It’s January and we are embracing a New Year; a new decade! I am stewing about the importance of having values; what were your thoughts to lead you forward to consider Inn-keeping or actually becoming an Inn-keeper? What was it that made you decide to leave the corporate milieu? There is lots of turmoil in our beautiful world; but Inns surround themselves with mountain tops, hills, rivers; inhabiting a spectacular place, embracing a different lifestyle, where personal values and quality mean something! You know, we are the stewards of our well appointed Inns and B&B’s and are ambassadors for our environments. Each of us needs to remember what it was we were seeking when we got ourselves to make this leap; was it quality in our lifestyle, authenticity in establishing relationships, allowing integrity in our behavior, creating our own domain, what was it?

Actually all of whom we come in contact with: our spouse, staff and our guests, benefit from our honest reflections. Some of you have found guidelines for reflection by attending churches of your choice, other seek private or group meetings to gain needed introspection. It matters not which form our contemplation takes, only by attending to our own spirituality that we can become aware that quality and values elude us by inner drives of scattered aims and inattention.

Attending to our values shines in every facet of our personal experience and in appointing our Inn.  Local art-work speaks of our passion for beauty, our well detailed rooms call attention to the great care we have taken to welcome our guests. Friendly polite staff, well trained, ooze the respect they have received by being empowered by the owners to do their best.

Inn-keeping is fraught with details, details and more details. It is a challenge to maintain all that we were seeking when we started out; it is a challenge to be true to our values today in this financially difficult time.

But you know your guests have a choice; they stay with you because of who you are, the quality of your service, the quality of your products, your connections with the locals: Joe, the egg-men, Nancy Miller’s apples in the apple tart. Your presence at the town zoning board might just save the State Park from a new condominium development. And those big eyed well fed cows on the hill-side, keep the meadows pastoral and local slaughtered beef on your menu.

I have stayed at great in-town Inns as well, where shirts and trousers were pressed before dawn, major newspapers kept the businessmen ahead of the news, the lawyer informed of the latest scoop on Wall Street! TV in each room, i-pod connections, hook ups for every imaginable contraption our latest tech is equipped with, and beds so comfy and snugly you cannot imagine you want to rise and face the day!

It’s a new decade!  Be the Inn that is the most generous in spirit, décor and service and make this your best year, ever. The “corporates” are starved for a great experience, arranged by you, and fed with the most delectable morsels from your local community. How are you going to do all that? By taking especially good care of yourself!    Heide

Tags: Career choices, innkeeping