Archive for the Thought for the Weekend Category

I pace when I think. My team in the Wilmington office knows I’m pondering a quandary when they see me pacing back and forth behind my desk. They have been known to gently tease me about it. Even my wife has suggested that perhaps I cannot think sitting down due to the location of my brain! It was my pacing that started a new bet at Matchmaker Logistics. You see, in September, I went on a sales call to Dallas, Texas to visit a client we had hauled for until 2008, when due to

In last week’s Thought for the Weekend, we shared a story about how we handled a recent service failure. We don’t just practice transparency and open communication with our customers, we live by it internally. Our entire team knows our annual, monthly and daily revenue numbers so they can hit our target goals; they are also included in conversations about marketing decisions, sales strategy, and our business successes and failures. To further keep the lines of communications open between our offices in North Carolina, Alabama, and Virginia, we’ve started what our employees fondly refer

Sports is human life in microcosm. ~Howard Cosell Is freight management a contact sport?Unlike the literal heavy-lifters in our industry who actually load and unload physical freight, we spend most of our days in front of a telephone lifting little more than the telephone and a few pieces of paper. But, talk to any great athlete, and they will tell you that “90% of the game is mental.” Yes, athletes need to have natural talent and physical strength, but what makes them great are other qualities: dedication, focus, discipline and a willingness to learn.

One of the great things about having season tickets to the Giants-other than being able to attend games myself-is being able to give tickets to friends, family and customers so they can experience the fun. There is nothing quite like being able to see a game with The G-Men in the stadium, the way it was meant to be seen. It’s one of my ways of “paying it forward,” as the saying goes. Recently, I received an email from my friend (and Matchmaker Logistics customer), Steve. I’d given Steve and his wife four tickets

It seems that every year we all pledge to lose weight, exercise more, eat healthier, and quit bad habits. But, by February, most of us have gone right back to our old ways. It’s the very definition of a New Year’s resolution: something that goes in one year and out the other. Or, as I’ve heard it more harshly stated: “He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; he who makes one is a fool.” Personally, I like the positive spin of this Irish blessing: “May all your troubles last as long as your

This year, as we celebrate the Christmas season, we also mourn the senseless loss of innocent lives in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.  As I stand in church, grateful to be singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” with my daughters by my side, I will be thinking of the people of the little town of Newtown. It’s impossible to comprehend such a horrific act of violence, especially at a time that is meant to be filled with merriment, hope, love, and peace.  Yet, as one wise soul once said:  “Christmas is not as much about

Iconic child star Shirley Temple once said: “I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.” Whether we believe in Santa or not, one of the best parts of Christmas season is that even adults are encouraged to adopt a spirit of childlike wonder. I don’t know about you, but I would choose a new “toy” over a new tie any day. For example, I wouldn’t mind having Santa bring me this limited edition 2013 McLaren 12C