Don’t Fake It

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I don’t believe in positive mental attitude. I believe that having a positive attitude is simply about being humble and grateful. Have you ever met someone that was nearly impossible to encourage? These people are professional self-fulfilling prophets who intentionally let anybody who will listen know how unfair life has been for them. They typically end sentences with… whatever. I’m not here to criticize but the quicker we own ALL of our life the sooner we break through. 

I do believe that a negative attitude is a key ingredient to low self-esteem and loneliness. People that remain negative protect themselves from risk by settling. Once you settle and others don’t you become envious of the others that jumped while you sat down. Envy leads to anger which culminates in apathy.  Apathy if not detected and eliminated early can become viral and destroy a healthy culture overnight.

You can’t fake optimism. To be optimistic one must understand that a perceived failure is simply a building block for future success. Remember rock bottom is one heck of a strong foundation. 

Jump,

Matt Davenport

C.E.O.

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Stop and Smell the Roses

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Stop and smell the roses. This phrase has been used to explain the importance of slowing down and even stopping to observe the beauty of life. Most often we race from destination to destination. We need to graduate, get a job, get married, buy a house, have kids, build a career, plan retirement, retire and then travel (code for smelling roses).

It’s kind of sad when it’s written out like that. We are goal-driven and seek to accomplish in order to better our station in life. Goals are great and hard work is even better but is it possible that we’re driven to accomplish simply because we can. To my knowledge, we are the only species in the universe that can cogitate, set goals, work hard, fail time after time, work harder and then achieve them. It is also my understanding that we are the only species that is able to make a conscious decision to stop and enjoy life.

Vacationing is not the answer. Stopping and smelling the roses is different from planning, saving, and initiating travel to anywhere but home. Stopping requires you to halt forward motion. To stop our forward motion requires as much discipline as a movement. It seems simple but it’s not. Stopping is frowned on. Stopping will get you honked at and have people questioning your abilities and common sense.

Smelling is one of the five senses and more importantly, the one tied closest to memory. Smelling requires a deep breath and typically ends with a smirk or smile. Today is the day that you have the opportunity to slow your heart rate. Take a walk outside, set the goals aside, come to a complete stop, take a big inhale through your nose and exhale with gratitude for all that you have been given.

Breathe,

Matt Davenport

C.E.O.

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TOO BLESSED TO BE STRESSED

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I have been in the landscape industry for 20 years. Like most careers, you have generally good days and some bad days. The majority of bad days consist of the feeling like the world won’t keep spinning unless you send your report out. On top of that, we start feeling underappreciated and deserving of more.

I had one of those days 15 years ago. I remember having a feeling of defeat and despair as I began to realize I had more to get done than was possible. As I walked onto the job site to complete item 1 of 150,000 I was notably stressed out. I began to survey the landscape crew when I noticed the writing on a gentlemen’s hat. The script clearly read, “Too blessed to be stressed”. It hit me, my stress was really based on me trying to manage all the good things that had been given to me.

It’s important we acknowledge that the good things in our life have been given to us and not earned. Sure, we work hard and pay our dues, but we are not now and never have been deserving of the blessings in our life.

As your Chief Encouragement Officer, I want to remind you that you’re incredibly blessed. More than 750 million people alive today cannot read because they were not given the opportunity to learn. You on the other hand can read this on a variety of digital platforms and internet-ready devices. If we start by acknowledging that we deserve nothing we begin to recognize that every day is a gift.

Let it flow,

Matt Davenport

C.E.O.

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