{"id":5118,"date":"2017-01-17T20:08:41","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T01:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/?p=5118"},"modified":"2017-01-17T20:12:05","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T01:12:05","slug":"call-of-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/call-of-duty\/","title":{"rendered":"Call of Duty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever had an obsession that made you absolutely nuts? \u00a0Nuts in that no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn\u2019t quit thinking about that \u201cthing\u201d that was consuming you? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For me, this has happened a few times in life. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first time I remember it happening was when I was 11 years old. My football coach gave our team a play-book. \u00a0This was the first time ever that I had a coach that allowed, even required, us – a bunch of goof ball boys, to dig into the sport at this level. \u00a0My \u201cthing\u201d was learning the playbook. \u00a0I mean really learning it, staying up at night, flashlight under the covers, kind of learning. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Guess what? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We won the championship that year for our youth league. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

12 & 13 year old kids were executing carefully crafted plays against another bunch of goof ball boys with no play book. \u00a0It almost wasn\u2019t fair.<\/span><\/p>\n

The next obsession came about by way of the union apprenticeship school I attended. \u00a0I had an awesome instructor for my first year. \u00a0He knew so much and brought the theory of thermo-dynamics and electricity together with a ton of in-the-field experience. Oh yeah, he was also my father. \u00a0He was quite awesome at that as well. \u00a0He taught a tight-knit group of us for several years. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From our class, many went on to become industry leaders, subject matter experts and owners of companies. <\/b>\u00a0He prepared us to dominate, not just participate, in our field of choice… HVAC.<\/span><\/p>\n

The third example that stands out for me? \u00a0Planning, strategizing, planning and eventually starting a great company in Charlotte, NC called AirTight Mechanical, Inc. \u00a0AirTight afforded me the opportunity to learn how to serve people at a whole new level. \u00a0And not just our customers. I learned about girl scouts, child-care, family struggles and many other things. Serving at a high level became my Call of Duty, enjoyment and responsibility. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Never before had I viewed the entire family of employees, nor our customers. \u00a0Tapping into the situation that I was forunate enough to have, we, as a group, were able to help educate young folks through an in-house scholarship system. \u00a0We helped people get into a financial position to buy their first home. \u00a0We created situations to allow a wife to finish school because AirTight was paying for the husbands studies. \u00a0What an awesome feeling it was.<\/span><\/p>\n

Call of duty. Obsession. Being as good of an owner and developer of people as possible. \u00a0Call it what you will, the drive to be better than yesterday, last month or 16 years ago is the Kaizen way<\/span><\/a> for me, it has proven to be a great tool. \u00a0By studying Dr. W. Edwards Deming<\/span><\/a>, I learned a ton about the subject.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do, measure, adjust and repeat.<\/b> \u00a0Time and time again, tweak after tweak. \u00a0We all get better. \u00a0The first steps are huge, the middle steps are smaller, the more advanced steps are micro, yet each create forward movement, and the strive for excellence continues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Until next time,<\/span><\/p>\n

Stay attuned:\u00a0 You, they, we are worth the effort!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

G<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever had an obsession that made you absolutely nuts? \u00a0Nuts in that no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn\u2019t quit thinking about that \u201cthing\u201d that was consuming you? \u00a0 For me, this has happened a few times in life. \u00a0 The first time I remember it happening was when I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9,25,23,35,36,37,6,27,28],"class_list":["post-5118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-lifelonglearning","tag-commitment","tag-excellence","tag-gregcrumpton","tag-kaizen","tag-onething","tag-personal-development","tag-productivity","tag-success"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5118"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5118"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5123,"href":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5118\/revisions\/5123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gregcrumpton.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}