Security in Enough

Hi folks! This continue my journey of exploring the word “enough” which I began two weeks ago. I hope you enjoy!

Security in the Future

It’s easy to have the expectation that life is going to be problem free. Things may be tough now, but in the future it’ll be smooth sailing, right? Unfortunately this is an illusion. Life is never going to be problem free. We may experience different problems in different seasons of life, but there will always be challenges to encounter. It’s important when you budget your time, emotional energy, and finances, to have margin for when things will go wrong.

There’s a Prudential Insurance commercial I saw recently that’s a good illustration for this (watch here). The premise of the commercial is that they asked people on the street “What was something significant that happened to you in the past 5 years?” and then “What might happen in the next 5 years?”

People reported about a 50/50 mix of positive and negative things happening in the past 5 years, but for the future they expected that pretty much everything that would happen would be good. (The commercial gives a great visual representation of this; people placed magnets on a wall to represent the significant things that had happened or that they expected, yellow magnets represented positive things and blue magnets represented negative things. The “Past” and “Future” walls looked very different!)

The takeaway/marketing pitch: “We all want to think about positive stuff, but realistically there will be down times. It’s great to think optimistically, but let’s plan for whatever the future might bring.”

Just to be clear, I’m not trying to sneakily suggest that you buy Prudential’s insurance, but what I am saying is that the message is a useful one. I am first and foremost an optimist.  I actually think that being an optimist doesn’t mean that you ignore or disregard the negative things in life – optimism is really about your attitude towards the things that happen in life.

I am continually working to cultivate my optimism, which means looking for the good things in life that will grow my faith and confidence in the Lord. Part of trusting Him is actually being grounded in the acceptance that problems will arise and things will go wrong.

It’s pretty much guaranteed that some things will go wrong – and it’s not personal, it’s okay. And actually I think that’s where maturity and leadership are built – through solving problems but also letting go of the things which we can’t change.

I try to pick only the blueberries that are ripe for me, and then move on to the next tree/experience/business/opportunity instead of clinging to what’s in front of me. When we are secure that we have “enough,” we are able to let go and leave blueberries on the tree for those who come after us. We don’t have to pick every last one. (Read more about this decision-making concept in my post “In the Blueberry Patch.”)

Trusting in Enough

I attended a sales and goal setting workshop not too long ago, and the facilitator talked a lot about the gift of trust. In business we’re not just building a great service-product and great customer service, we’re building trust.

The idea is that when you’re selling something, your goal is to find the right fit or solution for your customer even if it’s not you. Can you trust the overall experience that you’re truly meeting someone’s need even if you’re not the right solution for them? Because in the end, it will come back to you.

This really is true at Carpe Diem. Over the years we’ve become better at figuring out which clients we are “enough” for, and letting go of the clients that we are not the right fit for. We know in the end that certain clients will not be happy with us.

I would rather refer these clients to another vendor who will better meet their needs because I can trust we’ll have “enough” of the clients that are the right fit for us. Because we trust in having “enough,” we can be trustworthy to give the true solution that people need when they call us.