During this season of Thanksgiving, I’m going to take a detour from business advice and focus instead on gratitude. I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to get to know a remarkable woman whose life lessons are an example for all.

I recently attended a service at Temple Israel in Minneapolis, at which a friend pointed out an elderly woman and said I should meet her. I was astounded to learn she was 109 years old.

I often seek out older people to ask them their secrets to living and how they’ve persevered. So I visited Ruth Knelman at her apartment and was amazed to learn she lives alone and does all her own cooking.

Ruth is chockfull of life lessons. She is affectionately called Grandma Ruth by all the children she reads to at Temple Israel. Every Friday for the last 30 years, she reads to seven classes of youngsters, ages 18 months to pre-kindergarten.

She is a strong believer in reading. She always read to her son and her grandsons because it makes you use your brain, builds self-esteem, improves creativity, increases your vocabulary and makes you smarter. She reads the Minneapolis Star Tribune from cover-to-cover, including the sports section.

Grandma Ruth has volunteered for 30-plus years at Jefferson Community School and many other organizations over her lifetime. Why volunteer so much? She said she always wanted to do good. “You have to do something good for your community.”

People who volunteer and help others have a healthier outlook on life. They are more inclined to be go-getters and consistently report being happier. Ruth is the poster child for happy.

Through volunteering she met many great friends, so she understands the importance of networking and friendship. She is so thankful and grateful for all her friends, and she tries to never take advantage of them.

“Friends have to be tolerant and patient,” she said. “Your best friend can hurt your feelings. You never forget this, but you forgive. If you took offense at things, you wouldn’t have any friends. No one is perfect.”

Ruth added: “Life can’t be all good. You have to have ups and downs. You always have more ups than downs.”

She thinks a big problem today for people is stress. She sees it every day when she watches people drive. She volunteered at a hospital for many years and remembers a man who had a nervous breakdown because he hated his job and his boss. If you aren’t happy, her advice is to find something else. Life is too short.

I asked Ruth what she would say to a college graduate: “You have to like people, be nice and be patient.” She also knows the importance of a good reputation and how one thoughtless act can destroy a lifetime of good work.

Ruth is often asked for advice, to which she responds: “Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know. You can’t know everything.”

Ruth has a fantastic memory. She always has people repeat their names when she meets them because when she hears a name twice, she remembers it better.

She keeps her mind sharp by playing bridge every week. She’s been playing that card game for 94 years, starting at age 15. Ruth also plays gin rummy, and I learned there is a little money involved too.

I couldn’t resist asking about her secret to living this long. She said, “I’ve done everything wrong.” She stays up late at night and gets up early. She eats late in the day. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, she drinks coffee and watches TV. She doesn’t drink water and prefers club soda. She takes only one pill.

She also is not a big fan of exercise. She said the people who exercise regularly have to have their hips and knees replaced. Her exercise is walking.

How does Ruth want to be remembered? She is so thankful for all the people who were so kind to her: “You have to like people. You can’t get bored. I always have something to do.”

While I was visiting with Ruth, the phone rang at least five times. It was like Grand Central Station. Then as I was leaving, we were greeted by another friend who was coming to visit her.

As I got ready to leave, Ruth had one request: “Can I give you a hug? You never know when it might be your last hug.”

Mackay’s Moral: Don’t count the years; make the years count.

One day a teacher asked her class, “Can anyone give me a sentence with an object in it?”

A little girl said, “Teacher, you’re the most wonderful and beautiful lady I’ve ever seen.” The teacher responded, “Thanks, but what is the object”?

The little girl added, “I’d like to have a longer recess today.”

OK, the little girl was buttering up her teacher, and I don’t blame her. But I’d like to butter up all the teachers out there for a different reason -- they make a difference in every life they touch. November 18 to 22 is American Education Week. And if you’d like to plan ahead, Teacher Appreciation Week is May 3 to 9, 2020.

I have a personal admiration for teachers; my mother taught fourth grade. She made sure my sister and I were the best students we could be, and instilled in us a love of lifelong learning. She always reminded us that school ends, but education doesn’t.

Teachers are the unsung heroes behind almost every successful person. From preschool onward, they challenge, encourage, rein their students in when necessary and then set them free to discover and achieve. I suspect you could ask any CEO, business owner or person who has followed their dream if they can remember a favorite teacher, and they will have an immediate answer.

As I was researching this column, I found some remarkable data from the National Center for Education Statistics. As of fall 2019, there are 3.7 million teachers in public and private schools, managing 56.6 million students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. (Those numbers don’t include the students who are home-schooled or online learners.) That’s an enormous responsibility to face day in and day out.

Education is easy to take for granted. With schools in nearly every town or neighborhood, buses to provide transportation to the front door, books and resources available for all and qualified teachers to lead the way, who wouldn’t jump at the chance to get an education?

Yet we don’t always appreciate what we have in America and most developed countries. Our opportunities begin soon after we learn to walk and talk. All we have to do is show up and pay attention (and do some homework).

Teachers are the people who turn four walls into a learning environment and help develop the natural curiosity and creativity that all kids seem to be blessed with. As students progress through the grades, teachers help them to expand their horizons and find their passions. And when it’s time to move on to post-secondary programs, teachers are there to prepare young minds to take on the challenges of life after school.

Grayson Kirk, former president of Columbia University, put it well: “The most important function of education at any level is to develop the personality of the individual and the significance of his life to himself and to others. This is the basic architecture of a life; the rest is ornamentation and decoration of the structure.”

I’m pretty sure I made all my teachers earn their salary every day. When I think about who had the biggest influence on my life aside from my parents, I can remember a few. But one stands out: Professor Harold Deutsch, my academic adviser at the University of Minnesota. I scored a “D” in his History of World War II class, and when I went to plead my case for a better grade, I was quickly informed that my affinity for the golf team had to take a backseat to my studies. He didn’t mince words. And I am forever grateful.

A story collected in “Wisdom Well Said” by Charles Francis illustrates the impact teachers have on a person’s life and future.

The noted American novelist James Michener received an invitation to a dinner at the White House in the 1950s from President Dwight Eisenhower. And, even though he felt it would be an honor to meet the president, he politely declined.

Michener wrote: “Dear Mr. President, I received your invitation three days after I had agreed to speak a few words at a dinner honoring the wonderful high school teacher who taught me how to write. I know you will not miss me at your dinner, but she might at hers."

Michener promptly received this reply from an understanding President Eisenhower: “In his lifetime, a man lives under 15-16 presidents, but a really fine teacher comes into his life but rarely.”

Mackay’s Moral: A person without an education is like a building without a foundation.

Back in 1960, when I bought a small envelope company with dreams of becoming a gazillionaire, I could not imagine a world where people just turned on a machine, clicked through some instructions and paid the electric bill.

I didn’t think that I could have a contract signed and returned to me in a few minutes instead of dropping a paper document in the mail and waiting a few days. I was operating in a time when catalog orders went into an envelope back to the retailer to be processed.

In other words, I didn’t anticipate the changes ahead -- and neither did my competitors. Had I read a book like Daniel Burrus’ “The Anticipatory Organization,” I might have considered investing in developing computer technology.

But over the years, I wised up and learned to follow trends, even predict a few. I was perhaps a little late to the party with some of that wisdom, but it made a big difference when I could start to see what was coming my way.

“Organizations of all types and sizes have traditionally relied on their ability to react as quickly as possible to shifting challenges, the demands of the marketplace and other types of disruptions,” Burrus says. “That’s often referred to as agility."

But in today's increasingly disrupted and disruptive world, agility alone no longer cuts it, he asserts.

So, he asks, “Would you rather have merely reacted as quickly as possible as change took place, or anticipated it and crafted well-thought-out plans to take advantage of its game-changing opportunities?”

Burrus cites plenty of very recognizable examples to back up his ideas. For instance, he tells about the introduction of the iPhone. Reporters asked the CEO of BlackBerry, which then dominated the cellphone market, if he was concerned about a threat to his business. His response might amuse us today. He didn’t think anyone would want to watch a video on a phone, and couldn’t imagine the appeal of watching on such a small screen. As of November 2018, the last time Apple released sales figures, more than 2.2 billion iPhones had been sold worldwide.

When you adopt an anticipatory mindset, you learn not to focus on your competition. When you do that, Burrus says, you will be tempted to adopt or adapt what they do, and look like them. Instead of imitating, you should learn to innovate by intentionally focusing on what the competition is not doing.

Consider this: Only four companies that made the Fortune 500 top 10 list 20 years ago remained on the list last year. Apple and Amazon are on the current list, but they weren’t there just 10 years ago, even though both were in existence. Certainly there were computers, cellphones and bookstores aplenty during that time span. But they didn’t adapt to get ahead of trends.

I’ll be the first to acknowledge that, sometimes, just keeping up with trends takes an enormous amount of energy. As I mentioned earlier, envelopes seemed to be a pretty safe commodity when I went into business. Fax machines emerged as a threat to paper transactions, and then email and texting. Automatic bill paying, the decline of direct mail and online ordering cut further into our industry. We’ve had to reinvent ourselves time and time again, and I’m fairly certain that we will continue to do that as long as we are in existence.

As Burrus points out, “We’re going to be spending the rest of our lives in the future. Given that reality, why do we spend such little time or energy trying to anticipate what it has in store for us?”

He also emphasizes that “all the technology in the world is secondary to interaction between people -- constructive, trust-based interaction. Without that, what good is the most amazing technology?”

That’s music to my ears. I never want to be part of a business that puts technology ahead of people. I love interacting with my employees, customers and even competitors. That’s how I get some of my best ideas. That’s where I see my future.

If you see your future somewhere else, read and study this book. I anticipate that you’ll love it.

Mackay’s Moral: The future belongs to those who are prepared for it.