If you would please indulge me today. You know that 240withbill presents the great quotes from the great minds of history. Then I try to tie those thoughts to you and the hotel business or life and business writ large. Today however, I divert from the norm to draw your attention to the extreme importance of today.

Those of you that have had the misfortune to work with me know that I have an annoying habit of quizzing people on, “What happened today in American history?” I never asked it to be cute or funny or to test you on dates necessarily, although some are extremely important, but rather to draw attention to what happened on that date and why and what could have happened and what has happened since. Generally it was about the biggest events from a generation or two earlier. It is my attempt at tying my teams together beyond the mundane conversation of the job or the gossip of who is with whom and what are you doing after work. I know, I’m boring.

For example: The scope and enormity of D-Day in 1944 was an event in World War II of my Mom & Dad’s generation.

Today was arguably the biggest single event in my generation, Apollo 11 landed on the moon fifty years ago. I remember the first person that I hired who was born after the moon landing so I was particularly diligent at drilling today’s date in her head for years. I guarantee that she is thinking about that today and passed it on. She is GenX, is her event the destruction of the Berlin Wall, Ronald Reagan’s assassination attempt, Bill Clinton’s Impeachment, Charles & Di’s Royal Wedding?

There are college graduates that don’t remember 911. It is our history that ties us together. Times to celebrate and times to mourn. You don’t have to as I did but you could give it some thought. I would suggest you read about today and the enormity of Apollo 11.

So now, have a cup of coffee and Go Make Your day a GREAT DAY!!!