Sales Focus: Ron Fresh, a Life Well Lived

June 8, 2020 Posted by Kyle Fresh

Last week I had been focused on the thought that my life deserved a better version of me. It is my challenge to begin to embrace how I can be something positive for someone else and live the life God has given me in accordance with what his will would be. I do not want to live a life that is judged solely by the world’s definition of success. Growing up my Mom and Dad kept a framed poem entitled Success by Ralph Waldo Emerson who was a poet and philosopher in the 19th century. The poem is a short one below, but I think of it often and I often think of my Dad when I read it.

My Father passed on this day last year and it was a grievous loss for my family. He was the kindest man I ever knew that had a love of God and a desire to make the world a better place through the simple acts of being good to others. If success is defined by leaving the world a little bit better, he was profoundly successful.

Simone Weil was a French philosopher that said, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” When I read that I realize it is that generous gift that my Father gave in abundance. As a young boy he was my soccer coach all the way to my high school years. While he had never played, he wanted to help encourage me and my friends to succeed and participate in a great sport. He became a student of the game and I count him as one of my favorite people with whom I would discuss soccer or any sport for that matter.

But, that generosity was not reserved for our family. When we held a celebration of life for my Dad we were blessed to hear many stories of how much he had helped others and in ways I never even knew. One of my friends that had suffered issues through the years recounted how my Dad wrote him several letters as a teenager encouraging him and telling him how proud he will be of the man my friend was sure to become. This was during a very dark period for that friend when he was not free. The attention and care my father had given him was an encouragement that he needed and my Father innately understood. Through all of these years my friend still considers my Dad as the role model for the Father he wants to be. That is an amazing testimony that I can only hope each of us will leave.

In addition to the generosity of spirit he showed to my friends, he and my Mother have always had a loving and inviting home. We grew up with friends coming and going. With some friends not having parents that were able to fully invest in their children’s lives, my parents became the surrogate in many ways. Even after my brother and I left to become adults, my parents continued to give of themselves. Dad was on the vestry at Church, volunteered to work voting polls and they both volunteered to be mentors to young girls at Taft High School. Mind you, these are my two parents that were originally from a rural part of Indiana and were volunteering to be mentors to young African American girls playing basketball in the inner city. To this day we are still friends with the program and the girls. My Dad was a middle aged man that still was able to connect to these young ladies by the simple power of being kind, paying attention to them and providing an honest voice to help give guidance on decisions and to show a selfless love towards them.

At my Father’s celebration and his memorial service we were blessed to have the two ladies that led the mentor program and their families along with several of the girls, now women with their own families, attend. My dad truly was able to leave the world knowing that not only one life, but many lives, breathed easier because he lived.

As each of us goes forward today during these very dark times in our country, I hope that each of us can try and live a life where success is defined by helping someone else. As Voltaire said, “God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.” It is a gift of not only to ourselves, but to the wider world and people around us. We are each made a little better through a simple act of generosity…Money is something, but time and attention to others is the ultimate generous gift.

As I think of my Father today and am so grateful for the man he was in order to help me be the man I am, I am hopeful each of us can work to be as successful as he was.

Success

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.

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