By Aaron Grossman, CEO
As business owners, we have the opportunity to shape and transform lives through the culture we choose to operate in. Through our values and corporate foundation, we can educate those who are connected to us in a deep and meaningful way. I have always felt that the values I live by within my business are the same values I operate on in my personal life. Our environment is equally as critical as the foundation we work from. I have seen great people who are surrounded by bad people, so they end up doing not so good things. While these people came from a strong foundation, they surrounded themselves with a bad environment, and poor choices were made.
In business, what kind of environment do you choose to have with your staff? What kind of choices do you promote within your staff based on your company culture? While I believe every company is unique, I believe there is an ability for all companies to connect to a pillar within our culture at Alliance. This is the pillar of GRATITUDE. I was taught early on to be thankful for everything I had the opportunity to experience. While I am not a religious person, my religion promotes that we must say a prayer of thanks for even the littlest things … like eating bread. As I grew up, I dealt with many of life’s challenges. I was always able to bounce back from the various setbacks of my life and figure out how to be a better person for it. Eventually, I learned to be thankful for the little things in my life, the good things in my life, and the not so good things in my life. I’ve always been honored and humbled to have a chance to live on this planet and experience everything that comes with it.
If you can take the idea of being grateful for life’s experiences and promote this mindset within your business, how much more impactful would your staff be about working effectively within your company? How much better would your staff be when they took that mindset home to their friends and families? Could we change the world if we slowly worked the mindset of gratitude into every person we touched? Think about it …
Gratitude, in business, is not only about be thankful for life’s experiences. It means something more. In business, you will find takers. These takers will look to win at someone else’s expense. You can see this in co–workers who look to stab each other in the back to get ahead in the company. I believe that to live a life of gratitude in business, you should instead exhibit a giver’s mentality. Simply put, a giver in business is one who works to WIN with others, not at the expense of others. Givers work to help others when needed and are not looking to personally gain every time they lend a hand.
When you are thankful for the day you get to live, and you encourage and support other’s success, along with yours, the energy that permeates from you is CONTAGIOUS. Imagine being surrounded by people just like this. Life would be a lot more fun, right? This is exactly the type of environment we strive for at Alliance, and we believe this pillar is something that all companies could get behind and support.
