During the last week of July, Marilyn and I traveled to Orlando, Florida, to attend the Pop-A-Lock national conference. It was great to see and visit with everyone again, especially since the 2020 conference had been canceled due to the pandemic. Among the many different things that happened at the conference, they handed out awards for the top 10 Pop-A-Lock franchise locations with the best locksmith sales — and both Lexington and Louisville were in the top 10!
In terms of locksmith sales, Lexington placed 5th in the nation, and Louisville placed 10th — and that was out of over 300 Pop-A-Lock franchises nationwide! Naturally, I was very proud of this fact as well as grateful for everyone who made this possible.
Specifically, I want to thank our general managers, Shane Cochran of Lexington and Paula and Richard Arensman of Louisville, for their hard work. I also want to thank the Lexington locksmiths Brandon Smith and Clay Royce as well as Louisville locksmiths Eddie Abel and Austin Griffith. Finally, I want to thank all the car door unlocking technicians who, despite not technically being locksmiths, have chipped in on enough locksmithing jobs to deserve a thank-you for their hard work.
It’s not just our employees who have made this honor possible, however. You — our customers and readers — also helped. You trusted us to take care of your security needs over this past year, and for that, I am very grateful.
While I want to make sure everyone gets their due appreciation in this post, I did want to mention another thought that came to mind when we were traveling to the conference. We sat on a plane in Atlanta with over 250 other passengers and no AC for an hour while we waited to get on the runway — not exactly the ideal conditions for being kind! But that got me thinking about my New Year’s resolution, which was to perform one act of kindness every day. I couldn’t help but think I may have fallen short in making that happen.
It shouldn’t be that hard to perform one act of kindness every day. I don’t think it should even be hard to do more than one each day. However remembering to do so can be difficult. Looking back on this year, however, there were probably days where I didn’t accomplish that goal. Realizing that made me want to accomplish that for the rest of the year.
As we start to travel more and more, I’m sure we’ll all encounter situations like the one I found myself in, where impatience and grumpiness easily take over. Instead, I hope I can choose to be kind. If you find yourself in frustrating situations, I hope that in the days or weeks remaining in this year, you can still remember to find opportunities for an act of kindness. I hope you can choose to be kind.
-Doug Barnes
Franchise Owner of Pop-A-Lock of Lexington and Pop-A-Lock of Louisville
