I asked a client on Saturday what her plans were for the day. It was a simple question, the kind you ask to make conversation while you’re working. She said she’d be out most of the day, running errands and finding ways to stay out of her own house.
That got my attention. I asked why.
She told me that every year, she invites several nuns from a nearby church to spend the day at her pool. Years ago, she and her husband had a beautiful inground pool installed, along with an outdoor space built for exactly this kind of thing — entertaining, relaxing, enjoying a warm day. She thought it would be nice to give these young women, far from home, a chance to enjoy it too.
So she prepares for them. Lunch is ready. Snacks are left out in the kitchen, there for the taking. She tells them the house is theirs for the day, inside and out, no different than if it belonged to them.
And then she leaves.
Not because she doesn’t want to host. Because she wants the day to be entirely about them — the freedom to actually enjoy it, without feeling like anyone was watching. She even told them, specifically, that they’d have complete privacy, so they wouldn’t feel self-conscious swimming in a bathing suit or anything else that might make them feel exposed.
I haven’t stopped thinking about that since she told me.
There’s no audience for what she does. No photos, no announcement, nothing that turns generosity into a performance. Just a woman quietly making sure a group of strangers felt genuinely at ease, truly taken care of, and — if only for one day — like they were the only thing that mattered.
I don’t think you need a big platform or a grand gesture to make someone’s day better. Most of the time, it’s smaller than that. It’s paying close attention to what someone actually needs, and then quietly making sure they get it — sometimes by giving something, sometimes, like in her case, by knowing when to step back and give someone space.
And no matter what kind of business you’re in, I think that’s the standard we should all be trying to emulate: genuine comfort, the freedom to relax without feeling watched or judged, and the sense that someone is truly welcome — not just tolerated as a guest or a customer.
I think about that a lot in my own work. Every client who sits down with us is trusting us with something personal, something that can feel exposed in its own way. Our job isn’t just to perform a service well. It’s to make sure that, for the time someone is with us, they feel exactly the way those young women felt at that pool — comfortable, cared for, and completely free to just be themselves. I keep thinking about how rarely we extend that kind of thoughtfulness without expecting anything in return, and how much it seems to mean when someone finally does.
Isn’t that what truly matters, in the end?