Month: September 2026

I picked this book up somewhere. I don’t remember if it was a suburban little library or Goodwill. I bought it because I bought a truck last December. I didn’t pick it up because I felt like it belonged inside the cab of the truck of a guy who owned a truck. I picked it up because I now had room to store a book or two in my modern truck. My previous vehicle was a 25 year old Jeep Wrangler and if you’ve ever owned an (now considered) old Wrangler then you know that there are no creature comforts. Not much room to store much of anything.

I took possession of this book so I could read it when I was waiting. When there was some idle time.

I’m taking better care of this truck than I have any other vehicle that I’ve owned because I loathe buying vehicles and if I never have to buy another one in my lifetime then that would suit me alright.

I’m waiting in the service department at the dealership for an oil change and a 50,000 mile service. I stopped a kid in the parking lot at the grocery store a few months ago as he had an older version of my truck. I knew by looking that the truck had a lot of miles on it. The kid validated my hunch. It had 440,000 miles on it. He said he changes the oil.

I started reading this book while I’m waiting to get my oil changed. I haven’t changed my own oil since synthetic oil became the norm. I looked at purchasing an oil filter myself. My guess is that paying someone else to change my truck’s oil costs about as much as doing it myself unless I buy filters and oil in bulk and don’t mind the time it takes and the hassle of hauling old oil to a place that recycles it.

The book is good. It’s raw and true and funny and takes me back to my childhood and stirs memories of my dad and the things he taught me about hunting, fishing, and frog gigging.

The book was a gift to myself. I’m sitting in a large dealership service department waiting area with nice chairs and a big TV hanging on the wall. There are 10 other people in here with me. Every single one of them has their nose down in a phone. I guess I do too, but I’m telling a story here. I’m reflecting a taking a break between chapters.

It’s a good book about hunting, fishing, learning, relationships with people, animals, and nature, respect, and ethics. It’s heartwarming and funny.

I’ll probably take a year or more to read it. I’m only on chapter 2. When I’m done, I’ll probably give it to my old friend Travis. He’d like this book.

One of my favorite things about a book is how it can make you think of someone. I think if someone gives you a book as a present, that’s one of the best gifts in the world. There’s something in that book that made them think about you and if they didn’t tell you why, then the absolute best feeling is when you get to the part where you find out why.

I don’t remember where I was or what I was doing 20 years ago on September 24th, but I know now that my life was about to get fully flipped upside down.

Twenty years ago on September 5th I learned that I was being laid off from my job.

Twenty years ago Elise and I had an infant daughter.

Twenty years ago Elise and I were new homeowners with a mortage that required the majority of my paycheck.

Twenty years ago, two days from now, I had no reason to think that my dad was going to die.

Forty years ago my dad told me that all he wanted for me was to do better than him. I didn’t know what that meant at that time. I’d always thought that that meant be more successful at work and make more money than he did.

I don’t think that’s what he meant. I look up at the stars a lot and I ask him. I’ve done this every day for two days shy of 20 years now. He hasn’t answered me yet. I don’t know if he ever will. But I think he knows I’ll figure it out.

But it is so goddamn hard. It is a quiet burden that I bear. And I always will.

I’ve been a dad for over 20 years. It’s the best role I’ll ever play in my life. One of the biggest burdens is acceptance. Accepting the fact that my girls might never know how much I undyingly love them and how much of my fleeting conscious time is occupied with them in my mind and my heart while I’m at this post. One day they’ll know.

I don’t know why the name Bob Carter popped into my head while I was at work this morning. I googled him just to see if I could find a photo or be reminded of when he died.

Bob Carter was the CTO of Keller Williams Realty and I worked for him for a fondly-remembered brief period of time while I was in college. I worked for Bob thanks to his wife.

I was probably a sophomore in college. I was a computer science major back then and, at the time, I worked at PetSmart. I’d worked there for a while when Bob’s wife was hired. I feel terribly as I can’t remember her name to save my life right now. She was great. She and I got along like peas and carrots. We worked alongside each other and got to know each other. At some point I’d told her that I was a computer science major. Her husband, Bob, was the Chief Technology Officer at Keller Williams. She put two-and-two together for me and before long, I was resigning from PetSmart and signing on with Keller Williams to work directly for the head of technology.

I will always remember my first day of work. I think I had to be there at 8:00 a.m., but I didn’t have a tie, so I drove to Walmart at 7:00 a.m. and bought myself a tie.

Bob was wonderful. He was very nice to me and cared about my future. I don’t remember what all he had me doing, but it was all the trivial adminstrative stuff that needed to be done while Bob fried the bigger fish. Bob had always been a team of one. Now he had someone to call on all of the regional offices to get agent names, phone numbers, and email addresses for the company database. He probably showed me code and plans and timelines. I cared enough to do my job, but it was at that point in my college career that I wasn’t loving computer science.

Bob was good to me. So was his wife. I will always remember that. I didn’t last long though. It might’ve been that my semester schedule changed. I might’ve quit. I can’t recall.

Fast forward a couple semesters and I find myself working at the Olive Garden in south Austin. I very much remember one evening when the restaurant was slammed. The entire wait staff was running around like crazy, myself included, and I ran into Bob’s wife. She and friends and family were being escorted to their table by the hostess. I didn’t see her. She saw me and she called out to me.

I went to her with a big smile and told her that it was great to see her and asked her how Bob was doing. As I was saying my pleasantries I realized that she’d been crying. She told me that Bob had died very recently. I was baffled and caught off guard. I didn’t know what to say. I’m sure I said somethiong like, “omigosh I’m so sorry.” I had to move along because I probably had nine tables that were waiting on me to deliver breadsticks. My plan was to hunt down her table later and talk to her more and express my condolences.

That never happened. I hope one day I’ll get that shot again.

As I was poking around this morning, reminscing about my relationship with Bob Carter, I learned that Keller Williams Realty International awards the presiguous annual Bob Carter Inspiration Award.

The Bob Carter Award at Keller Williams Realty has a very specific origin, and it is actually rooted in one of the stories that helped shape the culture behind KW’s business philosophy.

Who was Bob Carter?

Bob Carter was a programmer who worked with Gary Keller and the early Keller Williams organization. Keller brought Carter in to develop a proprietary operating software system for one of the company’s businesses.

The project became increasingly complex. Carter continued maintaining and improving the system over several years, fixing bugs and adding features. The problem was that much of the later work wasn’t fully documented. As a result, Carter had become essentially the only person who could readily administer or modify the system.

Then, in the mid-1990s, Carter was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was given only a short time to live.

What happened next is the heart of the award.

Rather than simply walking away from his responsibilities, Carter recognized that the company depended on the knowledge he carried. While undergoing chemotherapy, he worked with a consultant to systematically document years of changes to the software, continuing the work until the final weeks of his life. Gary Keller described this as an extraordinary demonstration of integrity and commitment.

Why an award was created

That experience inspired Keller Williams to establish the Bob Carter Inspiration Award.

Gary Keller describes its purpose as recognizing someone in the company who demonstrates:

extraordinary selflessness and service in the face of adversity

The award therefore isn’t fundamentally a sales award. It’s about character under pressure: someone who continues to serve others, gives without putting themselves first, and demonstrates exceptional commitment when circumstances are difficult.

That’s also why the award fits so neatly into the broader KW culture of “God, family, then business,” generosity, contribution, and the idea that success isn’t merely measured by production.

The award became a KW tradition

By the mid-2000s, it was being presented at the international level. One early documented recipient was Betty Bezemer, who received the first Bob Carter Inspiration Award for Keller Williams International after overcoming breast cancer and continuing to contribute to the KW community.

The tradition continued through KW’s Family Reunion era. For example, Doris Carlin received the award after leading her market center through the aftermath of the Joplin tornado, and later recipients have included people recognized for significant service to others and their communities.

KW’s own Outfront magazine later described the award as something given annually to an inspirational member of the Keller Williams family.

The interesting connection to The Millionaire Real Estate Agent

There’s a particularly nice wrinkle here.

The Bob Carter story appears in Gary Keller’s The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, in the chapter discussing systems and documentation. Keller uses Carter’s experience to make a business lesson: don’t allow critical knowledge to live only inside one person’s head.

So the story has two layers:

Business lesson:
Document your systems so the business can survive when a key person is suddenly unavailable.

Cultural lesson:
When adversity strikes, choose service and responsibility rather than self-preservation.

The second lesson is what became the Bob Carter Inspiration Award.

In one sentence

The Bob Carter Award exists because Bob Carter, while dying of cancer, spent his remaining time documenting the systems he had built so that the people and company depending on him would not be left stranded.

That’s why the award is really about selfless contribution in the face of adversity, rather than achievement alone.