Welcome to this week’s Fast Tip Friday. Another bit of, hopefully, valuable knowledge, information, or perspective that you haven't thought about, because sometimes we just get our heads down and keep driving forward and we don't really start to see the world around us.
As some of you may know, my office is right on the other side of the fence from a cemetery, and oddly enough, at times I stand at my door, I look out that window and I see these monuments to people that have lived their lives here in the borough of West Chester, or in our community that are now laid to rest here. There is one name on a headstone that I see out there that has been bothering me and poking at me.
I don't know why. I don't know what really makes me think about it as much as I do, but I think today I found the answer. The name on the headstone is Mosteller, M, O, S, T, E, L, L, E, R.
For those of us that are in their sixties, even their fifties, and you lived around West Chester, we all grew up shopping at Mosteller's Department Store right in the center of West Chester, and it was a great family-owned business. Three floors of everything you need to wear and to put in your home. If you were a Boy Scout or a Girl Scout, they sold all the uniforms and merit badge books. You could get everything at Mostellar's Department store in West Chester. And there I walk out of my office every day and I see the Mosteller headstone. It makes me stop for a second and think about change, and how willing we all have to be to make the changes, to stay with the times, to stay current, to be effective with the economy, with the business climate, with the changing structure and demands of the American workforce. And there's Jay Mosteller’s headstone looking at me… The sad part of the story is Jay’s store went out of business, it's got to be 25 years ago, maybe 30 years ago, and why?
Jay Mosteller didn't move to the malls or he did only briefly. He wasn't prepared for it. As the shopping climate changed, and everybody in America wanted to move indoors to do their commerce, Jay couldn't make the change. And sadly, a really great family business and a really great community no longer exists.
So here's my message to all of you. The world's going to change. There is no status quo. It's either that you're either moving forward or you're falling behind. You can stand still, but if you do, you’ll fall behind. Be prepared, be aware, stay on top of things and learn how to change with the changing climate, the changing demands of business, and the changing demands of technology, so that you don't become the next department store, or the next guy or woman that decides, I don't have to use email, etc. There's still some of them out there. “I don't want to use Waze, I want to use a paper map”. “I don't want to use these technological advances that help us make life easier, more efficient, possibly more effective.” Don't plant your feet on the past and think it's going to work for you in the future.
So a little bit of a downer message today, but that headstone with Mosteller on it is staring me in the face every time I leave the office, I finally figured out why it was bugging me.
Be vibrant, be flexible, be accommodating, change with the times, grow with the times, succeed with the times.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
