Focus on gratitude

Ten years ago, Glenn Rieker lost his sister. She felt sick one day in September and was dead seven days later. She was 56.

“I went back to my clients and said, ‘Every morning, I’m eating breakfast at home. We’re not going to work weekends.’ We’ll start work at 8 a.m. and stop at 5 p.m. I don’t want to be married to a business. I’m riding my bike. I’m going to be a little kid every morning, then go to work and do the serious stuff.”

In short, Glenn said, he realized that life was too short to spend it caught up worrying about the wrong things.

Glenn runs MKEGreenworks, a small landscape company in Wisconsin, with his wife, Cheryl. I called him to talk about how he uses technology to be more efficient, but it’s this part of our conversation that stuck with me.

November is a month when we (hopefully) focus on gratitude and thanksgiving, because in the normal hustle of everyday life, it’s easy for us to lose sight of those small things that are so important. I have three kids, so sometimes the morning rush of packing lunches and getting the kids to the bus stop on time can suddenly seem so important – can suddenly seem like the most important thing in the world – that I don’t realize that, really, I get to walk my oldest daughter down the street and talk with her while the sun rises. Instead of getting up early and checking my email for emergencies, I can focus instead on the fact that I get to have coffee with my wife before she leaves for work.

Maybe for you it’s the rush of morning roll out and two guys calling in “sick” and a skid-steer that won’t start. Maybe it’s the stress of trying to make up for three days of rain in a row, or how to get to five sales calls all over town in three hours.

At one point, my life was severely out of balance. I was too focused on work and not enough on my family. I was traveling 120 days a year. I was always first at the office and last to leave. I don’t do that anymore. I still work hard and I still really enjoy what I get to do every day, but I have a new perspective now.

All that stuff that seems so important in the moment – the school bus, the email, the broken equipment, the next call – isn’t, not in the long run. Here’s what is important: I have a beautiful and smart and caring wife who helps make me better. I have three amazing kids who teach me something every day. I have good friends and a family that loves me. I have a great job where I get to talk with folks like Glenn.

In short, I have a lot to be grateful for, and that’s what I work every day to focus on. – Chuck Bowen