Hey,

I hope you are safe and well. I was meandering through the internet over the weekend and stumbled across a rather wonderful tool that I thought you may like, so I'll share that in today's newsletter, along with some short thoughts on spirit and hope.

For those new to the Meeting Notes newsletter, welcome, I’m Rob, Chief Spirit Officer at Cultivated Management. This newsletter is about mastering the art of communication and creativity - and creating a bright future of work.

Spirit and Hope

It's easy to get ground down. It's easy to lose sight of the meaning, the vision, the mission and the why.

In our daily work we can often lose sight of why we're fighting the hard battles, working the hours and bringing our energy and attention to work.

It can all feel a little hopeless. You may look around and get the sense that the spirit has gone. The politics and competition has overtaken the spirit. The vibe is less hopeful and more hopeless.

We're holding out for the joy of the end prize, the happiness we think is coming, the point in time when we're done, or we succeed, or we achieve a goal. We can then take a day off, sit back, relax and be happy.

Many organisations are run this way - with a never ending pursuit of some milestone when everything will ease up and we can say we succeeded.

This is the wrong approach though.

As a leader or manager, we don't want people to be in the perennial, elusive pursuit of happiness at some milestone.

We want them to find happiness in the pursuit of something meaningful, compelling and emotionally engaging.

We all want to work in a company with spirit, ambition and hope. A hope that things will get better or we can really make a difference, but also one with the spirit of joy, laughter and happiness in that pursuit.

Instead of the constant little whispers of despair, angst, dread and fear, we want hope, drive, focus, ambition and energy.

Spirit and hope are important, nay, essential, to enrich the lives of all who work in the organisation.

Cultivating a bright, compelling and interesting vision of the future is only the first step. We must then cultivate a spirit, joy and happiness in the pursuit.

In my time at a startup it wasn't achieving the goal of an exit that was important, it was the people I worked with, the joy in the pursuit, the learning, the challenge, the character building, the problem solving and spirit of team work that mattered.

Happiness, spirit and joy are the canary in the coal mine. They are the early warning systems that something isn't right. They are the undefinable qualities that you feel, sense and see - yet struggle to put into words. They are the vastly undervalued aspects of our modern workplaces.

I spoke with someone the other day who told me work had put out her light, broken her spirit, killed all joy.

She said she was a fraction of herself, a shadow, a dwindling replica. It was heartbreaking.

Leaders and managers had failed to realise it is human spirit that makes great work happen.

Don't let the spirit put your light out

No matter your role in the company, try, as much as you can, to avoid the negative talk and critical comments - and instead bring energy, hope, spirit and positivity to work.

It's not easy but I know for sure that happiness for ourselves comes from helping and lifting other people.

A gentle kind word, a focus on hope, a lifting of spirits, a smile, a shoulder to cry on, a chance to listen; these are ways we can keep other people's lights burning - and I'm pretty sure it will make you feel better too.

If people aren't laughing, having fun and imbued with a sense of spirit - something is wrong.

A rather wonderful tool

I think you'll like this. Well, I think you will if you like words.

It's a pretty neat website called TextFX (I think it's from Google) that gives you various different "word tools" such as Simile, Exploded words, acronyms, alliteration and several more.

You choose the word tool you want, type in a word, or phrase, and let the computer do the magic.

Very neat.

Support Cultivated Management

This newsletter is a labour of love - if you’d like to support my work please consider:

  1. Sharing this content with others you feel would get value from it.
  2. Downloading the free ebook 10 Behaviours of effective employees.
  3. Buying a copy of Zero to Keynote
  4. Sitting the online Communication Super Power Workshop to develop your super power in work
  5. Upgrading to paid.

It means a lot. Thank you.

Until next time. Have a great week.

Rob..

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