What I’m Grateful For: Forgiveness 
An email landed in my inbox this morning and it was about forgiveness. I barely paid any attention to it, in fact I deleted it. But then went back to undo my delete and I read it. And it really resonated with me – big time.
I have, personally and privately, worked a lot on forgiving past injuries and hurts. It’s something I felt necessary for my own growth and development. As I began systematically looking inward for unresolved grievances that I was holding against someone or another (my ex-husband, previous employees, relatives, you name it) the mental and emotional cleansing was so cathartic and freeing that I realized forgiveness was something important for me to do if I wanted to have more energy moving forward. But I never really articulated this, even to myself. It was just something I felt was good for me, so I worked on it as things would come up.
But the email I read this morning REALLY articulated what I had just been noodling around with obliquely. It laid it out, clear and strong – when we don’t forgive others, we put our past in front of us, into our future. In fact, an unforgiven past writes a narrative that we are doomed, like Groundhog Day, to live that struggle over again and again.
If you would like me to forward you that email, just reply and I will send it over. Any thoughts you have on forgiveness, or HOW to forgive, would be welcome as well!
What I’m Reading: Still reading Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter. Fun idea for your next important group decision – assign a Red Team whose objective is to criticize, dismantle and/or defeat the primary team’s plan. This can create the opportunity to uncover weaknesses, flaws or previously unseen pitfalls in the primary plan. Because this team has been assigned the role, they will be much more likely to focus without worrying that others might think poorly of them if they object to the primary team’s ideas (which is a very common reason why groups can ultimately make poor decisions, especially if the entire group is trying to achieve consensus.)
Web Tip: Make sure that your website has balance! A wildly unbalanced website can be a major eyesore and make it hard for your visitors to navigate. This will increase your bounce rate and lower your engagement rates.
Quote I’m Pondering: The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. – Mahatma Gandhi.
