Gratitude and Trust

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I’ve been thinking about these two words recently. Yesterday marked the 17th anniversary since my lobectomy surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. This deeply personal experience has led me to embrace gratitude and trust as key components to both my personal life and career.

So I’m in kind of a unique position to hopefully make an impact on the world.  I have abundant gratitude personally for being a lung cancer survivor.  And I sincerely believe trust is the foundation of every relationship, every encounter in my personal and professional life.  My motivation and commitment are based on sincere interest in helping move cancer research from the laboratory to the patient bedside, because I have been there. It defines me. This is the blending of my personal story and my professional life.  Gratitude and Trust.

Gratitude: Surviving cancer…what could you be more grateful for?  But it’s more than that.  It has made me appreciate everything.  My gratitude is expressed by telling people how I feel about them (relationships), and going out of my may to show my appreciation.  Again, this is being grateful for my wife, my kids, my friends, my colleagues, my business partners, my donors, my community.  Expressing gratitude with true sincerity is noticed by people. And this gratitude that I exude, builds trust with people, but only because it is sincere.  “I sincerely appreciate what you did for me”.  “I am grateful for your friendship”.  Showing gratitude, even for small things and when most people wouldn’t be looking for it, is very powerful.  And being grateful to be a cancer survivor gives me a unique role as a fundraiser for cancer research – I am sincerely grateful, personally and professionally, every time someone donates to NFCR. Gratitude

Trust: It’s so powerful to connect with people by just being authentic, which allows people to trust me.  I’ve said many times that my personal and professional mantra is “it’s about relationships” With my wife, my kids, my friends, my colleagues, my business partners, my donors, my community.  Everything I do, and every success I have, is because I think about the relationship prior to every interaction I have.  This didn’t just happen, it is a lifetime of experiences that have led me to believe that for anyone to want to love me, be my friend, or do business with me, they must trust me.  And for me, trust is built on honesty, sincerity and authenticity. Giving more than receiving.  Listening more than talking.  I have recently learned to put it out there – this is who I am, this is my story, I have nothing to hide, no ulterior motive – I’m just Dave Bjork.  Trust.

Gratitude and Trust.  I am grateful for everything I have – being alive after a scare of cancer, grateful for my great relationships, grateful for my rewarding job.  And trust is a foundation of my life – I trust people when they are sincere to me, and people trust me because I am sincere to them. Trust is my key to success because it’s the foundation of how my relationships are built. And it is really is “all about relationships”. #gratitude #trust #TeamGNT

 

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