Be the Light

I guess if it were easy, then everyone would be doing it. Right? I remind myself of this each and every time someone behind a keyboard takes to the key stroke rage of social media rudeness. We have almost 20,000 Facebook followers now. I remember sitting in a tiny office of rented space, before we had even a first store, wondering and dreaming of what it would be like when we reached even 2000, much less 20,000. Today we are growing close and it’s a bittersweet celebration of the last four years. It was rough at first to adjust to the occasional mean comment or naysayer that really did not wish for our success, but seemed rather to be rooting for our failure….but, with time, something really awesome happened and we started to find “our people” or our “tribe”. Many of you reading this are in that group, and every post like, share and positive comment is registered and appreciated. It really does matter. We may not see your faces and we may never speak in person, but your opinion matters to us and your positive energy is felt. You matter.

To this end, there is a man, that it seems without fail likes nearly every post we make and has only positive things to say about what we are doing and trying to do. His name is Daniel Fuchs and I have never personally met him. I’m not kidding. I post and sometimes seconds later Daniel Fuchs has given the blue thumbs up and I feel that tiny bit of affirmation that maybe I needed at just that moment. I went down to the floor recently to inquire if Mr. Fuchs is a member and found that he is not, but he is a client and clearly by his social media “light” demonstrated nearly every day on both Facebook and Instagram he is of our “tribe”. Mr. Fuchs is no stranger to our staff because when I went to ask about him, many of the staff knew exactly who he was and had only glowing things to say about his visits in the Lee’s Summit store. His profile picture is him smiling warmly and it is a light in sometimes a dark world that we have all tuned into called social media. So, today, I offer Daniel Fuchs the Frontier Justice Social Media Light Award (yes, I just made that up). And, you sir, will be offered a free annual membership the next trip into our store. Please come see us with your warm smile in person. I hope you don’t mind the very public calling out of your positive nature. We do appreciate you.

To the rest of our tribe, keep on keeping on and remember that what you type in the dark of your house on a keyboard that does not recognize your face or your voice does reach human beings with hopes, dreams and feelings, very similar to yours. Be the Light. Be like Daniel Fuchs. And, that is all.