Culture Mothers

There is a group of women I call the “culture mothers.”  One day at social gathering with my daughters and their friends, we got into a discussion and I told a story of once creating a positive culture in an organization I ran.  One of the women became animated and indicated she wanted to create such a culture in her home.  I expected the conversation to end there.  It did not.  She and my daughters continued to pepper me with questions.  They said they wanted to meet and explore the notion of positive culture in detail so they could become the creators of positive culture in their homes.

We have had a few meetings.  The four women are more diligent than any class I have ever taught.  They pour over the material.  They are so engaged we seldom cover more than a few paragraphs.  They give themselves homework.  They are completely open and inspire one another.  They try to apply everything.  One recently said, “Our meetings are the highlight of my month.”

They have each clarified their life purpose.  They have engaged their husbands in creating family visions and creeds.  They have introduced new practices that they invented.  One, for example, created a “love and gratitude wall” with pictures of people that love her child.  The wall also has empty places for daily pictures of things for which her child is grateful.  Before the child says her prayers at night, she reviews the love wall.

These women have intensified their spiritual practices.  They have envisioned new personal disciplines they wish to explore.  Every week they grow.

I find myself marveling at this group.  Why are they so engaged?  The answer is they recognize the negative aspects of the world that would pull their children down; they love their children; and they are fully committed to creating a culture in which their children can realize their own potential despite the world surrounding them.  They are all in.  Because they are all in, they are willing to learn not only from failure but from social excellence.  They are willing to transcend ego, run experiments, and learn how to wield increased positive influence.

 

Reflection

  • Are you a creator of positive culture in your home and/or at your work?
  • Do you feel about your people at work the way these women feel about their children at home? What if you did?
  • How would your life change if you followed the example of the culture mothers?
  • How could we use this passage to create a more positive organization?

One comment on “Culture Mothers

  1. “You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, hold on to the affirmative, don’t mess with mister in between.”

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