Thanksgiving in the United States of America is my favorite holiday. It gets overlooked these days, as retailers fast forward from Halloween to Christmas.
Thanksgiving is a time of personal and professional reflection for me. I encourage you to identify the people and things you are grateful for, then pass your thanks and gratitude on to each other.
Thanksgiving is a time for me to thank you all for your support of my Sales Aerobics for Engineers® Blog. Since its inception, that blog reflects our collective conversations in a distinctive, provocative voice. You all inspire me each day.
Thanksgiving is a time for all of us to pay our collective thanks forward.
Are you willing to go “there” with me?
Reach out to someone who isn’t “just like you.” They may have a different skin color, gender, country of origin, language, spiritual philosophy, sexual orientation or professional discipline. You know: all “that” stuff which people use to divide rather than unite.
Read a book, read blogs like this one, cross-pollinate your brains. You will pay your thanks forward by being a more engaged listener and a more engaging conversationalist.
Take the time to find a common denominator across your conceptual peaks and valleys. Part of finding common denominators with people who aren’t “just like you” is taking the time to learn why they aren’t carbon copies of you. Read about what makes them different. Read from resources you don’t usually access as the source of all your current knowledge.
Ask yourself some serious questions. Ask yourself the questions you have avoided. Determine whether being a little bit like “them” might make you more than you are today. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Increase your whole.
Do something about it. Not just on Thanksgiving, but every day. Move 1 millimeter outside of your comfort level on a daily basis. Become comfortable by being a bit uncomfortable.
The hardest part of paying your thanks and gratitude forward is taking that first step. Do this once, then get up every day wondering who you will meet that you haven’t noticed “before.”
Sources of gratitude, happiness and thanks sometimes reside in uncommon places with extraordinary people.
Take a chance, with thanks.
Babette N. Ten Haken, President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, LLC, is a management consultant and business coach. She helps startups and small-to-medium manufacturing and service companies who have difficulty with unpredictable revenue streams. Her book on communication and collaboration strategies and tools, Do YOU Mean Business? Technical / Non-Technical Collaboration, Business Development and YOU, is available on Amazon.com.
Leave a Reply