Last fall, my business coach handed me a small pumpkin and said, “A pumpkin is a sign of abundance.”
A Simple Gift, A Bigger Lesson
At the time, we were talking about growth, not just in business results, but in mindset. I was refocusing more of my work on helping organizations strengthen their culture and how their teams work together so they and the communities they serve could experience more abundance, too.
That little pumpkin sat on my desk all year as a reminder of that focus.
As the months passed, nature did what it does – the pumpkin slowly began to shrivel.
For a while, I thought about replacing it with another one from the farmer’s market. But instead, during my summer ceramics class, I decided to make my own – a bright orange clay pumpkin with a deep green stem.
Now, both sit on my desk side by side: the real one, now small and weathered, and the clay one, shaped from a ball of clay by my own two hands.
Together, they remind me that abundance isn’t something you can buy or expect to stay the same. It’s something you shape and reshape over time, through intention and care.
How Abundance Shows Up in Teams
Two reminders of abundance—one that faded with time, and one I shaped to last.
That’s how it works in organizations, too.
When teams are intentional about how they work together, they build the kind of culture where trust, creativity, and impact naturally grow. Abundance in team culture doesn’t come from a single strategy session, a one-time initiative, or a workshop. It comes from the daily habits, conversations, and choices that connect people to purpose.
These two pumpkins remind me that abundance can fade and shrivel when it’s left to chance, or it can take new shape when we commit to shaping and nurturing it.
If you’re curious about how to bring more abundance and intentional culture into your organization, you’ll find weekly insights, stories, and practical tools in my Culture Threads newsletter.
