Embracing the opportunity to reinvent ourselves

Some of you have had the great fortune of meeting my father through your work with Advantage over the years, however I realize that most of you have not. For context, my father may be one of the few people you encounter in your life who is in the running for canonization as one of history’s greatest optimists.

When I was a kid I used to chuckle at his response when others would ask how he was doing. Instead of “fine,” or “really good, thanks,” or even “great,” he would often say, “If I was any better, I’d be twins.” I still don’t really know what that means but I’ve always assumed it the most positive and happy way he could think of expressing himself.

Over the last 18 months, we’ve been presented with only a handful of opportunities to feel such overflowing positivity. However, we have much to celebrate even if it isn’t all in the “plus” column of our lives. At the most basic levels, we’ve been tested by survival and resilience, and we’re winning! We’ve proven to ourselves that we are stronger and more capable than we thought as individuals and as members of communities. Better yet, we’ve innovated and are fully embracing the opportunity to reinvent ourselves when it comes to both our personal and professional lives.

For the last 6 years of my tenure as CEO of Advantage, we’ve rallied as a team around a singular purpose: To provide others the opportunities to do the best work of their lives. We want to thank all of you with whom we’ve been able to partner allowing us to embody this ethos in our own work.

We’ve also made a lot of new friends who joined us in our efforts in 2020 to “pivot together in challenging times” and make available free content, experiences, and thought leadership intended to provide professional support so we could all individually continue our quest to do the best work of our lives. We continued those efforts this year in a similar vein with our series on innovation.

In that same spirit, Advantage has 2 upcoming events to which I would like to extend a personal invitation:

• First, we’re leading a research-based discussion Tuesday, September 14, on best practices for the future of work, specifically how leaders and their teams must change how they work together (and why) to excel in the hybrid workplace. (Join us here.)
• Second, we’re offering a free “back-to-school” series of 6 mini classes starting Friday, September 17, putting those new best practices into the context of our most popular leadership development tools and experiences. We welcome one and all! (Register here.)

I want to thank you all for all you do for your companies, your teams, yourself, and our broad community here at Advantage. I hope to see you all soon.

Jon