HOPE YOU ARE WELL AND THRIVING

I get emails occasionally from my classmate, Lisa Kleissner (pictured above with husband, Charly).   At the end of her emails, she frequently writes, "hope you are well and thriving."  I've been thinking about that word "thriving" for  a while and decided that it's a key word that I want to incorporate in my life.   To me, thriving means "growing strong" and I'm at a point in my life where I want to see myself as growing and not declining.

When I look at the periods of my professional and personal life where I felt I was "thriving," I realized that they were the times where my "belief" was the highest.   I believed in the company I worked for, the direction we were headed, the people that were involved.   In my my relationships, I believed in my partner, the goals we had together and our vision for the future.   Belief translates itself into desire and it's that desire to achieve or succeed that creates the massive action needed to truly thrive.  It's that utopia that we all want, when we're hitting on all cylinders and everything is really going great.

So, when things are going so great, why don't they just keep going that way so we can be happy all the time?  Because at some point, doubt creeps in.   Once doubt arrives, then fear isn't far behind and fear is the biggest buzz kill in the Universe.   People start to hesitate, start to question, start to withdraw and you know your days are numbered.  There's a knock on the door, it's the fat lady and she's already singing.

In the mid-80's, I was working for a large international company that was planning a major expansion.   The right players were brought in, a bold vision was introduced, the company leveraged it's assets to create the cash and the party was on.  My team worked literally seven days a week for almost a year.  The stock price shot up and the revenues went through the roof.  But the company awarded no raises or bonuses despite record profits.  Information leaks from the corporate office created rumors that the President and Board Chairman were buying up all the stock and positioning the company to be sold.

Employees began to doubt the sincerity of the company vision.  Fear of downsizing by the new owners was rampant.  Morale plunged.  Monthly sick leave tripled.  Employees started to take company property and assets.  All the faith and belief that fueled the expansion, disintegrated as soon as doubt and fear showed up.  The company did end up selling and many of us who were key players in the expansion were let go.

My first marriage started out the same way, lots of hope, promise and determination to go forward together.  It was a great period of our lives because we had so much belief in each other that we could see our lives expanding and growing.  Soon our son Caine was on the way and that seemed to cement another layer of belief on to our lives.   My goal was always to move back to Hawai'i but after 15 years, I began to doubt whether that was going to happen.  I began to doubt whether or not we could truly be happy together or whether I'd be better suited with someone else.   I began to fear that I would never to able to live the life that I imagined so after 20 years together, I opted out.  When I look back on it today, it's clear to me that I didn't keep my belief level high enough to keep the doubt and fear from creeping in and it ruined a perfectly good marriage.

But those experiences taught me that I can only "thrive" as long as I have the faith and belief to support the dreams and visions that I see for my life.  I've seen the destructive force of fear and doubt and I want no part of it.  Thriving means believing there are always things for me to learn and having the faith that the right people and experiences will arrive exactly when I need them.

If I can do that, I'll be good to grow.