These past few months have been a rough. I think we can all agree on that. With everything going on in the world right now on top of regular, everyday issues we face, nothing has felt easy lately.
Particularly last week for me, it was very emotional. I just felt such sadness for the world, for the lives lost and businesses shuttered and all of the hatred. My husband had bought us some Chinese takeout and I had almost forgotten about fortune cookies. He took his and handed me which one he wanted to be mine and it read: “If you have knowledge, let others light their candle by it”.
So badly do I just want to be a stand for other people. To help others hurting right now the best way I know how. I want to be the voice for those who don’t have one and to share this knowledge that I know I have with them is what I feel I need to do. I need to put myself out there on the platforms I have accessible to me and I need to help people.
For the longest time I have felt like the business world was going down a bad path. I’m a very spiritual person and I believe in energies and being in tune with oneself. And I kept seeing a bad pattern start up in businesses where people were only focused on managing and dictating and making money.
When I work with people, we focus on the exact opposite of this. We focus on building an experience, on having an inclusive culture in our businesses. The people who I have worked alongside through this pandemic have built bigger and better relationships with their customers and communities than ever before. They’ve learned how to innovate and problem-solve and find different ways of connecting with people. Because ultimately, these times have only brought us together. To be kind and take care of one another.
We’ve learned recently that there is still so much hatred in this world and I think people are trying really hard to not reflect that. We want justice for something that has been plaguing our country long before COVID, and in finding that justice we must take a good look at our current systems and analyze what is not working and correct them. But what I am also coming to see is that people are also still being hateful towards each other as well, nit-picking and breaking others down. Fighting hate with hate is not the answer. It is not a solution.
Each and every one of us has the power to change our ways of thinking and operating, and to teach our kids or those people around us that look up to us what is right and wrong. Quite frankly, the real change starts with us. With what we have and are given in this world and how we choose to use them is the most powerful thing we as human beings get to do. If we can’t be empaths and understanding of others, then we have wasted our gifts. This is where the power of context comes into play.
You may not be able to change the things happening around you, but you have the power to change the conversation around it, to see a new perspective on it. Too often do we try to be “anti-this” or “anti-that”, but why not instead be for something? I want to be for equality. I want to be for positive social reform. I want to be for solidarity across humanity. I want to focus on building each other up and not tearing one another down. Only then can we really start to transform our world. We can’t simply go back to the way things were anymore, and I don’t want to. We fell hard, but we needed to so we can have the chance to stand back up again, move forward, and begin rebuilding things the right way.
The first of three things I want you to do in your business to start on this path towards a better future is to establish some core values. What are the things that mean the most to you and you want to be the main drive of your business? When you think of what they are and write them down and carry them out in your day-to-day functions, you create a culture in your business, one of equality and opportunity for everyone involved. It holds you accountable as a leader to show up every day a certain way but also to your employees as well, so you can all work towards a similar goal. When you have these values in place and communicate them well, your customers will even start to see them in how you carry out business.
Which brings us to my second thing, which is giving your employees, your customers, and your community time and space to connect. To have this safe place for people to come together over whatever you provide or sell and not feel that they are being judged or excluded in any way, shape, or form.
Lastly, the third and big one, is making sure that each and every person that works for you understands their purpose. Not just their job description, but really inform and educate them on what role they are playing in the bigger picture. No job is too small or should go unnoticed, for everyone involved in running a business is truly vital. We cannot have one without another and it’s important to let people know that they are important. It creates a positive environment, and one where they can really rise to their highest potential and better themselves because they know the difference they are making when they do.
If you can create an environment that has all of these things in focus and operates around culture and experiences rather than making a buck, the relationships you will create with those employees, customers, even community, will be one like no other. You will be a stand for others who have been excluded or judged or simply told they were not good enough, and you will become the place that people want to go for they feel safe when they do.
All of the recent adversity in the world has almost been a blessing to us, in disguise. We’ve gained a freedom from this mess that we didn’t have before. Freedom from what was holding us back, from growing and bettering ourselves, or even doing what we love. Freedom to think about things a new way, and not just the way we were taught or raised to think. We have this great opportunity to change the things that don’t work or never really worked and to build something better in their places. We aren’t going back; we are only moving forward.
If you enjoyed this episode and in some way it inspired you to start taking action, I’d love to hear about it and know your biggest take away. Send me a DM on Instagram @theresacantley and let me know what your favorite part was.
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If there is a topic you would love me to talk about or a question you may have send it to us at theresa@theresacantley.com and we’ll feature it on one of our future episodes.
LINKS:
To download a transcription of this episode click here.
Episode 65 – Creating a Culture in Your Business that Can Change the World
Episode 64 – The Lesson This Pandemic is Teaching Us and How it Will Help the Economy
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