Team D is an ethnically diverse crew.

We are: from Ukraine; raised and living in the Philippines; Mexican American; from Lebanon, living in Paris; from Paris, living in Vancouver; pure Aussie; and there are a handful of us that are Canadian mutts (said with honour and affection).

There are two ways in which we are not diverse at all, two ways in which we are very much the same. One, we’re mostly women. We have one lucky dude on the bus.

Two, essentially, we can all subscribe to the same worldview. We have different religions and faiths. We have very different temperaments. But we can all agree on some paradigm basics.

They are as follows:

Everything happens for a reason. (Even if you don’t understand what that reason is.) We have faith in divine wisdom. (And yes, sometimes that faith wavers.)

Kindness is strength. Not weakness. In fact, we know from experience that kindness is a super power. We’ve built so many fulfilling and often mutually profitable relationships based on being decent and deeply caring. We laugh a lot with everyone we work with.

We trust people. And sometimes they prove us wrong. But vastly, we know from experience that humans will choose to do The Right Thing.

It’s your career. Your business. Your project. Your life.

It’s your prerogative to rally people around your paradigm. That’s what leadership is. That’s how revolutions happen. You reach out to the mottled, gorgeous, very different (and sometimes difficult) people around you and you say, Hey! Who believes in kindness?! Or… Who thinks that beauty can heal the world?! Or… Who wants to use business FOREMOST as a galvanizing force for social change?!

And when those believers raise their hands, you treat them like family and you fucking rally.

Your fellow idealist,