*Quick Summary: The author describes why he left a dream job, and speaks to uncertainty ahead.*
I’ve had a few people ask why I left a “Dream Job” at Hendrick Performance/Hendrick Motorsports. Indeed, I had a great job there. It was by far the easiest, best paying, highest-profile job I’d ever had. Rick Hendrick and Jim Perkins were the two best bosses anyone could ask for, and I operated under minimal supervision. Managing a building with over 200 of the finest, most desirable collector cars imaginable, I got to, “play with someone else’s toys” for a living. I was working for a family who had taken great care of me my entire life, and having all that history behind me gave me a great comfort level. Why would you leave all that?
In short – I was miserable. When you find yourself outside of God’s will for your life, you can never be truly happy, and I wasn’t.
To add and expand on that, let’s go back to 2004. I was the Showcar Manager at Hendrick Motorsports. I worked side-by-side with some of my best friends for “Papa” Joe Hendrick and my work life was good. Papa Joe was a mentor, a friend, and the best boss you could ever want. As 2004 moved on, his health declined. I was able to spend extra time with him as one of his caretakers towards the end of his life, and when he passed away, I took on an expanded role. There was no time to grieve his loss; there was work to be done. He gave me some instructions one of the last times I saw him. He told me to keep his people employed, keep them all together as a group, and keep the business going as it was, among other things.
Then, the plane crash in October, 2004. We lost so many, so quickly that day and the one thing we didn’t do – properly grieve. There was work to be done, and we all just did what we needed to do. No one directly offered us emotional help or support. No one acted as or approached us as a counselor. No one was there to talk it through. We would occasionally and briefly talk about it with co-workers, but there was no real therapy, just work to be done. Roles to be filled. That was our focus, and we neglected our emotions in the process. Having lost so many special people at once, I needed much more therapy than I got, yet I didn’t stop long enough to seek it.
Fast forward to the founding of the Hendrick Performance Group in 2009 and the building of the new Hendrick Heritage Center. Destined to be the home of one of the premier car collections in the world, I was transferred from the Showcar Department, and slated to help with the construction oversight and to manage it once complete. That was great timing for me as I felt my job was pretty much over when my promise to Papa Joe had been fulfilled. This gave me a sizable new project and a challenging one at that. May 2010 came and the building came to life. We premiered it during the May race weeks in Charlotte and really blew people away with the size and incredible detail involved. All the great companies involved in building it came together and made it into what we’d all hoped – a true automotive masterpiece, and the storehouse for the history of the Hendrick family. It was certainly something to be proud of and I was tickled to have the opportunity of managing it.
From the opening in May 2010, to sometime around 2012, I was incredibly busy with new displays, helping to figure out how we would conduct private tours of the facility, multiple layout changes and the like. All the sort of challenges you have when you start a new venture from scratch. Then, I began to get comfortable. We all fell into a routine and things became easy for me. There was no new challenge on the horizon; I could literally retire in this job, doing the same things I did daily, with only occasional, minor changes. It was around this time in early 2013, I began to question my future. Having already turned 40, I realized I was somewhere around halfway through my life. That caused me to question my purpose and whether I was living up to it. I knew for certain – I wasn’t. I had become bored and on looking back, I’d realized that with the exception of a few brief moments, I lacked passion for what I was doing for a living. I always said I’d quit when it wasn’t fun anymore, and for me, the fun stopped in 2004; here I was, almost 10 years past the point I’d said I’d leave.
In 2013 and 2014, I found my need to constantly refine the system led me to chase unattainable perfection, as no new work was on the horizon on which to focus my attention. My world had become very small – exactly 58,000 square feet. I wasn’t having fun and I was no longer challenged. Adding to that, my body was in a lot of pain. My chest, back, ankles, knees, and hips were all in very poor shape, and giving me a great deal of pain. My entire job consisted of many hours standing on concrete, pushing and pulling cars, oftentimes by myself, and all that was only making me feel worse. After some introspective thought and lots of prayer, I realized it was time for me to go. It truly wasn’t the company, people, or the job, it was me. I wasn’t operating in God’s will for my life and I felt no passion or challenge. I wasn’t happy because it wasn’t what God had planned for me.
Today, I find myself relaxed, happy, trying to recover physically, and searching for a job. I gave Rick Hendrick a good six months notice, trained my replacement, and can honestly say I gave them 100% until the day I left. I don’t know where the next step will lead for me, but I know this much to be true – whatever I do next will be more than just a paycheck, it’ll be a passion or I won’t do it. My prayers now are focused on the right opportunity to allow me to work in God’s will, be my usual relaxed and happy self, pay my bills, and have enough spare time to help others daily. Stay tuned.
