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Magic in this Garden Grows:
Service, Story, &
Finding Oneself Again at
the Sprigs Garden Retreat

An Editor’s Reflections on
Customer Service and Employee Relations
in Business Today

By James Calvin Jones (Spring 2023)

This year, the country recognized National Write Your Story Day during yet another week of news headlines about economic downturn. The same week, I attended my first company retreat as an editor for Sprigs Life, contract work seemingly not unlike the work I had being doing for several years. Occurring so close in time (and around my birthday, no less), the significance of all three events converged synchronously in the national day of story-telling’s call-to-action that was one simple question to which this article, in part, responds, and in which all three events are, in a way, involved:

What’s your story?

Introduction: This is (Not) the Story of a Boy

No doubt, each American would give a different response: everyone’s story is different because everyone is different. However, although everyone has his or her own unique experiences, some experiences are common to all, making the chance that some stories echo familiar themes or similar ideas likely. Such, at least, seems to be the case for those living in post-pandemic society who, when asked the question, tell stories that share past hardships, present struggles, and future worries. 

I know, because if I had been asked that question a year ago, my response would have likely been the same as the next person’s response. Even if I had been asked this year, I would have probably answered likewise, telling the story of a 35-year-old man who, having made poor decisions that caused nothing but heartbreak, struggled to find himself amidst a global crisis that inspired nothing short of hopelessness.

Yet, that was before attending the Sprigs Garden Retreat.

The Contract Worker, the Writer, and the Retreat

Throughout the morning-long, conference style meeting and the days that followed, I realized—perhaps for the first time in four years, at least—that my story needed to change. Telling the story of that 35-year-old broken hearted, hopeless man would probably captivate some readers, and I would tell that story only if I had not realized what I realize now:

The single, simple yet important fact that that story is the wrong story, or at best, is a story that needs to be told differently. Although a part of my story, that story is not my whole story, if even a story at all, let alone one worth telling. 

But why not? That story is, after all, the story of how I got to where I came to be—but that is not the point of, or the reason for, telling a story, or so I realized at the retreat.

The Sprigs Life Garden Retreat was a hybrid, one-day event. Full-time employees met in person, and those of us who either work remotely or are contractors attended virtually. The retreat was my first opportunity to sit with—with much gratitude—the men and women with whom I had worked for almost a year now, some of whom were finally able to see what I looked like for the first time. We shared one fun fact about ourselves before Jon, founder of Sprigs Life, opened the meeting, orienting the staff to the retreat’s agenda.  

Admittedly, I was quite nervous. Before working with Sprigs, I had not attended any business meeting in more than four years and had, for some time, began to feel the work I had been doing in that period was of no value. Working as a contractor, the work I had been doing was mostly temporary, part-time, remote, intermediate-level work that offered little opportunity for creativity and required minimal responsibility and productivity. Exceptions did (and still do) exist, but those were (and are) rare.

Any work beyond what was required was, as I was once told while working on a previous contract, the kind of work “no one looks for anymore.” So, once I submitted my work, fulfilled my obligations, and my “employer” released me from my contract, I was gone as quickly as I had started, year after year, for the past four years. A ghost.

In time, I began to feel as though I did not belong anywhere, that I was not part of anything greater than myself, let alone that my work made any impact beyond the amount of money I made. Sometimes, I even felt that maybe I just was not worth anything anymore, a feeling that reflected not only in my work and work history, but also my confidence as a consumer, a citizen and yes, even as a man and child of this earth.

Having no importance meant having no purpose which meant having no place. So, like most people during the pandemic, I withdrew—from social life, from society, from myself.

I had lost sense of who I was, what I valued, why I did what I did as a professional. For those who know me, I am a freakishly talented writer (try to be, anyway), and am an obstinate one at that; what I do not know in this world, I learn. But of those three descriptions, I emphasize the latter the most: I am a consummate learner who values knowledge, not for how knowledge benefits me but for how knowledge allows me to serve others.  

Until the retreat, I had forgotten this about myself. Rather, I did not come to appreciate this fact about myself until hearing the Laudons speak about Sprigs’ values.

Sprigs’ values inform what the company does and add meaning to what we at Sprigs do.  Adding that meaning, we make an impact that then becomes not only part of the Sprigs story but also of the customers’ stories, the stories of those whom we serve—or, as both Jon and Nancy said better, the people whom we help. Service, an integral part of the Sprigs story and a core value, was now, by extension, part of my story again.

Participating in the retreat, I was no longer just an audience member, a contract worker, a consumer, a bystander. I was influenced by—and to an extent, an influence of—work that mattered, that was part of a story that had a certain magic, the kind of magic that delicately entwined ideas of meaning and service with story and impact perfectly.

Tell Me a Story (but Which Story, for Are They Not All the Same)?

Take any story for example—my story, the Sprigs story, the stories Americans hear daily about political turmoil and social unease, even those stories that are perhaps heard most: stories of uncertainty and worry about overall well-being. Today, those stories do not just tell of worries about the private, physical health of individuals and their families but about the public economic health of consumers and businesses. Given what was mentioned earlier, that common experience can and does shape the stories that are told, one must consider this question:

What stories would today’s consumers and companies tell—would they be any different? —and what would those stories have to do with the audience reading this article and their families, let alone the Sprigs story or better yet, my story?

Consumers and companies represent opposite sides of business: one trying to save money, the other trying to make money. Yet, search the top concerns of consumers. Then, search the top concerns of companies. Next, employers; then, employees. Finally, search for the issues most affecting the economy today. Compare the results. Each result is a list seemingly different from the next, but upon closer examination, each list is not a different story but a version of the same story—the difference being, of course, who’s telling the story. Which story and by whom? The reader may choose, but what the reader may find may seem all too familiar:

• having good relationships that result from being satisfied, meeting expectations (as well as having expectations met), and above all, having the most public and most private needs fulfilled wholesomely and honestly;

• possessing the necessary talent, that ever-so-certain grit to achieve the ever-always-rising required level of productivity or just simply being essential, effective, needed.  

• better yet, being sustainable during a long economic downtown in a market that for far too long has been both too full of goods and services and emptying far too fast because of too limited supply

• now, add adjusting to a new normal of digital technology, disruptive actors, ideal demands, and so many other dynamics propelling and propelled by new social-emotional forces none of us imagined and for which none of us were or are prepared.

At their preface, four stories, four different storytellers. But does who tells the story matter? Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

Thinking about any of these stories, a person cannot help but identify or relate not to just one but all four. No matter the perspective—consumer, company, employee, employer, advanced citizen, average person—each of the four stories have implications for all four perspectives; as all share in the experience of each to some extent, so each become part of the other three. What were once different stories now are the same story: our story.

In this story, some of us take an active role, others do not. Yet, the fact of who does and who does not is not what shapes the story. Rather, what role and (most importantly) how and for what reason that role is taken, is.

Reflecting on the retreat experience, I am not sure if any of us there realized then just how much the retreat echoed these same four themes, especially given the focus of the retreat. In speaking on Sprigs values, Jon and Nancy told their first-person history of the company. Having learned part of this history while working on last issue’s article on the same topic, the day of the retreat, I learned even more about how and why the Motherhood Magazine came into existence. Learning this, I could not help but appreciate how one story can influence another, how one story can be part of another, greater story and still be unique—

—and how perhaps the stories that should be heard are those most often overlooked because those stories achieve what the other, more popular stories cannot. 

For the story of Sprigs and its values as a company, no claim could be more true.

Sprigs: Small Beginnings to Gold Standard

Like other companies today, Sprigs has had to learn how to build a company culture that best serves customers and makes a profit—as the organizers of the retreat plainly said, that was the bottom line. However, since the pandemic, most other companies have focused on the latter, especially now, as corporate profits increase, incomes decrease, and inflation persists, a fact to which any reader living in America can most surely attest. Just like the need to have the ability to be secure in one’s health and finances compelling a person to act, the motivation to make profit fuels nearly every business and has become the sole premise of that enterprise and its evolution.

Think, whenever the topic, a company’s history most often explains how that company made a profit to become what the company is now today: wealthy, prominent, extravagant, enviable. Yet, that kind of story only tells what the company did in the past to make money, not what the company does now to help customers. At best, that story only explains how the company’s original pursuit ultimately became the extent of its impact and legacy: make a profit.

Driven by solving the problem of how to best make a profit, companies only serve customers after serving the company first—and only then, only serve those customers who can afford to help make that profit. Although the result may be profit, that benefits only the company and those customers. No wonder concerns like those mentioned earlier are part of today’s conversation: the impact burdens everyone else the same, as from one company to the next, the story of “profit as purpose” and “impact by income” remains constant—except for some companies, like Sprigs.

Sprigs started like most other companies: selling products that offered choice, created competition, and above all, solved a problem. But what is done is only as important as why it is done, as Jon’s question at the opening of his presentation reflected: why did we do what we do and what gave us enough reason to justify continuing doing it? For all at the retreat, that answer was to have a meaningful impact, to serve customers. At Sprigs, that means help other people—the families and communities with whom we all live and share our lives, every day.

Because of this, Jon commented, a company knowing not just who its customers are but also what they care about is important. This way, a company knows how best to serve its customers by helping solve whatever problem the customers face. Stating this essential premise of business, Jon shared his view on the gold standard of business; taking notes as he spoke, this is what I had written, what to me now reads more like a mission:

Offer more than what is given. Give help to those who are overlooked and to those who cannot afford a solution by helping solve whatever problem they may face. 

Solve not just their simplest or easiest problem but also the problem that gives them and others the most difficulty. Provide a solution that is safe, effective, and affordable, that has meaning to the people who care enough about the problem to want and most of all, need a solution.

Make an impact that has meaning, that helps others to improve their well-being, and the well-being of their family and their community. 

Do not live to profit but rather, live to help people by serving and by serving, profit.

—just as how faith like that of a mustard seed will grow, if words were magic, oh, what magic could then grow, what men and women could then make happen—rainmakers and game changers—

That standard permeates not only Sprigs’ mission and values, but also the Sprigs culture about which Nancy spoke. At this moment of the retreat, if I did not yet feel like an employee before Nancy’s presentation, I certainly did during, afterwards, and still, sort of, do--though disclaimer, I'm still a contractor. Yet, if any aspect of the retreat indicates what the Sprigs approach to customer and employee relations is, the reader should remember that aspect and then this: I attended remotely and felt as though I were sitting with the rest of the team at the table in home office, as though for the first time in four years, I belonged.

Are Your Envious, or Are You Eager?

 Emphasizing the same ideas of service and impact, meaning and purpose as Jon had, Nancy reframed her husband’s question, from why do we do what we do to how do we do what we do. She then prompted us to “check our heart and if necessary, correct our posture,” as she asked this pointed question:

“Are you envious, or are you eager?”

She spoke about two key traits, ownership and accountability, and how each featured not only in normal business operations at Sprigs from the office to the warehouse (and any other company, for that matter) but also how each featured in what we, the employees at Sprigs, did. Using examples from a broader, general context, Nancy explained how employee attitude influenced employee satisfaction; this has an impact on productivity which then translates to customer satisfaction and ultimately, company success (talk about one story having the power to shape another, right?).

What an employee does and in what way and for what reason matters. Employees, no matter the level of leadership (because yes, all leaders are still employees and all employees are leaders, all in their own way—imagine how treating them as such would change the workplace and work experience for so many!) can be concerned either with only their own success or with the success of others, the latter often meaning no recognition, no reward, and no repayment.

The difference between the two? Change.

Noticing the need for change, taking the initiative, having the willingness, and then the courage to change is the responsibility of any employee—and any employer—in any company, at any level. Full ownership of that transforms a workplace of responsible employees to the culture and environment of an accountable company. Having ownership and being accountable is not about us (individuals, in general terms) but about those outside of us: coworkers, subordinates, supervisors, the company, the customers. For us (at Sprigs), that means the people for whom we work to serve, to help—mothers, wives, daughters, women, families—families of the Motherhood community, of the Sprigs family, of our neighborhoods and communities.

In that moment, the thought came to me that, if anyone who then wanted to be responsible or accountable, they then must be compelled to ask the same question Nancy had asked: are we envious of other people’s positions and companies’ profits, or are we eager to help, to support our coworker’s success, to help our neighbor’s life be a better, healthier life? 

To that question, I, such as I am, have only this answer:

If in fact our stories are part of the same story, all connected one to the next, then for logic’s sake, if not God’s sake, are not we all then connected to one another, every one of us? So, rather than be envious of each other’s successes and riches, let us instead be eager to help one another in each other’s struggle, so that together, we help each other rise.

Let us not live our work our lives away so that our only impact is the profit we make; let us work so that to one another and for one another we make our lives profitable.

In Closing: The Good of a Good Story

By the end of the morning session, the retreat’s themes had already come full circle. How sublime that the last topic about which the Sprigs’ founders spoke was one with which I was most familiar did not escape but enlivened me. Originally trained as a historian, I know that history is not, contrary to popular belief, the study of the past. History is change over time.

So, as with history, so too with good story.

Story may speak of and even begin in the past, but what is “the good” of a story that stays only in the past and does not move forward, toward the possibility of what can come, to what the present now has the potential of becoming next? Think of the stories of companies who made and make fortunes, of news headlines that repeated and repeat the same problem every week, of the heartbroken, hopeless man, hope still less and heart still broke: every story told in the present, yet all still locked in the past.

What good are these stories that fixate on the past, to what is known, what is expected, to what has not—but can and should, must—change? Are not the good stories those that do and are the exact opposite: focused on the present, anxious at what is unknown, planning for the unexpected, realizing what needs to—and then planning for and hoping that it does—change? Stories like those contained herein of this company, the employees and the founders and the people whom they help, of the countless families throughout the country living a new normal in which its novelty and normalcy are neither novel nor normal.

Listening to the story of Sprigs Life and how that manifested into what is now the story of Motherhood Magazine’s creation—and with it, my position—I contemplated what direction embracing change gives a story. For the first time in four years, I had a purpose again; at the age of 36, my story had changed, or was starting to change, to a new, different story of which mine was now only part. 

As I write this, I am not sure Jon and Nancy or any of the staff realize that they helped me answer the challenge posed by National Write Your Story Day. And the sweet rhyme of it all (because I did say that the retreat did come full circle) is not that they did, but how they did—and that reveals the most beautiful truth about story I have learned in thirty-six years of life. The last five years I survived as a contract worker, but the past year of those five I have thrived as contract worker at a company whose business model sets a standard for any business that not only wants to make a profit but also be profitable—

—and yes, they are different, so check your heart and correct your posture, if necessary— 

That truth is the good of a good story. 

Story is not written. Story is dreamed, thought, imagined, planned, built, lived, examined, re-thought, re-imagined, re-built, re-lived, and re-examined until becoming a story worth telling. A story worth telling is not the story of from where one comes, or what one has done, but who one is, what one does, and the how and why of it all, now—whether or not one does that which should be done, changes that which must be changed, doing so with meaning and in service to have an impact that helps others.  To not make a profit off others’ savings, but instead be profitable for others’ sake.

Those answers, whether from individuals or not, have implications for anyone who may encounter the story to which those answers belong.  Either telling or listening to the story, both acts permit witness to the uniqueness of the storyteller and the power of the story itself: its ability to influence and inspire. That power comes from the fact that story is living art, one not confined to one moment or one person, nor focused on a set time constrained by the past.

Rather, story takes hold of the present and (if told with good intent) reaches farther than the time in which it is told, further even beyond the person who tells it. The stories that do that are not just the stories worth telling, but are the stories worth telling, and re-telling—

—and for this editor, Sprigs Life is one of those stories.

Do not live to profit but rather, live to help people by serving and by serving, profit 

– always,