You Might Be Grateful

My work consists primarily of fixing things: listening to a client’s situation, noticing what has worked in other situations, and applying the wisdom to make positive change.

Mostly, it’s about noticing what’s wrong, what’s not working, and seeing the way through to possibilities.

Bridging reality and future possibilities is the predicament of most entrepreneurs and business leaders. These possibilities, which are often laced with healthy hope, is what drives most thoughtful entrepreneurs. If we didn’t have hope, we wouldn’t try to solve things. Otherwise, why do we work so hard?

The best of business leaders live in a mental and emotional construct that fuses vision, wisdom, innovation, passion, and action — among other attributes. It is valuable, from time to time, to put your feet up and cast your vision above the fray.

A practice of gratitude goes further than we may think. It helps us reframe what we’ve collectively and individually accomplished. It helps us recognize what is working. It encourages us to count our blessings, literally. And, gratitude practice helps those of us wired to be future-fixed, to putting now into clear view.  

With this, allow me to offer a few things you might be grateful for now.

You might be grateful now because, in March of 2020, you were looking at the landscape of your world, life, and work, wondering how bad things could get and when it would end.

From here, we earned a greater understanding of the value of front-line workers, supply chains, and day-to-day safety that we took for granted. We all lost sleep for a while, and most of us adapted and became better for it.

You might be grateful for what you’ve learned about how to create connection and belonging in your team, regardless of where you’re physically located. That gratitude could be extended to the team members who went above and beyond to care for one another as you all got the work done.

You and your team now are more resilient and agile in the face of change. And because of these newfound superpowers you have greater agency over your future than ever.

You might be grateful that you’ve figured out how to adapt to unforeseen changes and challenges more effectively for your business and life. I’ll bet you got better at agile thinking, adaptive reasoning, strategic planning, and calling audibles from the field of play.

You likely got better at marketing your business with less resources and fewer or different media options. You likely got clearer about your brand and market position, and who your right customers really are. And, you likely got clearer about the long game of your business and what really matters in your life, work, and career.

You might be grateful that a true measure of the goodness of humanity doesn’t come from social media streams or media-fed headlines, but rather from your close friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues. These souls do more to shape your daily reality and the things that matter most in life, than anything in the political sphere, news, or social media.

I’m willing to bet the vast majority of the people you live around and work with day-in and day-out are thoughtful, caring, kind, considerate, and fair-minded. To be grateful for the people that truly color your world is among the greatest blessings to count.

I’m a believer in the goodness of humanity, especially during challenging times. So much so, I wrote a book that, in part, speaks to the beauty that human artistry can do when applied to business — and what that can do for you, your company, and for our world.

As Plato reminded us, “Be kind, for each person you meet is fighting a great battle.” Often, that battle for each of us is within.

Being aware of our interiority, and knowing how to navigate that internal landscape is a lifelong pursuit toward a version of our own human mastery. We do have to be aware of what is urging us forward and holding us back. To know the urges that motivate us from within is the deepest version of our own authentic agency we can activate.

You can count on a regular stream of challenges now and ahead. Each and all are solvable. Each and all of us can contribute our unique genius to the challenges at hand.

A practice of gratitude can fill our solutions, innovations, and strategies with greater hope and a better world.

Three invitations for you:

1. I love knowing you’re getting value from my insights and stories. So, I invite you to take a moment hit reply with a quick comment.
2. I also love hearing how you’re using these ideas in your brands, cultures, and leadership teams — so please let me know.
3. And, if there’s a topic that I haven’t written on that you’d like to hear my take on, feel free to share it.

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