Happy Tuesday Everyone! Today’s Core Value is: We Put People First.
Looking for the Christmas Spirit, Sunday night, my daughter Amanda and I watched the 1946 Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” where Jimmy Stewart plays the character George Bailey. In the movie, George wants to move out of the small town he grew up in, get a college degree, and do big things in the world, like “plan modern cities.” As George’s life story unfolds throughout the movie, life events send him on a different path, and he questions the worth of his life because all he dreamed of wasn’t going to come true. Thanks to the help of a friend named Clarence, George comes to realize he had all a man could ever want within the life he was living, even though it wasn’t the life he dreamed of in his youth.
There’s one part of this classic movie that especially stands out to me, and it’s the scene where George was telling his father, who owned a small “Building and Loans” bank, how he doesn’t want to take over his father’s business because he wants to get out of the town and do great things. He tells his father: “I can’t be couped up in a shabby little office…I want to do something big and something important.” To which his father replies: “You know George, in a small way, we are doing something important (by helping people) in our shabby little office.”
Reflecting on what we’re accomplishing at Focal Pointe, there’s so much about that exchange between George and his Dad that should speak to us. George had to choose between “doing something big and important” or making a difference in the lives of the small community he grew up in. Reflecting on that, you begin to realize that Focal Pointe is giving us the ability to walk both paths.
Achieving “Top 100” status in the industry, multiple Top Workplace awards, world-class client satisfaction and retention, record breaking new sales, local awards for the quality of our work and/or commitment to the community, and beautifying the most prestigious properties in the Midwest, is in fact “something big and something important.” Yet, at the same time, the spirit by which we do our work is that of a small, hungry, local business simply trying to add quality to the lives of our customers, coworkers, vendors, and community.
Because of each of you, and your commitment to serving others for the joy of it; Focal Pointe has grown into a platform for us to live meaningful lives in the biggest and smallest ways. Thanks to the infinite gifts this Core Value provides, and perhaps with the help of a Clarence of our own; we truly are living a Wonderful Life.
Have a great day! John