What Experience Do You ‘Get To’ Create for Someone Today?

It hasn’t been an easy year, and I won’t be sad to say goodbye to 2024. I’m looking at 2025 as a complete reset and a time to focus on positivity, hope, and community.

Meanwhile, having just experienced the American Thanksgiving holiday, I’m struck by my gratitude for everything that happened (and even things that didn’t happen) this year.

What helped me get to this place? A simple check-in, where I ask myself, “What eyes am I judging this situation with?” 

I won’t belabor all the options here. You’ll likely understand what I mean when I say we all have child’s eyes, adult’s eyes, cynical eyes, the ego’s eyes, etc. 

I’ve made it a habit to ask which lens is coloring my judgment in any situation. Then, I try on my lens of gratitude. 

Understanding the gratitude assignment

Traveling home on a cross-country flight recently, I had an unusual experience. As my fellow passengers and I waited for the flight to take off, we listened to the usual dings, dongs, and announcements.

Then, the pilot came walking down the aisle, introducing himself to everyone. Every single person.

When he got to the business travel veteran in seat 3C, he joked about commuting 2,500 miles. When he got to the nervous woman in seat 10A, he reassured her that today’s flight would be smooth and uneventful. When he got to the family with the crying toddler, he offered some baby talk, some comforting words, and a piece of candy.

When the captain passed my seat on his way back to the cockpit, I asked whether he does this on every flight.

He said, “You know, people either hate our company or love it based on many things that I have no control over. My crew and I play such a tiny part that it would be easy to do less. Nobody would notice. But we do what we do anyway. I’m happier if my crew, my passengers, and I all have a great experience. Having gratitude for all of it makes the job better.”

His outlook made me think of my grandfather, who used to ask me, “What experience did you create for someone today?” This question was his way of teaching me that when you create a positive experience for another person, you get to experience that positivity, too.

This captain and his crew were a living testament to that idea.

All the usual trappings of the flight experience were still there: The usual entreaty to apply for the partner’s credit card, the standard brand content from both automated systems (the preflight instruction video) and real live humans.

But by looking through the lens of gratitude, the pilot and crew created the best experience they could for others, creating a better experience for themselves.

‘We get to’ (it’s a privilege)

This lesson applies to marketers, too. In a year like the one we’ve all been through, a lot of things feel like a series of “we have tos.” We have to finish phase two of the marketing plan. We have to create another thought leadership piece. We have to get our act together to measure our impact. 

But what if you switch that lens to “we get to” instead? “I have to write my column for CMI this week” becomes, “I get to write this column every week.”  

That’s how I feel.

You may sometimes feel that the experiences your content or marketing create are a drop in the ocean of the overall customer experience. No matter what you do, your company will probably get some excellent ratings and some not-so-great ratings.

People may hate some of your campaigns. People may love some of your other campaigns. Either way, there’s always room for improvement. Your work is never “done.”

You always have a choice. You can do your job by the book, resigned to the notion that any experience you create has a minuscule effect.

Or you can commit to creating remarkable experiences, one after the other, and feel gratitude for getting to do that.

I promise there’s a difference.

The lens of gratitude

Gratitude is an extraordinary lens at work in our personal relationships. If you look at conflicts and community you create through a lens of gracious gratitude, then you get to:

• Create that next great business strategy or brand
• Code your next project
• Visit with friends at dinner
• Argue over politics at dinner

Even that last one becomes a privilege. 

In its own way, gratitude represents evolutionary change and — yes — hope. You may or may not like the direction or the source. You may feel discouraged and appalled over the anger it can incite. But you can still be grateful that it causes us to think or act differently.

I’m deeply grateful for my family, my friends, my colleagues, my clients, and all the people I get to interact with every day.

But I’m also grateful for all those I don’t know, who I don’t like, and who may never realize the impact (good or bad) they’ve had on me. 

I’m reminded of this quote from Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer: “I always think that we all live, spiritually, by what others have given us in the significant hours of our life.”

What remarkable experience will you create tomorrow?