“No Whining on the Yacht!” 6 Reasons to Be Grateful Today
I read about a conversation between two well-known names in Country music, Lainey Wilson and Keith Urban. Lainey told Keith how tired she was after over 180 concerts that year. As a veteran musician and mentor, Keith shared these five words of truth with her: “No whining on the Yacht!”
You get the picture, right? If you are fortunate enough to be on a yacht, you have a lot to be thankful for and a lot less to complain about. I think most of us can use this reminder regularly.
Depending upon which survey you look at, it’s fair to say about 50% of employees in the U.S. are not happy with their job. That’s over 80,000,000 people! While few of us have little worry due to living on a yacht, if we have a consistent paycheck, a glass of clean water, a meal, a roof, and a friend, we already have some of the most practical life-giving elements we need. And most of us have so much more than this.
So, if you are prone to whining on the yacht, here are six reasons to be grateful today. And while not every one of these may be true at every moment in life, most of us have far more to be thankful for than we acknowledge.
1. Positive Perspective
My cousin is in the hospital waiting for a heart transplant. He is about my age (60s) and has a heart that is slowly failing. I have found his perspective encouraging over the past few years that he has been dealing with this. No whining. No “woe is me” talk. He still has his usual sense of humor. And he also has access to a world class hospital and medical team. He could find a lot of things to be unhappy about, but instead, he is thankful for his new grandchild, a great wife, and the fact that he has access to life-saving care that much of our world could not even imagine. While you may be in the midst of a hard circumstance, the ability to maintain a positive perspective and focus on the good is something to be grateful for.
2. Good Team Members
If you are one of the thousands of employees who work remote most of the time and like it, I am happy for you. But I have found that I am at my best when I am around other likeminded team members. There are times that, due to schedules, most of our team is out of the office. I can benefit from that for a few hours, but I then start to miss the human connection and conversations regarding that great streaming series someone is watching, or what they are doing for the weekend, or how that struggling family member is doing. If you are working (even if it is with imperfect team members), you still have the benefit of a job, a paycheck, some social connection, and the opportunity to serve others. That is worth some gratefulness.
3. Finances
How much do you make? And if you are married, what is your combined income? If your combined income is $90,000 or more, you are richer than 97% of the world population (according to Giving What We Can). And close to 50% of those in the U.S. fall into this category. This does not mean you do not struggle or that bills do not feel overwhelming at times. But keep it in perspective, you and I are making more than MOST OF THE WORLD POPULATION! While you may feel like you are living on a paddle board rather than a yacht, it is still worth controlling our whining because gratefulness is not determined by paycheck, but rather by perspective.
4. Meaningful Influence on Others
I went to two restaurants in one week where the wait staff at each was awesome. They were positive, helpful, and welcoming, almost making you feel like their friend. I also had the same experience with a bank manager and even a call center (yes, I know it is as rare as winning the lottery, but I actually had a good experience with a call center!). These were not life-transforming interactions, but they were meaningful, helpful, and encouraging. These service-oriented people understood that people matter and how we treat people matters. Grateful people make grateful people.
5. Freedom to Grow
Every employee has at least two freedoms to be grateful for, one of which is to grow. The workplace provides many employees with exceptional opportunities to learn new skills, gain more experiences, and acquire more credentials, to name a few. Contractors, department managers, financial services, accounting, human resources, project managers, and information technology are just a few of the areas with opportunities for specialized training. Yet, I have talked with employees and managers who have employer benefits to pay for such training, but they have chosen not to use it. That’s called leaving money on the table. They are missing the opportunity to grow as a person and as a professional.
6. Freedom to Go
There is another freedom most people have at their job – to leave it. I once worked for an organization that I loved. It had so many great people and so many growth opportunities for me. But I saw that proverbial writing on the wall that said, “Danger: Unhealthy Leadership Ahead. Time to go!” The warning signs were rapidly growing, and rather than stay around and whine about the dysfunction, I shared my concerns and then eventually peacefully moved on. I was not in a position to change the leadership and culture, and I wasn’t about to let the dysfunctional leader change me. There are billions of people around the world that do not have any options of going. Most of us do.
Over two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul said that we are to do everything without complaining or grumbling. He knew human nature all too well. After all, I fail at this about eight times a day (on a good day). Complaining and grumbling are second nature to most of us. As leaders, we have the opportunity to model the way by being grateful more than whiny.
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Jay Desko is the President & CEO of The Center Consulting Group and brings experience in the areas of organizational assessment, leadership coaching, decision-making, and strategic questioning. Jay’s degrees include an M.Ed. in Instructional Systems Design from Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Leadership from The Union Institute.
