Red Light

Listen to your wife

Joel, Operations Manager for an electrical contractor providing commercial, residential, industrial, services based in Battle Ground, WA told Session 3 of the Leadership Development Lab:

In May 2016, we added a 10 x 40 addition to our house. A year later, in 2017, we planned to open the exterior wall of the house to tie the new addition in and only do the minimum amount of work needed to make the addition livable. Like most remodel projects, this project ended up transforming into a remodel of the entire first floor of our house. This was also our primary residence, where my wife, Nancy and I and eight of our ten children were living. You can only imagine the stress on poor Nancy. So we came up with a plan to accommodate all of these inconveniences. We moved the family into the upstairs of our carport for one week so we could finish the remodel. We used our electrical crew to help finish this.

One week was a very tight schedule to accomplish all of this remodel work. We worked from early morning until late at night. We were able to finish all of the different tasks in order to move back in. We weren't able to finish carpet and trim work, which was OK with Nancy as long as we could move back in. By Saturday evening Nancy was completely done dealing with all of this remodel business. I was completely exhausted. Nancy and I decided to go for a ride into town just to get away for a few minutes. On the way home, I accidentally ran a red light. I always try to drive nice when Nancy is with me; so of course, she was letting me have it about the red light. Right at the same time, I saw I was getting pulled over. The policeman asked if I knew why I was pulled over, I told him, 'Yes, Nancy already reamed me out for it.' He told Nancy he wouldn't ticket me as long as I listened to her and behaved for the evening. But, if I didn't listen to her, she should let him know and he would write me a ticket.

"The lesson I learned from this experience is to be alert even when I am tired. And, I really have to keep my guard up when I am diving with my wife.

"The action I call you to take is play it safe by being alert. Take extra precautions when you are tired, especially when your risks could put others in harm's way.

"The benefit you will gain is a lifetime full safe adventures with best friends and a help mate you can share your life with, and grow old together."