Thanksgiving – Those Who I Am Thankful For

Well it’s Thanksgiving and it has given me time to reflect and think about all the things I am thankful for but more importantly who I am thankful for. Now, we can all use the same pat answers that we use at the dinner table every fourth Thursday of November. But I wanted to go deeper than that. Because only by looking at all the things we are Thankful for in the Past can we really determine our plan of action for the future. And by now, I bet you can see a thread being weaved in my Blogs.

As always, I am appreciative of my sweet father, Joe P. Cain. I learned how to be self reliant and how to make critical decisions. It’s not so much what he taught me but what he allowed me to teach myself. I cannot over emphasize how important that is.

Bruce Booker (and his wife Cindy) has been an integral part of my life here at Lake for over 7 years. Bruce helped me to regain my belief in people again. How to trust, how to take a chance, how to motivate, how to absorb body blows and still get back in the battle. Where would I be without Bruce and Cindy, well not here writing this blog for certain.

Jake Truitt was my high school football coach. Yeah, I know every jock wants to acknowledge their high school coach, so I am invoking privilege and doing it here. Without Jake I would not be anywhere close to the man I am today. He taught me how to push myself beyond the limits I thought were possible.

Ken and Carrie Bevel (and son in law Cody) calmed me down and took the burden of developing the San Antonio terminal on their own shoulders. Ken knows me so well after working together off and on for almost 2 decades that it is scary. He does everything exactly like I would want it done and never even has to ask me for guidance. Without these two, I would have been a complete wreck in developing the new headquarters. In fact, I am not sure it could have been done.

Bernard Rojano is my consultant in the building of the South Texas Oilfield Company, (working title, STO). Bernard has put skin on the bones of my vision of the future and is entrusted in finding within me the meat to put on those bones. What he and I and the rest of the team are building over the next five years will be the stuff books are written about. It is that big, that real, and that attainable my dear readers. Bernard makes me feel like I know significantly more than I realize.

Jerry Santos has been the Operations Manager of South Texas Bulk Division for the past 6 months. He came to me about two years ago after spending a period of time, well shall I say, reflecting on past mistakes. He had nothing, nada, zip, zilch. But he believed in himself, believed in me and taught me how to believe in both of us. He makes me believe in the future and comes up with a dozen fresh, well thought out ideas, for every one of mine. Lake’s success is as much to Jerry’s credit as mine.

Now here is the unexpected one: Bob Stephens. Bob is a business broker that I retained a number of years ago when I was looking at a competitor to purchase. One of the things that I always said was: I leave every meeting feeling like I am a lot smarter than I give myself credit for. Bob at first thought I was slighting him but exactly the opposite is true. Bob was able to make me see past my imperfections and see the kind of man that all those around me see. Bob, I am a work in progress and I owe a lot of today’s success to the times we spent bouncing ideas off each other. Thank you, I owe you more than you can imagine.

My beautiful bride, Lisa…..now really there is nothing that can be put down on paper than I have not told you 50 times each and every day.

Your success is not just one thing, one decision, or even one person. It is a cumulative effect of things, decisions, and people over a period of decades. Remember, it only took me 25 years to become an overnight success.

Until next week……..

Doug

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