When I was just starting my career with Friendship Haven, at that time the largest continuing care retirement community in Iowa, I was tasked with raising hundreds of thousands of dollars and overseeing a multi-million dollar investment portfolio. In my first months; I was a failure. I understood Wills, trust documents, annuities but I just could not find the message that matched the existing or new donor base.
Ninety days in Dr. Clarence Tompkins, the founder of Friendship Haven, came to my office and asked how things were going. "Not well Dr. Tompkins. I'm supposed to ask for money and I am but I'm not finding success." He looked at me and said the words that changed my life: "Never ask for money, just share the dream and make that dream theirs."
He then made it his mission to come to my office every day for weeks to school me in the dream of what so many had built for others. He would end each session with a paraphrase of Daniel H. Burnham the architect of Chicago: "Make no little dreams because they lack the power to stir the soul. Better to dream great dreams; so great that when accomplished people will rise up and call them blessed." In the years I served in that position I relished in the success of the dreams of others which in turn made my job so...simple.
There is a City Council Candidate Forum tonight in Windsor Heights at 6:30pm it will be held in the Community Center at Colby Park. You can assume that I will call on those memories and that I will share the story of what can be. You see, I think it is far better to work FOR something than against.
Thanks for reading.
My website is MichaelLibbie.com my Cell Phone is 515-570-2220 and my email is MPLibbie@gmail.com
Comments