Daily Inspiration: “Don’t define yourself by what you are against, but rather, what you stand for!”

Oops!

They don’t do that much anymore…

And so today, I’m with a similar audience – I’m in Dana Park, California, speaking to the American Association of Cotton Shippers. Yup, people who ship the cotton that helps to clothe the world. I’ll take a look at a wide variety of trends that provide opportunities for growth and innovation.

In the program they acknowledge their new reality: “Last year our industry was focused on cotton flow, now we have entered into a major trade war with our largest customer, China.”

Oops!

Yet. I’d bet dollars to donuts that I could easily guess who the majority of folks in the room voted for. Just like the soybean folks. They voted for what they were against, all the while being busy speaking about what they stood for. So while they talked about the opportunity for growth with China, they voted for someone who would take their success away.

Hypocrisy can be a bitch at times!

What’s the lesson from these times of crazy idiocy? I’m not quite sure, but we’ll probably look back at this era, either from the dust of a nuclear war or with a firm set of ideals, ‘never again.’

You can learn from what the world is going through during this era – it’s better to make a decision going forward that you will define yourself by what you stand for. Moral values, compassion, a belief that its ok to help your fellow member of mankind, that we are all just inhabitants of a small world.

Don’t narrow your world into a focus of ‘us and them,’ hatred, and anger.

Don’t let history look back on your brief time here and define you based on what you stood against.

Let history judge you on what you stood for.