Roads To Success 4.10

New Growth

After her husband's conversion to a life in Christ, Fonda Huizenga found herself in unfamiliar territory.  Wayne, Jr. had turned away from drinking; he was more patient, more focused, and more loving.  Unquestionably all these changes were positive but Fonda wasn't sure she knew this new man.  It would not be long before a series of critical challenges would illustrate to Fonda that the changes in her husband were both authentic and lasting.

Very shortly following Wayne, Jr.’s conversion his mother, Joyce Huizenga, became seriously ill.  At first doctors were unsure what the malady might be but they eventually diagnosed cancer.  Joyce grew weaker and soon moved in with her son and his family.

In his I Am Second video interview Wayne, Jr. said, “I began taking her to the doctor. We began praying together.  And I was blessed to be able to love on my mom like she loved on me all of those years.  I had a new strength the old Junior - on the plane, on the boat, and in the bottle – didn’t have.  The new Junior wanted to be with mom over those nine months, when she lived and died in our house.  I wanted to be strong for my children as they watched their grandmother die.”

“I saw him living a life that was more settled, happier, even though our conditions at that time did not warrant that,” Fonda remembered.  “He focused on his children; he focused on his relationship with them and with his mother.”

“It was an incredible time to care for someone who cared for me and only because of this new found relationship with Christ,” Wayne, Jr. summed up the experience.

Wayne, Jr., focused on his mother for so many months, did not anticipate yet another loss.  “A month later I lost my grandfather,” Wayne, Jr. related.  “He was also instrumental in raising me as a child.  So, losing him right after losing mom was really devastating in my life.”

Through all of the challenges, the heartbreak and loss, Fonda observed her husband closely.  “He focused on me,” Fonda remembered.  “He encouraged me even in times when I knew I had let him down.”

“My faith gave me the ability to be strong for my wife, for my children who had seen their beloved grandparents pass away, for my dad who had just lost his father, and for my brother who had lost his mother and grandfather,” Wayne, Jr. explained.

“I saw things in his life that I wanted so desperately in mine; a sense of peace, a sense of joy, and a sense of contentment,” Fonda told the Secrets Of Success camera.  “And I got closer and closer to him in ways I never had before trying to find out, ‘What is this and how do I get it?’  How do I appropriate that in my life?”

Fonda eventually found the answers she was searching for and joined her husband's life of faith.  "When I then made a confession of faith and started moving forward, it was the same thing as being in a canoe together and now you're both paddling together," she illustrated.

© 2012 Philip Kassel

Roads To Success 4.9

The New Guy

On a rainy, thundering Wednesday night, during a visit to a friend’s church, Wayne Huizenga, Jr. gave his life to Jesus Christ.  The Word of God spoken in the church that night finally energized all of Wayne, Jr.’s conversations with his friend, Captain Brad Fleetwood McDonald, all of the church sermons he had heard over the past months, and his own hours of elementary study of the Bible.

Arriving home that evening he shared the monumental news of his conversion to his wife, Fonda.  “My immediate reaction was, ‘Have you lost your mind?’” recalled Fonda with a warm laugh.

Wayne, Jr. was undaunted.  For the next eighteen months he made continued attempts to describe his experience to Fonda, and exactly what it meant.  “She told me at one point that I had been abducted by aliens,” Wayne, Jr. laughed.

Aliens certainly had been nowhere near Wayne, Jr. but he knew for certain he was a different man.  “I tried to go out to parties like I used to, and at first I felt terrible in the morning,” he related in his I Am Second interview.  “I called up my friends and I said, ‘I feel horrible!’  They’d say, ‘Well Junior, the way that you acted last night and the way you drank, you should.  You’re hung over, son!’”

But Wayne, Jr. knew there was more to it.  After only two or three such parties he called the friends who had invited him to the Wednesday evening church service.  After explaining what he had been experiencing his friends provided an answer.  It began with a reminder that he had invited God into his heart.  And then they explained that, when he prayed the prayer of acceptance, God entered his heart through the Holy Spirit.

“It all kind of clicked,” Wayne, Jr. remembered.  “Captain Brad, the hole in my heart, and my new relationship with Jesus.”

When his friends explained that the excessive drinking and other bad behavior saddened God, Wayne, Jr. in turn felt sadness.  His preference was to make God happy.

“I tried to drink less,” Wayne, Jr. told the I Am Second camera.  “Then I’d have a couple of drinks.  Then I’d say something that I knew was wrong.  And I’d set my drink down, and I’d find myself a quiet spot at the party, and I’d tell God I was sorry.”

The power of those confessions to God, along with the requests for forgiveness, would soon become evident.  “Eventually, years ago, I told Him [God] I don’t want to drink anymore,” Wayne, Jr. explained.  “And He said, ‘Okay Junior, you don’t have to drink anymore.’  And I got up the next morning haven’t had a drink since.  It’s power, the power to change.  At that point my wife still hadn’t come to know the Lord.”

Of course, no one was affected more by the changes in Wayne, Jr. than Fonda.  "The drinking stopped.  The carousing stopped.  He devoted himself to business in a way I had not seen before."

The bottom line was that Fonda's "new" husband worried her.  "The obvious changes were immediate," Fonda recalled.  "He had a change in attitude that was prfound.  And to me it was very frightening because this was the first time he had made such a radical change in his life without making me even vaguely a part of it."

"I had more patience with my wife.  I had more patience with my children, and with all those I came into contact with," Wayne, Jr. explained.  "I began to experience the peace I had seen in Captain Brad.  The sense of searching for something more began to subside."

Fonda may have found all of the changes in her husband unsettling, but she would soon see Wayne, Jr.’s new life put to the test when faced with a number of serious challenges.

 © 2012 Philip Kassel

Roads To Success 4.8

Power Struggle

With the encouragement of Captain Brad Fleetwood McDonald, Wayne Huizenga, Jr. began exploring what it meant to have a relationship with God.  He enjoyed what the pastor had to say and was often moved to tears by the sermon.  Gradually, Wayne, Jr. began doing his best to change his life.

“If I was in town, I was in church,” Wayne, Jr. said in his I Am Second interview.  “I put my money in the basket when it went by.  I went to a little bit of Bible study and I even learned some Bible verses.  When Captain Brad came into town I had my own Bible and I could find my way around it.  I could even quote some scripture to him.”

It was a strong and heartfelt start for Wayne, Jr. but it was not comprehensively effective.

“I’d listen to the message and I’d try to be different but at the end of the day I found myself out doing the worldly things that I had always done.  I didn’t understand how to change my life,” Wayne, Jr. remembered.  “I was still struggling.  I was trying to be different but I didn’t have any power to change.  I’d say, ‘I’m not going to swear as much today or I’m not going to drink as much this weekend.’  But my changes were short lived.  It was a very mixed up, difficult time.”

One day friends invited Wayne, Jr. to accompany them to a Wednesday evening service at their church in Fort Lauderdale.  His acceptance of their invitation would lead to a breakthrough in his life.

The fact that this particular church held services on Wednesday evenings was just one of the differences setting it apart from Wayne, Jr.’s more traditional church.  His friends’ church was a ‘mega-church’ meeting in a warehouse-type building with about 4,000 people in attendance.  Instead of hymnals the worship song lyrics were projected on large, strategically placed screens.  And the sermon was powerful, almost as powerful as the storm thundering outside, lasting almost a full hour.

Towards the end of the sermon the pastor posed a question that reached deep into Wayne, Jr.’s heart.  Wayne, Jr. presented the details in his I Am Second video.  “At the end of the service the pastor asked, ‘If you were driving home in the night, and something happened to you, and you died, do you know for certain you’d go to Heaven?’  It was very quiet in there.  And he said, ‘Well if you don’t, you can know for certain you’re going to go to Heaven.  You can come forward tonight.  You can ask Jesus to come into your heart, forgive you of your sins, and live in you.  And you’ll know with certainty that Heaven forbid, if anything should happen, that you’d go to Heaven.’”

As the choir began to sing, Wayne, Jr., his heart racing, watched people begin rising from their seats and making their way to the front of the auditorium.  “The pastor came back up to the pulpit again after a minute or two,” he continued.  “He said, ‘Do you think that there’s got to be more to being a Christian than just going to church on Sundays?  Do you think that there’s a reason that God allowed you to be born?  Do you think that He has a plan for your life?’”

What came next moved Wayne, Jr. profoundly.  “The pastor said, ‘God wants to have a personal relationship with you and He wants to do it through His Son, Jesus Christ.  God has a plan for your life.  Why do you think you’ve been given all the things you’ve been given?’”

The words took hold of Wayne, Jr. in a powerful way.  “I thought, ‘Man, I’ve got a lot.’  I realized I had been given these incredible gifts.  I had airplanes, boats, money and the ability to do almost anything I wanted in life.  And I realized I was using it all for me.  It was all being used selfishly and in no way did I use any of it to glorify God.”

Finally, the pastor said, “If you want to have a personal relationship with God, with Jesus Christ, you can come forward right now and join these people, and pray this simple prayer.”

Wayne, Jr. simply could not remain in his seat.  The truth of what he had heard pulled him forward.  “I made my way down to the row to the aisle, forward to the front of this church that I had never been to before, and I fell to my knees.  And I began to cry,” Wayne, Jr. described that memorable night.  “I listened to the pastor and he said, ‘Repeat these simple words and ask Jesus into your heart.’  And I did.  I told Jesus I was sorry, that I loved Him and that I wanted to know what His plan for my life was.  I wanted to be in this personal relationship with Him if He wanted to be in it with me.”

Wayne, Jr. got up, dried his tears, and then went home to tell his wife what had occurred.

© 2012 Philip Kassel

Roads To Success 4.7

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A Hole In The Heart

One day in 1995 Wayne Huizenga, Jr. received a call from a friend bearing an unusual invitation, the opportunity to sail from South Carolina to South Florida aboard a nuclear submarine.  During the three-day voyage Wayne, Jr. met and became acquainted with Captain Brad Fleetwood McDonald.

 “He became an important influence in my life,” described Wayne, Jr.  “He had patience that was beyond belief and he had incredible wisdom.  And he didn’t seem to be searching like I was.  I saw a calm and a peace in him I had not seen in anyone else.”

Wayne, Jr. and Captain Fleetwood became good friends.  In his interview for I Am Second Wayne, Jr. described their friendship.  “He took me on his submarine so I started taking him out on my fishing boat.  We traveled to Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama, the Virgin Islands, and wherever.  And as time went on I began to notice that he always had his Bible with him.  He never pushed it in my face but he always had it with him.”

Wayne, Jr. realized that if he wanted to learn more about leadership there was no better person to ask than a man who commanded 120 sailors beneath the ocean for six months at a time.  “I’d ask him about conflict resolution, about how he led the guys, how he would help them to grow as individuals and he always referenced his Bible,” Wayne, Jr. narrated in his I Am Second interview.  “It was incredible.  He’d read me a few Bible verses and then he’d explain them to me.  And, the more time we spent together, the more I realized how different he was from me.  You know, he was a sailor, but he didn’t drink like a sailor, he didn’t swear like a sailor.  I did.  And he had this incredible peace about him that was unlike any that I’d ever seen in all the people that I had met through Wayne, Sr.  It was a peace that was worldly, and yet he was so incredibly humble.  One day I got up my courage and I asked him, “You know, Captain Brad, why are we so different and how do I become more like you?  What do I need to do?”

Captain McDonald answered that he used the Bible as a guide for his life, reading it daily, and that he enjoyed a personal relationship with God.

“He always referred me to the Bible,” Wayne, Jr. told the Secrets Of Success camera.  “He’d quote scripture to me and say, ‘This is what the Old Testament says about how to live your life.  This is where I go when I have questions and this is where I get my peace from because God resides inside of me’.”

Captain McDonald emphatically told Wayne, Jr., “You have a hole in your heart.”  He explained that mankind is made in God’s image and that the hole in Wayne, Jr.’s heart is where God is supposed to reside.

At first Wayne, Jr. was able to understand only some of what his friend was telling him, but he kept asking questions.  Captain McDonald explained that the hole in Wayne, Jr.’s heart consumed everything he tried to put in it.  All of the things Wayne, Jr. hungered for - the business deals, new boats or cars, and all the travel to more exotic locales - that black hole in his heart consumed it all.

Captain McDonald made it clear that the hole would never be filled with all of those worldly things; it could only be filled with God.

In his I Am Second video Wayne, Jr. said, “I thought, ‘Could that be it?  Could it be that easy?’  All these things I’ve been chasing, all these places I’ve been going, could it be a relationship with God?’”

With Captain McDonald’s influence, Wayne and Fonda found a church they liked and began attending.

© 2012 Philip Kassel

Roads To Success 4.6

An Unknown Element

Wayne Huizenga, Jr. was happy in marriage and had worked his way up through the ranks of Blockbuster Video, and then continued that upward movement in his father’s new conglomerate, Republic Services.  As perfect as life appeared on the surface there was still something missing, and at the time, Wayne, Jr. wasn’t even completely aware of it.

Wayne, Jr. eventually became a vice president at Huizenga Holdings.  Even though he had shown great focus in obtaining the goal of working with his father, his new executive position revealed that this focus did not necessarily transfer into all areas of business.

Bill Pierce, Chief Financial Officer for Dolphins Enterprises, was a senior executive in the company at the time and served as a mentor to Wayne, Jr.  “Like his father, he had great ideas, and he was very, very quick,” Bill said.  “But clearly, he lacked the focus necessary to be successful in business.  While he had a great business mind I would say he didn’t focus to the extent that he could stay with one project to see it all the way through.”

Wayne, Jr.’s focus was somewhat blurry in his personal life as well.  He had purchased Blockbuster stock while the company was still very young, and that stock’s value had risen astronomically.  Wayne and Fonda were living a life that most people can only dream of.

“We were incredibly happy living a life that was beyond anything that either of us had ever imagined,” Wayne, Jr. said in his I Am Second video interview.

Wayne, Jr.’s mother told her son that there “wasn’t much reality” to his life.  “She’d come to me and say, ‘Junior, you know, you need to get back to the church.  You’ve got two children now, three and four years old.  They don’t know anything about who the Lord is and they have no grounding.  And the lifestyle that you’re living, it’s not like the rest of the world lives’.”

“He loved to take big trips and take all his friends,” recalled Carlos Vidueira, a Vice President at Huizenga Holdings.  “He’d pack them up and go to exotic parts of the world.”

“There were no limits.  There were no boundaries.  There were no standards,” Fonda explained.

“My impression of Wayne was that he was a very good person, a warm-hearted person,” recalled Carlos Vidueira.  “But when you pack up twenty-five adults and take them to the Caribbean or other exotic parts of the world it doesn’t always go according to plan.  People get into disagreements.  People drink too much.”

In spite of his lavish lifestyle, something was missing.  There was an unknown element absent from the Huizenga family’s lives, and Wayne, Jr. knew it.

“I was happy in my life,” Wayne, Jr. remembered.  “I had everything the world would consider everything you should have – jet planes, yachts, a big house, and a wonderful family.  But I never really felt fulfilled.”

It took some time but eventually Wayne, Jr. began to get his bearings.  It happened gradually and in an unexpected way, and it really began with a submarine voyage.

© 2012 Philip Kassel

Roads To Success 4.5

Ladder Climb

Life was going well for Wayne Huizenga, Jr.  Disappointment over the news of his father’s retirement from Waste Management, Inc. was now just a memory.  It had been replaced with the satisfaction of achieving the goal of working along side his father in business.  The business at hand was Blockbuster Video and the work was to expand the company.

While Wayne, Jr. was doing his best to advance at Blockbuster Video, Fonda Hicks once again emerged on the scene.

“She was living in Phoenix, working for Proctor and Gamble, and she was on the fast track then to become a plant manager,” Wayne, Jr. related.  “She called me up and told me she was going to be in town visiting her parents, and asked if I would like to get together.”

Getting together was fine with Wayne, Jr.  He and Fonda had kept in touch since their summer romance but hadn’t seen each other in five years.  They made plans to spend an evening together catching up.

“That one night would become a weeklong date,” Wayne, Jr. smiled.  “I realized at that time there was something special there, something I hadn’t felt with anybody else I’d ever dated.”

In many ways, Wayne was still the fun-loving boy Fonda had dated when they were both fifteen.  But she also recognized several new traits in him.

“He was a very young man, very energetic, very idealistic, very excited about business prospects, very excited about this whole world that was opening up to him,” Fonda described.

So, after 13 years apart, Wayne Huizenga, Jr. and Fonda Hix were together again.  And after a long distance relationship that lasted almost a year, Fonda moved from Arizona to Florida to be with Wayne.

Fonda’s friends thought she was crazy.  After all, she was leaving a promising career and stock options to marry a man who displayed every indication of being a playboy.

“She would go on to say that she knew in her heart of hearts I was the right person for her,” Wayne, Jr. told the Secrets Of Success camera.  “And she saw wonderful things in me that I never saw in myself.”

In 1988, Wayne, Jr. and Fonda were married.  Within a few years they produced two children.

Wayne Huizenga, Jr. was doing very well, indeed.  Not only had he married his childhood sweetheart but his professional life was advancing nicely as well.  Blockbuster became the largest video retailer in the world, at one point opening a store a day for several years.  But late in 1994, Wayne, Sr. sold the company to Viacom and began looking for new business territory to conquer.

Wayne, Jr. described what came next.  “The opportunity presented itself for Wayne, Sr. to get involved with an old associate and get back in the garbage business.  At that time my uncle also owned a large garbage company in Florida.  They merged the two together creating Republic Services.”

Republic Services was designed to be a conglomerate.  So, while looking for diversified investments, the automobile industry drew Wayne, Sr.’s attention.

“We started Auto Nation,” Wayne, Jr. advanced the story.  “Unfortunately, as we started to grow our mega used car super stores we discovered the margins weren’t as good as we had hoped they would be.”

Equally troubling, when the stock market began to focus on the hot technology sector, the Republic Services conglomerate lost favor with Wall Street.  Seeking to become a company focused on only one industry, the Huizengas spun off several of Republic’s assets into new, public companies and sold other assets outright. As for Auto Nation, they phased out used car sales and became a new car dealership.  Auto Nation would eventually become the largest car dealer in the world with over $20 billion in revenue annually.

Not only was Wayne Huizenga, Jr. climbing the ladder he was nearing the top of it.  But in spite of business success and a good marriage his life was not everything it seemed to be on the surface.

© 2012 Philip Kassel

Roads To Success 4.4

A Little Video Store

As Wayne Huizenga, Jr. neared the completion of high school he saw his dream of working with and being more like his father transforming into something much more tangible.  College was the next step and then it would be a mere four years to finding a place in his father’s company, Waste Management, Inc.  He was aware of the respect and power his father acquired as the leader of a large, growing company.  He liked and enjoyed the lifestyle, the private jets, the yachts and the lavish trips.

In his I Am Second video presentation Wayne, Jr. said, “The stories that my mother would tell us about Jesus and trying to share about God quickly left my mind as I began to focus on what I had to do to be like dad.  I wanted all the things that he had.  I grew, went to college, and became very, very focused on what I had to do.”

But in 1984, in his third year of college, Wayne, Jr.'s plans were shattered with his father’s announcement that he had decided to retire from Waste Management.

Wayne, Jr. told the Secrets Of Success camera, “I remember thinking to myself, ‘what am I going to do with my life now?’  I had always known I was going to work at Waste Management and had trained for that my entire life.  I had worked at the landfill picking up garbage at age twelve.  I had worked at grinding containers and worked on the back of a truck.  I had worked at doing sales while I went through college.”

Wayne, Sr. assured his son that he could still work for the company, but Wayne, Jr. wasn’t interested.  He never believed he would actually get to work side-by-side with his father in Waste Management, but his heart had been set on being a part of his father’s business.  Essentially, a childhood dream had been destroyed.  “I was really very unsure of what the future held for me,” Wayne, Jr. said.  “I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do.”

But Wayne, Sr.’s next business venture in 1987 would soon put his son’s uncertainty to rest.  It concerned a single video store in Chicago and its owner who wanted to expand into the franchise business.

“Wayne, Sr. made an investment in a small company called Blockbuster Video,” explained Wayne, Jr.  “At the time it was himself and two of his partners from Waste Management.”

It was a deal that Wayne, Sr. almost passed on.  He rarely took the time to watch movies and didn’t even own a VCR.  But once he took a close look at the numbers and actually visited the Chicago store, he became excited about the potential.

“Wayne, Sr. and his partners were going to be passive investors with David Cook in this startup video company,” Wayne, Jr. elaborated.

Wayne, Sr.’s role in the new company would not remain passive for long.  A difference in philosophy regarding how best to grow the company led to David Cook retiring from actively running Blockbuster and selling his shares to Wayne, Sr.

“At that point Wayne, Sr. was in the position of having to protect the investment of his two friends as well as his own investment,” Wayne, Jr. elaborated.  “He took over the helm of Blockbuster Video which coincided with my graduating from college.”

The timing was perfect for Wayne, Jr.  He entered Blockbuster, as he had all his father’s businesses, at the ground floor.  He began as a store employee, worked his way up to store manager and eventually became a district manager.  From there he moved to special projects, working directly with Wayne, Sr. and the executive staff.  Working directly with his father was a dream-come-true for Wayne, Jr., but it was something of a challenge as well.

“It was an adjustment for me because I was treated no differently then any of the other employees,” Wayne, Jr. recalled.  “Often father and sons don’t work well together in business.  I’ve been blessed; it did work for Wayne, Sr. and me.  But it was definitely an adjustment for me.  He’s as intense at work as he is at play, and spending time with him in the workplace really lent an insight as to why I didn’t get to spend much time with him while I was growing up.”

As Wayne, Jr. was advancing through the ranks at Blockbuster, Fonda Hix reentered his life.

 © 2012 Philip Kassel