Lessons learned from 2018

On the grand scale, 2018 was probably the busiest year I have had that I can remember. Norah was born in January and marked us becoming parents of two daughters instead of one. I ran for North Carolina Senate and poured my heart into it. Cloverhound had an amazing year thanks to our teams hard work and continual focus on our customers.

2018 was a great year and I thought I would share some things I learned throughout it.

Stay Positive

Let’s face it the world can be a mean, cruel place. It is so easy to be a cynic in life and it’s really unhealthy for you. The best path forward in life is to stake one of unreasonable optimism, you’ll be much happier and productive if you always assume the best can happen. I wouldn’t assume it will happen, just that it can.

There was a time in early October during the campaign where the GOP was running some pretty intense TV ads basically calling me an unremorseful, unapologetic drunk driver for an incident that happened over a decade ago. They featured a lady named ‘Vanessa D’ speaking about how herself and her daughter were hit by a drunk driver. They sure made it sound like I did the same thing.

I first saw the ad during the NBA season openers first commercial break. I was floored. I hate to admit it but at the time it did its job. It got me down, it got me worried and I lost focus on the race for 2–3 weeks while I sulked and assumed everyone thought I was a horrible person. I should have just stayed positive because I would soon find out that Republicans and Democrats alike thought it was a disgusting attack on my character.

I’m going to wrap this story back together but it will hit on my next lesson learned, which is less of something learned and more of a general reminder.

Be Kind

This is most exemplified about 10 days before the election on the first Saturday of early vote. I have a pension for sharing, it’s my favorite thing. If I can make you as happy as I am in that moment by sharing, I will always do it. I was absolutely starving, working the polls and so I asked everyone, Republican or Democrat, if they wanted some pizza. Everyone thought it was a great idea so I ordered about 10 of them. I gave them to the poll workers, candidates, voters in line, whoever wanted some pizza, people got it.

One of the Republican women stopped me and said she thought what I did was very nice and that I seemed like a very nice person. I introduced myself, Chad Stachowicz, as did she, Vanessa D… yes the same one from the commercial. I gave her a big Chad smile. I was happy to buy her pizza that day and would gladly do it again. Karma.

This one is bigger than just that story though. Being kind is something that has been lost in our society to a great degree. People deal with an awful lot of struggles on a daily basis. Some folks have problems at home with their family, some can’t hold down a job, others have addiction problems. I guarantee you this, you the person reading this, have problems of your own and I’m sure you hope people are empathetic to them. Give someone else that empathy, care and compassion you will someday want. In fact, give it to everyone, the world would be a better place.

Passion breeds disagreements and that’s OK

One thing we deal with a lot at Cloverhound is disagreements on how to get work done, how to run the company, how to handle a problem, whatever the topic of the day is. Disagreements, pushback, anger over process… If these are because individuals are so passionate over getting it right they are willing to scrape and fight to make it right. GOOD FOR THEM.

It is a blessing I am surrounded with an entire company of independent thinkers, not afraid to share their opinions all the way to the top to enact change for our customers. Most people think arguing, disagreement is a sign of disrespect or dislike, I think it’s quite the opposite, it’s passion and we need that. If you’re going to be a leader of your company or organization or even just earn respect with your peers, recognizing those with a passion and learning from their different points of views will be critical.

It’s unfortunate on the political side of things compromise over disagreements is seen as a weakness instead of a strength. Compromising is what adults do to make things better. It’s fundamental to a functioning society, company, family, everything.

One thing I certainly believe very strongly is that Republican or Democrat, most people running for office genuinely care about our society and want it to be better. I do think government and especially the money in it has a tendency to corrupt decision making over time, but I’m sure people start with the right intentions and many make it through decades of service keeping their values straight.

5 people make better decisions then you

You know why most startups fail? Because their Founder / CEO is an egotistical idiot who doesn’t listen to advice and thinks they know better than everyone else. Let me tell you this, my first instinct is wrong a lot.

Here is the good news, those bad instincts never make it into action, not in our company and not in the campaign. That’s because I don’t make any decisions by myself. That might sounds ridiculous but our leadership team at Cloverhound will make a better decision than just me alone. In our campaign, I was a first-time candidate, and it was overwhelming. Thankfully I relied on my team to make sure our messaging was sound and we were moving in the right direction.

Your first instinct as a person with growing power, be it at work or in politics will be to make decisions and live with them, double down like the President, etc… This is a bad roll, use your power to gain the opinions of a bunch of other people and trust them, they are probably smarter than you. It’s not as fun as being off the cuff and it can actually be quite annoying, but most good things in life come with a bit of annoyance. Embrace it.

Money has too much influence in society

Money is the driving force for so many people and powers in our society and it’s really quite sad. Is having money a requirement to live? Of course it is, but that’s about the extent of it’s value. You should not be living your life chasing a buck here and a dollar there, it will lead you to a short meaningless life.

The real value you will derive in life is from your family, your friends, the experiences you embrace in life and the people you choose to share it with. Take a trip with your wife, go mountain biking with your kids, go to that game you have been meaning to go to for 7 seasons now. On your deathbed you’re going to want a full heart, not a full stock portfolio.

Have a great 2019 everyone!