This I Believe

When I was nine years old my parents took my brother and I on a trip to New York. My father was a furniture retailer and as part of this family trip to see the sites of New York we visited the headquarters of the Baumritter company the supplier of Ethan Allen product to my dad’s store. There he introduced me to a man the CEO of the company Nat Ancel. As a kid I was overwhelmed with the offices and people working for the company but it was not until Mr. Ancel sat me down for a talk. He asked me what my dad did for a living and my reply is that he sells furniture. Mr. Ancel told me that my dad was really a doctor. Confused I asked him how that could be. He has a store with furniture, lamps, pictures, for sale how is this being a doctor? He told me my dad was a doctor of furniture and that his job was to heal sick homes. This made me look at what he was doing in a very different way. No longer was this a store that sold furniture but made homes a better place to live. How often does someone come along and change the idea of what you are doing for good. I am 52 now and my mom and dad are gone. My brother and I run the business which celebrates 50 years of business. We have 3 of our children in the company and the theory of healing sick homes is still the company mission. It is a wonderful feeling when a person takes a product and service and guides us to do what we do because it actually makes a difference to people.