The Big Idea with Ron Davis
December, 2018

Lessons From Failure Feed Fulfillment

If you had just one really great idea you could share with the alarm industry, what would it be?

This month we feature Lou Resweber, NuLife Sciences

Resweber’s BIG IDEA:
“Getting through every crisis in life can be summed up with, ‘to me family is everything.’”

F YOU’VE NEVER met Lou Resweber, it’s understandable.
Apart from an industry event you would have to go to Louisiana,
look him up in one of his offices and set up a time that’s mutually
convenient to go see him. These days Resweber’s schedule
is pretty full, but we’ll get to that. Back in April 2012, I wrote
about him, focusing on “the golden rule” — treating everyone
you meet as though they were the most important person in the
world, and you will receive similar treatment in return. I know
a number of people wrote to Resweber about it and went up to meet him at various events.

It’s very rare you would meet Resweber where he didn’t have
just a big smile on his face that looked like he would be perfectly
cast for a commercial for toothpaste. But he has struggled
through some hard times in this industry, and I thought it might
be worthwhile to write about somebody’s failure — there, I’ve
said it, failure — and how, when and why a successful person
can really bounce back from trying times.

Resweber was president and CEO of Pelican Security Network,
based in Baton Rouge, La. He had spent an amazing
amount of effort and time to put together a business that reflected
the fact that he had purchased over 30 companies during the
years that he was president of Pelican, and had become somewhat
of an industry icon throughout Louisiana and was starting
to be known throughout the rest of the country.

I always thought of Resweber as someone who could sell
virtually anything, and of greater importance, could teach others
how to sell. He seemed to be a solid operator and his staff
liked him. He suffered a devastating blow a few years ago when
his partners and majority owners of Pelican decided that they
wanted to move on and literally sold the company out from under
him.

He called me for advice, I gave him what I could, but really
felt bad for him. I thought there was a very good chance I’d never
see Resweber in this industry again. But he sure bounced back,
and just recently there was a press release that he had taken the
helm of a new company.

So when I called Resweber, he was somewhat taken aback
when I said, “Look, I know how successful you are, I know
about your great attitude and I also know about how important
the golden rule is to you. This interview is not about how
you treat success, but rather, how you treat the opposite of
success.” I mentioned how many successful people in life
have had to deal with failure, often more than once, in order
to achieve their goals … yet we rarely teach about how to deal
with those failures.

Resweber said his sense of defeat was complete; he was
disoriented as to what to do next, wasn’t even sure that he
wanted to get out of bed the first few mornings and was not
talking to very many people, myself included. When I asked
him how he got through it, he said, “Ron, I’m going to send
you a picture. It will explain to you and your readers how I
managed to get through every adversarial or crisis moment
in my life. It can be summed up with the phrase, ‘to me family
is everything.’” And the picture he sent me is what you see on
this page, of Resweber on the lawn with his wife, Michelle, sitting
next to him, and surrounded by their children, William,
Andrew and Nicole.

“Anytime I find I can’t deal with or accept results of my efforts,
all I have to do is look at this picture — or one similar to
it — and I’m suddenly channeled back into the time in my life
when I was most successful and most happy,” he said. “It has
always worked for me, it still does, and it always will.”
And it’s pretty clear Resweber understands whatever mistakes
he made the first time around, he’s not going to make them
the second time. As mentioned, he’s been extremely busy. Last
month he was appointed chairman, president and CEO of NuLife
Sciences, which in August had joined the security industry
fray after entering into a merger agreement to acquire LJR Security
Services and Gulf West Security Network — two companies
Resweber owned and built up in the aftermath of Pelican. I’m
sure we’ll be hearing from him for a long time to come in this
industry. So if you do run into Resweber, you’ll know what’s behind
that big smile on his face.