Putting Family First
<div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><p style="text-align: center;"><em style="font-style: italic">Love wisdom like a sister; make insight a beloved member of your family.<br />Proverbs 7:3-5 NLT </em></p><p>Who among us wouldn’t drop everything at work and race to the hospital if we heard that our child or spouse was in a terrible accident? It wouldn’t matter what we were doing at the moment, would it? We could be right in the middle of a major sales pitch to a new prospect or moments away from a final interview for a promotion we desperately wanted; out the door we’d go, with barely a second thought. And who among us wouldn’t stay close by our loved one’s side, doing all that we could until the emergency passed?</p><p>I think we all would. Even the most dedicated and work driven among us will drop everything when disaster strikes. We drop everything because we know, deep in our hearts, that our family needs us more than our job. And we know, deep in our hearts, that our relationships at work are not as important as our relationships at home. No one retires at the end of their career to go into the office.</p><p>Sadly, many of us don’t live our life that way. We work late into the evenings; we travel extensively for work missing numerous family events; and we count our spouse to fill in the physical and emotional gaps at home. That’s the deal we’ve made, the arrangement we’ve struck. And for a while that works. But eventually it doesn’t. People and relationships are fragile. They aren’t corporations.</p><p>Sometimes it takes an actual disaster of some kind, an illness, an accident, a divorce or a breakdown for us to realize our error and to start acting on our true values. But often it’s too late by then. The emotional wounds are too deep and hardened.</p><p>According to my calendar, I’m scheduled to give a speech to 150 members of our company’s largest Division today in Phoenix, Arizona. I love spending time with our members; they are great people and good friends. And I have a darn good speech planned for them, too! But I’m not going to Phoenix. My family needs me back home in Florida. We haven’t had a major accident, there isn’t a major illness. Thank God! But my children need their father. And my wife needs her husband. I can see they do.</p><p>I don’t imagine there will ever be a day in my career when I’m not deeply passionate about my work and dedicated to doing a great job on behalf of our independent members. That’s just who I am. How I’m wired. But I’m going to try and live my life so that my family doesn’t need to get hit by a car to know that I love them. And that takes showing up.</p><p> </p><p>Bill Weisberg<br />Chairman & CEO<br /><a href="http://www.twitter.com/billweisberg" target="_blank">@BillWeisberg</a></p><p style="text-align: center;"> </p><p style="text-align: center;"> </p></div>