Now is the perfect time to look out for others

From the Desk of Chuck Fuller, CEO, The Results Company

Whether your “side” won or lost this week, I hope that you, like me, feel lighter after the weight of this long-fought political battle has finally been lifted.

Our TRC Nexus team is building an informative and valuable Saturday topic schedule to close out the year, one that will not be overly political – it’s minor in the context of your lives, but hopefully, it offers some small respite.

Every Thanksgiving, I have the privilege of offering my perspective on some or another matter related to my favorite holiday. I’ve thought over the past few weeks about what I’d like to say this year, and it struck me that part of what’s in my mind is better suited for today, a few weeks before the holiday.

As always, thank you for reading.

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For every negative thing that comes against me, I hope to find something positive to put in its place.

In my younger years, I worked at Carolina Power & Light across North Carolina and later led our customer contact teams in Asheville and other parts of CP&L’s WNC territory. I witnessed toughness and resiliency in the mountain folks, I experienced their fierce independence, and I loved their passionate care and concern for their neighbors during challenging times.

So, it was no surprise to me that every December, an elderly female customer would stop in and visit with me. Her light bill wasn’t the main purpose of her trip to Asheville. She came into town to visit the Salvation Army basket in front of our building.

Her Christmas present to herself every year was dropping a check in the basket. I have no idea how big the check was – it was probably modest. The point is, she found pride and self-worth in helping others, especially in their time of need and especially around the holidays.

That memory came back to me as I sat at my desk, and my thoughts drifted to what Thanksgiving will look like for families in western North Carolina. Some don’t have a kitchen to cook in or reliable water to use. Some will have an empty seat around the table this year, and maybe more than one.

The takeaway here, at least for me, is not specific to our fellow North Carolinians displaced because of Hurricane Helene, though their need this holiday season is certainly acute. The takeaway is helping others, anywhere and by any means, is a joyous, soul-nourishing experience.

Indeed, that spirit is woven into our country’s very being. Those who read the pieces I author know that I often turn to history and to my personal religious beliefs to guide my thoughts. In American Gospel, Jon Meacham describes the founders’ humility in recognizing they must subjugate their narrow political interests to a greater purpose. They looked to the morality and provenance taught by Christianity to ground them:

And yet even the most single-minded advocates of religious freedom were personally motivated and inspired by religious convictions. One man said this of the creation of the Constitution: “It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution.” The author of these words? Not a clergyman nor an avowed churchman, but James Madison, in Federalist No. 37.
Meacham also quotes Benjamin Franklin during the Constitutional Convention discussing his appeal to a higher power as the assembly tried to square competing political interests:

We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running all about in search of it. In this situation of this assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark, to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered.
I find personal peace in looking to God. Others may hold a different religion than me or no religion at all, and that’s, of course, perfectly acceptable. But like the founders, escaping the narrow political battles of the day and contemplating a purpose greater than oneself humbles and settles the mind.

As Thanksgiving approaches, giving to others – strangers or family or friends – seems a good way to accomplish that.

Humbly submitted with a grateful heart,

Chuck