T
his month the NACS Show kicks off in Atlanta, attracting tens of thousands
of convenience and fuel retailing industry stakeholders for four days of
learning, buying and selling, networking and fun, all designed to help participants grow their bottom line.
From October 18-21 at the Georgia World Congress Center, all roads lead to
profits. With a nearly 410,000 net-square-foot expo and 1,200+ exhibiting companies showcasing thousands of products, the NACS Show is the only event of the year for leading c-store
operators to find ideas, discover new products and develop profitable business connections.
Maximize Your Experience
There are two ways to get more out of the NACS Show: My
Show Planner and the official NACS Show mobile app.
Make the most of our your NACS Show experience by
planning ahead Our online, digital tools make it easy for you
to plan your time at the NACS Show before you arrive in
Atlanta—so you don’t miss a thing onsite.
Use the online My Show Planner tool to:
• Research the events you’d like to attend, create a personal
agenda and export it to your personal calendar
• Explore the 60+ education sessions and speaker details,
then
save
the sessions you plan to sit in on
BY
PAT
PAPE
• Browse product categories, search for exhibitors and save
time by adding them to a list of booths you want to visit
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The best news? My Show Planner automatically syncs
with the NACS Show mobile app (see below) on your digital
device, so you can access (and update) your schedule wherever
you are. Start planning now. Go to nacsshow.com/
myshowplanner to get started.
Download
NACS Show
mobile
app!
Be sure to download the NACS Show mobile
app, where you can:
•E
asily access the complete Schedule of Events,
including NACS Show information for shuttle
buses, restaurants and Technology Edge
•Q
uickly “Search the Show” by keyword for
exhibitors, products, education sessions
and more
•E
asily find your way to exhibitor booths
with the interactive floor plan
•R
efer to your personalized My Show
Planner agenda while on-the-go
•S
tay in the know with real-time NACS
Show alerts
• J oin the conversation about the NACS
Show on social media
Download the official NACS Show mobile
app today. Available for iPhone, Android,
iPod Touch, iPad and any other web-enabled
device. Best of all, it’s FREE from the Apple
Store or Google (search “NACS Show”).
Half Horz.indd 1
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NACS Is More Than a Trade Show
Sure, you’re familiar with the NACS Show, but do you know what
NACS is doing to strengthen our industry the other 361 days of the
year? Visit NACS Headquarters (HQ) in Lobby B of the Georgia
World Congress Center to see what we’re doing year-round to grow
the c-store channel and help strengthen your bottom line.
Talk with NACS staff directly about our newest industry initiatives,
such as NACS Foundation, Fuels Institute and NACS reFresh, find
solutions to your toughest challenges, and learn what we’re doing
on Capitol Hill to protect your most valuable assets: your people and
your business.
Plus, at NACS HQ, you’ll have a chance to connect with other
NACS Show attendees, recharge your batteries, play games and take
home cool prizes. Don’t forget to smile: Grab your friends for a quick
picture in our photo booth and take home a reminder of your NACS
Show experience.
NACS HQ hours:
• Tuesday, October 18
• Wednesday, October 19
• Thursday, October 20
• Friday, October 21
4
2
1
Smile! Take home a
reminder of your NACS
Show experience
by posing for a free
digital and/or print
photograph in our
photo booth.
nacsonline.com
Play games and take
home fun prizes.
Step right up and test
your knowledge about
NACS for a chance to
win cool prizes!
5
3
Take a break at our
recharging stations.
5
100 OCTOBER 2016
10:00 am – 5:30 pm
8:00 am – 5:30 pm
8:00 am – 5:30 pm
8:00 am – 1:30 pm
Meet with NACS staff and learn about
our newest industry initiatives and find
solutions to your toughest challenges.
Also, hear what NACS is doing to protect
your most valuable assets.
Schedule of Events
Among the NACS Show education sessions, networking activities and the expo,
you'll find everything you need to help you operate a successful business.
Tuesday, October 18
7:30 am – 5:30 pm
Registration
10:00 am – 5:30 pmCool New Products Preview Room—Retailers only
10:00 am – 5:30 pm
NACS HQ
10:00 am – 5:30 pm
NACSPAC Lounge
12:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Hunter Club Lounge
12:30 pm – 1:45 pm
General Session featuring Merit Gest
2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Education Sessions
5:30 pm – 7:00 pmNACS Kick-Off Party (ticketed event)
General Session featuring Merit Gest
Imagine a future where every employee at every level of
the 154,000-plus convenience store universe was
worthy of a Most Valuable Player award. Imagine a
future where everyone you interacted with, from truck
drivers and cashiers to sales reps and managers,
treated you like an MVP and owned their role with
passion and commitment. Now, imagine laughing and
learning as our keynote speaker, MERIT GEST, kicks off our conference and shares what’s
possible for our future: MVPs everywhere!
Wednesday, October 19
7:30 am – 5:30 pm
Registration
8:00 am – 9:55 am
Education Sessions
8:00 am – 11:30 amCool New Products Preview Room—Retailers only
8:00 am – 5:00 pm
Hunter Club Lounge
8:00 am – 5:30 pm
NACS HQ
8:00 am – 5:30 pm
NACSPAC Lounge
10:15 am – 11:30 amGeneral Session featuring Steve Gross
11:30 am – 5:30 pm
Expo
11:30 am – 5:30 pmCool New Products Preview Room—Open to all attendees
5:00 pm – 6:00 pm
Global Colleagues Reception
5:30 pm – 6:45 pm
College Football Hall of Fame reception (ticketed event)
General Session featuring Steve Gross
STEVE GROSS is the founder and chief playmaker of the
Life is Good Playmakers, a 501(c)(3) public charity, which
partners with frontline professionals—such as teachers,
social workers and child life specialists—who dedicate
their lives to helping children overcome poverty, violence
and illness. These Playmakers use the power of play to
build healing, life-changing relationships with the children
in their care. At the heart of his work, Steve helps others access their own playfulness so that they
can build resilience and bring greater joy, connection, courage and creativity to their work and lives.
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Thursday, October 20
7:30 am – 5:30 pm
Registration
8:00 am – 9:55 am
Education Sessions
8:00 am – 5:00 pm
Hunter Club Lounge
8:00 am – 5:30 pm
Cool New Products Preview Room
8:00 am – 5:30 pm
NACS HQ
8:00 am – 5:30 pm
NACSPAC Lounge
10:15 am – 11:30 amGeneral Session featuring Ideas 2 Go
11:30 am – 5:30 pm
Expo
Ideas
General Session featuring Ideas 2 Go
With IDEAS 2 GO, retailers from around the country
invite us into their stores and provide a video tour of
their best ideas—whether quick ideas you can implement tomorrow or ideas to consider in your next
strategic planning session. This year includes a special
segment on exceptional retailers in Ireland.
Friday, October 21
7:30 am – 2:30 pm
Registration
8:00 am – 9:00 amGeneral Session featuring Peyton Manning
8:00 am – 1:30 pm
Cool New Products Preview Room
8:00 am – 1:30 pm
Hunter Club Lounge
8:00 am – 1:30 pm
NACS HQ
8:00 am – 1:30 pm
NACSPAC Lounge
9:00 am – 1:30 pm
Expo
General Session featuring
Peyton Manning
Closing out the 2016 NACS Show is legendary
quarterback PEYTON MANNING, the NFL’s only
five-time Most Valuable Player and a 14-time Pro
Bowl selection. This past season, Manning led the
Denver Broncos to a 24-10 win over the Carolina
Panthers in Super Bowl 50, making him the first
starting quarterback in NFL history to win a Super Bowl with two different teams.
For his actions off the field, Manning was honored as the recipient of the Byron “Whizzer”
White Humanitarian Award and the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year in 2005, as well as
the Bart Starr Award in 2015.
In addition, Manning and his wife, Ashley, established the PeyBack Foundation in 1999 to
promote the future success of disadvantaged youth by providing leadership and growth
opportunities for children at risk. The PeyBack Foundation has provided more than $10 million
to at-risk youth through its grants and programs since its inception. He also continues to
maintain a strong relationship with St. Vincent’s Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis, which in
2007 was renamed the Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent.
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WHAT’S NEW FOR
YOUR STORES?
Each area of the expo gives attendees a one-of-a-kind,
hands-on experience that can’t be matched anywhere
else. Explore more than 1,200+ exhibitors, including the
New Exhibitor Area with nearly 200 first-time NACS
Show exhibitors.
Introduced last year at the NACS Show, the New Exhibitor
Area is wildly popular. This year the area will streamline
time spent exploring new exhibitors by organizing them
into the five categories that mirror the full expo: Facility
Development and Store Operations; Foodservice Equipment
and Foodservice Programs; Merchandise, Candy and
Snacks; Fuel Equipment and Services; and Technology.
To see what’s new for the convenience store industry,
make your first stop the Cool New Products Preview Room.
Acting as a launch pad for the future, the Cool New
Products Preview Room is just what its name implies. It’s
loaded with new innovations, products, services and other
growth opportunities divided into seven categories:
• Green (eco-friendly)
• Health & Wellness
• New Design
• New Flavors
• New to the Industry
• New Services
• New Technology
The Preview Room offers attendees the use of hand-held
scanners to capture the products they’re interested in,
and the ability to print a list of what they scanned as they
head off to visit each booth at the NACS Show Expo.
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JUST FOR TECHIES
Now in its third year, Technology Edge provides
industry retailer technology professionals a more
personalized and high-value experience of learning,
connecting and accessing new solutions at the
NACS Show. This forward-looking program teams
up with NACS technology partner Conexxus to
bring more value, deeper education and broader
solutions to attendees. Think of it as a specialized
program within the NACS Show—designed
exclusively for technology professionals.
Over two and a half days, attendees will
benefit from:
• Heightened education sessions on critical issues such
as data security, EMV and customer engagement.
• Facilitated group discussions on highly relevant
technology topics affecting our industry.
• Comfortable networking opportunities that
make it easy to build relationships with other
tech professionals.
• Access to new tech products and solutions at the
NACS Show expo, while taking advantage of the
Technology Edge Solutions Center: a hub to meet
the day’s speakers and connect with peers.
TECHNOLOGY EDGE SCHEDULE
Tuesday, October 18
2:00 pm – 2:50 pm
How Consumers and Retailers Are Re-imagining
Retail Using Technology
3:05 pm – 3:55 pm
Technology Edge CIO Panel
4:10 pm – 5:00 pm
Are You Prepared for EMV?
Wednesday, October 19
8:00 am – 8:50 am
PCI 411: How Stores Comply with Updated
PCI Version
8:00 am – 8:50 am
Customer Engagement with Technology
9:05 am – 9:55 am
Group Forum – Customer Engagement
11:30 am – 5:30 pm
Expo and Technology Edge Solutions Center
Thursday, October 20
8:00 am – 8:50 am
Technical Tools for Data Protection
8:00 am – 8:50 am
Creating a Culture of Data Protection
9:05 am – 9:55 am
Group Forum – EMV
11:30 am – 5:30 pm
Expo and Technology Edge Solutions Center
Join the industry’s technology professionals in
Atlanta to collaborate, innovate and gain a competitive advantage for your company with Technology
Edge at the NACS Show. For more information or to
register, visit nacsshow.com/techedge.
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EVENING NETWORKING
Get a jump start on your NACS Show by attending
the Kick-Off Party Tuesday night, October 18.
This year’s party will take place at Restaurant Row,
located just down the street from the Georgia World
Congress Center. Mix and mingle with thousands of
industry peers and experts over a few cocktails and
make lasting connections with retailers just like you.
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On Wednesday night,
October 19, get ready for
another evening event, this
time at the new College
Hall of Fame. From delicious food to cocktails to
great friends and fun, this is
a can’t-miss event.
Atlanta’s College Football Hall of Fame spans almost
95,000 square feet and features about 1,000 players
and 200 coaches, representing 305 schools. With more
than five million people having coached or played the
game, that makes the College Football Hall of Fame
an extremely selective group of individuals.
The Hall originally resided in Kings Mill, Ohio,
from 1978 to 1992, and later relocated to South
Bend, Indiana, from 1995 to 2012. The new Hall of
Fame, a state-of-the-art tribute to the game, moved
to Atlanta in 2014.
Three floors, five themed galleries and more than
50 interactive exhibits—including an indoor football field and a three-story wall of football helmets—
await NACS Show attendees.
M
NACS Show general session speaker Merit Gest uses
humor to teach business and life lessons. By Bruce Horovitz
erit Gest has a chilling motivation that few NACS Show speakers can
claim: She once came within one windswept whisker of death.
Nearly a decade ago, an overzealous but under-experienced paragliding guide coaxed her to join him on a risky jump off a mountaintop in Croatia. It was an exceptionally windy day, but the thrill seeker in her just
couldn’t say no. The guide quickly lost control of their shared glider in the heavy winds
and instead of landing in a soft field of grass, the two plummeted into a tree before
crashing to the ground.
“He’s bleeding like crazy; I’m in and out of consciousness and my husband is watching from above, not knowing if I’m dead or alive,” recalls
Gest, who suffered serious injuries, including a broken leg—and spent
days recovering in a Croatian hospital.
Lesson #1: Take advantage of opportunities—but be smart about it.
Lesson #2: Humor cures all. (This is the lesson she truly lives by.)
A battered and bruised Gest returned home in a wheelchair with her
leg held together with pins, rods and screws, while in a full cast up her
side. That’s when her then four-year-old son , Jake—who hadn’t seen her
since her fall—stared in disbelief at his mom. He looked at her broken leg,
then, with some confusion, looked at her still manicured finger nails.
“How come you broke your leg, but didn’t break your nails?” he asked.
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Gest exploded into laughter. “It was the first time in
days that I’d laughed,” she says. “Humor can defuse
any situation.”
These are just a few of the key life lessons—and, yes,
key successful business lessons—that the Chicago native
plans to share with attendees at the 2016 NACS Show,
which takes place October 18-21 in Atlanta. Gest, who
is a keynote speaker by day and a stand-up comedian
by night, says she pulls many of her life lessons—and
comedy routines—from her personal spirt of adventure.
Aside from paragliding, she also has tried sky diving,
bungee jumping, scuba diving, ice climbing—and she
went backpacking around the world, too.
“It’s all about grabbing lessons from life in unexpected situations,” says Gest, who trains CEOs in
emotional intelligence and cultural transformation.
Those same lessons are no further away than the local
convenience store, she says.
weekend—to grab a coffee at her local convenience
store. Sure, she could have stayed home and brewed
her own coffee, but, she notes, “I just knew that I had
to get outside and make eyeball to eyeball contact with
another human being.”
Employees—particularly those behind the
counter—are the key to c-store success, or failure,
she says. Gest’s speech at the NACS Show, attesting
to that, is titled, “MVPs Everywhere.” But, in this case,
she says, MVP doesn’t stand for “Most Valuable
Player.” Instead her interpretation of MVP stands for
“Most Vital Person.” That’s the guy or gal who greets
guests with a smile and asks the customers if they
need any help.
After all, no one really has to make that convenience
store run. “You are competing with my kitchen and my
Keurig,” she says. “That’s even more convenient than
going to the convenient store.”
“Most Vital Person”
Your Humor Muscle
How convenience store employees treat each customer
who walks in the door is absolutely critical. There simply
is no substitute for positive, human interaction. That,
of course, means hiring and properly training the right
employees, she says. “Sometimes, walking into a convenience store is the only real life, human interaction
that the customer will have all day,” she says. That’s
precisely what each c-store employee needs to ask themselves: “What if you knew that you were the only person
that I was going to interact with all day long?”
That’s the situation that Gest found herself in
recently when she stayed home, alone, for a long weekend to edit a book manuscript that was overdue to the
publisher. She left her house just once each day that
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Success in any business, she says, is about establishing positive connections and building good relationships with customers and employees. That’s what
Merit did while she was senior vice president for
sales at a national sales training organization and
while she was the youngest general sales manager
at a start-up radio station in Chicago, the nation’s
third largest market.
The best way to connect she discovered: humor.
“Developing your humor muscle is critical,” she says.
How to do that? Mostly, she suggests, through observation. “When I write a joke for a comedy routine, I
don’t just sit down to write something funny. I write
very personal comedy about what I observe.” She calls
it “Seinfeld” comedy: “To be able to laugh about the
things that frustrate and hurt you is a good thing.”
Most c-store owners are so busy just trying to get
through the day, that the notion of developing and utilizing
a sense of humor on the job might seem a stretch. But it’s
that very stress of most c-store industry jobs that makes
a sense of humor even more critical, she says.
Humor on the job, however, isn’t about telling jokes.
It’s often more about just being yourself and allowing
yourself—and others—to laugh at your mistakes. “It’s
about bringing who you are into your job.”
Beyond humor, she says, there’s another important
way to help make employees happy: Prepare them to
be successful in your store. “Employees need tools,
training and understanding,” she says.
How Should a Leader Lead?
Whether you’re a c-store owner or a Fortune 500 CEO,
the best combination of leadership qualities, Gest says,
is a strong sense of optimism and a clear vision of
what’s possible. Also, strong leaders must be willing
to listen and learn. “A strong leader knows the difference between flip-flopping and allowing new information to allow them to switch gears.”
Then, there’s the customer. All customers typically
want is to be greeted when they arrive and leave—and
to quickly find what they’re looking for. And, yes, perhaps enjoy a little human interaction.
Gest recalls recently standing in line to check-in at
a hotel. When it was her turn to check in, the woman
at the front desk never greeted her or even lifted her
eyes from the keyboard to acknowledge her existence.
When Gest finally spoke up and said, “Excuse me,” the
woman coldly responded, without looking up: “Hold
on. I’ve got to finish what I’m doing.” Ouch.
Compare that to a recent c-store experience Gest had
when a vanilla cappuccino she received from a self-serve
machine came out looking more like water than coffee.
When she complained to the cashier, the employee not
only apologized, but made her a fresh cup and refused
to let her pay for it. “That was above and beyond—she
took responsibility and solved the problem.”
Keeping up with customers also means keeping up
with technology. The Starbucks app, for example, that
now allows customers to order and pay for their beverages before they get to the stores—and skip the
“How c-store employees
treat each customer
who walks in the door
is absolutely critical.
There simply is no
substitute for positive,
human interaction.”
line—can’t be ignored. “You are no longer just competing with other c-stores when Starbucks is more
convenient than the convenience store,” she says.
Her best tip to c-store executives: Bring more of
yourself to what you’re doing each day. In an era where
technology sometimes seems to pull us apart, simple
human kindness—and a bit a humor—can be a beacon,
she says. “People are more drawn to other people when
we let ourselves shine.”
Gest will be shining onstage at NACS. But don’t
worry—she’s agreed not to paraglide in.
Bruce Horovitz, a freelance writer and marketing consultant, is a former USA Today marketing
reporter and Los Angeles Times marketing columnist. Horovitz, who also writes the monthly
“Endcap" trends column for NACS Magazine,
can be reached at [email protected].
Merit Gest
October 18, 2016 | 12:30 to 1:45pm
Imagine a future where every employee at every level of
the 154,000-plus convenience store universe was
worthy of a Most Valuable Player award. Imagine a
future where everyone you interacted with, from truck
drivers and cashiers to sales reps and managers,
treated you like an MVP and owned their role with
passion and commitment. Now, imagine laughing and learning as Merit Gest kicks off our the
NACS Show and shares what’s possible for our future: MVPs everywhere!
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Steve Gross’s title at Life is Good is chief playmaker,
but he takes optimism seriously. By Bruce Horovitz
W
hen your job title is chief playmaker, it might seem as if life is all good.
It might also seem as if you’re living like a young Tom Hanks (from the
movie “Big”), that your employer must be Mattel—and that you mostly
laugh for a living.
Steve Gross, whose title really is chief playmaker of the nonprofit Life is Good Kids
Foundation, begs to differ. His job is to help inspire kids whose lives are pretty lousy. His
foundation doesn’t make toys, but teaches and empowers other adults to care for vulnerable kids. And while he does, indeed, love to laugh, his real mission is to give needy kids
a reason to laugh, and the will—if not optimism—to lift themselves up.
So, what’s any of this got to do with running a convenience store? Plenty.
When Gross presents at the 2016 NACS Show, which takes place
October 18-21 in Atlanta, his goal will be to teach attendees how to use
the power of optimism to overcome adversity—no matter how big or
overwhelming the problem.
Gross and his foundation have responded to—and certified thousands
of adults to handle—some of life’s biggest catastrophes, including the
2012 Newtown school shooting, Hurricane Katrina and devastating
earthquakes in Haiti and Japan. To date, over 5,000 certified “Playmakers,”
have cared for more than 350,000 children throughout the United States
and Haiti.
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“Life is a traumatic experience for everyone,” says
Gross, who turns 50 this year. “No one escapes loss,
pain and illness. But how do you meet the challenges
of life in a courageous, optimistic and fun way? How
do you bring your optimal vibe every time?”
Gross personally learned this life lesson not through
adversity, but through example. “I was brought up in
a home where my Dad measured success not by the
money you made, but by the people whose lives you
made better.”
His father was a super-duper do-gooder, who left
his prestigious and high-paying job as a tenured math
professor at MIT to teach math at little-known Bunker
Hill Community College in Boston because, says Gross,
“He knew that the students there needed him
more.”“How come you broke your leg, but didn’t break
your nails?” he asked.
Growing the Good
Life’s all about connecting—and bringing joy to others,
Gross says. “We have no control over our birth. We
have little control over our death. But we have lots of
control of the journey in between. And if you’re not
helping someone, what good are you?”
Yes, there’s even a term that Gross has created for
this notion of concurrently empowering and spreading
joy to others: goodification.
The ability to spread optimism, however, is a threestep process, he says.
Step 1: Be aware and see the good in yourself and others.
Step 2: Focus your intentions on the good.
Step 3: Take action by growing the good.
“How do you meet the
challenges of life in a
courageous, optimistic
and fun way? How do
you bring your optimal
vibe every time?”
For example, he notes, after the Boston Marathon
bomber attack that killed three and injured dozens,
the stories mostly focused on the evil of the two bombers. But, he notes, hundreds of “first responders” risked
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their lives to help others—as did dozens of bystanders.
Good grew from bad.
But it was as a 15-year-old camp counselor that
Gross personally learned of the true value of growing
the good—particularly for kids. Gross worked with kids
who suffered from unusually low self-esteem. One kid,
in particular, refused to participate in camp activities
and refused to get into the camp swimming pool. Gross
finally encouraged the young boy let him to carry the
boy into the pool. “He held my neck so tightly, I could
barely breathe,” Gross recalls.
Within a week, the boy was jumping into his arms
in the pool—and before the summer ended, the young
man was swimming. “I taught this boy not only how
to swim, but how to navigate his fears,” says Gross. “I
learned what a huge difference you can make in a child’s
life just by making them feel comfortable.”
That was his first hands-on experience as a “playmaker” he says. His impact, at a critical time in one
child’s life, changed the game for that child. And the
positive thrill of it got Gross hooked.
Potential Playmakers
But goodification doesn’t just work on kids. It works
on employees. It works on customers. It works—but
only if we take the time to use it.
Every convenience store has a potential chief playmaker, Gross says. That’s the owner, manager or
leader of the store. As that leader , he says, your mission is to meet the needs of customers in the most
pleasant way possible. Asking employees or customers something as simple as “How’s it going?” opens
up the possibilities for more conversation—and,
ultimately, more business. “Never make a customer
feel they’ve made it inconvenient for you by walking
into your convenience store,” he says.
Remembering the names of regular customers is
huge, he says. When Gross was in fifth grade, he and
his friends loved walking to the local convenience store,
appropriately named Convenient, where the owner,
Mr. Malaney, adored kids. He always made conversation with the kids—and knew all of them by name. And
he mixed special slush drinks for the boys by blending
all of the flavors together. If a kid was short on money,
Mr. Malaney never minded being short-changed. “Mr.
Malaney was a life changer,” Gross says.
Connections can be made with strangers, too. Every
time Gross travels to Los Angeles on business, he stops
at the same 7-Eleven not far from Los Angeles
International Airport for a cherry Slurpee and a bottle
of water. “It’s part of a ritual for me,” he says. The
employees there know him by name and know that
he’s the guy from Boston who’s the big Celtics fan.
Gross says he returns every time he’s in town not just
for the cherry Slurpee and the bottle of water, but for
the good vibe.
If you change the way you look at things, the things
you look at change,” he says.
Be Your Own Playmaker
In a word, he says, c-store success depends on one
thing: relationships. “It’s never about perfection. It’s
always about connection,” he says.
Before that sense of belonging can be passed on to
customers, however, it must be openly shared by
employees. That, he says, requires four things from
the chief playmaker:
• Create a joyful environment at work.
• Develop social connections that make workers feel
part of a team.
• Give workers choices so they feel valued at work.
• Nurture active engagement so employees feel
challenged—never bored.
“You can’t make an employee happy—happiness
comes from within,” says Gross. “But you can create an
environment for people to find their own happiness.”
The good we do is the legacy we leave. We are not
defined by our jobs, but by our actions, he says. No
one identifies Gandhi as an attorney, for example, but
that was his vocation. And few remember Rosa Parks
“Never make a customer
feel they’ve made it
inconvenient for you
by walking into your
convenience store.”
as a seamstress, but that was her occupation. Both
are remembered, instead, for what they did to make
life better for others, Gross says.
Goodification isn’t hard. Maybe you keep you
store open during the next big snow storm—when
you normally would have closed it—just to make
sure neighbors have enough bread and milk. Maybe
you ask the customer who looks down-and-out
how they’re doing. Their answer might surprise
you—and talking about it might even help them
feel better.
Each of us, Gross says, is chief playmaker of our
own lives. It doesn’t take much to share the love.
“Every human being has the opportunity to be in a
life-changing relationship.”
It can start as simple as this, Gross says: “How may
I help you?”
Bruce Horovitz, a freelance writer and marketing consultant, is a former USA Today marketing
reporter and Los Angeles Times marketing columnist. Horovitz, who also writes the monthly
“Endcap" trends column for NACS Magazine,
can be reached at [email protected].
Steve Gross
October 19, 2016 | 10:15 to 11:30am
Steve Gross is founder and chief playmaker of the Life is Good Playmakers, a
501(c)(3) public charity, which partners with frontline professionals—such
as teachers, social workers and child life specialists—who dedicate their
lives to helping children overcome poverty, violence and illness. These
Playmakers use the power of play to build healing, life-changing relationships with the children in
their care. At the heart of his work, Steve helps others access their own playfulness so that they
can build resilience and bring greater joy, connection, courage and creativity to their work and lives.
122 OCTOBER 2016
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