Venturing Forth with an Attitude of Gratitude

This past Wednesday, CoFounder and CEO Felicite Moorman and CoFounder and CTO Ryan Buchert hosted the Wednesdays at 1 webinar and discussed the importance of an attitude of gratitude. Add this event to your weekly calendar by registering here.

Felicite opened with an Easter anecdote and audience members chimed in about how this holiday weekend may be different for them this year. (Answers edited for clarity and brevity)

Felicite Moorman (FM):  I have an Easter story. We were at church one Easter and my son Finn  was probably 3. The preacher invited all the children to the front to tell the story of Easter and Finn sees the looks of deep concern on all these little kids’ faces and he jumps up on stage next to the preacher and says, “Guys! Don’t worry. I know how this ends! It’s a happy ending! You don’t have to be sad!” It was such a beautiful moment and I’m so grateful to have that memory. I would love to hear from you, how you’re connecting with friends and family. I know Ryan is newly connecting with family digitally.

Ryan Buchert (RB): I did a Zoom with my family who has never used it before. My grandma, who is over 90, was on Zoom. My family liked it so much we’re doing it again today. 

FM: This is a great idea. If you want to connect with your family for Easter or Seder, you could give 1:1 training so they feel comfortable using the technology. We are going to teach my dad how to use Amazon Alexa Show to see our family and play some dice, and just see each other.

Audience member: My mom ran Easter egg dyeing for the entire family for 60-70 people. This is the first year in 50 years that that’s not happening. We’ve been doing Sunday dinners and the past 3 weeks it’s been on Zoom, and it’s been great. I don’t know how to make the holidays close to what it was, but it’ll be okay.

FM: Our neighborhood has an Easter egg hunt, so people can put pictures or drawings of eggs on their windows or door, and kids walking around can spot them while they’re getting fresh air and exercise.

Team member: We’ve been reading The Little Prince to the older boys and the younger kids can join in if they want to.

Team member: One idea we’re thinking of this weekend is a virtual egg hunt: we hide eggs in our yard, my brother-in-law hides eggs in his yard, and all the grandparents, uncles, and aunts watch. It’s a little hack.

FM: We’ve been talking a lot about gratitude generally, but this past week I just hit a wall. When I pulled myself back together, I went to Ryan, and asked, “Why are you dealing with this so much better than I am?” You have a very different perspective in dealing with this.

RB: It’s a little bit of what I’m doing and what I’m experiencing. I’m focusing on process and for me, my life processes have become so normalized and predictable. Everything around me is becoming more structured. Also, things can fit into life now in ways they previously didn’t, like I’m seeing my family more. We’re seeing people helping each other in new ways. It’s very powerful to me to see these moments. I was reading an article that some people with depression may be better off because the problem they’ve worried about has now happened: the whole thing has crashed. They’re now in a more predictable state because their fear has already happened.

FM: I had to stop listening to NPR when getting ready in the morning and I don’t check the news until after 5. It’s a rollercoaster.

What have you been grateful for? This can be anything from relationships, household items, snacks, whatever is on your mind.

FM: All of the snacks, pretty grateful for the Double Stuf Oreos. I’m also drinking a lot of water.

RB: I’ve been grateful for these moments.

FM: Anyone else have something they’re grateful for? Something that’s even surprised you?

Team member: My family is in New York and I found out you can text NYC foods to a phone number, and starting this past Monday, you can get 3 free meals a day, available for all New Yorkers. The school across the street from my parents is offering 3 free meals per day and they can head across the street if they need it. I was grateful for it, and I immediately wept. In the line of grateful, that’s what I got for you.

FM: For New York City to step up like that with everything else going on, that’s profound. I get that constant combination of gratitude, relief, and grief. It’s nearly impossible to differentiate. Grief.com has a lot of information about why this is a time of grieving unlike any other. Our grief is often mixed with gratitude.

Team member: I’m also from New York and my cousin had covid. He’s doing well now, and his wife gave birth yesterday and he was banned from the hospital but he was able to watch the birth on FaceTime. Everyone’s healthy and doing well.

What opportunities or privileges are you thankful for?

FM: When we first moved into the house, we could only be on the third floor, and there were 8 beings with the children being homeschooled. It was a stressful 6 months. When I get irritated, I think “what if we still lived on the third floor?” so I have gratitude for space. We’re doing intense things in an intense time. Space is a tremendous privilege.

RB: We’ve had time to streamline and fix things that have been going for so long. The aspects that aren’t turning right now, we can fix those with minimal disruption.

FM: And a great point, it’s a tremendous privilege to still be working at all. We can’t guarantee that we’ll be able to work this well for a long time but for the foreseeable future, we still get to deliver, and it is a tremendous privilege. In 2008, it was different, but I could not carry on like we can now.

RB: 6 months ago we planned what features we would build to be recession-resistant. Some of these things are coming to fruition now.

Audience member: I’ve got one. The opportunity to sit back and the opportunity to refine our offering.

FM: What we at STRATIS are thinking about is how to extend this camaraderie that we’ve seen during these times in the future too.

Be the helpers, Friends.