Recently, I was asked how I got the nickname “Top Notch Ted.”
Let me take you back to when I was a kid. Most afternoons a group of us in the neighborhood would hang out and ride bikes together. But one of the kids bike was in rough shape, and they couldn’t ride around with the rest of us anymore. I felt awful for him and wanted to help.
I told my mom I was thinking about setting up a lemonade stand to raise money to get his bike back up and pedaling again. She thought it was a wonderful idea and told me, “If you can take a potentially painful problem and turn it into feel-good fun, there will be smiles everywhere.” That really stuck with me. So, I got to work. Before long, I had the stand open for business, lemonade was selling left and right, and soon enough we had the money to get that bike fixed.
When one of the neighborhood parents heard what I’d done, they said, “Your efforts were top notch, Ted.” The other kids overheard, and from that moment on, the nickname stuck—Top Notch Ted.
Carry forward to when I was in high school shop class, the director of the school play came in asking for volunteers to help build the set. I raised my hand, called out to a few of my friends to join me, and we went to work. When we were done the director with a smile on his face told me ‘no wonder they call you Top Notch Ted.’ These days, I’m not selling lemonade or building stage sets, but I’ve carried that same spirit forward. Now I put smiles on other people’s faces through my business, Top Notch Heating and Plumbing.
Thanks for stopping by,
Ted