Leadership Lessons, and Defining Success

On this episode of the Business and BBQ Podcast Tim answers four questions recently asked by one of his sons for his English class.  Instead of writing out the answers, Tim decided to turn the assignment into this episode of the podcast!

1. Talk about times you’ve had to persevere through a conflict.

The first thing that comes to Tim’s mind is the financial crisis of 2008.  In 2007 Tim and his wife were running one of the top five home investors offices in the nation, and overnight, nearly 130 mortgage companies shut their doors.  Tim quickly found out that “the market was dead” because of the mortgage backed security crisis.  Tim persevered, but was consistently selling houses at a loss.  The good news was he was able to liquidate his balance sheet, but the bad news is over the fourth quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008 he lost a little over a half a million dollars in cash.  Thankfully, they were able to keep their head above water, by Jennifer’s work as a real estate agent.  Tim knew they needed to turn their attention away from buying new houses, and focus on what they already had. 

More adversity hit in 2015 when Tim was the Managing Director for B2R Finance.  The company was growing, and lucrative, and then a new CEO enters the picture.  Formerly, Tim had reported to the President of the company, but now, he was reporting to the CEO.  This corporate restructuring brought about a lot of changes for Tim, and it didn’t work for him.  This culminated in Tim submitting his resignation, and returning to his roots as an entrepreneur.  Tim acknowledged in returning to these roots, that he burned some bridges in the process.  He extends an apology to anyone he might have hurt in the process of refocusing his goals and life.  During this time, his son incurred an injury, and it further made him rethink his priorities.  He stepped away from unnecessary tasks to focus on things that brought him more joy. 

2. How did the Marines shape you?

Tim shares that joining the Marines was the single best personal decision that he ever made.  It taught him to improvise, adapt, and overcome, and the core values, of honor, courage, and commitment.  These core values are what helped him get through the hard times of 2007 and 2008.  It also helped him have the courage to retire from a lucrative job that wasn’t working for him anymore. 

The Marine Corps made him a morning person, brought about deep friendships, a sense of team, and has made him much more of a successful person than he would have been, had he not been a Marine.  Tim feels eternally grateful and loyal to the Marine Corps. 

3. How do you define success?

Tim has gone through many iterations of how he defines success.  Early in his career, he defined success by money, and at times, it still defines his success.  He is working on reducing the impact of money on his perception of his success.  Tim now describes success as having the things he truly cares about, and taking care of his wife and children.  Success is being happy, being grateful, and content.  Success is also doing everyday what is important to you, not what is important to other people.  Tim’s greatest joy right now is having the flexibility of being home when his son comes home from school, and spending time with his wife in the morning.  Furthermore, success is having the ability and flexibility to live the life you want when you want to.  Success to Tim, in regards to his kids, when they are grown, would be to have them come and watch the Cowboys play every Sunday, and have them come and stay with him for long weekends at the ranch. 

4. What traits have led you to being so successful?

There’s an element of stubbornness to Tim’s success.  The most helpful criticism he received throughout his time in the Marine Corps was although he had courage and good initiative, he at times had bad judgement.  If Tim sees something that needs to be done, he can’t help but do it.  He wants to make things better.

One of Tim’s strength is knowing what he is not good at, and finding the right people to manage those areas. 

Tim believes in the 14 greatest traits of a Marine: justice, judgement, dependability, initiative, decisiveness, tact, integrity, enthusiasm, bearing, unselfishness, courage, knowledge, loyalty and endurance.  

Connect with Tim:

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With business questions: ask@timherriage.com

With BBQ questions: bbq@timherriage.com

You can access the full transcript of this episode here.