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DEALING WITH ADVERSITY
My brothers
and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind,
consider it nothing but joy, because you know
that the testing of your faith produces endurance;
and let endurance have its full effect, so that
you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
—James 1:2-4
During my adolescence, few things
came easy for me. I struggled in high school,
barely eking out a C average. As a freshman I
tried out for football, but at five-foot-seven
and only 125 pounds, I didn't make the team. I
had the height for basketball but was too skinny
and didn't make the team until my junior year.
Plus, I had such a bad speech impediment and stutter
that I took special elocution classes. And because
I had an extreme case of shyness, I had little
confidence in myself. About the only thing I had
going for me was my perseverance. I probably just
didn't know any better, but once my mind was made
up, I had the tenacity of a pit bull.
During my senior year, my basketball coach said,
"You're a decent player for high school,
Dave, but don't even think about playing in college.
You're so thin, those big college guys will eat
you for lunch.”
So what did I do? In the autumn of 1969 I enrolled
at Central Missouri State, a school with a student
body of thirteen thousand, and went out for basketball.
A Division II school, its schedule included nationally
ranked non-conference Division I schools such
as Illinois State and Texas Tech, so if I made
the varsity, I'd be playing with the really big
boys. During my college years, I had grown to
my present height of six-foot-five--definitely
the tallest person in my family's history. When
anyone asks my mother how I got so tall, she says,
"David wanted to play basketball so badly,
he willed himself to grow tall.” I was still
as skinny as a rail, and even though I didn't
make the team during my freshman year, I attended
every team practice. Evidently the coaching staff
was impressed with my grit and determination because
as a sophomore, not only did I make the team,
but I was given an athletic scholarship. By my
senior year I had put on some weight, and with
my stick-to-it-iveness I had actually become a
fairly decent college player.
Playing at Central Missouri was a great experience.
The team flew to some of our away games, so for
the first time ever, I was on an airplane. And
it was with the team that I sat down to my first
meal in a restaurant.
The same tenacity I applied to basketball prepared
me to enter the workforce after my graduation
in November 1973. I earned a B.S. degree in business
administration with an emphasis in industrial
organization. However, with only average grades
and being African-American, companies didn't come
knocking at my door with job offers. A few weeks
later, I got a substitute teaching job with the
public schools in St. Louis. I enjoyed working
with kids, but working part-time made it difficult
to make ends meet. I kept applying for other jobs,
and five months later I was finally hired by the
Boy Scouts of America. I had been in scouting,
starting as a Cub Scout and finishing as a Life
Scout. The troop in my hometown, Troop 435, was
a whites-only troop, and to this day, I remember
how my mother and I both cried because they wouldn't
accept me. Consequently, some of my friends and
I, along with our parents, formed Troop 225, the
first integrated troop in Clinton. I credit my
scouting experience for helping me get the Boy
Scouts job. Still, because I was working for peanuts,
I kept on sending out resumes.
A few months later I landed my first job in the
business world with Wagner Electric. I started
as a supervisor in manufacturing, but about a
year later I got laid off. So again, more resumes
were mailed out. All in all, starting from the
time I graduated college, I sent out about four
hundred resumes and averaged two or three interviews
a week for three years. After going through a
series of interviews with the Missouri Pacific
Railroad Company, in February 1976, a dream job
came my way: I was offered and accepted a marketing
and sales position. The company was committed
to hiring African-Americans, and I was one of
the first to come aboard. They put me through
an extensive fifty-nine-week training program,
teaching me all about the railroad industry. I
will always be grateful to the company for giving
me that wonderful opportunity and investing a
year in my training.
Looking back, I consider myself blessed to have
had adversity during my youth. A message in Romans
5:3-5 encourages us to stand up to adversity:
“Knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character, and character
produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us,
because God's love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to
us.”
Although I didn't know it at the time, the adversity
I encountered as a stuttering thin-as-a-rail kid
toughened me up. It developed my character so
I could stick with the program when I didn't make
the freshman basketball team in college. Making
the team as a sophomore strengthened my faith.
That prepared me for the two years of hard times
bounding around job-hunting before being hired
by the railroad. As a consequence, at a relatively
young age, I learned firsthand what happens when
God removes his hand and allows us to go through
adversity so that we may grow stronger. Thelma
and I met in 1975, so she was by my side during
that period of constant rejection. In retrospect,
it was a positive experience for her too, because
her faith also grew stronger. And we grew stronger
as a team. As the saying goes, “You can't
appreciate the sunshine without the rain.”
Although I was not aware of it at the time, God
was preparing me for the more difficult times
I would face as a business owner. In this respect,
a person who was protected from adversity during
adolescence is in for a rude awakening when the
time comes to deal with life's hardships. And
believe me, if we live long enough, we'll all
have our share of hard times.
The adversities I encountered during my youth
served as my training ground for hard times I
eventually faced as a struggling entrepreneur.
In fact, they were just child's play compared
to being strapped with a $3.5 million debt as
the owner of a start-up company and with a wife
and two young children to support. Believe me,
it's not a pretty situation when bankers try to
shut you down, monitoring your every move with
your suppliers. Nor did I take pleasure when creditors
badgered me and called me a deadbeat. Overly aggressive
bill collectors made house calls to pound on our
door. And then there was the humiliation I suffered
when my car was repossessed from the company parking
lot one afternoon in 1992.
People often ask, “With so many financial
pressures, how were you able to stay focused on
your work?” Fretting about my unpaid bills
and rising debt would only have compounded my
problems. Instead, I knew God was with me, and
with my faith in him, I concentrated on what I
had to do in order to fix my financial woes.
I persevered through these hard times with a belief
that what we were doing for our employees and
customers was meaningful. I had faith that our
company was capable of providing exceptional value--this
enabled me to keep a positive attitude in spite
of negative things going on all around me. Yes,
I could have easily thrown in the towel and copped
a plea that the mountain was too big for me to
climb. Instead I pushed forward always focusing
on how to someday make a significant difference
in the lives of my employees, customers, and vendors.
Thelma and I wouldn't allow ourselves to get down.
It's always darkest before the dawn, we reminded
each other.
Due to the hard times the company was experiencing,
it was understandable that employees would jump
ship--some did. After all, seeing the owner's
car repossessed isn't what you'd call a confidence
builder. What would motivate someone like Jim
Kavanaugh to stick around, especially since he
was privy to our dire financial predicament? When
the bank dispatched a full-time representative
to our offices to help run our business, Jim was
one of the few employees who knew the man was
actually a turnaround specialist. Our “in-house
banker” was there to protect the bank's
interests and look for ways to squeeze money out
of us to reduce our debt. During what was undoubtedly
our darkest hour, Jim received a job offer that
would increase his annual salary over 25 percent.
Still, he stayed. Jim didn't leave because he
and I shared a vision of what this company would
be. We also shared a mutual trust in each other,
and because he explicitly trusted me, Jim was
willing to invest his time and effort to help
put our business back on track. Knowing Jim stood
by my side reinforced the message to employees
and vendors that there was no need to panic--the
company would survive.
People sometimes ask me how much a factor racial
prejudice was in shutting doors in my face. Sure
I had my share of unfair treatment, as have all
African-Americans at some time or another. However
I never dwell on it because doing so would be
self-defeating. Everyone--no matter what skin color--should
recognize that some people will throw stones at
you. They don't want you to be successful, but
you must refuse to let them distract you. Even
when others are looking for ways to pull you down,
your job is to focus on Christ and his purpose
for you. As it is written in Deuteronomy 30:6-9,
if you love God with all your heart and all your
soul, he will take care of your enemies, so you
don't have to worry about them. With this scripture
in mind, I never saw myself as a victim. Such
thinking is self-defeating and therefore hurts
me, not my transgressors. And in Romans 12:19,
we are told: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves,
but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is
written, `Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says
the LORD.”' Knowing this, it would be foolish
for me to seek vengeance on those who wish to
harm me. I'll leave that in the hands of the Lord.
Winston Churchill delivered a commencement speech
on October 9, 1941, to the boys at his old private
school that is memorable due, in part, to its
brevity. The great British prime minister approached
the podium, faced his youthful audience, and said:
“Never give in--never, never, never, never,
in nothing great or small, large or petty, never
give in except to convictions of honor and good
sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the
apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
With that, he walked off the platform without
another word. I doubt that anyone in the audience
ever forgot his message. Churchill could have
spoken for an hour and not have had such an impact.
Giving up was unthinkable to me. Even during
those difficult times when my business was hanging
on by a thread, I kept focused on my mission to
serve others, believing that our employees, vendors,
and customers would someday benefit. As we are
told in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4: “Blessed be
the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation,
who consoles us in all our affliction, so that
we may be able to console those who are in any
affliction with the consolation with which we
ourselves are consoled by God.” Here, we
are taught to do good deeds for others, even though
we ourselves are enduring difficult times. For
in doing so, we will not be consumed with our
own sorrows, but instead will grow strong by doing
well for others. This is God's will, and it is
my mission, both in periods of prosperity and
adversity.
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