Where to start on hope? This emotion, this virtue, this value and way of thinking that [I feel] gets less weighty attention than it deserves. No matter your religious or spiritual beliefs, most people can agree that the notion of ‘breaking bread’ and sharing a meal together can create a simply sense of belonging or just a warm atmosphere.

Make mine a crusty chewy baguette with butter, s’il vout plaît!

Why hope, why now? Well, a few reasons (she says with her mouth full)…

"Hope isn't a strategy,"

said my 78-year old Dad on Sunday after his tire blow-out on the highway.

In the midst of his 45 min drive to my house, for a birthday dinner, knowing his phone had switched to SOS mode, with no way of contacting... anyone.

Dad told me he sat in the car on shoulder of the highway and thought, “I'm always on time. After 30 minutes, they'll know something is wrong and they'll come looking."

I stood in my kitchen icing the cake and thought, “Dad's always on time. If he’s not here after 30 minutes, something is wrong. We'll go looking."

After 20 minutes, my phone rang from an Unknown Number. I didn't Answer. It rang again. So, I did. It was The Man That Stopped when he saw my Dad and his cane, lurching along the roadside... having decided that hobbling along was a strategy, but sitting safely roadside hoping was… not.

So, he decided hope wasn't an active-enough strategy, but, IMHO, he could've waited and hope woulda worked just fine.

But seriously. What about hope?

Should we take it seriously? If hope is not a strategy, does it have a role to play in Business success? Relational success? War success?

Hope is generally believed to be…

• a positive emotion

• an expectation that things will improve in the future

• an essential component of our well-being

• a powerful protector against the dread of a chronic or life-threatening illness

• an opportunity for us to process events that seem insurmountable

• the antidote to today’s chaotic world

Harvard Medical School says so, which must mean that hope carries a bit of gravitas…

Hope, via Morale, is a Winning Strategy

The theme of hope pervades recent movie, “The Six Triple Eight”, featuring Kerry Washington. A true story, the film beautifully honors the incredible contribution of black women in World War II. In the face of incessant adversity, these women were effectively asked to restore and build hope on the battlefields.

Mail - yes mail - to servicemen from families back home, and for those families in return, had been delayed beyond measure. The letters, and nestled within, the photos, mementos and treats were stuck in backlog, held captive in piles upon piles within warehouses upon warehouses at a staging post in Britain.

The women of the Six Triple Eight were given six months to process this enormous backlog. Thanks to the realization and recognition [by Eleanor Roosevelt] that the psychological impact of not receiving mail in wartime was devastating; leaving soldiers hopeless, at a time when morale is just as important as might and muscle.

Hope is sometimes equated with burying your head in the sand or ignoring reality… simply waiting for things to get better. But, hope is actually considered by psychologists as a much more nuanced process, involving well-known concepts, like goal-setting, agency, and even cognitive restructuring.

“Hope isn’t a denial of what is, but a belief that the current situation is not all that can be,” said Thema Bryant, PhD, of the American Psychological Association.

[with hope]

“you can recognize something’s wrong, but also that it’s not the end of the story.”

Unlike optimism, which is simply the expectation of a better future, hope is action-oriented and a skill that can be learned.

Just like breaking bread, together.

This week’s visit to The Loo is a beautiful one. A family one. A hopeful one. Over the years, I’ve sat and looked at this green guy on a pedestal on the wall as I nip away from a family meal. He sits and stares. He sits while I sit. Presumably the men stand while he sits. We share time together. No words or motivational phrases in this loo, but I always hope he will still be there for my next visit.

OK, I lied. We all [I] need a few motivational phrases, so here they are. Clashy and they clearly don’t belong in the beautiful loo above, but let’s imagine David Shrigley’s ‘News’ poster is on the wall.. or these sayings are découpaged onto the magazine rack…

Hope in Business. Hope in Me.

Imagine if we didn’t have hope.

Imagine, instead if we have the opposite - hopelessness or despair.

Now imagine the combination of joy and despair when I did some ‘inner work’ on my own value system. What do I - ABBY - bring to the world? I’ve never been too concerned about what I bring to my family or my friends or the people who love me for who I am. But considering I help businesses to build their brand value systems for a living, I felt I should know and be able to communicate my own values. Right?

Ugh. When I dug a bit deeper, I learned that my core value is Hope.

At first, it made me smile.

Of course, hope. How sweet.

Then, I thought. Oh Shit.

What does that mean in the Board Room? On an Executive Team? Who hires for Hope? When was the last time you saw the word HOPE on the Headhunters’ Brief, the Recruiter’s Notes, within a Job Description or headlining an RFP?

Seriously.

Yet, I’ll bet if you do a search on your emails, your texts, DMs and more you’ll find that the word ‘hope’ appears almost as much as ‘Hello’ or ‘Hi’ or ’Thanks’ or ‘Regards’… doesn’t it? Well, it does in my Outbox.

Hello Client | Colleague | Boss,

I hope you’re well…

I hope that new project is going well…

I hope you feel better soon…

I hope it’s OK to ask…

Hope to hear from you soon…

Let’s hope… we can only hope…

See what I mean? Hope is everywhere and it’s always well-intended and well-received.

Like a handshake.

Hope, as I learned in Entrepreneur magazine, allows leaders to lead better, to collaborate at the highest potential, to always imagine a better outcome, to find solutions to problems and to create energy that pushes the team forward. Phew.

So, yes, I live knowing that hope is a strategy.

Planning a Meal around Hope

When it came down to planning a Hūset meal around Hope… it was little bit trickier. Yet, the timing for the subject of hope felt compelling to me on so many levels.

My starting point was to Break Bread Together. What better a way to show hope and food at its very best? Well, upon research, I think it’s worth knowing and sharing that there are other inspiring ways to serve up hope:

Harvest Meals

Golden Sunrise Meal

Comfort Food. Chicken Soup, obvs.

Rainbow-Inspired treats

Heck, simple food served with a candle and a wish… whether a birthday, a hello, a goodbye… or, simply,

I hope you know I care.

When hope serves us

When hope fuels resilience, inspires action, and gives us the strength to endure challenges. Hope helps us to imagine a better future, to foster creativity, encouraging us to think beyond immediate obstacles.

Here’s hoping at the very least that the US finds its way out of processing and chemicals and [back] into natural foods, grown well. I for one would love to break a French baguette with you all… but won’t go near American processed bread food for love nor money.

Hope helps us move forward,

even when the path isn’t clear.

ABBY