STORIES

We are hearing a great deal about cancel culture these days. I hate that people are trying to cancel others. And while there may be some legitimate reasons in some cases, my hope is that kindness becomes the new order of the day. The world may have changed forever due to this pandemic and we really don’t have a clear picture of how things will look. We can, however, choose to see things in a more creative way.

I’m not interested in writing about what a tough year this has been. There is too much “I can’t wait until 2020 is over” going on these days. The bottom line is that the turn of the year will not magically wipe away the virus or the political angst that has weighed us all down. We cannot simply flip a switch to happiness and joy.

In one of my recent podcasts, I had the pleasure to talk with Michelle Seiler Tucker, author of “Exit Rich” and founder of Seiler Tucker Inc. We discussed the mindset required to build a business worth selling but it was a little expression she shared that impacted me the most. In an effort to explain the difference between working in the business versus working on the business, she said “it is hard to read the label from inside the bottle.”

This pandemic sure has been a lot of fun, huh? It feels like we have been held hostage in our own homes and waterboarded with the negativity and venom spewing from every device. The heaviness of the moment is enough to crush our souls and destroy our resolve.

Note: I wrote this several months ago after Kobe Bryant’s death. The pandemic has taken a great many things away from us, including my ability to share these thoughts with you, but it cannot take away our independent will.

To be great at anything, it takes a remarkable amount of sacrifice and indescribable determination. In turn, the one unique gift that we all have is our independent will. We are not our emotions and we have the ability to choose our response in any situation. In fact, we have the ability to choose how we spend our time each and every day.

Over the years, we have written a great deal about engagement. We talked about how to engage with your clients and your community. But, maybe it is time to step back and disengage in order to re-engage our senses. In other words, we may want to let go in order to regain both our sanity and our humanness.