Stacking Wins
We recently procured some office space for Northern Vessel, called NV HQ. It's not a great space, but it's our space.....and the vibe perfectly fits our personality as a brand. It will be a space for team meetings, strategy sessions, and creative workshops. It will also house our storage overflow, which has been facilitated via a few storage units. All in all, this is a massive development for us, and we're excited to have more room to be us.
I bring that up for one specific reason. When I first walked into the half-completed space, a giant mobile whiteboard was positioned against the wall. At the top were the words "Stacking Wins." I smiled, as this has become our recent motto for approaching business. As we reflected back on 2024, it was so easy to recall the crappy times:
Getting hit by the second car in nine months.
Closing down our canning operation (which was easily the worst business venture I've attempted in my life).
Enduring a disastrous event that we put much time, energy, and resources into.
Battling A/C issues at the shop during the scorching summer weeks.
The list goes on.
It would be so easy for us to define our year by those memorable failings. However, that's only part of the story.....a very small part. As humans, we often dwell on the crap while taking the good for granted. The complete story of Northern Vessel in 2024 was a monumental win. If true, how do we combat our human nature to forget the good and dwell on the bad?
Stacking wins! As 2025 unfolds, we will use that whiteboard to document any and all wins. We're going to stack them visually for all of us to see, remember, celebrate, and embrace. We already have eight wins stacked on the board three weeks into the year. Some are small wins, and some are huge wins. Creating NV HQ is one of them!
Now, every time we feel beaten down by a recent whiff, we can look at our stacked wins and remind ourselves that we have much to be grateful for. I'll be implementing this in my personal life as well, and I invite you to do the same. Inventory your wins. Write them down. Stack them. Then, when life gets tough (because that's what life does), you can refer back to your stacked wins and realize you, too, have much to be grateful for.
2025 is the year of wins. Embrace them. Celebrate them. Remember them. Stack them.
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