Bizzuka eBurst email newsletter

2nd Edition, Issue 12 -- December 4, 2008

This is a special edition of our monthly eBurst newsletter. Normally, eBurst is filled with news and announcements about Bizzuka. This month, however, in light of the holiday season, we felt something else was called for.

Bizzuka CEO, John Munsell, has written a wonderfully heart-warming account of an encounter he had recently that, in his own estimation, was life-altering. It is a message very much worth your while to read and pass along. Consider it an early Christmas gift. (FYI...We'll send the normal newsletter in a week or two.)

Putting it all into perspective - a Thanksgiving blessing in disguise

by John Munsell, Bizzuka CEO

One of our family rituals is that I take each child (we have four) to lunch on his/her birthday...just the two of us. Like any other entrepreneur, I work 16 hour days and frequently on weekends. That means I leave the house before the kids wake up and get home just in time for dinner. While I try to spend as much quality time as possible with my children, the birthday lunch is their pure one-on-one time with Dad. Not to say that we don't have any one-on-one time, but the birthday is a guaranteed ritual that we both love.

Last week (ironically enough, it was the day before Thanksgiving), it was my daughter Caroline's turn. Her pick -- the hibachi grill at Shinto Japanese Restaurant.

While we waited to be seated, I noticed the hostess asking a lady who was already seated to move to a different table. The hostess then motioned to us to sit at that lady's table. I thought it odd, because the grill master was just beginning to do his cutlery acrobatics at the lady's previous table. I'm guessing they simply wanted to have enough people at our table to warrant firing up the grill and giving another chef enough patrons to make it worth his while.

They took a Polaroid of us at the restaurant as part of the "birthday boat" package. Didn't realize they still made those!

Caroline and I took our seats, and feeling rather guilty, I said to the lady "so they bumped you, eh?" She laughed and said, "Yes, I thought I was going to get in and out quickly, but I guess that's not going to happen."

We began chatting and had a delightful conversation. She told us she moved here from Michigan. Said that her husband had retired. Said the whole Louisiana culture was far different than what she was used to in the Midwest where she grew up.

She looked so young, though. I was thinking she must have married a much older man, but then she said her husband was a professional football player who retired after a 7-year career with the Minnesota Vikings. That made a little more sense. Those guys don't last very long in the NFL. Seven years was more than respectable.

I told her about our family birthday ritual and she said, "Well, you must get the birthday boat. They come to your table with this beautiful fruit boat and sing. It's great."

I knew nothing of the "birthday boat," but I said sure, that sounded like fun. As the meal wrapped up, she looked at the waitress and said, "Could we get a birthday boat? And please put it on my tab."

What an incredibly generous thing for this stranger to do. I didn't know her from Adam's house cat, but here she was buying my daughter a gift. "You certainly don't have to do that" I said. She replied, "No, no! I insist."

We finally introduced ourselves. Her name was Demetra. We chatted some more about kids and schools. I finally asked "So, what does your husband do now that he's retired?" Of course, I was expecting her to make the obligatory "driving me crazy" crack, but I could never have anticipated her next words.

"Well," she said, "he came back here to coach (he played football for the University of Louisiana Lafayette in college) and then shortly thereafter took a job coaching in Arizona. One day, he noticed a tingling sensation in his arm. Then he noticed it in his legs and fingers, so took him to see a doctor."

Their diagnosis: A.L.S. -- also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

My jaw must have hit the floor, which would have been a good thing because at that moment I could feel my mouth quivering and my eyes well up. I've seen the ravages of that disease up close through two friends and a business partner whose wife is terminally ill with ALS's close cousin, MS. These are some of life's most cruel diseases. There are no cures for either and they leave no survivors. I've also witnessed the immeasurable stress caregivers must endure when dealing with an afflicted loved one.

Yet, Demetra spoke of the love of her life with such admiration and respect you couldn't help but feel the warmth of their deep affection for each other. As I pondered all of the difficulties she's surely facing, she said something that I'll never forget. "I have been so blessed," she said. "His spirit lifts me every day, and this disease has been a blessing in so many ways."

Here I was stressing about the economy...stressing about Bizzuka living up to shareholder and investor expectations...stressing about sales...stressing about buying Christmas presents...stressing about facing traffic getting home...stressing about interest rates and the stock market, and believe it or not, I was stressing about the prayer I was supposed to lead the next day at our Thanksgiving dinner with all of my family and in-laws. And yet, in that one moment, I became utterly embarrassed at the pettiness of my worries.

Amazing. Thanksgiving is a time when we express thanks for all that we've been given, and Christmas is a time when we get to enjoy the act of giving to others. The day before Thanksgiving, God sat my daughter and me down next to Demetra Thomas, wife of former pro football player Orlando Thomas.

What a gift! In a 45-minute lunch that lasted 2 hours, this dear lady took my 48 years of "stressful living" and put it all into perspective. So many times I've looked back at difficult times or even tragic events in my life and have been able to count the blessings that came as a result of enduring them. And yet, when it comes to present ordeals, I consistently fail to make that same application.

Demetra Thomas isn't looking back at past stressful events and finding the positive turns her life made as a result. She's living in a constant state of stress and seeing it as a current blessing in her life. What an amazing gift she gave to my daughter and me on the day before Thanksgiving.

My Christmas wish for you, your family, my family and selfishly, me, is that we all begin to recognize that life's difficulties are truly blessings in disguise. The trick is to look for the blessing and not dwell on the adversity. However trite that may sound, if you had the pleasure of meeting Demetra Thomas as I did, you would realize how your outlook on life is defined by that simple act.

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