The Olympics honestly didn’t captivate me this time around, but the Simone Biles story and developments surrounding that did.
Biles is widely considered to be the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) in gymnastics, but the media and those on social media baked up some controversy after she withdrew from several competitions in Tokyo. Admittedly, my first reaction upon reading reports and the vile on social media was that Biles was quitting on Team USA. I unfortunately got caught up in everyone’s rush to judgment, as it turns out Biles was dealing with several issues that ultimately impacted her ability to compete safely.
The silver lining in the Biles story is that she returned late in the gymnastics competition to compete in the balance beam, earning a bronze medal for her efforts.
Lessons learned
While lesson No. 1 here is to not rush to judgment, the lesson I want to explore in this space is the idea of finishing what you start. Biles making the effort to return amid her mental health battle is one example illustrating this concept, but this same idea pops up in the magazine’s September 2021 cover story featuring Pro Lawn’s Darian Houssain.
Ironically, Pro Lawn’s contract crushing business took off, in part, because other contract crushers did not finish what they started. Houssain cites two incidents within the cover story when contract crushers walked away from jobs before completing their work. In an industry where people “do what you say and say what you mean,” walking away from a job simply won’t fly.
Our industry is small enough that word of these sorts of behaviors makes the rounds. And when enough customers get wind of this, a contractor’s reputation can be sullied to a point of no return. Trust, after all, is hard to gain yet easy to lose.
Once trust is established – especially in a market where good contract crushers are hard to come by – ample opportunities will find their way to the trustworthy. Still, a contractor doesn’t want to take on more crushing work than it can handle. It’s a road Houssain suggests Pro Lawn won’t go down.
“You can chase 10,000-ton piles and [hurt] existing customers, but that’s no good,” he says.
Again, do what you say and say what you mean. From there, job opportunities will present themselves to you.
“I got a call from the president of [an] Indiana aggregate producer,” Houssain says. “I did work for him, and he said: ‘I will pay you a premium if you finish a job.’ Another crusher started this job for him and never finished it.”