How a few words from my son put everything into perspective.
On this episode Russell talks about a bad experience he had with his family at a restaurant he had been so excited to take them to, and how his son Aiden changed his perspective.
Here are some interesting things in to listen for in today’s episode:
So listen below to hear how an evening went from a terrible night to a really great night by just a change of perspective.
---Transcript---
Hey everyone, good morning and welcome to Marketing In Your Car. All right, all right, I’ve heard your cries. You’ve said Russell, do not change the name. It may be a lame name but it’s your name, so I’m leaning more now towards keeping Marketing In Your Car. It’s like one of those cult classics where it’s just weird but like, the right people like it right.
I think I’m going to keep it. I don’t know, we’ll see. I’ll let you know. I hope everyone’s having an amazing time today. Wanted to share with you an experience that happened last night, that was one of those humbling moments that I think was really good.
I had this idea, there’s this Thai place right down the street from us. It’s called Sawadee or something like that. They have these coconuts. They can take a Thai coconut, chop it open, take all the coconut water, and they fry rice in it, and then cut coconut meat, and they put shrimp in it. Then they stuff it back in the coconut and they bring out these huge coconuts full of amazingness and you eat it and it’s awesome. I’ve had it a couple of times.
This week I was telling my kids about it. I was like this is like the most amazing thing. I got them all excited. I’m pretty good at selling people on stuff, sold my kids on these coconuts. They were going to be amazing. Last night we took there there, and then Brent on my team, he brought his wife and kids as well, and we all go to this Thai place to get these coconuts. We’re so excited. We’ve told our kids all about it, and they’re so excited and so we get there. Pretty much the worse service I’ve ever had ever. We show up with eleven of us, and there’s no big tables, so they say let me seat you on a bigger table. She brings us back and there’s a table that has six seats, and she’s like, “Here you go.”
I’m like, “Okay so there are eleven of us here.” She’s like, “Oh so this won’t work for you?” I’m like, “Well no there’s six seats there. There’s eleven of us.” She’s like, “Oh okay hold on.” We go back to the front, we wait, and she comes back. She sets up two tables, brings us out there, and there’s seven seats around this table. She’s like, “Here you guys go.” My wife’s like, “There’s eleven of us. That’s seven seats. We need another table.” My wife was kind of upset right, it was awesome.
Finally they bring another table, now there’s enough seats for us. We sit down and start ordering and I’m like, “I want that coconut thing that’s cracked open. It’s got the rice and the shrimp and the everything.” She’s like, “Oh, the whatever?” I’m like, “I don’t know what it’s called. Whatever that is, that’s what we want.” She’s like, “Oh okay.” I’m like, “I want three of them because we’re going to share them with our kids,” and it’s going to be exciting right.
The lady’s stressing out, she’s can’t even like…Anyways, it was just the worst server I’ve ever had ever. Even in the very beginning when we’re like what drinks do you have for the kids, she’s like, “We’ve got lemonade, Sprite, and root beer.” My son Dallin is like, “Cool I want some lemonade.” She’s like, “We don’t have any Lime-aid.” He’s like, “I want lemonade.” She’s like, “We don’t have Lime-Aid.” Finally, I’m like, “Lady, he’s asking for lemonade like you said.” She’s like, “Oh we have lemonade.” I’m like, no duh. It started off bad.
Then she couldn’t even hear us taking our orders and then I kept telling her, “I want the coconut thing that’s cracked open, that’s got the rice and the thing.” She’s like, “Oh you mean the whatever.” I’m like, “I don’t know what it’s called. That thing is what we want.” She’s freaking out, “Well it takes twenty minutes to cook those. Let me put the order in real quick.” She runs back, puts the orders in, and then comes back, finishes taking our orders, and kind of chaos.
Then after awhile, I remembered that one time I had the coconuts, they were really spicy, so I grabbed her and we’re like, “These aren’t spicy right? You did the no spice?” “Oh yeah we did no spice.” It’s taking forever, the kids are going crazy, and luckily we ordered some sushi for appetizers so the kids were eating sushi so that kind of calmed them all down. Then she brings out the coconuts and she freaking ordered the wrong thing.
There’s no rice in them, there’s no anything. They’re coconuts but it’s the wrong one, wrong thing. It was super spicy, tasted horrible. It was like, “This is not what we ordered.” “What did you order?” “The coconut thing that has the rice and the shrimp in it.” She’s like, “Oh the this?” I’m like, “Yeah.” She’s like, “Oh well that’s not what you ordered.” I’m like, “That’s what I asked you for. You told me that this was what it was called. I don’t even know what it’s called.”
I was lividly mad. The stuff’s spicy so our kids can’t eat it. It doesn’t even taste good. I’m eating it just because I have to and I ordered three of these things and they’re freaking huge. It was just bad all around. I was so upset. I was so mad. I was ready to stand up and upturn the table and start throwing things. I was so angry and then my little five year old, Aidan, is sitting next to me and right after the lady drops off the stuff and I’m so mad. The kids can’t even eat, so I’m like we’re going to freaking McDonald’s and eat McDonald’s because these coconut things I’ve been telling them for the last week, we can’t even eat because it’s the wrong ones and they’re spicy. They can’t eat them anyway. I was just going off, and I’m nice to the server, but she could tell I was not a happy camper at all.
Then my little Aiden, my little four year old, nuzzles his head underneath my arm and looks up at me. He’s kind of laying on lap, looks up at me and smiles, says, “Dad, this is the best night ever, huh?” I just sat there and I said, “he’s right”. I’m so concerned about getting this thing perfect and all he wants to do is hang out with me. He doesn’t care that the coconut’s spicy and it’s the wrong thing. He doesn’t care about the coconuts at all. He just wanted to hang out with me. I looked at him, and I was just like, I just kind of smiled and I laughed, and it just broke my state completely. I said, “You’re right bud, this is the best night ever.” It just changed that fast. I think about how many times in my life, and I’m sure you guys are probably the same thing where, we’re in the middle of stuff and we’re going crazy and all these things are happening and it’s not what we planned and we’re so frustrated at other people around us who are making the experience less than favorable.
We have this vision what we want it to be for for the people we’re trying to serve, our family, our client, whatever it is. I’m just grateful for my son, Aidan, who gave me that moment where I realized I was focusing on the worldly stupid things and he was focusing on just being with me. It just changed me and I felt bad, and I was still upset with the lady, but I tipped her well. I was just like, I got to spend time with my kids and it was really, really cool.
That is how I went from probably one of the worst experiences at a restaurant ever to the best night of my life, so it was awesome. Love my kids, they’re amazing, and I hope that that gives you guys some inspiration, and spend more time with your family. I’ve said this once, I’ll say it again. David O’McKay said that no success can compensate for failure in the home, and it’s true and our kids just want us. They just want more time. They just want to be with us, so we should be with them.
Anyways, that’s what I’ve got for you guys today. I’m going to head to the office. I’m going to get out early today. I’m going to go back home, and I’m going to surprise Aidan an hour or two early, and we’re going to play early and we’re going to play hard, and it’ll be awesome. That’s what I’ve got for you guys today. Have an amazing day and I’ll talk to all you guys soon.