What do YOU think but do not say?

In one of the more memorable scenes (of many) in the movie Jerry Maguire, Jerry stays up all night in a hotel room writing his “manifesto.” It’s all the things he thinks about business and taking care of customers that he thinks no one talks about.

He titles his piece “The Things We Think But Do Not Say” and distributes it to everyone in the company the next morning.

Then, he gets fired.

Movies and real life intersect sometimes just at the borders, and sometimes one seems to overlay the others.

I’ve had many amazing conversations with business owners and senior executives about what their true core values are, but which for some reason they haven’t shared.

It can be liberating even to write them down.

So, if you haven’t written your own version of the things you think but do not share, I strongly encourage you to get a fresh journal and write them out (do it longhand, not on a computer, as there is a huge difference in terms of how the brain works to write by hand as opposed to typing).

Even if you share it just with yourself, you might be surprised at how powerful an exercise it is.