The fast eat the slow. I repeated that mantra during my first 18 years leading Tower Engineering Professionals (TEP). But the behavior began much sooner.

At age 20 I worked on a produce farm in Eastern North Carolina. “Down East” was what we locals affectionately called it. My primary job on that farm was as a forklift operator.

Ripe corn came from the fields, which was then dumped into a hopper that fed into a conveyor belt. Migrant farm workers stood at those belts to process, then box the ears. The boxes were stacked on pallets. Using my forklift, I moved the pallets to another conveyor wherein the corn passed under cold water, known as the chiller. I removed the chilled pallets from the chiller’s exit and then carried them to a drive-in refrigerator.

The refrigerator was large enough to maneuver a forklift and stack corn 20-feet high. There the corn remained in place until a distribution truck arrived. At which time I moved the pallets to the back entrance of a refrigerated van. Laborers moved the cold boxes of corn from the pallets further into the van.

This sequence of events never happened fast enough for me. Not because the chilled corn needed to remain cold and hence fresh. Although that could have been my reason. No, the real reason was that nothing ever happened fast enough for me. I lived at the speed of Pete.

When moving pallets of corn, I had to drive slowly and deliberately. However, when repositioning the forklift between loads I was free to exercise my God-given urgency to produce. Some might say it was recklessness. So be it.

Life is not about being safe. Life is about getting stuff done.

On one leg of my pattern, I would drop a load then hit reverse into a three-point turn. The end of the reverse leg stopped at the edge of the loading dock, where it abruptly dropped off. Using the mastery that I developed with repetition I could reverse at full speed, and then stomp the brake at the perfect spot so that the machine skidded to a halt with the rear wheels at the edge of the dock. During the slide, with my foot on the brake, I would shift the gear to go forward then stomp the go-pedal. All the while peering over my shoulder at the looming four-foot drop. I enjoyed it. It was a blue-collar ballet, and I got off on the precision.

Sometimes the laborers did not move at the speed of Pete. When that happened, instead of getting impatient, I jumped off the forklift to help load crates of corn into the van.

I loved the mastery of the task. I loved the adrenaline. I loved the urgency. I loved knowing that I was the hardest working white boy on that dock. I loved that everybody present knew it.

Years later, I was an E-3 in the Marines. We were working at a supply warehouse at a naval base. Marines would come in and out depending on many factors, but there was a contingent of civilians who were permanent employees. Among them was a forklift driver.

One day he was out, and as forklift operators were unionized, he was the only one allowed to drive. With no way to move pallets, the civilians sat around the picnic table and played cards. I could not stand for it.

After I told my sergeant of my forklift experience, he tepidly gave me permission to drive. Since I was not a civilian the union rules did not apply. (That was a good thing. Imagine being in a war wherein beans and bullets are dependent on one unionized forklift operator.) I jumped on the machine and began bringing pallets off the tops. There was an immediate uproar from the picnic table. Work would ruin their card game. I was in danger of causing production to happen. Worse, my sergeant was in danger of having a really bad day. It was all due to the speed of Pete.

Clearly not everyone was a fan.

I got parked and the men returned to their picnic tables. That experience in stifled productivity was mentally filed away to be recalled at the company I planned to create after leaving the Marines.

PS: Two decades later I ran into one of those produce loaders. We had been 20-year-olds on the farm together and now we were in our forties. He told me that I was the hardest working guy he ever knew. That was the best compliment I ever received.