgeting experience so I thought that I would share it on the blog. Before I get into our own experiences, I found a very cool tool from Motley Fool for tracking your spending that may be of help to someone. It is a PDF file that you print off, cut out a section of it, use a little tape strategically, and you have a spending tracker that you can keep your credit or debit card in. Very good idea for some folks!

Through our almost 12 year marriage, we've moved from:
* about a year of not tracking anything but our major bills,
* to using and Excel spreadsheet to track our "spending" (not budgeting for the future but tracking our past),
* to using Excel to manage our budget (updating the spreadsheet once or twice per month),
* to now using a cash system for most of our key spending categories (and still using the spreadsheets to track everything).

The key benefits that we get out of the cash system:
* We feel more stable. We know where our money is going and we are in control.
* We feel more secure. We have a specific plan and know at any time how much money we have for each key category of our budget. Security is a key need of most ladies so this will help them tremendously.
* We feel more spiritually-focused. We're less apt to spend just to keep up with the Joneses, more apt to ensure our planning is Biblically based (like tithing first and ensuring good balance), and making us more accountable for practicing self-control.

Other notes about our budgeting experience so far:
* Using our spreadsheets we can track our spending on key categories over time and use that information to improve our planning and future budgeting.
* To determine our cash categories, we looked at some of the categories that were most out of control and temptations for us as well as what's practical (the electric bill is not a cash category).
* Using cash in those key categories forces us to plan our spending (especially since we only have one cash folder) and also insures that our spending is "pre-approved" with the other person.
* When we went to our cash only system for key categories, we reduced our spending in those categories by 31%!
* Our current cash categories are Eating Out, Groceries, Miscellaneous, Entertainment, Clothes/Cleaners, Child care, Gifts, Home, and Mad Money. "Mad Money" is for Heather and I to use at our own discretion so budgeting doesn't get too oppressive. We don't want to feel handcuffed but have some fun within reasonable boundaries.
* Changing behaviors (especially spending habits) is a learned thing and takes time to become a habit. It takes a few months to get used to the cash system or any new system (and getting receipts regardless of your system) but it's well worth it. Even our kids now ask for a receipt after they buy anything!

So, that's our journey so far and it'’s not too difficult for you to do. Remember the benefits of stability, security, and spiritually-focused living with your material resources.

Which way did he go?

Sorry! It's been so long since I've posted I feel like a blog loser.

I've just been busy with work, family, and parenting so my priorities have been right! At work, we are kicking off a Web redesign so there's a lot of work to be done there but it fun and exciting. Speaking of parenting, my wife is working a lot this month and that means that I've got more time with the kids so we've been playing more games (like Battleship and Uno) and even camping (that'll be a separate posting).

I've also really tried to focus on my Mamaw lately and she is doing much better. We got her going with Assisted Living and we are adjusting pretty well now. My Mom and I are now using a new blog that I created to record her health information (private!) so that we can share it with each other and we also have something to print out for the doctor's records. It's been some work to get it going but it's well worth it.

I also helped my Pastor start a blog for our Men's Ministry called Band of Brothers. It's been fun and very useful to help the church get started and be able to post, send out via e-mail (using FeedBlitz), and catalog for future use his devotional thoughts each week. We are also using categories that will come in handy for the future. The blog allows us to be able to search the entries also and keep everything in one place instead of stored in bunches of different e-mails.

Okay, I'll post again when I finish polishing up a few postings that I have saved over the weeks.

Camping at The Vinyards in Grapevine

The Vinyards is a relatively new facility on the south side of Grapevine lake. The city of Grapevine took a park that was in that location, shut it down for awhile, and converted it into the campground. The facilities are new, in great shape, and some of the areas still have good trees. It doesn’t have the boat checkout/rental or swimming areas that you would expect from a campground on a lake. In addition, since it’s an urban area you don’t get to see the stars like I normally like to see camping but it’s advantage is that is close to town with no long drive and close stores if you forget something.

I wanted to take the kids somewhere while Heather was elsewhere and we had lots to do the rest of the weekend. The Vineyards was perfect for this scenario – very short drive but still a good camping experience. We were in site #45 which only had one big tree but was right on the edge of a big field perfect for running around and playing.

Whenever we go camping somewhere, I normally take a few minutes to drive around and note the good campsites. By documenting the good sites, I can use that information next time we go camping somewhere, pass that information on to my friends, and now that you’re reading this . . . you can benefit from this information. I consider good camping sites that are by trees, pretty level site area, space for the kids to run around, playgrounds fairly close is a bonus, and with points for sites that are relatively close to the bathrooms. Good sites that I scouted at Vineyards are 15, 16, 18, 25, 26 (great), 27 that are close to the playground area and 43, 44 (great), 45, and 46.

Proverbs on Arguing

I can't remember who it was that suggested it but I started reading the Proverbs chapter for that day a few months ago. Today is October 19th, so I read Proverbs chapter 19, you get the idea. I normally read to the boys (5 and 7) before they go to sleep at night and about a week ago I didn't have a book. So, I grabbed my son's Bible and read the Proverbs of the day for them before bed. It was so great, that even if I have a book to read them now we read the Proverbs first.

The thing that we have been dealing the most with lately is the boys arguing with each other. Yes, they are young and they are brothers and they will fight and argue. However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't correct the behavior and live in a home with no peace. Isn't it amazing what happens when you are consistently reading God's word! This week has been really bad with the arguing and check out some of the verses that jumped off the page to us from Proverbs 17 and 18 below. These are taken from the New International Reader's Version (NIrV) which is great for kids. I hope that these verses may be an encouragement/challenge to you also.

• Proverbs 17:14 “Starting to argue is like making a crack in a dam. So drop the matter before a fight breaks out.”
• Proverbs 17:19 “The one who loves to argue loves to sin.”
• Proverbs 17:27 “Anyone who has knowledge controls his words. A man who has understanding is not easily upset.”
• Proverbs 18:6 “What a foolish person says leads to arguing. He is just asking for a beating.” ("beating" is pretty harsh!)
• Proverbs 18:13 “To answer before listening is foolish and shameful.” We have talked a lot about listen before you speak and this was great confirmation.
• Proverbs 18:21 “Your tongue has the power of life and death.” We had a good discussion on speech that brings life (like encouragement, compliments, thank you, and "I love you" ) and death (being rude, name calling and cut downs, arguing, yelling at each other, etc.).