There Is Hope This Year!

I’m constantly amused at the strange interlinked way our minds work.
(Or is it just me?)

How things we see today bring memories roaring back to us from yesterday.

Today my mind conjured up the face of a little girl I knew when I was about 10 years old.
(Now, before you read further, let’s agree this:
even as children, our thoughts can be awfully cruel)

Decades later, I still remember looking at her face and thinking…
”My word! You’ve got a big mouth!”

It won’t surprise you to learn that she grew into her mouth.
And became beautiful in every sense of the word.
Last I heard she was busy, busy, busy… organising NHS teams to save yet more lives.
And was doting on grandchildren, in whatever fleeting moment she could grab.

“Now what on earth,” you may ask, “would cause you to remember that mouth?”

Yeah. Good question.
So, let me try to make sense of my answer.

Yesterday, Wendy and I were watching a stunning, emotional, jaw-dropping series called “A Perfect Planet”
Narrated, naturally (pun?), by David Attenborough.

It’s message is simple, moving and stark.
This is the most beautiful, perfect, life-sustaining planet that we know about.
And yet…
We – intelligent humans – have become the most catastrophic force this planet has endured in 65 million years!

Pretty straightforward, really.

One scene that dropped our jaws was that of a whale.

Exhausted by chasing after rapidly-depleted stocks of fish (agricultural run-off, choking oxygen from the ocean)…
It had decided upon a humorous, life-saving strategy.
It simply ‘sat’ upright…
and opened, to its limit, its colossal (lose-a-house-in-there) gob!

Then its companion herded hundreds of dancing, panicking fish…
into that cavernous maw.

“Yum. Purfick!” as Del-Boy would say.

By changing behaviour… there is now Hope.

This year promises to be a fascinating one for all of us.
And we have choices to make.
BIG choices.
Choices that will shape our personal world.
And ‘domino’ outward to impact community and nations.

Perhaps the biggest individual choice – particularly regarding the impact of our business on the world – is this:
Just how SELFLESS we’re prepared to be.
In our work with clients.
In our leadership with our team.

Take a step back with me.
Think of an iconic leader who has blessed humanity.
You’ll see “Selflessness” is at the core of their life.

If you want to see how the opposite of Selflessness plays out onto a grand scale.
Just look across the Atlantic to the USA.

One man instigated that.
One.

Whatever is thrown at us this year…
Whatever the physical or emotional challenges you’ll face…
this one quality – SELFLESSNESS – is part of our Hope for the Future.

It’s bigger than any vaccine.
Because the virus is multiples more invasive than Covid.

And this Hope starts with me. With you.
With our behaviour. In our business.