Happy Thanksgiving

I’d like to think that despite Thanksgiving being quintessentially American, it’s a holiday whose spirit can span the globe. It’s about the spirit of abundance, gratitude, and ultimately about cultures connecting to celebrate. In fact, Thanksgiving is celebrated in many regions around the world today.

During this past year, there have been lots of reasons to grouse and commiserate and wonder: “Why us?” But those are questions that stem from lack and not from the spirit of this week’s holiday. So, as we end the week here in the US and take four much-needed days off, we choose to celebrate a year that has kept many glasses half-full. There has been disaster and destruction and illness and death. And there have been many things that have forced us to take stock and focus on what matters.

I don’t know an executive who has lamented the extra time with family nor missed those road warrior days. Do we wish we could travel? Yes. Do we sometimes want to fly out of the house given all the commotion under our roof? Of course. But the extra meals with little ones sitting down to the family table or time with college kids have given us an extra dose of time we thought we’d lost.

We are not sleeping in strange hotels, dealing with jet lag, tired and worn out. It gives us a little lift. And how many of us miss packing week after week, roller bags in tow, as we jet off one more time and fight our way through TSA check-in and the lines to be first to the overhead compartments? None of us will miss a mask, and most of us yearn for the days when we can go to a football game, a concert, or a dinner inside a restaurant. What a year it’s been.

On the work front, we’ve gotten to see our teams at their best, giving up salary, working extra hours, doing what it takes to innovate and drive new thinking and services into our organizations. Some of our clients have had to let people go, others have furloughed staff. For some clients, it’s been incredibly painful, as they’ve dealt with the double blow of conferences and tradeshows vanishing alongside a vertical triply hit by the impact of COVID-19 such as travel or food service. And still these leaders and their staffs persevere, innovate, do the best they can in times unprecedented and uncertain. What we have is our faith, our health, and our ability to leverage our ingenuity — a trait we humans can excel at when we put our minds to it.

We have seen companies bring new services to market in 10 days, reinvent their entire portfolios, rebrand, and relaunch. It’s really quite an exciting time that’s been forced on us. We will never know how or why this virus struck. What we know is that when forced to deal with a crisis, we humans rise to the occasion and our industry did that in spades this year.

Outsell, being of the industry we serve, also had to innovate. We replatformed in a matter of months, went 100% digital in our events, flipped our research agenda to address more tactical needs, and expanded our expert network to bring more expertise to the issues facing our clients. None of us got a bye this year and if we are leaving the year with our businesses, our staff, and most of all, our families intact then we are mightily blessed.

The pandemic has taught us that it’s the small things that matter, and the blessings we might have taken for granted are the most important. We have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, perhaps more so than most.

Whatever you do, whatever bubble you celebrate with, may you be safe, healthy, and happy. Rejoice in what surrounds you and toast with that glass half full. Happy Thanksgiving and thank you for the pleasure, privilege, and opportunity of working with you all.