Sometimes it only takes one good song to bring back thousands of good old memories…
On January 1st I did my plan for 2016.
I’ve been planning out my years for as long as I can remember and my theme for this year’s plan is “Reach and Simplify.” One of my first goals for simplifying my life was to clean up a storage area in my office/barn that contains all kinds of goodies and memories from my career at HealthCare Pharmacy. There were several boxes of “stuff” I had to sort through.
I’ve been dragging my feet in completing this goal and now I know why.
Six years ago at this time of year I decided I needed to move on from my pharmacy career that began in 1979 at a little corner drugstore in downtown Covington, Ohio.
I had no idea what I was going to do but I knew it was time to move on.
If you haven’t figured out life…we only get one shot. It was time for a change. I was 50 years old and wanted the next 50 to be even more epic than the first 50. 🙂
I left my life-long professional career knowing I wanted to do three things during my “2nd 50.”
- Help my wife with Jordan.
- Help others become more than they think they can be.
- Write a book.
I’ve been doing those three things now for almost six years and I have no regrets. It has been an absolute blessing. Jordan and I are closer than we’ve ever been. Lori has gotten some much needed rest and has the energy of a 30 year old. I’ve been blessed with being able to help lots and lots of people and I’m about 75% done with a third book that is actually a novel and will be on the EagleLaunch Best Seller List in 2016. 🙂
So, on January 2, 2016 I decided to clean out my pharmacy-memory storage area and long story short…it was overwhelming.
Going through 30 years of memories from HealthCare Pharmacy (HCP) was no easy task as it stirred memories and emotions I thought I had left behind.
Although we weren’t the biggest nursing home pharmacy in the nation we were one of the most highly respected and that was always my goal.
As I sat and flipped through scores of pictures and documents and all kinds of business related materials I thought about what made our journey so special and I took a pen 
and scratched on a piece of paper the keys to our success and here is what I came up with:
- We truly cared about our teammates (employees).
- We were a team…its was us, ours and we, not my, mine and me.
- We truly cared about our customers.
- We had a shared vision and strategy which means all employees knew what we were trying to accomplish.
- We worked hard.
- We had fun.
- We had heart. (See the scripture from 1 Samuel below).
- Making money was never our goal. It was simply a by-product of taking good care of the first seven points.
Over the past six years there have been moments when I think, “Did HCP really happen?”
Yesterday I found lots of memories that confirmed to me that it did.
For that I’m grateful.
Back to making the most of ourselves tomorrow.
P.E.A.C.E.
Jay@EagleLaunch.com
1 Samuel 16:7, “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
