Several weeks ago I was sitting in our monthly sales meeting at McShea, listening to our quarterly sales numbers. They showed an unsurprising downturn, reflecting the economic situation of the past few years. Our president Jack McShea was at the meeting as well, there to address his troops. I was expecting a message along the lines of that given by Alec Baldwin in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross , when he says, “The beatings shall continue until morale improves.” Instead I was pleasantly surprised to hear Jack open with a quote from Colin Powell: “Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.” He interpreted this quote to mean that we can’t change the situation we’re in but we can control our response to it.
Jack said he was so moved by this quote that he adapted his whole approach to life around it to deal with these tough times. He also told us that he’d just returned from one of our clients’ annual state of the market conferences. After a couple of hours of doom and gloom from representatives of some of the largest markets in the country it was time for the keynote speaker: the person in charge of managing 15 billion dollars in assets, the one everyone was there to hear speak. He stepped to the podium and said, “We’re sticking to our “blocking and tackling.”
I found it refreshing to hear that in this pressure-packed, “what have you done for me lately” times there was a leader still believing in the proven values of staying optimistic and focusing on the fundamentals.
Have a great weekend,
Ro
*On a more positive note, Ro and McShea have been involved in closing the 3 largest industrial building sales in Montgomery County this year. Things are tough out there, but we’re still fighting.