The days when you could go down to the Milofsky’s Hardware supplies, and come away with a couple of screws carefully wrapped in brown paper, which were perfect for the job, are long gone. The days when Mrs O’Hanlon didn’t mind taking this heavy glass jar, then that one, down from the shelves of her sweet shop for a kid trying to make her ten pence go as far as possible are long gone too. I miss them. We all do— even if we never lived them.

Many of us have the chance to sign our work—to put our name over the door figuratively. For many others, the work they do is anonymous. They don’t have the opportunity to put their name to it. But in either case, however you work and whatever you have a part in creating, building or selling, it’s made better when you sell it like you made it.

When we take ownership of our work, our story and the change we’re here to create the people on the receiving end know. And that sense that the product or service was made and sold with care and empathy and love makes the experience better. It makes us better too.

Image by Edna Winti