Two years ago today, March 17th, 2020, I wrote in my daily journal that was documenting my Leap Year of Firsts for my first book… “No Salary – Worked for Free.” This was at the start of the pandemic when my awards business, that I worked at for over forty-five years and now own, was being declared non-essential and being forced to close. The events that I would normally supply these awards to were cancelling and going dark. When a ship is taking on water and going down, you throw things off to try to keep it afloat. Well my salary was one of the things I was throwing overboard to keep my 45 employees employed and the business alive. It was the first time in my life that I did not take salary, or any pay and worked for FREE!
In documenting this decree to my Controller to stop my pay I wrote “we’ll be ok – just do as I ask.” He questioned me in not taking a salary. I don’t think I really believed at the time that we would be ok. We ended up being more than ok when all was said and done a few years later. I ended up working for free for the balance of 2020. I was working 24/7 to save the ship – for FREE! I never really worked for money anyway, this just confirmed it. I have commented to my wife and others that “I did THE BEST WORK in my entire life FOR FREE!” The crisis of the pandemic, provided a number of unwanted firsts. One of these unwanted firsts, which was laying an employee off, led me to find my “WHY” of saving jobs, in order to hopefully save lives. It is amazing what finding a purpose combined with the passion to pursue this purpose can do. It fueled me to not only save the jobs of all of my employees, but a number of employees from other companies. For the details you’ll have to read the book… A Leap Year of Firsts!