Thank you! In this video Craig says thank you to everyone who provided feedback in a recent survey, shares his gratitude for the work he is able to do, and offers his hope that you too can find a way to make a living at the intersection of your passions and your skills.
Here’s what Craig says in the video
Hi everybody. Hey it’s Craig Freshley here. Yesterday we ran a little survey on email and social media. We asked a single question about whether our clients would recommend me to a colleague or friend. We also provided a little text box for people to write in whatever comments they wanted.
The responses have been overwhelming. We got a ton of replies in just 24 hours and a lot of you took the time to write some comments. Thank you. I know that there are people watching this video who probably did our survey, and maybe wrote some of these comments, and they are awesome!
In a moment I’m going to explain to you the connection between these comments and this chart. But first, I’ve got to read some of these to you:
“Craig, so glad you are doing this important work. We all need skills to work together, understand each other better, and make progress together. Thank you.”
I love this next one because this one talks about a balance that I totally strive for in all of my meetings. This person wrote:
“Just the right amount of gravity and levity, direction and spontaneity, giving and receiving.”
Here’s another one:
“You are a very motivating speaker and have a good heart. What’s not to like about you and your work?”
These comments just didn’t happen. They happened because I have worked hard to find the intersection between these three things [our passions, what we’re good at, what brings resources]. These three things were developed by a guy named Jim Collins. He wrote a book called Good To Great. In the book he talks about what makes a company great as opposed to what makes a company good. Now if you go looking for this book, it has a red cover, okay? Mine has been bleached by the sun! If you’re not in a company but maybe you work for a nonprofit or a government, Jim has written a little companion monograph called Good to Great and the Social Sectors. In both of these books, he says that what distinguishes great institutions, whatever type they are, is that they have found the intersection between what they are passionate about, what they are good at, and what they can make money at – or if you’re in the nonprofit sector, what brings in the resources.
I feel so blessed to have found this for myself. I love helping groups make good decisions. I get up early every morning, usually pretty excited to start my day and I just feel so grateful to do the things that I do in my job. Not only that, I have figured out that I’m good at this. Look, we all have skills. Those of you watching: every single one of you has skills. You’re good at something that I’m not good at. I’m good at facilitating meetings. I happen to have those skills and it happens to match my passion.
Not only that, I figured out a way to make money at this. The intersection of my passion and my skills is something that people are willing to pay for. There is a match between these two things and the market, and I have figured out how to take my skills and my passion to market in a way that I can make a living for myself. And, I get awesome compliments like these!
My hope for you is that you can find the intersection of these three things for yourself and for your group, and that you can feel the sense of gratitude that I feel right now.
That’s my hope for you. Thanks for listening.
