Attitude of Gratitude

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” — William Arthur Ward

As we prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday this week, it seems appropriate to spend some time thinking about Gratitude. With the economic condition we are experiencing right now, it is very tempting to think about what we have lost – perhaps our jobs, our savings, our 401ks and more – or perhaps to worry about what we might lose in the future.

This morning, a friend sent me a special email message. It included the quote at the start of this blog. It also held some pearls of wisdom that I want to share with you:

• Grateful behavior can facilitate positive interpersonal and community relationships.
  
• The expression of gratitude may help one adapt to life's challenges.
  
• Grateful individuals report higher levels of life satisfaction and optimism and greater energy and connections with other people.
  
• Growing evidence indicates that the expression of gratitude can also improve one's physical health and functioning, such as positive changes in an individual's cardiovascular and immune functioning.
  
• People who are generally grateful may tend to live longer lives.

A former business colleague also sent me a note this morning. He ended his note by telling me he hoped that I was doing well “in life, career and faith”. His note made me pause to think about “life, career and faith”. I closed my response to him by saying, "Thank you for asking and helping me to appreciate all that I have during this Thanksgiving week.”

Yes, I have much for which to be grateful!

Consider this:

“Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives as
parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which
secret garden we will tend… when we choose not to focus
on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for
the abundance that is present — love, health, family,
friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits
that bring us pleasure — the wasteland of illusion
falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.”
–Sarah Ban Breathnach

Question to ponder: What are the blessings in your life? What can you be thankful about right now, today?

Daring Greatly - Part 1 of the Morality Series

Back in August, we talked about courage, action vs. inaction, and thinking outside the box. In September, we talked about how the way we treat one another, the way we talk to each other, the messages we share make an impact on the people around us.

The fact is that if we do not have the courage to take action, we cannot make a difference. We will have no chance to “change the world” in which we live.

Back in 1910, Theodore Roosevelt said, in a speech at the Sorbonne, “It is not the critic who counts . . . [not the person] who points out how the strong man stumbles. The credit belongs to . . . [the person] who actually strives to do the deeds; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly . . .”

His words inspire us to take action, to invest ourselves in a worthy cause. The worst thing we can do is nothing at all.

Pat Lencioni talks about high tech as being one of the most difficult environments in which to live one’s values – the industry is so fast paced with such large dollars at stake. I spent over twelve years in that industry, a period in my life when I was strongly devoted to living my faith. There were many occasions when I was appalled at the way people treated each other, all justified by a fierce focus on getting something done.

For me, I felt the challenge of living my values, which dictated a different behavior from what I was seeing, yet continue to be the team player that my organization needed from me.

The answer came to me one day at a national sales meeting when our leader asked us for ways that we could super-charge our sales results. I asked a question about building a true “sales culture” and was immediately given the task of building one. My first reaction was wondering how I would ever get this done…where would I find the time? Then I realized that this was my opportunity to personally “invest in a worthy cause”.

Many people volunteered to help me with this effort. Our end result included a definition of constructive ways to work together, to ensure that our teams benefited from the points of view of all of its members, to avoid bullying behavior and to help team members learn from their mistakes rather than feeling blamed and at risk. The program we developed was eventually rolled out globally and aspects of it remain in the organization today. As a result, countless people experienced significant improvement in their level of job satisfaction and the company benefited from the improved results that came when each team member is working at full capacity.

This experience told me that I had the ability to affect change in a difficult situation, despite my perception that I had no time or power to change anything.

Question to ponder: What circumstances are you encountering today that are not consistent with your values? What can you do to make a positive change in those circumstances?

Ever Evolving . . .

The past month has been a whirlwind of change for both Janet and me. World travel and additions to our families came at the same time that we each decided to return to school to further enhance our knowledge and perspective.



As we pursue these new directions, we are seeing synchronicity in what the universe is sending to us. Our university studies are bringing us new ways of looking at both our worlds -- professional and otherwise.



We realize that our blog posts to-date have focused on examining our individual selves and how we can make a difference in the world around us. As we look at where our lives have taken us, we realize that we are in a position to dovetail the thoughts we've introduced, our life experience, current events, latest academic thinking and professional application of life lessons.



And so, in the coming weeks, you will see a shift in our blog posts -- a shift to Changing the Face . . . of business, if you will -- with more pointed suggestions and concrete thoughts on what each of us can be doing to make our work worlds the kind of place we want them to be.



Let us know your thoughts on how we can Change the Face . . . of business. As always, your comments and reflections will enhance our message!

A Reason to Pause

In a slight change of pace on discussion, we've taken a short furlough on our blog.



Our last discussion was on life balance but in a "planned" sense. What I realized over the past week were the unplanned events that wreak havoc on the plan for life balance. The main unplanned event I uncovered is "sickness". Our health is something we often take for granted - assuming as long as we have fuel we'll have energy to keep up with life's demands. But what happens when you have the fuel, but your engine just isn't working at the capacity it should?



This is cause for pause in my own world. I tend to run at a rapid pace, if I could go on cruise control it would be at 65 miles per hour, accelerating above that as needed. This phenomena has been referred to as "busy-ness" or as I've heard also as a "Human Doing". When health issues occur, we have to stop doing and start being. The "pause" is our body's way of slowing down. It is during these times that we become human beings again.



Unfortunately (or fortunately), I wasn't the one who was sick this time. My husband came down with the flu and while he paused, I didn't. This caused some mis-communications and misfires as some of the plans we had couldn't be executed. In my "human doing" role, I didn't handle this well. I realized that to manage life balance is beyond our own life, it includes the lives of those closest to us.



Looking ahead, during this flu season with it's uncertainties about strain, mutation, and immunity - consider what you might need to pause if you or someone you know gets infected. From my experience, try to be an understanding "human being" and serve the needs of those around you. For it is in giving that we receive and in understanding that we are understood.



Here is a helpful link with information on Influenza versus a Common Cold.
http://www.flufacts.com/about/cold.aspx



May you be filled with good health and time for just plain being.



Questions to Ponder:
If you are caught up in "doing", what could you do today to "be" more?
What can you do to ensure your health is prepared to handle an infectious attack?
What can you do to help those around you handle an infectious attack?