This week's Pep Talk: "Soul of Solutions"

It’s impossible to avoid the constant chatter about the battered state of the nation’s economy. There are still far too many Americans unemployed, underemployed and scrambling to make ends meet.

The same is true for our local and state governments. There is much angst over the need to cut budgets. Our nation, collectively, is on a financial diet and the pains are gut wrenching.

Whenever I have the pleasure of presenting a Pep Talk to a group, we always discuss the importance of being limited only by imagination, not fear, in creating productive choices to the challenges we face. America’s challenge is to learn to live, successfully, on fewer financial calories. It’s time to get creative.

That was the focus of the discussion at the Denver Business Journal’s first “State of the Cities” economic-forecast breakfast featuring Denver mayor John Hickenlooper and his colleague and friend, Aurora’s mayor Ed Tauer.

Each man told sobering tales of slashing budgets while trying to preserve, as best they can, vital community services each municipality provides to its citizens. Toward the end of detailing the good, bad and ugly concerning the Mile High City’s predicament, Hickenlooper told a story that is a perfect example of putting fear aside and allowing wonderment to win.

The current gubernatorial candidate, Denver’s two-term mayor related how a janitor at a large city office building had an idea: “If we perform the light janitorial duties during normal work hours – emptying trash cans, etc – and the more distracting stuff – vacuuming and mopping floors – after employees leave, we would cut down on energy usage and security costs at the building,” the smart employee told the mayor.

The janitor’s imagination was greater than his fear – “why would the mayor listen to me?” – and the city of Denver is saving about $250,000 a year now that the janitorial staff, and the security it needs while in the Wellington Webb building, is not there into the dead of night.

This can be a lesson for each of us. At home, work or community, where might there be a challenge that could use a imagination, not fear, dominating the thought process? Do you have a good idea that you’ve been sitting on? Fearful perhaps that others might suggest, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of!” Go for it. Shakespeare once bellowed, “Our doubts are traitors that make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”

Don’t let fear get in the way of your dreams. Instead, take a cue from a sharp janitor, and remember courage is the soul of your dreams. It’s also the soul of solutions to whatever ails us at home, work or community.