The Difference Between Being Grateful and Valuing What You Have

Two Ways to Look at Your Life

"At least I have a roof over my head."

"I wonder what I could do with this space."

Both statements acknowledge the same reality. But they create completely different futures.

The first is resignation disguised as gratitude. The second is potential waiting to be unlocked.

Here's what I've been thinking about for weeks:

I was at a crossroads with my brother-in-law. We're actually at a crossroads—I mean, we're actually about to cross the road by the El Corte Inglés department store here in Vigo.

But also metaphorically at a crossroads about this whole topic.

There's a massive difference between being grateful for what you have and valuing what you have.

Being grateful—the wrong kind of grateful—keeps you stuck. It says "this is enough" when it isn't. It makes you settle for less because anything more feels ungrateful.

Valuing what you have sees possibility. It says, "What could this become?" It recognises resources where others see limitations.

The difference? One looks backwards with relief. The other looks forward with imagination.

And I think this mindset shift might be the key to transforming not just your business, but your entire local area.

The Woman Who Said 'No More Begging Cap in Hand'

We can thank Birmingham for UB40, Black Sabbath, Benjamin Zephaniah and, more recently, Imandeep "Immy" Kaur.

Let me tell you about Imandeep "Immy" Kaur.

She's been a guest on the Coworking Values Podcast, and for years, my go-to example of a coworking space in workshops and talks was Impact Hub Birmingham.

Her story is one of the key examples in Jon Alexander's Citizens book.

While others saw Birmingham as a declining post-industrial city, Immy saw "a city of enormous loss" but also enormous potential.

She could have been grateful for what little community space remained.

Instead, she asked: "What if we stopped begging cap in hand for rights to things that should be human rights?"

Starting in 2011, Immy gathered neighbours at Urban Coffee Company.

"It doesn't take long if you bring a couple of neighbours together," she says. "It doesn't take long to see the incredible power, imagination, creativity, energy, beauty, and abundance that exists within our communities."

This led to TEDxBrum in 2012—an explosion of creatives, artists, musicians, and neighbours telling their stories in Cannon Hill Park. "Once you've seen that, you can't forget."

But a one-day event wasn't enough.

So they founded Impact Hub Birmingham in 2014. The space was "full day and night, it was beautiful."

But it couldn't work.

"No matter how well we did, no matter how much we were creating, every time we did well, the rents would go up. It was never possible."

That's when they realised the problem wasn't their community—it was the system.

"We understood the power of what we had, the ideas of what needed to change, the hope and the possibility. But this was not going to work on the rules of the current system."

They were going to have to stop renting from landlords and find a way to own land themselves.

"We were like, 'Okay, yeah, no more begging cap in hand for rights to things that should be human rights. We need to get into the game.'"

After years of community organising around a derelict brownfield site in Port Loop that Immy had walked past daily for 22 years, they did something radical.

Just before Christmas 2023, at 6:55 PM on the last working seconds before the holidays, they took ownership of the land for CIVIC SQUARE.

Not a lease. Not a rental agreement.

The full freehold.

With a covenant in perpetuity, meaning it will forever belong to the community, future generations, nature, and whatever they decide together.

"We can not only take it out of speculation, but we can start to grow it as a site of real deep imagination and possibility."

As Immy puts it: "Revolution is not a destructive process, but a rigorous strategic loving practice of possibility."

This is what valuing what you have looks like in practice.

Not being grateful for scraps. Not settling for renting forever.

Recognising the value in your community and refusing to accept that land ownership is reserved only for developers and shareholders.

Watch Immy tell the whole story here.

"The revolution will not be televised," she says. "I want to add that it is already here."

The End of Theory. The Beginning of Action.

For too long, people have hijacked "challenge the status quo" as a cute way to present slide decks to venture capital firms.

Corporate speak for reinventing the wheel with better fonts.

However, the real challenge to the status quo appears to be 600,000 people signing up to join Your Party in a few days.

To put that in perspective with membership of other parties:

• Labour Party has 309,000
• Reform UK has 227,592
• Conservative Party has 123,000
• Liberal Democrats have 90,000+
• reen Party has 65,000+

Your Party gained almost three times the Conservative membership in days.

A few weeks ago, Lena interviewed me about this phenomenon of challenging the actual status quo in this interview.

Real change manifests in both mass movements and deep, local action. Like Your Party gaining 600,000 members, and like Immy building alternatives in Birmingham.

Jon Alexander writes about this in Citizens—people like Immy are "laying the essential foundations of a Citizen future."

The days of theory and TED Talks are behind us.

The days of getting together and taking action at a local level are here.

And it's happening everywhere you look.

Platforms like ACTionism by Gavin, Heather, and Tamasine are surfacing these stories and connecting local change-makers.

People are finding others. Building alternatives. Elevating their communities.

Not because they're grateful for what they have. Because they see the value in what they have.

This Is Already Happening in Coworking

If you run a coworking space with fewer than 150 members, you're already part of this movement.

You didn't settle for working alone or accepting that your local area lacked a sense of community.

You saw potential. You built something. You created space for others to connect and grow.

That's Immy's "inch wide, mile deep" philosophy in action.

Not being grateful for limited options. Valuing what's possible and building it.

Every successful coworking space I know started with someone who looked at their local area and asked: "What if this could be better?"

They didn't wait for the council to solve the issue of loneliness.

They didn't wait for big corporations to create community.

They built what they wanted to see.

And in doing so, they elevated their entire neighbourhood.

This is the invisible work that builds everything—one relationship, one connection, one collaboration at a time.

The Ripple Effect of Local Value

Here's what happens when everyone in a community starts valuing what they have instead of just being grateful for it:

Small businesses thrive because people see potential customers, not just neighbours.

Empty buildings become community spaces because someone sees a possibility, not just a vacancy.

Local skills get shared because people recognise assets, not just gaps.

Consider Tony Bacigalupo's story about a cafe that built a real community from scratch, leveraging an email list and local connections.

Or Marella Cairns, who runs Whaley Bridge Coworkers and spent the summer running a postcard-making competition—simple, local, meaningful.

When you value what you have, you stop waiting for someone else to fix things.

You start building alternatives.

Immy's work in Birmingham didn't just create one space—it inspired a movement of people who saw their city in a new light.

That's the power of local action guided by local vision.

It's contagious. It multiplies. It transforms entire places.

Your Call to Action This Week

Stop being grateful for what you've settled for.

Start valuing what you could build.

Here's how:

1. FIND OTHERS

The people you need to build with are already around you. They're just scattered and disconnected.

Look for the community builders, the local business owners, and the people who genuinely care about their place.

Find them. Connect them. Start conversations.

2. GET TOGETHER

Real change happens when people gather consistently.

Not networking events. Not one-off workshops.

A regular, ongoing connection where relationships deepen and ideas evolve.

Weekly coffee meetings. Monthly skill shares. Quarterly vision sessions.

Many of you are familiar with Face.work and Urban MBA in London, which are living examples of this.

Consistency builds trust. Trust enables action.

3. START AN EMAIL LIST

Of course I'm going to say this.

But seriously—how else will you keep your growing community connected between gatherings?

How will you share opportunities, celebrate wins, and coordinate actions?

Email is the invisible infrastructure that turns random meetings into sustained movements.

Concrete next steps:

→ Join our Unreasonable Connection event if you run a coworking space. Find others who share your vision.

→ Sign up for Sam Shea's campaign to get LinkedIn to recognise coworking as a legitimate industry.

→ Look around your area this week. What potential do you see that others are missing?

The Permission You're Waiting For

You don't need a council grant to start building community.

You don't need a business plan to bring people together.

You don't need permission to value what you have and help others see it too.

Start with what you have. See what's possible. Build alternatives.

Immy started with her faith, her community, and her vision for Birmingham.

You have resources too. Skills. Connections. Ideas. Space.

The question isn't whether you have enough.

The question is: What could you build with what you already have?

Stop being grateful for settling.

Start valuing what's possible.

Your community is waiting.

Bernie's Picks

📚 Book: A Passion for Books edited by Dale Salwak. A beautiful collection of essays by writers and critics celebrating the joy of reading. Contributors include John Bayley, Margaret Drabble, and Nina King. Perfect for anyone who values the transformative power of books.

🎧 Coworking Values Podcast: Beyond Rainbow Stickers: Building Spaces Where Everyone Can Truly Belong, with Aidan Sunassee. A powerful conversation about creating genuine inclusion in community spaces.

Listen here →

🛠️ Tool: Sunsama. I've been struggling with day-to-day organisation lately and returned to this robust planning app. I used to use it because it connected to everything, but now I'm using it for planning because it helps me track time in my calendar and features an easy-to-use backlog. Smooth on mobile, intuitive on desktop, synchronises with Google Calendar.

Check it out →

💬 Community: Unreasonable Connection - our monthly gathering for independent coworking operators who want to make a real impact in their local areas. No fluff, no pitches - just good people creating good spaces for one another.

Thank you for your time and attention today
Bernie 💚🍉