What I Learned From My Cab Driver

I travel a couple of times a month for work. A day or two at a time. Nothing too crazy like those technology or management consultants!

When I travel, I take a cab from my home to the airport for three reasons. One, my family only has and only needs one car for our typical daily life. Two, it is much faster for me to get to and from the airport which cuts down on the overall travel time I am away from my family. And three, it is just cheaper usually for me to do it this way, which only benefits my company.

When I was in the cab the other day, I was talking to the driver, a guy that I have been using consistently for about 3 years now. And he shared with me the success that he is having as a small business man. He shared with me how business is going well and this time of the year is usually even more busy because of vacationers and last minute business deals.

But the best part of the ride was when he was sharing with me about how he is being careful to not grow too fast and add the wrong drivers to his team. He told me that he could very easily triple his business tomorrow if he wanted to, but said that he is going to take it slow. He then gave me two reasons that made me smile and nod my head up and down.

First, he said that he liked the pace of life that he had right now and enjoyed having the flexibility in his schedule to see his family quite a bit and not work 16 hour days to make a living. Smart man in my book. He gets the work life balance he needs to be good at what he does.

But the second thing he talked about was what made me want to post about it here. He said that if he were to grow too quickly, he would actually likely lose business. He said that if he grew too fast, he would have to add drivers to his team that were new and didn't know if he could trust them to do the job, be on time and be respectful to his clients. He said, in his own way, that he wanted to put the customer experience before growth at this point. He wanted to put in place a good team of people that valued the relationship with the clients as much as he does, so that he can grow slowly over time. Genius....

I love the unexpected learnings that we can see everyday in front of us if we just keep our eyes open and our ears tuned.