There is Always Something to Be Thankful For
“Gratitude, like faith, is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it grows, and the more power you have to use it on your behalf. If you do not practice gratefulness, its benefaction will go unnoticed, and your capacity to draw on its gifts will be diminished. To be grateful is to find blessings in everything. This is the most powerful attitude to adopt, for there are blessings in everything.”
—Alan Cohen, Businessman
2013 Has been a year of incredible highs and some personal lows for JIT Toyota-Lift and our family of employees. As a group we’ve lost parents (including one of our founders, Mary Short), endured health problems, cared for elderly parents, suffered broken bones, watched as many friends lost their jobs when businesses closed, and many more hardships that are common to man.
However, because we are so thankful for the incredible blessings we’ve enjoyed it’s really hard and nearly impossible to dwell on the hardships. Here is a very short list of the things we are thankful for today.
We won Toyota’s highest dealership honor, The President’s Award for the first time ever. We celebrated by giving our employees an extra 2 days vacation this year.
We celebrated 30 years in business with a cruise on the Summerwind with our employees, vendors and customers.
We had 3 employees retire from JIT this year — a testament to the long and successful careers that they were able to enjoy here.
We were profitable and were able to make a profit sharing contribution to our entire team.
We have added and continue to build many wonderful business relationships. . . with folks like you!
None of our success would be possible without our customers putting their trust in us. We are thankful for your trust and it is our goal to never let you down. However, being human we sometimes falter and we are thankful for second chances. We are thankful for “difficult” customers who challenge us to do things better and in turn make us stronger.
We are thankful for our many talented employees who have chosen US to work for.
We are thankful for furnaces, computers and technology that works and for the people who come fix them when they don’t.
We are thankful for new babies on the way.
I’ve been with JIT since we were very small. I watched my parents struggle with which bill to pay, which vehicle to fix and whether or not we could purchase office supplies that week. Over the years, through steady work, thankfulness for what we had and mindful actions we have grown to an amazing company that we would never have dared hope to be.
We are thankful not only for the things we remembered to ask God for, but for the countless blessings he gave us without our asking.