Deepening Our Belief in Abundance.
The last 6 months have been eventful for sure! It feels on so many levels like it has been one thing after another. At CTE we have been using this time to deepen our belief in abundance. I mean, just 17 years ago we were but a dream…and 5 years ago…covid sent us on the most insane roller coaster in our existence. In 2020, we were just hitting a stride of consistent growth and profits. Our banker friends were a little less bossy, our bank accounts a bit fuller and we’d finally gotten the balls to sign a 10-year lease. We were faithfully creating a conservative budget, slightly beating our goals each year. Slow, Steady and up and to the right, thank you very much.
Obviously, the universe had different plans. The world had become; “unprecedented”, “tumultuous”, right was no longer right and up, well up was having a moment. Everything went up! Spending, buying, ordering, shipping, storing, chaos… WE had no idea what was happening one minute to the next – let alone quarter to quarter, or year to year. The future was so dense with fog you would be lucky to forecast the next two weeks effectively.
We anchored ourselves by tapping into the beliefs of our early days in sales…“what goes up, must come down.” We had experienced plenty of “blue birds” to spot a sale that wasn’t “sustainable” or “real”, basically the opposite of anything fundamental. We had held to the belief that when sales are up – you eat the top ramen. When sales are down, and the pressure is on – you use the savings from the ramen to buy yourself that delicious steak. So that’s what we did – we held on for the ride, investing wisely, and saved for the inevitable “down”. We consciously chose our growth, we worked so hard to not overextend ourselves – we kept the graphs, steady, slow and up to the right in the pace we knew and understood and despite the chaos that was happening in the world.
Which brings us back to the present moment. The down started in November, gave a big ol’ high five in December and drug itself straight into 2025. It reminds me of the moment the roller coaster has reached the top of the peak and there is that moment in time when everything stands still. Suddenly, the cart races to the bottom, if you’re lucky straight into a corkscrew, and if even more lucky an upside-down loop. All of that to say, even if you know the offset is coming – it never, ever feels less scary. Even if you know it will come. Even if you have planned it. Everything comes into question. Fear and anxiety set in. The discomfort seems unbearable, and you yearn for the day when everything was just simpler!
We find ourselves again in a world that seems to have a real distaste for being boring. Days that begin with new tariffs or policies only by lunchtime to have everything turned in the opposite direction. One day everything is up – the next day, everything is down. There is again, so much uncertainty. The good news? The last 5 years have prepared us for this. It’s almost like in some ways chaos has become boring. Overdone. Trying to keep up with events is just… well, exhausting. There is obviously a large population of the world that really, really likes trying to do things the hard way. But that is not CTE. We loathe inefficiency.
For all these reasons we choose to lean into gratitude.
Gratitude. Faith. Abundance. The steaks have been ordered. The plans are implemented. We wake up every morning and do what we have always done. We plan. We create an amazing work culture. We give our clients the best service they have ever experienced. We take our role in our clients’ business success very seriously. WE manage our budget. We learn. We grow. We solve problems. We streamline. We simplify. We keep building a team so strong – and keep creating amazing days that add up one at a time to an amazing life.