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Hope

Writer's picture: Larry PazLarry Paz

Updated: Mar 15, 2021


Hope is the belief that the events and circumstance in our life will have positive outcomes. Hope adds optimism to a dream.

Can hope transform your life? How do we create hope from despair? Despair is the complete absence of hope. Hope allows us to recover from our setbacks and become successful.


Hope can transform a team to work together to become productive and enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done. Successful leaders make this happen.

There were times in my life when I almost gave up hope. Thankfully, just a few. One recent event stands out.

When the recession of 2008 occurred, I experienced masked despair. We had a thriving business that stopped thriving. Our business debt was off the charts. We were optimistic and had invested in considerable inventory. Business is cash flow. Without it survival is tenuous. One morning I woke up and said aloud, ‘enough is enough – let’s go to work’. After a while hope began to return.

I put the SOAR process (Six Steps to Overcome obstacles and Achieve Results) to work. My desired outcome was simple - find a way to manage our debt without losing our assets.

I contacted each supplier and worked out a payment plan - I didn't wait for them to contact me. Those 30 and 60-day accounts stretched into 12 and 24-month accounts. Not one creditor added any interest or penalties. Situations occurred. When the time came that I couldn't make the next payment in full, I let them know in advance and we worked out a new arrangement.

We phoned and or emailed each of our prior customers to let them know that we had moved the business into our home, and they were welcome to visit us there by appointment. Many of them came back to us. Especially our longarm quilting customers. Naturally, our customer base suffered since we lost walk in customers. You know, the difference between breakeven and a profit.


The abridged version is that it took a few years, with a lot of belt tightening and developing other sources of income, to get our credit ratings back to excellent. Now our mailbox is full of credit offers instead of past due statements.

Shane J Lopez in his book "Making Hope Happen" shares many similar and more dramatic stories of hope. I was drawn to the title since I have "Make It Happen" slogans around my office.

Visualize your desired outcome. What does it look like to bring your hope to reality? What are you doing to make it happen? What are you feeling? Who do you see helping you get where you want to be?

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