National Grandparents Day, a day to honor the beloved parents of our parents, is recognized on the first Sunday of September after Labor Day each year. Annually, the special day reminds us to cherish and celebrate how our grandmas and grandpas have enriched our lives.
Beyond the treasured childhood memories of hugs, storytelling, and holiday traditions, our grandparents have given us other lifelong gifts. They have demonstrated exemplary qualities that—if we’ve paid attention to and have emulated them—empower us to be better business owners.
Traditional virtues that never go out of style
Grandparents embody some characteristics that we should embrace in our professional as well as personal lives. Those that I’ve found to play a significant role in overcoming the challenges of starting and running a business include:
Fortitude
Finding courage in the face of adversity doesn’t always come easily. I’ve learned this from watching my grandparents navigate some of life’s most pressing issues. They faced things like illness, financial woes, and emotional distress with grit and resolve. The saying, “When times get tough, the tough get going” is a mantra my grandparents lived by.
The lesson: Realize difficult circumstances will happen in business; if you want to succeed, you need to find the strength to ride out the storm.
Resilience
Along with the fortitude to survive tough times, my grandparents showed the determination to bounce back from setbacks. They demonstrated the importance of learning from hardships and using their experiences to become more resourceful and capable of handling whatever challenges came their way.
The lesson: Every setback is an opportunity to come back stronger than before. Don’t wallow in your failures; learn from them and use them to your advantage.
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Patience
“Good things come to those who wait.” My grandparents believed this and showed an exceptional degree of patience when teaching us grandkids a craft, or waiting for our episodes of teen angst to subside. They never expected instantaneous results; they understood that positive change takes time.
The lesson: Success does not happen overnight. Accept that it requires working through a process.
Focus
My grandparents never let distractions get in their way. When taking on a task, they always gave it their full attention until it got done. To them, if it was worth doing, it was worth doing right.
The lesson: Multitasking dilutes how effectively you can do any one thing. Instead, give each task uninterrupted focus before moving on to the next.
Perseverance
This trait represents the culmination of all the others. My grandparents were always steadfast in staying the course, no matter what difficulties they faced. This required fortitude, resilience, patience, and focus, combined with keeping the end goal in mind at all times.
The lesson: As Stephen R. Covey writes in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, begin with the end in mind. And don’t lose sight of that desired end. Success requires vision and the will to continually work toward what you want to achieve.
Honoring our grandparents’ legacy
While only one day each year has been officially set aside as National Grandparents Day, I would argue that every day should be one to treasure our grandparents’ impact on our lives. By leading by example, they have shown us the power of hard work and strength of character.
Don’t we owe it to them to embrace and purposefully use the tried and true old-school values they’ve demonstrated? What better way to honor their legacy?
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