Looking Back today on 2020… why? In thinking about what to write about today I found myself struggling with today and started to look back. I picked up my book A Leap Year of Firsts to see where I was at one of the most challenging times of my life, four years prior, during a worldwide crisis. The week after Memorial Day in 2020 was chaotic and the world was in the middle of the pandemic. I was still struggling to save my life’s work – the first (and only) company I had ever owned – Spike’s. On the following dates were my documented “Firsts” during this time. On May 30th, 2020, I canceled my long-planned trip to Jerusalem and Nile River Cruise in October 2020. The following day on May 31st I had to close our center city Philadelphia showroom due to the civil unrest that was happening in center city due to the passing of George Floyd. The next day on June 1st I canceled my planned hosting of my national buying group’s meeting in September 2020. On June 2nd I was LIVE nationally on QVC and the Home Shopping Network four times during the night as the feature winner of the Small Business Spotlight presented by the National Retailer Federation. They were trying to support small business to help them survive the impact of COVID. I was a poster child of the struggle. The next night on June 2nd I slept in my office at work. All of these happenings were spurred on by the COVID pandemic that had devastated my industry and many others. I was all in and struggling, but I was energized and focused!
Fast forward four years. We not only survived, but we thrived in an industry that didn’t. We are in the midst of our industries “busy season.” This week is historically THE busiest week of our entire year. We are blessed to be the busiest we have ever been in my almost 50-year history at the company. Yesterday I spent a great day watching my two grandsons of four and two years of age. Today I have another planned light day at work, having delegated the day-to-day running of the business to my younger partners. I’m not engulfed in the day-to-day business as in my long past – intentionally. I have free time and freedom to do what I want. I have achieved all of the goals I wrote as a young man. I just got back from taking that cruise down the Nile that I had cancelled four years prior. I’m content and grateful, but there is something missing. I tell people when asked that I’m working ON the business, just not IN it any longer. I am a success as viewed through the eyes of a younger me. I’m in a weird and new place that I am trying to figure out. A place that made me look back today. I don’t have the drive as I did four years ago. I don’t have the impassioned “WHY” of saving my employees jobs, my company or the life I had worked so very hard for, for so many years. My employees’ jobs are secure. My company was saved. My life if great by many standards. So, why look back? Why feel a little lost?
In thinking about those questions, I realized that I’m going through a change in my life. I’m going through more uncertain firsts at almost 66 years old. Change is frightening at any age. I have a choice to make my future firsts the best that I can, or not. I’m going to maybe have some down days in these future changes. But I promise myself to choose to make my future firsts the best I can and to enjoy them – whatever they may be. Do you choose to make your future firsts the best you can? Will you?