————

Delfina, today we celebrate something rare: 20 years of dedication, hard work, and loyalty. Though today is about much more than celebrating all those years at Dallas Maids. It’s about celebrating the life you built during those 20 years.

You worked hard, day after day, not only cleaning homes, but raising two daughters, supporting your family, and helping put both of your daughters through university. That is an incredible accomplishment. You built a future for your family through honest work, pride, and sacrifice.

The ring I’m giving you today has two diamonds. One represents dedication, and the other represents loyalty. Both are rare, valuable, and earned over time.

And while you told me you were grateful to have had this job all these years, the truth is, I’m the one who feels grateful. You’ve helped take stress off families, added happiness to our customers’ lives, and helped build this company into what it is today.

So today, on behalf of everyone at Dallas Maids, thank you. Thank you for the work, the loyalty, the laughs, and for reminding all of us what hard work and commitment really look like.

And finally, to your grandkid: yes, this certificate is official proof that someone actually can stay at the same job for 20 years.

One thing I didn’t emphasize enough in the above article is how crucial reading has been in my life. If there’s one common trait I noticed while reading the autobiographies of great leaders and successful CEOs, it’s this: they love to read. They consume ideas constantly. Reading expands your thinking in ways nothing else really can.

The irony is that school often makes this harder by forcing students to read books they may not connect with. I didn’t fall in love with reading because of a required syllabus. It happened later. After graduation, my graduation gift was a month-long backpacking trip through Europe. On a train ride, I struck up a conversation with three other travelers. Every one of them had a book in hand. They loved reading. I remember thinking, “I need that.”

So I asked them their favorite books. I still remember the titles: Was (by Geoff Ryman), The Secret History (by Donna Tartt), and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. I bought them. I read them. And something clicked.

I really enjoyed reading!

From that point on, whenever I became curious about something, I read about it. I added to my knowledge. I added skills. I became a better person. That habit became a lifelong advantage. More than any single strategy or tactic, developing a love for reading has been the most important factor in my success.

If you want to change your trajectory, start with books. Not the ones assigned to you, rather the ones that pull you in.

The 1984 excerpt:

“He remembered how once he had been walking down a crowded street when a tremendous shout of hundreds of voices–women’s voices–had burst from a side-street a little way ahead. It was a great formidable cry of anger and despair, a deep loud ‘Oh-o-o-o-oh!’ that went humming on like the reverberation of a bell. His heart had leapt. It’s started! he had thought. A riot! The proles are breaking loose at last! When he had reached the spot it was to see a mob of two or three hundred women crowding round the stalls of a street market, with faces as tragic as though they had been the doomed passengers on a sinking ship. But at this moment the general despair broke down into a multitude of individual quarrels. It appeared that one of the stalls had been selling tin saucepans. They were wretched, flimsy things, but cooking-pots of any kind were always difficult to get. Now the supply had unexpectedly given out. The successful women, bumped and jostled by the rest, were trying to make off with their saucepans while dozens of others clamoured round the stall, accusing the stall-keeper of favouritism and of having more saucepans somewhere in reserve. There was a fresh outburst of yells. Two bloated women, one of them with her hair coming down, had got hold of the same saucepan and were trying to tear it out of one another’s hands. For a moment they were both tugging, and then the handle came off. Winston watched them disgustedly. And yet, just for a moment, what almost frightening power had sounded in that cry from only a few hundred throats! Why was it that they could never shout like that about anything that mattered?”

Bill, thank you for your interest in this post. It has been our most popular youtube video to date!

You are welcome to post it all we ask in return is if you provide a link back to this post 🙂