Count Your Problems and Be Thankful

An employee of yours is late for the third time this week; you know you are going to have to have a discussion with him. Your company has had a stellar year. Now you’re worried about what size check you are going to have stroke to Uncle Sam come April 15th. A customer calls mad because their name was spelled wrong on a letter you sent to them. You realized you sent a marketing piece to print containing incorrect numbers. To top it all, your computer crashed and, ouch, you don’t have your files backed up.

Leaders deal with problems day in and day out and better yet, we’re responsible for fixing them. The buck stops with us.

Yet good leaders realize that most of the problems that they deal with are of the fancy variety (as Editor and Chief of Southern Living, Lindsay Bierman describes in his November issue letter). No one is dying; no one has maliciously been harmed.

This doesn’t negate the fact that the problems still have to be handled and can be stressful to deal with, but it is the realization or perspective that most of our problems are of the first world variety means that we are better equipped to handle them in a proactive and effective manner.

During this week and month of thankfulness, count your problems, realizing most of them are of the fancy variety, and give thanks.