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Below are selected previous messages:
 Personal Growth of Each Student
Tomato Plants
On the Basketball Court
At the Ice Pond
Why We Should Teach Students about World
Religions
12 Lessons
My brother Joe's first store was appropriately called Joe's Market. It was there, at the age of fifteen, that I had my first work experience. And it was there that I was introduced to a way of doing business and a philosophy of life that would have a lasting impact upon me.
My very first day at Joe's Market was an exceedingly hot and humid New England day in late June. My first job was to remove the accumulated trash and debris from the basement and to rearrange all the grocery boxes on wooden pallets. Without air conditioning and with little ventilation, it was approximately 120 degrees Fahrenheit down there. In no time I was sweating profusely and remained sticky with sweat the rest of the day. To make matters worse, it was a dirt floor. The air became so thick with dust that when you blew your nose the Kleenex would turn black.
This notable day was my abrupt initiation into the working world. It was also on this day that I knew my childhood was officially over. Not many days were as brutal as this, however, though many were long and hard. I stayed on working at Joe's Market for many years, working my way through high school and college. I even took a year off between high school and college to work full time at the store while I pondered my future.
During my years at the store I learned from my brother and his wife, Nancy, many invaluable lessons about life, about people, and about business. Here are the twelve most important lessons I learned, not necessarily in order of importance.
Lesson One: There is no replacement for hard work. You can cut corners, fudge, find an easier way, cheat, or buy your way out of it, but ultimately, hard work is the only way to achieve anything of lasting value and true meaning. My brother was an incredible model for this, working very long hours - always with a sense of purpose. And he expected the same from each employee.
Lesson Two: Make the customers feel as if you really care about them. A foolproof way to accomplish this is to really care about them! In spite of being amazingly busy, Joe seemed to have a few extra moments with each customer every day - telling them a story or listening to an update on how their family was doing. At times, I was astonished at his patience with customers, his attentiveness to them, and his interest in their lives.
Lesson Three: Take pride in your work. Whatever you spend time doing is your accomplishment. Make it worthwhile by investing it fully with yourself. Whether it was trimming a beautiful steak, or getting the floor sparkling clean, Joe taught me that my work was a reflection of me. As such, it should be worthy of who I am.
Lesson Four: You can't learn common sense in school. Common sense is not book-learning. It can only be gained through experience, and it can only be acquired if you humble yourself to life and stay open to its lessons. At Joe's Market, I learned how to think on my feet and to trust my own intuition. Joe never attended college, but he was and is a brilliant conceptualizer, creative problem-solver, and analytical thinker. Joe had a great disdain for airy-headed intellectuals who didn't know how many ounces there are in a pound. Of course, later in life it was precisely this common sense I tried to teach at our school.
Lesson Five: The customer is always right. If it is sunny outside, but the customer claims it is raining, then it is raining. Listen to the customers intently. Honor where they're coming from. Even if they are not totally correct or fair in their complaint or concern, there is always some lesson to be learned.
Lesson Six: Always keep a sense of humor. This is often necessary after Lesson # 5, but it was also very useful on other occasions, like on the Fourth of July, at the peak of the summer heat, when the ice machine would break down. In such cases, you could either cry, get really frustrated and angry, or step back and laugh at yourself and the bad luck you were having that day. I was always amazed at how, in the midst of great intensity or adversity, my brother could make a joke and laugh at the situation.
Lesson Seven: Never leave a job unfinished. If you start a job, finish it. Don't start a second one until you finish the first satisfactorily. This was one of the hardest lessons for me to learn. Once I had to clean the produce cooler three times with a sponge and cleanser before it met with Joe's approval. Finished meant 100% done. Finished meant if 100 people looked at your job, all of them would say, "Wow! Nice job!"
Lesson Eight: Avoid double work at all costs. If you're not sure how to attack a problem, wait. Think about it from different angles. Ask questions. Don't plunge into it thoughtlessly, only to realize you have to do it all over again. My brother Joe hated double work because it was inefficient. Joe probably didn't invent the adage, "Time is money," but he certainly invoked it often.
Lesson Nine: Life is too short to waste time. When it's time to work, work hard. When it's time to play, play to the fullest. During my years at Joe's Market, I did a lot of both. I don't remember much "down time" when I didn't have anything to do. I do remember, though, Sunday football games on the town green and evening cookouts on Joe and Nancy's patio in the warm summer breeze. From these I gained a deeper appreciation for the simple joys of life.
Lesson Ten: Stand up for yourself and what you believe in. My brother was always ready to speak up if he felt he had been treated unfairly, or if he felt the goods or services provided to him were not satisfactory. Joe also expressed the values he believed in through his actions and words. He became a leader in his community. When he and Nancy decided to move their store to another state after almost twenty years in business, practically the entire town turned out at the farewell party. Standing up for what I believed in gave me the courage to open the Oneness-Family School.
Lesson Eleven: Understand all aspects and nuances of your business. Become an expert at what you do. Be the master in your field. My brother was and is an expert in fresh meats, cheese and dairy products, produce, baked goods, and fine wines and beer, as well as American and international grocery products - to mention a few. He could carry on an hour-long dissertation about the difference between prime and choice beef - and make it sound elegant to boot!
Lesson Twelve: Celebrate what you do well! Enjoy your work. Learn from it. Otherwise, get out and do something else. Joe became famous for his gimmicks, games and special events. On the Fourth of July he invited a polka band to perform live in front of the store. He raffled off free Polish sausages, cases of beer, and other prizes. He had hot dogs and hamburgers sizzling on the grill and corn on the cob steaming in the pot. And of course, he had a line of customers that went out the door and around the corner. The store was not just a place to shop. It became a place where stuff happened.
My brother Joe was not an easy boss. He was tough, intense, and sometimes overbearing. But he was also fair, passionate, dedicated, honest, imaginative, and compassionate about his work. His wife Nancy was and is his support, his sounding board, and often his voice of reason. From both of them and from my years at Joe's Market, I gained important qualities and learned essential values which helped me enormously when I went on to start my own business - our school. To them I owe a great debt of gratitude of which this article is but a small token. I hope that the Oneness-Family School is, in some ways at least, a reflection of the qualities and values I learned from them.
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