What Cause is Your Business Supporting?

I'm not asking about a social or environmental cause your business donates proceeds to annually. I'm asking about how is your business supporting the energy and strength of the human connection.

After spending the last few weeks working on the protection of citizens rights here in my townspeople and visiting beautiful protected land in a neighboring town I stood back for a few moments today and reflected.

I thought to myself "here are groups of diverse people coming together, many having never met before, and sitting down at a potluck or on the living room floor to work on a cause. A cause that is not directly about them, but one that does affect them and their future generations."

What are the common denominators of these groups (in no certain order)?

Open communication and discussion,

Connecting to a higher or larger issue,

Facing challenges that can seem unattainable at times,

Believing in change and making a positive impact,

Treating each other with respect,

Utilizing individual strengths in the group while working as a team.

I am always amazed when I sit in these moments of reflection. I reflect on the individual voices in the group, watching the interactions, listening to wisdom and experience from different generations, genders, political and religious beliefs, hearing the various values formed from birth to death, seeing people smiling, laughing, touching and helping one another with no strings attached. I have learned so much from every one of them.

During this reflection, I looked at how can I take these amazing experiences and apply them in my business. I can take the connecting of positive energy and strength that flows from people and integrate it naturally into my business. How I connect to the passionate energy that flows from my customers, suppliers, partners and supporters lies in three key ways:

Actively listening,

Genuinely respecting,

Openly communicating.

It is in moments of reflection that help remind me when I am in a state of overwhelm, self-doubt, negativism and knee-deep in challenges of business life that these keys and common denominators are the strength of the human connection. Human connection is the strength of a business.