My most distinguishing attribute is an optimistic, positive attitude. In fact, a former company president once said, “I don't think Tim has ever had a bad day in his life.” I'll take it. I've been told my patience is one of my most defining qualities, but I've never been shy about walking up to strangers either.

I once introduced myself, uninvited, to a table of L'Oréal sales executives at a restaurant in Las Vegas and said to them, “Sales isn't complicated: it's a simple formula, and I wrote a book about it.” The truth is my book was not published. Not yet. The sales manager still wanted me to come speak to her group. I'm thorough to a fault too. I prepare for everything, even down to the Thanksgiving prayer I know I'll be asked to give each year. That instinct is where 70-20-10 came from.

In 1995, I watched, from inside the company, as a burned-down Milliken manufacturing plant rose to be rebuilt in a third of the normal timeline. The crew didn’t work faster. The unconventional, progressive general contractor spent 70% of the process in preparation before a foundation was laid and a single wall went up. I recognized something I'd already been living out in my own career for years: I could write a book! By then, I'd been collecting the most significant, meaningful, and memorable moments that would become my book. I accumulated 38 manila folders, one per chapter, each with a single page inside just to hold the memory in place. Thirty years of living it. Seven years of writing it down.