8 Life Lessons I Learned from Brooks Robinson… That he did not know he taught me and I didn’t realize them until 20 years later!

It is imperative to know that the following lessons are strictly based off of my personal observations meeting with Brooks Robinson and do not reflect any approval or agreement by Brooks Robinson.                          

Summer; 1972, my dad piled us all in the station wagon to see our first Major League baseball game. As the youngest of 7 children, I was the lucky one who was always stuck in the back 3rd row seat of the station wagon; sitting comfortably on the “hump”.  I remember those trips very well!  Mom! Can you make him stop… he’s touching my leg!  Mom's response: Stop touching your brothers leg.   Mom! She’s staring at me! Mom’s response: Stop staring at your brother.   Mom! I’m Hungry, when are we going to stop and eat? Mom’s response: We’ll eat when we get there.  Mom! Are we there yet? Mom’s response: Ask your father.  Never mind!   

Ahhh! Those were the days – Driving with the windows open “because we had to”, having an actual conversation with each other “because we had no choice” and going to the same event or trip “because we burned out too many baby sitters in our young lives that it was easier for my parents to take us wherever they went”. I was excited for this game, because it was the New York Mets versus some other team… I didn’t care who they were playing as long as I got to see my favorite team and my favorite players up close and in color!

You see, growing up we were lucky to have two television sets… stacked on top of each other; one was for the black and white picture and the other was for the sound… and of course, we had a vice grip on the knob to change the channel and being the youngest, I was relegated to be the “remote control” standing next to the set listening for my queue…Change! Change! Change! Mom! Tell him to pick a channel! Mom’s response: Pick a channel and leave your brother alone. 

I was already a fan of the Mets since I already played on the Mets Team in my hometown Little League. I thought I was so cool with my Red White and Blue mitt that was 3 sizes too big for me, my Mets hat and matching shirt and my white cleats that were actually my brothers hand me downs that I needed to make sure they lasted another season which included a season of football with our bubble eared helmets with canvas padding. Can you say concussion? Anyway, I digress.

My hero’s back then, were Tom Seaver, Cleon Jones, Rusty Staub, Willie Mays and Tug McGraw and to see them up close and personal was more than I could imagine. Up close and personal we were not… Our seats were so far up in the nose bleed section that I soon longed to stand next to the TV’s at home and hear the words Change! Change! Change! Although I don’t remember anything about the game I’m sure it was like every other event in our lives growing up.

Mom! Can you make him stop… he’s touching my leg! Mom’s response: Stop touching your brothers leg.  Mom! She’s staring at me! Mom’s response: Stop staring at your brother.  Mom! I’m Hungry, can I get a hot dog? Mom’s response: You’ll eat what I packed.   Mom! Can we sit closer to the field?     Mom’s response: Ask your father.  Never mind! 

The rest of the summer was filled with riding bikes, playing with friends, chasing sunsets and staying outside until the street lights came on. At that time I also had another baseball hero in the American League with the Baltimore Orioles, named Brooks Robinson who was an incredible 3rd baseman; some may fondly remember him as “The Human Vacuum Cleaner” or “Mr. Hoover”. You can imagine his talents in this position during many clutch plays were why he was given this honor, not to mention he received 16 Golden Glove Awards during his career to add to his credit.                                                                                               As I got older my pallet expanded beyond watching cartoons and the occasional sports game on TV… ok – I still watch cartoons and speaking of TV, my dad finally traded in the two TV’s for a single color TV that had a push button channel changer, no longer did I need to hear the words, Change! Change! Change!, because we started to use a pool stick to change the channels. 

About 20 years after my 1st Major League Baseball game I had the honor and privilege to occasionally meet with Brooks Robinson. At that time in my career I was the Director of Construction for a fledgling Family Friendly Fast Food Franchise Development Company that was based around a “Sports Bar” themed atmosphere. This role gave me the opportunity to meet many current and former professional athletes at that time and to be honest; my all-time favorite by far was Brooks Robinson. It was in the early 90’s when autographed sports memorabilia was at a demand and many former players had the opportunity to capitalize on their past success. 

During that time, Brooks (I called him Mr. Robinson once and he asked me to call him Brooks) used his status to market himself with various sports related businesses and we met on a few occasions while we were trying to grow our business. 

The following is what I personally learned from Brooks Robinson some twenty years after I met him and put to use in my life after the downturn in the market that most of us experienced. Some are still feeling the effects, yet while others have given up. I trust that these words will inspire, motivate and encourage you and they have me. 

 1. GET UP! Brooks retired from baseball after 20 something years from a sport that he loved. Speaking with him about this, his mind did not want to retire, but his body told him he had to. He was not ready to quit and talking with him years later you could still hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes when he spoke of his years playing.

What do you do when you are forced out of your position that you have loved for so many years? What do you do when they come to you and say we want someone, younger, cheaper and faster? You do what Brooks did… you Get Up! You brush the dirt off your knees with your mitt, click the mud out of your cleats, adjust your hat, tuck in your shirt, take a deep breath and start moving. GET UP! I had to learn this when they came to me and said the economy is in the tank we need to go in a different direction. I was devastated. My world was just turned upside down, I was on the ground, the ball just screamed right past me and I was a disheveled mess. But I knew I had a wife and a 2 year old boy at home. I needed to get up take a deep breath and start moving. I needed to stop looking down at myself and I needed to Get up and Get Over It!

Q: Where are you right now in your career or relationship? Do you need to get up? Or are you comfortable sitting on the ground because you let someone else control your destiny?

2. GET OVER IT!  Brooks had to make a decision as to what he was going to do after his baseball career was over. As a leader in his field he was / is in demand so he had a more opportunities ahead of him to fall back on then most people. But at the same time he had to stop living in the past and move on. 

Those of us who have been transitioned in and out of our careers need to realize that most of our friends and family don’t have the patience to listen to us drone on about how unfairly we were treated. GET OVER IT! I soon realized when friends or colleagues started to tune me out then I needed to change my attitude and direction. I needed to forget the past and move on and Get Excited about what the future held in store for me. Believe me, sometimes I had to fake it, but I knew if I started to get negative it would get ugly real fast.

Q: Have you gotten over your past? Do you continue to look back? Do you still think that you were not treated fairly? Get Over It! My wife has a little plaque at her desk that says “Stop looking back… You’re not going that way”! Which way are you going?

3. GET EXCITED!  During some of our meetings Brooks would talk about his business venture and you would think he was going back to the World Series! He would talk about his next steps and other exciting opportunities he was looking at. He was excited! And in his excitement, I wanted to be a part of it! Brooks as a person is kindhearted and people are naturally drawn to him, but when he spoke, I started to get excited and I wasn’t even a part of his business!

How many of us are not excited about what we are doing? How many of us do the same thing day in and day out and we have lost that joy that attracted us to that position. After I got up and got over it… I needed to get excited – It was a bad time in the economy to be looking for a job, but given that most people were going through the same thing I was, I needed to offer something different. I thought of the possibilities ahead of me and I started to get excited and it showed in my demeanor.

Try this test: Pick up your phone as if you are speaking to someone and say the following quote with a big smile: “Hi! My name is __________, I was looking to speak to you about your opportunity that you posted”! Now say the same exact phrase but change your smile to a frown. You will see immediately that your presence and demeanor has changed just by simply changing from a smile to a frown.

People know if you are genuine and people want to spend time with excited people. If you walk through life dragging your feet with your shoulders drooped, you should realize that this could be a reason why you are eating lunch by yourself every day. Getting excited about your future won’t last long until you map out your future and Get A Plan!

Q: Are you excited? Do people want to be near you or do they avoid you because you are depressing and bring them down? You need to be honest with yourself and ask that question.

4. GET A PLAN!  Brooks had a plan. He knew what he had to do to make it work. He was invested in his own life. I knew when I spoke to him that he had a direction, a purpose, a goal.

I knew I needed a plan – I was floundering and I knew that this plan had to come from within. During that downturned economy I spent a minimum of 6 hours a day, 5 days a week searching for the right job, only soon to realize it is easier to get a job when you have a job. I needed a plan and I needed it fast! What I was doing was not working. I needed a new strategy, so I wrote down potential directions, opportunities, goals, desires, destinations and the culminating answer was that I needed to make an immediate and emanate change and I needed to Get Ready To Change!

Q: Do you have a plan? Is it an actual goal or just a desire? Is it a real need or just a want? Have you shared it with anyone? Is it written down so you can see it every morning when you wake up and before you go to bed?

5. GET READY TO CHANGE!  Brooks was ready for change given who he was after his career ended. He had options because he prepared himself for this given moment. As I mentioned earlier he loved the game of baseball and you could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes, but as a smart player he knew he had another game in him and he had to make a change to continue playing, only in another venue.

Most do not want a change and are not prepared for change and therefore will not put in the effort or thought into making a change, because it is too uncomfortable. I was already uncomfortable and sitting in my own negativity was not going to make my life any better. I was not ready for change, especially the total upheaval of my life, but I needed to make a positive change in my life and to get back some of my willpower that I lost or I allowed to be taken away. During the downturn in the economy I kept hitting a brick wall and thought “what is wrong with me, why can’t I find a job”? I remember too many times I would interview with some industry leaders and they all said the same thing. Peter – I can’t hire you, because you would have my job in less than a year! This angered me because that is not who I am nor was it my desire! All I wanted was a job to take care of my family, not to take over someone’s job!?! That issue was theirs, but they tried to make it mine.

As I recall, I experienced a similar situation years before of which my wife and I call it the PENSKE FILE, which is based off of TV character George Costanza from the Seinfeld series when George was given the “Penske File” to manage. (YouTube the video clip, you will get a laugh.)

Early in my career I relocated to another state to work for a large company, I was to be “trained” by a certain individual, who I soon realized was intimidated by me and this person did everything they could to hold me back and would not assist in a positive direction. This persons training did not involve me at all unless I could help with their game of computer Solitaire?  That was always a simple solution - Red Queen to Black King! I would meet with this individual every morning and would be given busy work and files to look at which had nothing to do with my job description. I would go to my office, close the door and review the minutia of documents. This scenario started to get old real fast so I had to make a change.

Every hour or so I would rush out of my office with the a file under my arm walk real fast to the copy machine, not make eye contact with anyone and make random copies of nothing then head back real fast to my office and close the door. I called my wife and told her that I was not being trained properly and what I was doing to “look” busy and that I felt just like George Costanza with the Penske File.

This went on for a few days until some executive pulled me aside into his office and said; “we all see you running back and forth from your office taking care of business and it is really impressive”; it was then that I thought they were onto me and I was going to lose my job… but I was relieved to hear him say the following, “Dude… you really need to slow down – you’re making us all look bad around here?” It was then and there that I made a change – I soon successfully learned my job and it was not long after that I took the position of the person who was supposed to train me.

Fast forward to the downed economy, I remember getting in my car after my last interview and gripping the steering wheel as I replayed those words back in my head. “I can’t hire you, because you would take my job”. I was reeling from those words and was so angry that I gritted my teeth and said out loud – “This (expletive) is going to stop and it’s going to stop (expletive) right now”!  I spent the next 3 hours driving home devising a plan to make a change in my life and it ended with a decision to start my own Construction Management firm. 

My diversified experience over the years was in the Real Estate Development, Design and Construction of Shopping Centers, Retail Stores, Restaurants, and Urban Communities but it was this very market that was hit the hardest. I thought of a list of economies that was not affected at that time and came to the conclusion that the Government was doing just fine. Now all I needed to do was to take my experience in the private sector and translate it into the public sector. 

Friends asked me during that time what I knew about government contracting… My honest response - Absolutely Nothing… But I did know I needed to take care of my family and if it meant I had to reinvent myself, so be it! Change is scary. Most people stay in their own dying careers or relationships because they don’t want to change or don’t know how to change? They would rather sit and watch the minutes go by on the clock then to take a chance and do something big. You may say – What if I make a change and I fail? By not trying you already failed. I made the change by creating my own firm in an industry I knew nothing about and realized that if I am to be successful… I needed to Get Going!

Q: Are you ready for change or do you just say you are? Are you tired of sitting in your own misery?

6. GET GOING! Whenever I met with Brooks he was always going. Our meetings were not long, because he was heading off to another meeting or venue. He was always busy!

At that time, I was a card carrying member of the North Jersey Chapter of Work-A-Holics; I am now the Mid-West Chapter President of Work-A-Holics! I envied that life style, always having a place to be and not floundering. I like being busy, having a purpose, successfully completing a task and hitting goals. When I feel like I’m floundering I get a little grumpy... OK – I’m lying, I get very grumpy! 

Starting my own CM firm meant I had to make it work and I had to make it work NOW! During that time my wife Jannifer (Yes – I spelled her name correctly) was also transitioning in her own career so we decided to make this a family business. We created a direction and goals and my wife became the firm’s President and she lead the Business Development portion of the company.

After many phone calls and meetings we soon started to see our hard work was paying off. This was a scary time in our lives, starting a new business, finding new business and maintaining a household. It meant long days and even longer evenings for all of us. We named the firm The Hudson Davis Group: Hudson, after my son; Davis, after my wife’s maiden name and Group for the 3 of us! We found a few Government contractors that I started to work with as a 3rd party PM. I was back managing projects, I started meeting new industry faces, I started to feel alive again and most importantly I started getting excited for the future and I realized that I need to Get Out Of The Way if I was to advance forward.

Q: What is holding you back from moving forward? Are you ready to Get Going or are you ok where you are in your life?

7. GET OUT OF THE WAY!  Brooks did not stand in the way of his success! Speaking with him about his opportunities or directions you realized that even though he was in charge he did not stifle his success by micro-managing it to death.

How many times have we started a new business, project, task or relationship and micro-managed it to a point that it is no longer enjoyable or when we achieved the goal we are glad that it’s finally over?

I let go of “controlling” my CM Firm and enjoyed the ride. It was not the money I used to make nor was it glamorous work; No longer was it flying in the corporate jet, because now I was hoping to get an aisle seat in the coach class section of the plane. No longer was it the big expensive dinners to impress a client, it was now a cup of coffee at the local coffee shop to be just as impressive. No longer was it managing a huge team of Project Managers to deliver multi-million dollar projects on time and on budget, I was now that team successfully delivering on those same tasks. It was indeed different, but it was still an opportunity and it was mine! 

I think it was Thomas Edison who once said ‘Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Make sure you’re not ‘most people’.

During that time I allowed myself to enjoy my work which showed up in my demeanor and within a few years my work eventually led me to meet with industry leaders within JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle); I had followed JLL over the years due to their growth and direction and told my wife often that I would love to be a part of something big like JLL! As much as I tried, I was never able to get my foot in the door. It was not until I ‘got out of my own way’ did I find my way into the firm. And my experience within JLL has given me an even bigger stage to do what I love the most. 

I was offered a position within JLL and it was a tough decision to make. Do I give up my autonomy and freedom to go back to the corporate world? What do we do with our current clients? What do we do with The Hudson Davis Group? Since Jannifer was already the President, she decided to take over the firm completely and has been nurturing it into a small Boutique Real Estate Development Firm.

Since I ‘got out of my own way’ I have allowed myself the freedom to expand my horizons and meet some incredible people within the industry who have shared similar experiences as mine and I allowed myself to Get Personal and listen to their stories and grow from their experiences.   

Q: What is holding you back? Are you holding yourself back? Do you need to get out of your own way?

8. Get Personal! 6 months had passed since I met with Brooks and the first thing he asked was how my father “Richard” was doing?

In a passing conversation, I had told Brooks 6 months earlier the story of my father having a heart transplant and how he was progressing, he asked me his name and we continued with a little small talk before talking about business items. 6 months later he remembered the conversation, he remembered my father’s name and was genuinely concerned with my father’s well-being. Wow! I can’t believe he would take time to discuss my personal life! He had much more important things to talk about that day, yet he took time to get personal and ask about my father! It was at that very moment that my childhood baseball hero just became my adult Super Hero! Thank you Brooks! 

Years ago, I was told by a superior that I should not get personal with my team members because I may have to fire them one day. I was surprised and discouraged when I heard this because that is not my nature. My response to my superior at that time was, if I am firing an associate it is not going to be based on my relationship with them it would be based on if they are failing at their tasks and there is no hope of recovery for them or the company. About two years later I was being promoted and I was charged with letting go of two of my superiors and one of the superiors was the one who told me not to get personal with team members. It was one of those “let this cup pass from me” moments. I was only given a half hour to swiftly address this task and as I was heading to my office I knew I could make this work. I quickly went back to leadership and explained my position and if I was able to find a way to make it work financially by keeping these two associates would they allow me to do so. They agreed and in a matter of minutes I was able to renegotiate on behalf of the two that were to be terminated and I found a way to save the company more money by reducing their positions and retraining them within the company. Not an easy task especially when you know they had families to take care of.

About a year later I was at a conference and one of my team members who I was to let go a year earlier took me aside and said with tears in his eyes, “Thanks for not firing me – I know you had a choice and you made it work” My response was simple. ‘No – you made it work!’

Remember the words of Teddy Roosevelt: People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care!

Q: How many of you go through your day and don’t say hi to the person cleaning out your garbage can in your office? How many of you walk by people and look the other way or pick up your phone and pretend to dial just to avoid a conversation? My father in law once said – be kind to everyone, you don’t know if they are hanging on by a thread! Who do you know right now that needs to hear an encouraging word? Maybe you can become a Super Hero to them?