Growing with Grace: My latest NHBR Column

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”— Anne Frank  

Back in 2020, I wrote a column titled “Living Your Values at Work.” I referred to the final line in Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day: “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” I included Stephen Covey’s famous advice to “put first things first” and argued that the “first thing” is to clarify your core values. In “Dare to Lead,” Brené Brown makes the case that value clarity, “is an essential support, a North Star in times of darkness.” Brown advocates for identifying your top two values and offers a list of 100 possibilities.  

For my top two, I picked growing and grace and also listed my secondary values: courage, authenticity, gratitude, faith, family, hope, connection, curiosity, love, leadership, joy, respect, vision, teamwork, trust, and positive energy.  

Growing is a key concept I emphasize in my leadership workshops – a willingness to always strive to improve and stretch oneself. Grace speaks to my religious experience and the importance of embracing kindness. Identifying growing and grace as my top two values helps me focus on who I want to be and how I want to show up.   

In that 2020 column I included this idea: “The bottom line in life is the quality of relationships and connections with others: how we touch and influence people and how they touch and influence us. The rest is just details.” We each have an extraordinary opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives, including our own. Don’t underestimate your impact!   

You can read the full column at https://read.nhbr.com/nh-business-review#2026/11/06/?article=4435340.