Life:
Quality,
Quantity and Longevity
Yesterday, August 5, 2014, well over 200 family, friends,
employees and business partners came together to celebrate the life of Dr.
Francis Jean, founder and president of IRIS, The Visual Group.
Francis Jean passed away unexpectedly of a heart attack at
the age of 56 while riding his bicycle in the Canadian Rockies on July 17th. He was riding to raise funds for cancer research. I received the news of my friends
passing the next morning while I was in Peru on my dream ride of South America.
Cycling became a passion as did raising money for cancer research.
I first met Francis Jean in 2001 when he “cold called” on me
and wanted to discuss merging my optometric practice with IRIS, The Visual
Group, at the time a Quebec based company that had recently purchased the
largest retail optical company in British Columbia, where I live. I took the meeting and from the first
time we shook hands I felt that I was already his friend. That friendship and a great business
partnership developed over the next 8 months.
Francis Jean had a very large dream of building the largest
eyecare provider network in Canada and to help Canadians experience the best vision
possible. Along with this dream
was a vision of how he was going to accomplish this and a plan to go with that
vision. I wanted to be a part of
this and jumped in completely, merging my practice with the one in Port
Alberni, where I live, and purchasing 4 more locations in partnership with
IRIS, The Visual Group.
Over the past 13 years I’ve learned a great deal about life
and how to live it from this unique man.
The most valuable lesson was that many people have dreams, fewer have a
vision of how to make their dreams a reality, even fewer have a plan and the
people who are living their dream do so because they’ve taken action on
reaching their dream and that action is complete, without hesitation. The second most valuable lesson was
that living with a purpose every second of every day is the only way to achieve
success in anything and have it really mean something. This can only happen if you have a
passion for living.
Society today is caught up in living long (Longevity),
accumulating as much stuff as they can (Quantity) with the belief that this
will give them a good life (Quality).
That is a trap! The reality
is that by living life with purpose and passion (Quality) the other two
elements, Quantity and Longevity, have little value and are a nice bonus if
they happen.
My friend, Francis, lived a Quality life and was blessed
with a large group of family and friends, which he valued more then
anything. While his life was short
in duration, he packed more into 56 years then most will accomplish in a
lifetime. My life was made richer
through his example and encouragement and I will miss my friend very much.
If you have a dream, act now to make it happen because now
is all you and I are guaranteed.
Later may be too late.
Gerald Trees
