My tie-dyed life. . .
Thursday, June 1, 2017
My son has a bunch of tie-dyed shirts. He calls them his “party shirts,” and he has enough to wear one every day of the week without repeating. If I let him, I think he’d wear one everywhere, every day.
As I looked at his shirt the other day, I began to reflect the beautiful pattern – a big swirly, twirly mess of colors. You can’t see where one stops and the other begins and yet there are distinct colors within the swirly, twirly mess.
Where am I going with all of this? Well, that’s my life – my big swirly, twirly mess – with distinct colors – all making one beautiful pattern. One that I’m lucky enough to wear everywhere, every day.
It’s been seven years since I started Krile Communications. Seven years as of today when I opened my notebook and laptop on my home office desk and started working for three clients – a local Buffalo Wild Wings franchisee, United Producers, Inc. (the Midwest’s largest livestock marketing cooperative) and Ohio’s children’s hospitals.
All three of these clients have doubled in the amount of work we’re doing for them since that day in 2010. All three of them are still clients. And all three have leaders that are dear friends – nearly extended family – to me. And that’s where the swirly, twirly mess comes in.
Krile Communications now has more than 70 clients. Four full-time employees. Two interns. Two part-time subcontractors. A BUNCH of trusted partners and vendors we rely on. And my parents and husband – who help keep toilet paper and coffee on hand at the office, make sure the grass gets mowed, and the bank deposits are made and bills paid on time. We’re colleagues, friends, family … this big swirly, twirly mess of people who keep our company running.
I get to work with people I would choose – and have chosen – as friends. I get to work with clients I’m proud of … clients who are making the world a better place. I also get to choose to NOT work with clients and people who don’t share my values – who only care about profits or ego. I’ve learned that I don’t have to say yes to work that doesn’t gel with who we are as a company – and that we’re better off for it.
One of our company’s core values is that we care – about each other, about our clients, about our community. That makes all the difference. It’s about people. It’s about relationships. It’s about EACH OTHER. At the end of the day, it’s about helping each other so we can make our world better.
We work hard and the days go off like a rocket in the morning, but, man, are they fun! There’s no clocking in and clocking out. No lunch hour. It all just runs together – like those tie-dyed shirts – no distinct beginning and end of work, no distinct beginning and end to family time. It all bleeds together and overlaps in a crazy, hodge-podge way. It’s perfection.
So, at the end of a very long day, full of a swirly, twirly mess of chocolate milk, chicken wings, Medicaid funding, clean energy policy, little league baseball, bedtime snuggles and a late night blog post, all I can say is a big THANK YOU to every human who has played a part in these last seven years. You know who you are and you know that we couldn’t do this swirly twirly mess without you. XOXOXO