Auto Repair Shop Owners Daily Dose 69: Who Can You Help? (Family)

Who Can You Help? by Rick White, President 180BIZ

This is our family edition. Today I want to talk to you about a different perspective. For the last couple of months, it's been easy to focus on survival. You’ve been focused on moving forward and keeping yourself and your business whole. You’ve been focused on taking care of your team and your family. And I think that's important. But you must make sure your house is in order. I've been telling clients that unemployment is running about 22% nationwide right now.  It’s a sin.  But still leaves 78% of the people who are still working. And I think that's amazing. And as a business owner, we must be focused on the possibility, not the negativity. We must be focused on the opportunity. Yes, there are a lot of people hurting. But I'm going to ask you to step back and start looking around to see who you can help.

There's this old story, and I'm sure you've heard it before, but I want to remind you of it. A young boy and his grandfather were walking down the beach one day and there were all these sand dollars washed up on the beach.  There were millions of them.  Sand dollars are actually a living thing. They'd all washed up on the beach and this little boy picked one up and tossed it back into the water.  His grandfather looked at the beach and saw nothing but futility. He said to his grandson, “Why are you doing that? You're not going to be able to make a difference here. There's too many of them.” The little boy picked up another sand dollar. And he looked down at it. And then he looked up at his grandfather and said, “But to this one, I am everything. I am the difference.”

Think about that. I want you to be that little boy. I want you to think about who you can help. If you’re a shop owner, get in touch with a couple of local agencies and find a family or two where you can fix their vehicle. Maybe you can talk to your parts store and see if it isn't something that they will help you out with the parts and you donate the labor but do something to help people.

If you don't own a shop see this from a different perspective. You can buy some groceries and bring them to a family that you know is in need. Now is the time to start looking outward. Stephen Covey, an amazing man, once said that as human beings, we want four things in life. He says we want to live, we want to love, we want to learn, and we want to leave a legacy.

When we talk about living, that's about our basic needs. It’s about food the table and a roof over our head. Our basic needs are being taken care of. But then we want to love and be loved. We want connections and relationships. That’s important. Next, we want to learn to be the best version of ourselves.  You’ll never be happier than when you're growing when you're progressing. That is a big deal. And lastly, we want to leave a legacy.  It’s about what you accomplish. It's about who you touch. It's about making a difference in someone else's life. It's about lifting them up, letting them know that someone sees them, that someone cares about them.

Think about the Samaritan in the Bible.  The first two people, one looked down at the person that got hurt and thought little of him. And then the other person, the second person walks by and said, “I hope someone takes care of him.”  But it was the Samaritan who went out of his way to pick that person up. Understand that being a Samaritan in the old Testament was not a good thing. They were looked down on and ostracized. So, for them to step out of the social cast and take care of someone was really amazing.

Nothing will light you up more than being able to contribute to the health and welfare of other people. It's one of the things that I love about my job. I get to change people's lives. You do too. Every day we have the ability to impact someone in a positive way, and sometimes it's so simple. Sometimes it's just a smile. A smile can make all the difference in the world. A kind word of encouragement, too.

Tomorrow we'll be 10 weeks doing our Daily Dose. I am asking you to find maybe a couple or three families that you can adopt. Don't give people handouts. Give them hand-ups. We all need a hand up sometimes. I'm asking you to look and see other people that are in need. Make a difference in their lives. Reach out. Remember that your family, your children, your grandchildren, are watching everything you do.  You can talk to them all day long about lessons. It's going to be your actions that really teach them. And I can remember a time when I was going up from Virginia up to Massachusetts on the train with my three kids. We had a stop-over at Grand Central Station in New York. While walking through the station we encountered a homeless man panhandling for food. He said he wanted a meal. I thought that I'm not going to give him money so you can go get high or drunk. But I will buy him a meal. So, my kids and I walked this guy over to Chick-fil-A and bought him a meal. My kids still remember that to this day. And trust me. I am no Saint.

So, for this week, start to look for people that need help. Start to look for people that are down. They're down in their spirits, they're down on their luck. We've all been there; we've all been kicked around by life. We know how that feels. Let's help them a little bit. What do you say? It doesn't mean we have to fix the whole world. We can make a difference in this world. One person at a time. And that's what I'm going to ask you to do today.

Everybody that's watching this. I'm going to ask you to please share the video. Let's get it out in front of some other people. And it's not about being perfect. It's not about having all this polishing and professionalism. It's about making a difference. It's about touching people's hearts. And if this touched yours, would you please share it? I would really appreciate it. So thank you very much. Have a great day. Take care. God bless.