Stories From Build Then Bless: My First Day
We’ve got another classic Build Then Bless story for today! This is one of my all-time favorites, because this is the first time that I had really seen Build Then Bless in action. This was a seamless and instinctual act of service that just amazed me.
This story comes from my very first day at Lemonade Stand. This was the first time that I was meeting some of these people, and man it made for a good first impression. Of course I wanted to stick around and come back to work the next day because this place is just amazing, but this tiny little Build Then Bless moment really made me want to stay for the long haul.
So let’s get into the actual story.
My first day was pretty awesome. I loved getting to know our team members and seeing where I would be working for the rest of my life. I had a great morning and was really just diving straight in. I was so excited to be there and really couldn’t even believe that we had found a way to make this happen (my hiring story is also pretty cool – maybe I’ll have to share that one sometime). Needless to say, the day was going swimmingly!
Around 1:00 pm our leadership team took me to lunch. We went to Shoots Chinese Restaurant. If you have never been to Shoots down in Provo, Utah, you’ll want to hit them up. It is a Lemonade Stand claaaaassic. I used to think it was the only restaurant that our team ever went to. Anyway, it’s a cool place.
So we’re there for lunch, and we’re just eating and getting to know each other a little bit better. Basically, they’re just making me feel as welcome as possible. This alone would have been a perfect little way to serve a new team member. All of our management team was there, and they are some very busy people. But that’s just who they are. They will always take time to make their team members feel cared for and appreciated. If you’ve never met our leadership team, you should really pop by our office one day and just chat with them. They’re amazing!
But this story doesn’t stop there.
After we finished eating and I was feeling like I had certainly found the coolest team that I could ever be a part of, the check came around. When a check comes around, as we all know, it’s time to precisely calculate a tip and leave no more than you absolutely have to (at least that’s how I’ve always been). One team member was working on calculating what we should give as a tip. We were all distracting him and not allowing him to do the math, but it must have been taking too long, because another team member spoke up and just said “oh just give them $$$” (he said an actual amount, but I don’t feel that it’s important to the story – I’ll just say that it was probably about the cost of our entire meal or maybe even more).
I honestly couldn’t believe what I had heard. Even more so, I couldn’t believe that we were actually writing that down on the check!
After being here for a while, I’ve found out that this is something that happens all the time at Lemonade Stand, but in the moment, I hadn’t ever seen someone be so generous to a waiter. I was astounded!
But they didn’t even think twice about it. Their thoughts were all aligned with a “let’s make this waiter’s day!” This was Build Then Bless in action. Nobody made a big deal of it. We didn’t stick around and film the waiter’s reaction when they saw the check to later post on YouTube. It was a simple act that we knew would bless that person’s life, and that is all that mattered. It was amazing to me.
I take no credit whatsoever for this act, nor do I mean to brag about how great Lemonade Stand is for serving people. That’s not the point at all. The point is to help clarify what Build Then Bless looks like and share an uplifting story about making someone’s life a little better than it was before. The point is that you read this story and think to yourself, “yeah. I could do something like that.” The hope is that you actually do.
If you want to hear more about Build Then Bless or check out other little stories like this, go take a look at our blog! You can also reach out to one of our team members if you’re interested in knowing how we implemented Build Then Bless or how you might be able to implement this at your company.