Master Electronics

Amy Cooper and I encountered so many cool things on our supplier trip to Japan last September. Rediscovering Onitsuka Tiger after decades is high on the list of finds. Mark Kojak introduced us to Fanta melon soda. WILLIE SHUET was kind enough to bring bottles to the US when he was in Arizona for Hirose Electric Co., Ltd. meetings. Mark is an expert at everything an American tourist could want… nail clippers & Kit Kat bars are a couple of the others. If you need a consult on how to do Japan, there is no better guide. Looking forward to meeting with the team at EDS next week in Las Vegas and say thank you again to Willie! Photo credit: Lindsay Dawson #relationships #partnerships #arigato #fanta #green

Most companies write their values on a wall and then make decisions that have nothing to do with them. What changed that for me was a decision about air conditioning in our Phoenix warehouse. Temperatures in there regularly topped 100 degrees, and installing AC was an expense I wasn't sure we could justify at the time. I kept running the numbers and going in circles. At some point I stopped looking at the spreadsheet and looked at our values instead. One of them was "We Care." And I realized the decision was actually simple - I just hadn't been asking the right question. Not "can we afford this" but "what does it say about us if we don't." That's the only version of values that does anything useful. Not as aspiration, but as something you actually reach for when you don't know what to do.

I used to talk to every single person I ever sat next to on a plane. Sometimes they were clearly not in the mood. Headphones in, laptop open, deep in focus. And I’d still point at their screen and say, “What are you working on?” One time I sat next to a woman who was building something intense and clearly didn’t want to be interrupted, but I asked anyway. She ended up telling me about her company, her family falling apart, and the pressure she was under to keep everything together. Another time someone spent two hours telling me how lost they felt in their career. I offered advice and a sounding board because they just needed someone to think out loud with. And once, a woman told me flat out that I was living such a privileged life that I had no idea what real problems were. Then she walked me through what she’d been dealing with in her own life, and she was right. That conversation changed how I looked at a lot of things. I know not everyone wants to be chatted up by a stranger at 35,000 feet. I get that. I’m a little more respectful of that now. But I also worry we’re losing something by defaulting to screens and silence. Some of the most meaningful, perspective-shifting conversations of my life came from random airplane seats. Just two humans being honest for a couple of hours, and the knowledge that you’ll likely never see them again. If you're reading this, I challenge you to strike up a conversation with a stranger this week. You never know where it might take you!

4 suppliers. 5 reps. 1 customer visit. Check out the video below for a behind-the-scenes look at our first rep- and supplier-focused 💥 Power Week 💥 at the Master Electronic Clara branch. Shout out to ODU-USA , RF Associates North , STRAUBE ASSOCIATES, INC. , Honeywell , LuscomBridge , Exis QCI Inc. , and Marathon Special Products for spending time with the team and helping make it a success. The collaboration, partnership, and energy showed up all week. Interested in joining a future Power Week at a local branch? I'd love to connect. Please reach out! #TeamMaster #partnership #SantaClaraPowerWeek Israel Harris Nora Chan-Thomas Vicki Swiader Jeanette O'Flaherty Danielle Vitales Terri Straube Roxann Stephens Gretchen Durksen Paul Aspiras Randy Smith

Great message on leadership at the top. 2️⃣3️⃣6️⃣ resonate with me the most.

When Master was smaller, I knew everyone. Not just their names, but what was going on with them, what they were working through, what mattered to them outside of work, the names of their family members. That kind of closeness came naturally when the team was small enough that you were just around each other constantly. I didn't have to be intentional about it because it happened on its own. That's not the reality anymore, and the growth has cost something real in that department. What I've figured out is that I can't manufacture the closeness we had in those earlier years, but I can be deliberate about the moments I do get. At events when we’re together in person, I give myself a goal to personally connect with at least 80% of the people there. I want people to walk away knowing I saw them, not just that I was somewhere in the same building. The company being bigger means more people are doing meaningful work that I'll never have full visibility into, which is good for the business but challenging for me personally. But it also means that when I do get a few minutes with someone, those minutes tend to matter more than they might have when we saw each other every day. People can tell the difference between a leader who shows up to be seen and one who shows up to see them, and that’s worth protecting.

Thank you to the Schneider Electric team of Rima W. , Dania Ramos, MBA , Jannet B. & Crystal Mathew for hosting Val Symmonds and me at their HQ this week. So much growth so far, but even more potential in the future. Great working session, meals and getting to know each other (even though they had to listen to my stories). Appreciate Jo, Will and Dan for the tour at a state of the art facility. Thanks to Billy Hood for the #Masters socks #partnerships #relationships #relays #booza #industrialautomation

The Most Overlooked Discipline of Success (It’s Not What You Think) 🏔️ Last February, I broke my ankle on a steep ascent during a trail run. The damage was done instantly, but instead of calling it, I was "stubborn" enough to run four more miles to finish the race. 🦴 That wasn't a display of grit; it was a lack of discipline. By pushing through those final miles on a broken bone, I sidelined my training for over two months. It was a poor ROI. But that downtime forced me to refocus on a principle that applies as much to a multimillion dollar automation project as it does to an endurance training: 🔄 STRESS + RECOVERY = ADAPTATION In the science of fitness, this is called SUPERCOMPENSATION. You don’t actually get stronger while you’re pushing—you get stronger while you’re resting. The "stress" is just the stimulus. If you skip the recovery phase, you don't grow; you simply enter a state of diminishing returns. 🩺 My doctor says my recovery is one of the fastest he’s seen. It’s not "great genetics." It’s because the moment I accepted the injury, I applied the same level of rigor to my recovery that I normally do to my training. 💼 The same is true in our professional lives. If you are answering emails on your vacation or glorifying "the grind" at the expense of your team’s well-being, you aren't showing strength. You are sabotaging the adaptation phase. You are preventing the very growth you claim to be chasing. It takes zero discipline to keep pushing until you break. It takes immense discipline to stop, recover, and let the adaptation occur. ❓ The Question: Are you applying the same rigor to your recovery as you do to your stress? Or are you spreading the gospel of unnecessary self-sacrifice? Push hard. Recover harder. Adapt.