Joy, vulnerability at Its core!
Wednesday, January 17, 2018 - Joe Kiedinger
Before I get into my “Wisdom on Wednesday” today, I would like to remind you that our annual Servant Leaders of Wisconsin (SLOW) Summit is next Friday and seats are filling up fast.
Our keynote speaker, Phil Gwoke of BridgeWorks, will share some enlightening research on generational communication. If you work with or lead associates from a different age bracket than your own, you will greatly benefit from Phil’s presentation. Learn how to communicate across the divide! To reserve your seat or for further information, please visit our event page.
Many of you know that I am a lifelong learner. Our very name, Prophit, is a combination of this belief: be a prophet to make a profit. What I mean is that we must remain humble and learn from those around us.
Therefore, we don’t create culture and communication initiatives from scratch, we’ve learned from the best: Disney, Zappos, Southwest Airlines, Google and others. Many of these successful companies freely share how they did it. For years, our company’s leadership team has attended events, toured companies and interviewed executives to learn what they know. I say, let’s emulate the best and build off of their ideas. The ideas and processes we implement are nothing new, they are either a direct practice or an inspired practice that great companies have done before us.
A new partner we have engaged is Nexecute. Our coach is Mark Freier. He recently had a coaching session with Danica and I and somehow the subject of “joy” came up. My wife and I are very positive and purpose-driven people. Mark shared with us that the emotion of “joy” is the most vulnerable of all emotions. He said that people are afraid to share joy with others. I asked him what he meant by this.
He replied, “Have you ever been with someone who said, ‘Wow, what a beautiful day; I love winter! Too bad it’s so cold.’” The last statement softens the joy. Or, perhaps, someone in the conversation responded to a joyful statement with a “but”, reducing the impact.
It really made me think how right he is. He gave me a resource to learn more about this subject. It’s a TED Talk.
The key to a long life is to find the joy in the little things. My wife, Danica, taught me that. We practice it every day and I really do feel better. People feel good around me as well. Joy squashes stress.
EnJOY!
Joe Kiedinger
ACTION PLAN: Watch this Ted Talk; it’s inspiring and eye opening.