As I look back I am grateful for so much. Lately I’ve been thinking about gratitude I still have for people who believed in me. In fact, I have a list of people who have given me confidence and courage and I’m still updating that list at 63.

Consider making your own list. We all have these people in our past and present. It may be a teacher who saw something in you that perhaps you didn’t even see in yourself. Maybe a parent or one of their brothers or sisters saw a talent in you early on. Many of us were encouraged by the unconditional love of a grandmother or grandfather. I remember friends in high school who made me dare to try music when performing was the furthest thing from my mind. (Was that positive peer pressure?)

The luckiest of us had or have a great boss. From 1965 to 1987 I count five bosses who gave me confidence and courage to grow. And the greatest of these was Jim Johnson.

In the fall of 1983, the BP Oil advertising agency team was preparing for a big presentation. Even the Chairman of our company was there to help us present the next morning. While we were rehearsing the night before, Jim got a call from one of the BP clients. He came back from the call and told me the client requested he “leave McCarthy out of the presentation.”

I was devastated. What would happen to me since BP was my only assignment? During the presentation the next day I remember riding around town worrying (whining he would call it) with my best friend at the agency, Ralph Cutcher. When we got back, I was called into Jim’s office.

The chairman was in the office with Jim and they told me that I’d be reassigned to another big account at the agency while they figured out a new job for me to take on. It would be a bigger job, they said, since they were forming a new business team and thought I would be a fit.

I asked “how in the world am I getting a promotion when I thought you’d called me in to fire me?”

Jim looked over at our Chairman and said, “Mike and I have discussed it and we think that God’s not done with you yet.”

As I ran back to Ralph’s office, it struck me that Jim and Mike were telling me simply that they believed in me and my potential to help grow the agency. The next four years were the zenith of my corporate advertising career. Ralph and I along with a few other young bucks helped Mike and Jim almost triple the agency’s revenue and created some wonderful advertising in the process.

Today I still use those words of encouragement for those I meet with high potential even when they, like me, have made a career error. It helps a lot.

Recently one of my partners asked me “are there any zero tolerance policies we should have with our employees?” My response surprised me. I said that the only people I don’t want to work with are those that feel “God’s all done with them.” That is, we don’t need anyone who thinks they’ve learned all they need to know. We need those who feel they have a lot to learn and are looking forward to the challenge.

When I stop learning, when “God’s done with me,” I want to be dead. Because a life engaged only in what I’ve learned so far would bore me to death anyway.

Peace,

Tim McCarthy