We have hot buttons. All of us. Things we’re just overly zealous about. For some reason that maybe we don’t even know.

Some business owners are fanatical about employee honesty. They’re paranoid that people are always stealing. They lead and manage based on that assumption.

Some are fanatical about inventory refusing to discount it quickly enough because they over-value it. It impacts how they manage and lead.

Emotions are the bad guy. We all have them and without them, we’re not fully human. Psychopaths don’t display emotions quite like most of us. That’s an extremely negative example. Sociopaths can display extreme emotions. That’s another negative example.

Emotions fuel us. When we have our emotions in sync with reality it’s a great thing. But when our emotions overrun reality and logic, we can encounter problems.

This week a friend and I were talking about some business opportunities and he told me a story. Two people went into business together with very different skills and responsibilities. They appropriately notated what each of them would do, then set about to do it. Less than a year later they were experiencing solid success, but one of the partners began to feel her contributions were worth more than her partner’s. Resentment was setting in. It was an unrealistic emotion. She wasn’t seeing things for what they really were. The truth was, her partner was handling a ton of things that were enabling her to do what she was best at. Without the partner’s contribution, there’s no way the enterprise would have been as successful.

We’ve all got stories of unreasonable behavior in the face of strong evidence. Proof that emotions need some type of regulation.

An entrepreneur is angry with an employee who gave a customer a discount of less than $100 without getting permission first. He goes OFF on the employee and the rest of the staff to make a point. For hours he spends time trying to figure out ways to prevent this from ever happening again. Less than $100 wrecks the entire company for the day. And the owner continues to obsess about a “lack of control.” So it goes when emotions rule the day.

But…

Emotions play a vital role in the establishment and building of our companies. We’re driven to accomplish something. It’s not always rational. The vast majority of small business owners earn less money than they could make working as an employee for somebody else. But they don’t want to work for somebody else. People have feelings, emotions, and desires that may be uniquely their own. Who are we to judge?

A software developer earning good money wants to open up a cookie shop.

A lawyer wants to start a charter fishing company in the Gulf of Mexico.

A physician wants to renovate an old house and create a bed ‘n breakfast.

Go figure. May not make sense to us, but it makes all the sense in the world to them.

Those emotions are tied to doing work that’s more rewarding than the work they’re currently doing. They don’t care about the money earning comparisons. They’re willing to earn fewer dollars so they can achieve something else. Something that matters more to them. It’s largely an emotional decision.

Your enthusiasm and passion aren’t fueled so much by logic, but whatever logical foundation exists is fueled by emotions. I could likely bring up a topic close to your heart and your interest in that topic would be noticeable. Your voice would change. The tempo of your speech would amp up. Your eyes would widen. You’d lean more forward. Emotions.

Those are positive. Well,

Episode 100 of the Grow Great Daily Brief was preceded by hundreds of other episodes through the years, but it’s a milestone of the new format…and I want to thank everybody who listens and subscribes. I hope you find value here as together we work to grow, improve and transform our companies and our leadership. I’ve chosen a powerful theme for this 100th episode, the TRUTH.

Monday night the Dallas Cowboys showed how pitiful they truly are in a loss to a mediocre Titans team, 28-14. Most of us living in DFW weren’t terribly surprised. The radio outrage Tuesday morning continues. People are tired of the last 20 years of average football played by this team. But the Cowboys have a brilliant businessman at the helm, Jerry Jones. He’s only got one major blindspot it seems, the delusion of being able to construct and lead a winning football team. Making money ain’t the problem. Winning games? Well, that’s far more challenging to Mr. Jones. But he doesn’t appear willing to see the truth of his football circumstance. Yet. Probably never will.

Sometimes success reinforces the lie and gives our delusions extended life.

When your business is as financially successful as the Cowboys are, I’m sure it’s very hard to see any failure. Jerry Jones isn’t any different than you and me in that regard. He’s looking at the valuation of the team, now presumed to be the most valuable sports franchise in the world at $4.8 BILLION. Hard to argue with the business end of things. But professional football, and all other pro sports is a different breed of cat. There’s the team’s performance in the sport, and there are the dollars brought in by the team. For the Dallas Cowboys, those are two desperate things.

Financial success reinforces the notion, “Look at how successful we are. We’re doing things right.” It’s hard to argue with…making it more sinister by deepening the delusion.

Where are the lies in your life and your business?

You know what vexes me as much as anything? Entrepreneurs who don’t see what’s possible – with “what’s possible” defined as growth and improvement. Many businesses operate every day on the lie of “good enough.” Sales are good enough. Profits are good enough. Systems are good enough. People are good enough. Too many business owners presuppose that their current success is good enough. They’re satisfied. Complacent. But they don’t sense it for what it really is. Dangerous!

I once found a way for a $3 million annual revenue increase for a business. At the time, the business was doing pretty well. Better than they’d done in 2 years. That success made the owner gunshy to see, face or adjust to THE TRUTH. At the time, I was doing hardcore roll-up-your-sleeves-get-your-hands-dirty consulting. I no longer do that work because it’s so incredibly frustrating for me. The business didn’t pursue this potential increase. Two years later, they were back to a cyclical struggle. And I felt awful, even though they were way back there in my rearview mirror by then. It was just painful to see the TRUTH but unable to help them see it. But success got in the way.

Seeing, facing and adjusting to the truth is a viewpoint, mindset, and attitude.

Do you question the current state of things? Including success?

Do you believe – truly believe – that things can be improved?

I’m not talking about a restless discontentment, but I’m talking about leveraging a constant state of dissatisfaction.

I’ve coached my fair share of teams. And people. Some in sports. Some kids. Some college kids. Some in business. Some kids. Some not.

The most engaged times I’ve ever spent were leading teams best described as TIGHT, TOUGH and TOGETHER.

Listen to any sports team coach and you’ll hear the importance of these things. They’ll use terms like “chemistry” or “culture” to describe it, but these three T’s are what they really mean.

The Dallas Stars hockey club has a first-year coach, Jim Montgomery. Like most folks in hockey, Jim has a nickname, “Monty.” The team is only about a dozen games into a new season with a new coaching staff. So far, so good. The team has been on an extensive road trip playing games out of town. On Monday Monty said he was noticing the team was growing tighter. It’s noticeable on the bench during games. The team is growing because they’re getting tight, and playing tougher because they’re more together than in earlier games.

Tight.

Tough.

Together.

What about your team? Would those terms – all 3 of them – describe your employees?

Or, do you find yourself using cliches like, “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing”?

I hear far more of those cliches than CEOs who are proud to extol the virtues of their company culture. I think I know why. It seems to me that too many CEOs and entrepreneurs aren’t quite sure how to go about it. An easy barometer is to see all the outfits offering to help leaders improve culture. Another barometer is the breadth of conversation and content surrounding company or organizational culture. Lots of us are talking about it and concentrating our work on it. Doubtful we’d be doing that if there wasn’t a strong need.

Part of the challenge is the diversity of today’s workforce. When companies employee people in their 50’s, 40’s, 30’s and 20’s – those are very different people who view the world through different lenses. Employee engagement firms focus on assessments. Companies are data-driven and these companies work hard to give clients what they most want – data. The assumption is that once you know how well (or how poorly) you’re doing with employee engagement, then you’ll know how to improve it. But that’s not necessarily true.

I can go to a doctor and get an accurate diagnosis. That doesn’t mean I’m going to get well. If the doctor tells me what I need to do, I may decide to refuse. I may choose some other course of action. I may decide to do nothing. Assessments may be very helpful, but they’re not the prescription any more than our doctor’s diagnosis.

You are here. Good to know. There’s where you want to go. Also good to know. The big challenge we often face is how do we get from where we are to where we want to be.

Monty, the Dallas Stars coach, could see that his new team needed to improve the three areas of chemistry or culture. They needed to be tight, tough and together. NHL teams usually begin a season with a week away from home before the pre-season games begin. Unlike NFL teams who may spend weeks in camp before the end of the season, the NHL clubs have a different business model. For starters, they don’t have 53 players on a roster so they don’t need as much time to get their team’s roster lined out. Additionally, they’ve all got minor league teams where they develop players. The NFL has no such advantage. NFL teams play 16 regular season games. NHL teams play 82 regular season games, 41 on the road and 41 at home.

That’s an important difference because by the time the NHL te...

I’m fixing to make some college football fans angry. Because I’m going to take a stand as a fan myself. I was born in Ada, Oklahoma. I grew up in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas. My grandparents were always in Oklahoma. That makes me a Sooner football fan. I’ve been an OU fan since I was a little boy. Through thick or thin. A BIG TIME FAN! Honestly, I love college football even though I live in DFW, which is an enormous professional sports town. 

The point?

Some weeks ago the OU head football coach fired the defensive coordinator in mid-season. He put another coach in charge of the defense. The team’s defense was dreadful even though they had four-star players. The first thing the new defensive coach did was SIMPLIFY how the team played. He understood that these players were fast, but they didn’t play fast because they were being overcoached by the ex-coach. Things were so complicated the players weren’t playing fast. The new coach felt that if he could get the players to line up properly (position matters) and give them the confidence to know they could do what he asked…then they’d play fast. By simplifying everything the team did defensively, within a few games under this new system it’s obvious to fans and media that his strategy is working, but it’s still very early in his process. Sooner fans are hopeful.

Last week a new Gallop Poll reported the number of employed Americans has never been higher. The unemployment rate is 3.7 percent, the lowest since 1969. 

Yet CEO’s and business owners continue to lament how difficult it is to find “good people.” Said one CEO, “I just need people who know how to work.” He wasn’t talking about people who lacked the skill. He was complaining about how difficult it is to find people with a dedication required to be high achievers in his company. It wasn’t as if he was being overly demanding. He commented about people following through on what they were supposed to do – and what they commit to doing. Things he felt were basic, fundamental and “common sense” things. 

A software entrepreneur told me finding developers was growing increasingly more difficult for her firm. “Even mediocre talent costs way more than it should,” she said. 

A clothing retailer feels stuck with part-time and transitory employees who aren’t finding the work career-oriented. The turnover is taking a toll on his ability to grow as much as he’d like. And the added strain on his life, too. 

Across all sectors, it seems people are challenged to upgrade, or topgrade their workforce. “Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People” by Bradford D. Smart was a book published in 1999. It spoke of the need to have superior people if you’re going to build a superior company. Mr. Smart’s advice – and his company – focus on being able to assess people so you can acquire top level talent.

For some of us, that’s completely practical. For others of us, it’s impractical. Thankfully, many of us can operate successful businesses with good to great employees. We don’t necessarily require the very best, but we may need to upgrade. 

The wheelhouse of my work focuses on enterprises achieving a few million bucks a year up past $100 million a year. For each of these companies, the difference in achievement between mediocre or average workers and good or very good employees is noticeable. Every CEO and entrepreneur says so. But not each of them are necessarily willing to do the necessary things to make the improvement. Some just wish things would magically be better. Others are working hard to figure out ways to make it better. I’m hoping you’re among that latter group. 

So what do we do if we want to upgrade our workforce?

First, and this is going to be overly obvious, but I’ve often found that we get so bogged down we often overlook the obvious. Examine your habits and practices to discover what has worked well in the past versus what hasn’t worked well. 

Have you ever had a problem with something say electrical? Perhaps it wouldn’t turn on. Only to find out it wasn’t plugged in? I suspect we’ve all done it. Embarrassingly we’ve discovered the problem after spending too much time thinking of every other possibility. We overlooked the first place we should have looked. Ditto with this problem.

It’s certainly possible, if not probable that what once worked won’t work any longer. Or at least as well. But sometimes we simply drifted away from a practice that was producing good results. It’s worth looking into. 

Do more of what works. Do less of what doesn’t. 

Perhaps parts of what you once did – that worked well – are worth reinstating. Be creative. Think it through.

One step forward, two steps back. A better strategy is one step back, two steps forward. But that’s not how the cliché goes. I think we should change it.

Take a step back so you can move forward further, faster! 

I’m not talking about regressing. Not far from where I live there are two sweet tree-lined streets that are heavily traveled. But there’s a problem. When it rains a lot, the roads flood because they’re in very low lying areas. Yellow signal lights are activated by the city then gates are pulled together to keep cars from going any further. Those of us who live in the area know when it rains a lot we’d better figure out some other route. Sometimes I forget, only to get to the warning light and have to turn around and go back. It’s the only path forward.

What do you do when life doesn’t present you with a yellow flashing warning light though? How do you know it’s time to turn back?

Sometimes you don’t. That’s why we dig ourselves into a hole and we keep digging. We’re unaware that what we’re doing isn’t working, or likely to ever work. Before we can ever advance we have to stop hurting ourselves from moving forward. Rule one: stop moving backward. The paradox is that the path forward begins by seeing we’re already moving backward…but now we have to move back even further. That’s when resistance kicks in. Our brain and our desires compel us to not do it.

Seeing the reality of our current actions isn’t always easy. We feel like this digging (hustling, grinding – pick the term you love most) is moving forward. No, we’re not seeing signs of success, but how are we to know we’re mere days away from breaking through? We all think about it and talk about not quitting too soon. So we keep digging. Thinking it’s the wise option. 

What if we’re wrong? 

I was watching one of those HGTV flip shows late one night. You know the shows. Couples in various markets in the country buy homes, rehab them, update them and flip them for a profit. Every episode is pretty much the same. Buy the house as inexpensively as possible. Sink as little into as necessary, or as much as necessary, depending on the market and comparable prices in the area. Sometimes they encounter a problem though. Suddenly they need to sink in another $2,500. Then they encounter a problem that has to be fixed, like electrical or mold. There goes another $3,000. Suddenly, the flippers realize their math isn’t going to work if they don’t stop investing more money into the property. Sometimes they guess right. Sometimes not. Of course, on TV they always get it right. We don’t see the downsides of the flipping business. Those times you invest more than you make back. Watch just a few episodes and you quickly realize it’s a game of cost containment and market conditions. 

Look at your life in the same way. Cost containment versus market conditions. Can I invest more time and money and make a return on the investment? Well, I think I can. But even these seasoned flippers often get it wrong. They buy a house for $108,000, sink another $60,000 into it thinking they can sell it for $225,000. So they enter the game expecting to earn a gross profit of $57,000. Once the rehab begins they find problems they didn’t budget for. Electrical. Structural. Plumbing. Mold. Now they’ve sunk an additional $20,000 into their costs. That $57,000 expected return is now $37,000. And once they list it, expecting to sell it for $225,000 and quickly. But two weeks on the market the only offer they get is for $212,000. They don’t make $57,000. Instead, they make $24,000.

Sincere honesty should come more easily, but I understand why it’s often tough. We live with masks mostly permanently affixed to our face. Showing the world what we want them to see. Saying things we know the world wants to hear. Fooling ourselves into claiming we’re being polite. Or positive. 

Candor is tough because of judgment. We fret about what people will think. Here’s where we get it wrong…we think people want polite lies more than they want sincere honesty. There are so many problems with that. Dishonesty being up near the top. How is dishonesty a good strategy for life?

I’m not talking about being rude or obnoxious. This isn’t about leaving tact behind. Quite the opposite, it’s about raising your emotional intelligence! Elevating your awareness and empathy. 

People too frequently define candor as being able to tell people bad things, or negative things. WRONG! It’s being able to tell people the truth. It’s letting go of insincerity, fluff and bull. It’s compassion, empathy and caring. 

Let me explain by talking about corrective employee discipline because this is where it often comes up in my conversations with CEOs and other top-level leaders. 

Question: Do you think it’s fair or honest to terminate an employee who doesn’t see it coming? 

Don’t be so fast to answer. Think about it. Then think about how you want to answer compared to the reality inside your company. Yes, every HR professional will push you to document, document, document. And to put employees on a PIP (performance improvement plan). Let’s assume you do all that as you should in order to protect yourself legally. 

But I’m not talking about your legal obligations. Those are a given. I’m talking about moral obligations, actions you take because it’s the right thing to do. I’m talking about CANDOR, sincere honesty. 

It’s too easy to be a coward. To avoid a confrontation, that’s the word I usually hear whenever I bring up the topic of “candor.” Curious, isn’t it? Did you think of “confrontation” when you heard me first say “candor”? 

Now we’re getting to the heart of why candor is so absent in companies. We’ve got it all twisted around. Are our lives so absent of sincere honesty that we think to deploy it would result in an immediate confrontation? That’s just plain sad!

But if it does, so what? You don’t want your sincere honesty to be questioned? Aren’t you prepared to explain it, or defend it – if you must? 

Let’s take the employee on a PIP. Does the employee realize the severity of their circumstance? You can convince yourself, “Well, they should see it.” Or, you can make sure with candor!

For me, this is not difficult stuff because of my view of leadership. SERVICE. 

As the owner, your job is to serve the people who work inside your company. Stick with the illustration of the employee on an improvement plan. They’re quickly headed toward being dismissed. Maybe that’s not been explicitly communicated. If you’re going to serve them well, you’ll have to make sure they know how serious things are. Like the late-night infomercial announcers say…but wait a minute, there’s more! Don’t they deserve to know what they must do to turn things around so they can maintain employment? Of course, they do.

Enter the need for CANDOR. 

Every leader I know is preoccupied with “employee engagement.” You know what drives employee engagement? One thing. And only one thing. Leaders who care.

Funny how some things you learn when you’re young in business stick with you. This is one of those lessons I learned when I was still a teenager selling stereo gear. Sometimes you can really dazzle somebody by doing something extraordinary. Do it.

There’s no hard fast rule for knowing when to do this, but it’s powerful for many reasons. It creates a customer who is excited and happy. It fosters good news being spread about you and your business. It demonstrates how important customers truly are to your employees. It shows your heart of leadership and service.

The lady purchased a pair of stereo speakers. They were fairly large, floor-standing speakers. The company I worked for manufactured them in their own shop. The cabinets were thick wood with an oak finish veneer. She had them for less than 2 days. Somebody, presumably the man in her life (she was probably in her 20’s so she seemed old to me since I was still in high school) unboxed the speakers to help her place them in her living room. Well, the doofus evidently didn’t know to open the bottom of the box, flip it upside down onto the floor, then slide the box off the speaker. Instead, he attempted to slide the speaker out of the box while holding it and as you might imagine…it didn’t go well. For the speaker. Or him. The speaker landed on a corner and it boogered up the corner. She was sick about it. So she called. I told her to bring it in and let me look at it to see what we could do. (This was before digital photography so we didn’t’ ask customers to take a photograph, then take that film to the drug store to be processed, then hand deliver the hard photo.)

I was expecting it to be awful. Like the corner flattened completely. It was badly scratched and the finish was damaged. I asked the manager if somebody in our shop might be able to repair it. He was pretty confident they could. We stood there talking about it and I decided to plead her case. She had purchased a complete system and spent considerable money. Anticipating my request (I guess), he said, “Just take them back and give her a new pair. Make sure you show her how to unbox them.” 

Thankfully, I had asked her to bring in both speakers (they were in separate boxes). That day I was able to do for her what I knew I’d be unable to do for everybody. She was beyond thrilled. In fact, I’d guess she was more excited about that than when she first got the system, just 48 hours earlier. She was sure to tell everybody how terrific I was, and how awesome our store was. She was even thrilled seeing how to unbox them (another lesson I learned; don’t assume customers know what you know…show them). 

I’ve got tons of stories from my years running retail companies. So many times I’ve done extraordinary things for customers. Things I’d never be able to do for everybody, but I quickly learned you just do it when you know it’s the right thing to do. It’s a feel kinda of a thing. You know it when you feel it. Or see it. 

People are people. Yes, employees are people, too. 

I’ve hired a number of people in my life who were down and out in some way. People who struck me as good people, potentially good employees, but people who seem to need a break for some reason. Sometimes I’ve hired a person then taken them shopping and purchased them appropriate working attire. Sometimes I’ve advanced them pay so they could rent a place to live. Or make a down payment on a car. Above and beyond actions for an individual — something done for them that I clearly wasn’t going to do for everybody. Right is right. 

Enter judgment. Enter fear.

Hustle. It’s the battle cry of the modern entrepreneur. It means work hard, work long…put in more hours, make more sacrifices than the next guy. Or than anybody else. 

The notion is that talent and skill are largely what they are. And that the big variable is the effort, which is quantified by what you do and how long you do it. 

My view of hard work is that yes, it’s hard. And often necessary. But I’m not going to make some sweeping generalization about it either. 

We love to hear stories of Larry Bird as a child shooting thousands of baskets daily out on the family farm. We lionize the effort, the dedication. For good reason. It’s noteworthy. 

There are countless stories that could be told of high achievers who found something they were quite talented at that didn’t require such levels of extreme dedication or practice. People very capable of greatness who didn’t necessarily have the obsession to do that thing at the expense of everything else. 

Where do you fall in all this? Where do I fall? I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I can truthfully say that I have confidence in myself about many things and a complete lack of confidence about many other things. There are things I enjoy that I think I’m pretty good at, and other things I enjoy that I’m less sure about. 

Working to exhaustion seems to be the mantra that most disturbs me because I have perspective. I’ve done it. Multiple times in my career. Often because I had to. Other times because I wanted to. Like most things in our lives, it ebbs and flows. Some days you eat the bear. Some days, the bear eats you. 

My biggest advances forward, my most positive moments of growth didn’t happen in the middle of the battle when I was putting in 80-hour work weeks. They came when I stepped back and took a deep breath. Either because circumstances gave me the opportunity, or because I felt myself simply needing a reprieve from the grind. 

Deep breathing time. Reflection time. Time to ponder. 

Frenetic movement doesn’t mean you’re hustling. Don’t mistake motion for action. 

There’s a reason you hear the cliché of getting our best ideas in the shower. Stepping away gives us a perspective that’s difficult to see when we’re dodging bullets in the battle. 

Our minds need time to process the work. To reflect on what we’re doing, and what we’re learning. To come up with alternative solutions, or to just come up with any solution. To spot opportunities unseen in the daily grind of it all. 

I have an iMac. It’s got a high-speed processor and plenty of RAM, meaning it’s got good horsepower. Most of the time it hums along quietly while multiple programs are going. I’m sure under the hood, it’s working hard, but it’s not hitting its full capabilities. 

But I can start processing an hour long video, have email open, have multiple Chrome tabs open, and start recording audio and all of a sudden I can hear the internal cooling mechanism kick into gear to cool down the engine. I can quit one or two of the less taxing efforts – like closing down Chrome – and the computer clearly stops pushing itself so hard. I’d imagine I could go the other way though and try to process a second video file and I’d quickly find out how much the computer could take. Would I be able to tax it enough to cause it to shut down to protect itself? Yes. The computer is designed, so I’m told (I’ve never tried it), to shut down if it begins to overheat. 

What a stupid feature, right? I mean,

Oh, the uproar is continuous. The collective yelling is deafening. People seem to enjoy being offended, always prowling the universe for something with which to disagree — and find offensive. Most recently headlines are filled with strong opinions about Megyn Kelly. Specifically, the outrage at her reportedly getting the full payout of her contract, $69M. I don’t much care one way or the other because I don’t watch the news (a personal choice). The headlines alone are enough to make me feel pretty ill. But I’m old school, remembering a time when honest journalism reported facts they uncovered and fostered the audience to think for themselves. But sentimentality is a problem. Falling in love with how things ought to be, or how we wish they were, or how they once were.

Last week small business owners engaged in conversations about social media and digital marketing efforts. “If Megyn Kelly who earns that kind of money can create such turmoil for NBC, what am I opening myself up to by putting a $35,000 a year person in charge of my marketing?”

It’s not a bad question. I get it. We’re operating companies that do a few million bucks a year, or a few hundred million bucks a year. A far cry from the deep pockets (and PR recovery capabilities) of an NBC. 

Then there’s the ever-present quest to find “good” people. Forget social media marketing, we sometimes just need good, honest, reliable workers to help us accomplish the company goals. How hard can it be? Go visit Main Street U.S.A. and you’ll quickly find out it’s harder than you might think. The talent squeeze is on and we’re scrambling to figure it out. To find and hire capable people. Then, to hang onto them. 

“We spend 90 days on pretty concentrated training,” said one CEO, “and some don’t even make their first year anniversary. They have a different clock than me. To them, 18 months on a job is a long time. After that, they’re ready for something new. Continuity is all but gone except among my leadership team, and I’m nervous about them.” He chuckled, but it was an anxiety-fueled chuckled. 

People. Whether it’s your small business or NBC, we need them. Talented people. People with integrity and no major skeletons in the closet. People good under pressure. People who won’t get us into hot water. 

People. We need them to help us build our business. To execute superior service to our customers. To be good teammates. To contribute to the culture we most want. 

Problems. We have enough of those already. We don’t need somebody – much less a whole bunch of somebodies – saying something stupid, doing something stupid that could melt down our company. 

Potential. We feel like we’ve got plenty of upside in our business, but we’re also painfully aware there’s a ton of potential downside, too. 

I’m not sure who started it, but I’ve heard it my entire career. And I’m sorta old.