How to make the most of August: The importance of gratitude

On the Dalai Lama’s recent visit to Australia, he delivered a strong message about the importance of gratitude. This really got me thinking about the way I live my life. I’m a soloist. Why?

Given that I made the decision to fly solo a decade or so ago, it’s amazing how long it took me to stumble on to what I believe is the fundamental truth of flying solo:

It’s not what we do, it’s who we are.

I am going to spend August being grateful for the fact that I have been able to align my work and my self.

I found further evidence of soloists structuring their working lives around who they are when I arrived at a venue to speak about public relations for small business to a group of soloists. As I drove into the carpark I was overwhelmed by the number of cars that were signwritten with logos, slogans, 1300 numbers and websites.

When I speak to corporate groups, the carpark is a sea of anonymous Australian-made sedans in conservative colours.

It struck me that the cars in both carparks are driven by people going about the business of their work, yet how the drivers were employed by those businesses was critically – and observably – different.

Soloists proudly fly the flag for their businesses. Why wouldn’t we? We are proud of what we have to offer the world and don’t separate ourselves from the identity of our businesses. Our businesses are who we are.

The corporate set drive cars provided to them by their employers, for whom they do what they do. When opportunity knocks, the sedan drivers will move to the employ of another business and take the wheel of another remarkably similar corporate vehicle and continue to do what they do. Corporate employment is very rarely about who workers are as individuals, however ambitious they may be.

Corporate employment is what the non-soloists do.

In my view, this never used to be the case and, in my defence, this is why it took me so long to see this fundamental truth for what it is.

I am old enough to remember working life in the eighties when the company car became the ultimate status symbol. They were coveted. And they were branded. Sure, you see the odd purple Cadbury car still but it’s the exception and whatever that US cosmetic company was thinking with its pink fleet who knows, but whatever it was, it is no longer how they reward their achievers.

Something has changed in corporate life and people no longer choose to be so readily ‘branded’ especially after they clock off and go home to remove themselves from the work that is no more to them than ‘what they do’.

Soloists define ourselves if not by our work then by how we have chosen to do our work. There is an obvious pride in our choices, our actual ownership of our business and our figurative ownership of our lifestyle.

You can see it in everything we do. We stamp our brand on everything we do because we are proud of it. It’s who we are and it’s not just work, it’s personal.

It is obvious by the smiles on our faces and the cars in our driveways and August for me will be about celebrating this sense of getting it right.

I am sure the benefits of my enlightenment to the people around me will be many.

Karen Morath of M Power consults, trains, speaks and coaches in public relations, personal effectiveness, life balance and all things empowering.

13 comments | Add your own 1 2 3 | Next» View all»

Spot On, Karen! We are individuals and deserve the respect of all around us for having the courage to do what we love doing - the alternative leaves us as anonymous fodder for someone else's machine! Grant Hyman from Sydney | Read my articles
To be independent and free to do what you want when you want and to earn as much or as little as you want. Congratulations soloists for taking life as it is meant to be lived
Success is but a word , but how sweet it is patrick burgess from north ryde nsw
You are right in your sentiment Karen. I have always been happy, content and grateful for what I have, where I am and what I have acheived. But there is something else that a soloist has in his or her make up. A certain drive and passion. The need to take risks and for personal challenge. I don't know what you call this. But I am glad it is there. Paul Tooze from www.Investorlinks.com.au
Amen to that! I sometimes go back and work in coporate environments and always feel like a wolf in sheeps clothing, know I have the hunger, passion, drive, and sheer gumption to take on the world on my terms! Rod Sherwin from Melbourne
What lovely fellows these four seem! It really is something to know who you are and be happy about it. Karen Morath from Melbourne | Read my articles
That is so right! ... This whole concept leads to a truth that a lot of people neglect because of the hustle and bustle of every day life. It answers a lot of questions and opens a lot of doors... the whole "meaning of life" truth. It's not just about doing what you do, not just about going to work and making money to live. It's not just about religion either.
It's about living, and loving what you do because it is YOU, your time and your effort and your success. When you go into your shop or your warehouse or worksite or wherever it is that you go to do what you do, open up to the feeling that it is you, not the title or brand or trade even... what you're doing today is who you are and you got there by taking the path that you took to get there, which was the right one...
and you took up and learnt all the valuable lessons that were presented to you on the way, and all this has made you who you are now, and brought you to where you are, and when you realize that and feel the GRATITUDE for it, those things will continue to lift you up and drive you forward, so you constantly progress and achieve higher and higher goals...
That's the best lesson I've learned about myself and my business.
So go to your job, go and BE. And be grateful.
And that is the end of my rant. Have a good day! Matt from Perth

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