Can you remember the first statistic you read that changed your perspective?
I’d like to think my kids experienced this the day I told them about a statistic I’m going to call “one out of twenty.” When they were young, I shared with them that about one out of twenty people on the planet call the United States home.
I pointed this out to them because it can be easy to take the things we have in life for granted. I wanted them to understand that not everyone shared the privileges our family enjoyed, and they should be grateful for the life they have.
After all, it’s only by acknowledging everything we can be grateful for that we can truly internalize and then express that gratitude. Otherwise, we remain blind to our blessings because we’re accustomed to having them.
Continuing this gratitude exercise, I shared with them that even among those one out of twenty individuals in the US, . only about one out of twenty of them have the type of home, income, and opportunities our family has.
I helped them with the math: that we were in a small group of only about one out of four hundred people in the whole world.
Take being a business owner as an example. I’m no stranger to the fact that entrepreneurship in the States is a unique freedom in itself. When I talk about who we are at J Street, I recall my early days building the company from scratch in my spare bedroom.
Now, my amazing team of developers have helped hundreds of our clients across various industries improve their businesses with custom software solutions – all because I live in a country where the opportunity to pursue a dream is available to me, and because I was fortunate enough to be born into a family who could help me get a good education and provide a financial safety net.
Although my estimates were a little off (the US actually represents about one out of twenty-four people in the world), the lessons were received. My (now adult) kids appreciate what they have, and they both work to help others and make the world better.
