During the Holiday Season more than ever, our thoughts turn gratefully to those who have made our progress and success possible. It is with all sincerity and passion that we say simply but sincerely; Thank you and Best Wishes for the Holiday Season and a Happy New Year.
If you didn’t already know I and the whole team at CDC Commercial take on our business with PASSION! You may have heard me say that it is “passion that gets you out of bed in the morning, not money.” (and this year’s tough market really brings that point home!). I don’t care if they are an artist, a banker, a teacher, a waiter or whatever. We need to realize that everyone benefits when people are excited about what they do and how they deliver it to their customers, clients, neighbors and even strangers.
The great Martin Luther King, Jr. once gave a speech at a junior high school in Philadelphia in October 1967 where he said the following:
“When you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don’t just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.
I’ve been thinking about what the ingredients are to create passion. See if you agree with these.
- P is for Pride. You should have pride in your product, company, team, city, neighborhood, service and most importantly in yourself.
A is for Attitude. You can’t fake passion so you better start with a great attitude. - S is for Skills. Are you knowledgeable, competent and confident in whatever it is that you do? Do you constantly seek to be better, taking classes, reading a book or blog and talking to those in your field who are better than you?
- S is for Sincerity. Can people see that you mean what you say, believe in what you do and who you surround yourself with and most importantly care about people? If they do, your passion will be visible.
- I is for Internally Motivated. I’ve always felt that inspiration comes from the outside but the motivation must come from within. Do you have a fire burning inside you that makes you want to be the best you can be? If you fail, are you worried about those you may have let down or are you more concerned with letting yourself down? What does that “man in the mirror” say to you each day? Does it make you want to go back to bed or could you run to work on energy and enthusiasm?
- O is for “Oh My God!” That is what I want people to say when they do business with CDC Commercial and my team. “Oh my God, that was sooooo fun,” or “Oh my God, he gave me so many ideas to build my business or improve my property.” How many times have you experienced “Oh my God!” service? Isn’t it fun? Isn’t it memorable? You can’t wait to share your experience with a friend or family member.
- N is for “Next”. Passionate people are always looking ahead to their next opportunity, their next challenge, their next chance to have fun. If you are good at what you do and enjoy it, why would you want to wait to do it again?
So…How do you spell passion? What was the last experience you had that involved passionate services? (I hope it was with CDC Commercial!)
As in the past years, we get to the end of the year and once again realize it isn’t about what you own but who you know and I am happy that we have come to know each other this year and I hope that we both make an effort in the coming year to talk, do business and build our relationship.
Whether you have been doing business with me and CDC Commercial for the last 25 years or in the next 25 minutes, we’d like to thank you and express our appreciation to you for letting us share our passion with you.
I hope you enjoy this year’s Christmas Story and feel so moved.
The White Envelope…
It’s just a small white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so.
It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas – oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it – the overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma – the gifts given in desperation because you couldn’t think of anything else.
Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended. Shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church.
These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler’s ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford.
Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn’t acknowledge defeat. Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, “I wish just one of them could have won,” he said. “They have a lot of potentials, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them.” Mike loved kids – all kids – and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball, and lacrosse.
That’s when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years.
For each Christmas, I followed the tradition – one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning, and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents.
As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn’t end there. You see we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer.
When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Even found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning it was joined by three more. Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope.
Mike’s spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us. May we all remember the reason for the season, and the true Christmas spirit this year and always.
If you would be interested in putting a “White Envelope” under your Christmas Tree, I would suggest that you visit the following link to Interfaith Services where you can see what a small gift can do right here in our community providing food and shelter to our most needy. http://www.interfaithservices.org/alternative_gifts.html.
Happy Holidays from the Team at CDC Commercial
Don, Candy, Nancy, Nick, Matt, and Anne Marie
