Not Your Normal Thanksgiving: I Discovered This

I thought this would be the usual Thanksgiving, eat to much and unbutton my pants.  

I was right.  But discovered something great about my daughter in the mean time.

This was my older daughter Hanna's first time hosting Thanksgiving dinner for her Mother and I.  I could tell she was nervous.  After moving to Seattle and getting married, she has made a home in that great bustling city. We arrived a day early and met her at her place after work. After a drink we all became more comfortable and when her husband came home a few hours later, we all went out to dinner, walking to  a local micro-brewery near their townhouse.

The place was hip and comfortable.  Great beers and good food kept the conversation lively.  The subject of Hanna's work came up and a glow came over her face as she described the new and exciting responsibilities she had taken on in her new position.

I looked in her eyes and saw something

It was then that I looked in her eyes and saw something.  She was talking to me about conversion rates and the demographic of buyers in her category (personal care products). She was bought in. Totally bought in to the big picture of the work she was doing and now loving it because she understood where she could make a difference.
Hanna is a big fan of subscription gift boxes. We spent an hour looking over her favorites when we got home. But she turned to me and said "Dad we have thousands of samples and products from my department, I am going to pitch a Nordstrom's subscription service to my managers".

A tear formed in my eye. My daughter, who it seems just yesterday, was playing dress up and debating with her Mother about staying out late, she had formed her own entrepreneurial sprint!

"she had formed her own entrepreneurial sprint!"

She had spent 6 years on the retail floor learning all the details of customer service and merchandising. First at a little party supply store in her home town of Eugene Oregon and then later, after moving to Seattle, as a floor sales person with Nordstroms. I like to call that her customer service boot camp.
While still on the sales floor at Nordstrom's, she networked with her managers, letting them know of her desire to learn all aspects of the business, not just sales.  It paid off and after a couple of years she accepted a job in the corporate glass palace downtown. It was with the online division of the Nordstrom brand called www.shop.nordstrom.com .

The subscription idea may or may not be a great new thing for her.  That's not important.  What is important is she saw an opportunity, saw potential because of past successes in the subscription services like Birch Box and Shave Club. She formed an idea, that with proper execution, could make a difference in peoples lives, create jobs and make a bump in the bottom line of her employer.

Yes she has to execute the pitch but, I saw something in her I hadn't before and I am a proud Dad.