A Time to Reflect by 1-800-Flowers.com Founder Jim McCann

A Note From Our Founder, Jim McCann

We are facing an unprecedented challenge. Our professional and personal lives have been upended. The way we work, study, socialize, worship and more will be different for some time yet. Unlike crises past, this is one that affects every one of our families.

A Time to Reflect

If there is any silver lining to this crisis, it is that we are being pushed into a heightened state of consciousness. I consider this kind of situation a “forcing function”. The term dates to the 19th century, but it’s most often used today, in user experience design, to describe a feature that prevents someone from taking action without giving it their explicit attention.

For me, a forcing function prevents us from living our lives on autopilot. By disrupting our normal rhythms, the virus is forcing us all to take a closer look at our lives. Some things that seemed important in our busy daily lives may no longer seem as critical. And now we may see more clearly the people and experiences that deeply matter.

These Holidays Will be Different

We are coming up on two major holidays, Passover and Easter, which will give us all even more opportunity to reflect on the truly important. Most of us will be celebrating differently this year, but it is our responsibility – for our families, the memories of our children and our communities – to make them as meaningful as possible. Look around the table. Encourage everyone to tell a story about a friend or relative who couldn’t attend. Maybe capture those stories on your phone and send them to your loved ones. Or surprise them with a FaceTime call. I am planning to do some combination of the above.

Easter celebrates new beginnings. Passover recalls the suffering of our ancestors and the great fortune of those who survived to keep the faith alive. Let’s think of these times as a forcing function that ask us to renew our faith, our relationships, and our commitment to the values we hold dear.

Anticipating the holidays, I think back to what my parents and grandparents went through in the Great Depression. It taught them the difference between wants and needs. To never lose sight of what matters most. They never forgot the lessons of the past, and instilled them in me and in my brother, Chris, whose focus is devoted to our business and our customers during this difficult moment.

From Chris, CEO

In these trying times, I am so proud of the effort and care our team is exerting. Our management team is devoted to weathering this storm and has been doing a great job attending to the needs of our team members, vendors, communities, and our customers, who are relying on us to express and connect more than ever.

In our family growing up, there were certain relatives we only saw at Easter time, like my Uncle Author and Aunt Laura. I have great memories of those visits. It’s important to make celebratory moments special for our team members, families and communities. As Jim said, these holidays are going to be different but it’s within our power to craft our behaviors to make them meaningful and special. The challenge we face as a company, and a community, is how do we make them meaningful and memorable.

Easter and Passover are a wonderful time for you to reach out to those you miss, care about and hold dear whether by a text, a phone call or an email. These holidays will certainly feel less celebratory than in years past. But we all owe it to ourselves, our communities, our families, and especially our children, to keep our traditions alive – even if we do them a little differently this time.