Monday Motivation: Don’t Waste The Opportunity.

Hello and happy Monday Cadre family. It is Luke Wendtlandt. I cannot wait to share the story, but I'm just gonna give it a minute here. Just wrapped up an early Monday morning meeting, which was great. It's always good to meet somebody with really great energy first thing Monday, which was awesome. We love our friends from Aon, the Aon Insurance Company. It's phenomenal what they do and how they do it. Good morning, everybody. Here we are. It's Monday in Minnesota. It is kind of a dreary, kind of gross, overcast day.

But we're going to make the most of it. We're going to have a great day. But I, I had to share a story from this weekend that I can't wait to share with y'all. So, as you guys know, or maybe don't know, I'm a huge Minnesota Timberwolves fan. I absolutely love it. The Minnesota Timberwolves. It's a basketball. Good morning, Jules. Good morning to you too. But a huge Minnesota Timberwolves dork. I've been a basketball fan since, you know, they came into the league when I was like, in my teens, and now here we are 30 some years later.

The team just had an awesome game this last Friday and Sunday went to. Both of them had to just because, like I said, it's super energizing. It's fun. We love it. Our family loves it. It's a great time to spend with each other. Good morning, Steph Irwin, you are the best. I hope everything is great in southeast United States. So, okay, long story short Friday, the Los Angeles Lakers are in town for a Friday game and a Sunday game. And I am golfing at our course here in Minnesota. It's called the White Bear Yacht Club.

We're golfing at this course. It's for a lot of people that don't know it. It's this beautiful old tour traditional course. Imagine like a master's S type of course in Midwest Minnesota or the Midwest, specifically in northern, northeast, northeast metro area for Minneapolis St. Paul. So we are, we're golfing and my son and I went together, my 12 year old. And so we are, you know, hitting. We're driving up and my son said to me on like hole one or two, he goes, I think that's JJ Redick, the head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.

I think he's right in front of us. And I'm like, no way. Like, no, that's not him. Why would he be here? And so we're sure enough, like in between hole two and three, it kind of like condenses down and the, the, the tee box and where I drive the car to really close to each other. And I looked up and of course it was JJ Redick, the Los Angeles Lakers head coach. Again. Just watched him on Friday and Sunday. And so I said to my son, I said, make sure go up there and tell him good luck. And so he's like, I don't, I don't want to do that.

It feels a little weird and whatever. I'm like, well, you gotta, you gotta find the perfect time to shoot your shot. Like you don't want to say something that, like he hears from everybody, right? So, you know, here we are, we go through the rest of the round. We have hole three, four, five, six, seven. We're on hole seven. And right at hole seven, eight, at our golf club, there is these, this little area again that condenses up and where you cannot get like the carts through. So you have to kind of like pause and stop.

So when we're pausing and stopping there, JJ Redick is there with two other individuals and their guys. And we pulled right up there and my son said to him, mind you, I didn't prompt this, nothing. My son said to him, what's it like being one of only 32 of the coaches in the world? What's it like being that? And his response was, wow, nobody's ever asked me that question before. But it was my 12 year old that said like, whatever. And I said, now remember Drew, he's one of the only coaches, there's 32 of these in the world, he's one of them.

So like when your brother in law is one of those Fortune 500 CFOs, there's only 500 of those. He's one of them. And so again, my son was enamored with this conference comment and he asked Mr. Redick this and JJ's like, wow, I never thought of it like that way. Good, good question, kid. And so we wrapped up the whole holes. Eight, nine. We went over to grab a little something to drink. I of course had my Arnie Palmer. My son had a soda water. We're sitting there waiting and Mr. Reddick comes into the golf club and I, I said to my son, I said, go grab him some swag.

And so we grabbed him a sweatshirt and a hat and I said, go hand it to him and said, this is a thank you from the Wendlands. Thanks for coming out. So he, my son grabs it, grabs the things. JJ's standing there and he said, Mr. Reddick, this is a couple things from the Wendlands. I hope you enjoyed, enjoyed your time in Minnesota. He said, this is great. Oh, my gosh, look at this. This is far too kind. This is remarkable. Thank you. I'm gonna wear this. I'll sport it. I gotta tell you, this golf course reminds me a lot.

Like out East. This course reminds me a lot about East. I used to live out there for seven years. There's this place right by the Cape, and it was remarkable and I loved it. And I got to tell you guys, you got a little jewel here. And so we just, you know, started chit chatting a little bit, talking a little bit more. But you know, again, when you have an opportunity to shoot your shot, whether it's with your boss, whether it's with your husband or wife, whether it's with a prominent figure, a celebrity, you name it, shoot your shot with something that will be memorable, shoot your shot that will be something will be memorable that they won't forget.

You know, maybe you're looking to go for that raise and you have an opportunity for a pay raise and your year's coming up, like, shoot your shot. Be prepared, be ready. Have something that they've never seen before. Don't just say, you know, I think I deserve a 3% increase. Like, be prepared, be ready. So when that opportunity comes, for example, like my son, my 12 year old with Mr. Reddick, like, that's a moment that this gentleman, you know, 40 years old, will just not forget, right? Like, gosh, you know, I am, I'm one of 32, you know, head coaches in this profession in the world that gets to do what I get to do.

And, man, I'm really lucky and grateful and all of it. And so, like, make yourself memorable. And being memorable means you're thoughtful and you've thought about your questions and you're curious. And you know, how many times that we've mentioned basketball when we met him? 0. 0. Basically outside of his profession, which is coaching. But we didn't talk about basketball. We didn't talk about the Lakers, we didn't talk about the series, we didn't say any of those things. It was about this golf course and here, and before you know it, like, he was ready, willing and able to share.

And not only share, but just be prompted because you're different than almost everybody, how they show up. So if you want to be different, be curious, be engaged in different things, and show up in different ways that otherwise most individuals probably just don't do. So that's a true story. It was one of those things that I just want to say too. So on the eighth hole, I just, I just absolutely bombed this drive. It was like one of the best drives I've ever hit. And Reddit goes, that's incredible.

That's absolutely incredible. What a drive. And he went like that. And it was just, it felt good. But so true story, Los Angeles Lakers JJ Redick had the opportunity to golf the last hole with him as well on that, on the back nine there. So it's just one of those things that you'll just, you'll never forget. So always remember when you're going to shoot your shot, you need to be prepared. You need to be ready. And curiosity always wins. Curiosity always wins. Preparation. Curious people do not want to hear the same thing.

Imagine if I'm sitting down with one Warren Buffett. Think about this. Imagine if I'm sitting down with Warren Buffett. My first question is, you know, what do you think the tariffs are going to do in regards to interest rates? What do you think is going to happen with interest rates? He's been asked that question a thousand times in probably last month, right? But if you were to ask him, so, you know, out of curiosity, you've been living at that same house for the last 65 years. You know, do you think now is the time to move?

Like, you know, ask him something that brings curiosity because we're all knowledgeable about stuff, we have the opportunity to find resources everywhere, right? So take that into consideration. And again, the two guys that we golfed with, one of the guys was one of the first individuals with Uber Eats. So he's one of the first guys with Uber Eats that he was golfing with. And it's like that curiosity from us, like that, that's. That springboarded this unbelievable conversation. It's like imagine being one of the very first employees ever at Uber Eats.

It's like, that's super impressive. And I mean, like, JJ is like, you got to talk to this guy. So that was pretty cool. And they flew in from Chicago literally just to golf with them on this course on a beautiful Saturday when he had a day off. So always remember that. Shoot your shot, be prepared, be ready, never give up. Have the opportunity to bring an incentive, insane amount of curiosity to this life. Take care, you guys. Have a wonderful, wonderful week. I cannot wait for all the lives and to show up for those individuals that put their selves out there authentically each and every week for Cadre.

It means so much to me. Us, the whole entire team. Take care. You guys have a good week. Bye.