Episode 069 For Want of a Package 

The Influence Every Day Show with Dr. Ed Tori

A package arrived on my doorstep.

Ordinary.

Forgettable.

Until it wasn’t.

In this episode, I share a moment of unexpected awe triggered by something most of us barely notice anymore. A cardboard box. A doorbell. A delivery notification. What followed was a cascade of realization about just how many lives, skills, systems, and unseen acts of effort converge so that a single package can arrive at our door.

I reflect on the old proverb often called For Want of a Nail, a centuries-old story about how the absence of one small thing can lead to catastrophic downstream consequences. From a missing nail, to a lost shoe, to a fallen kingdom. That story is usually told as a warning. This episode explores the opposite direction.

What happens when a small, seemingly insignificant moment leads to massive positive outcomes?

Holding that package, I trace the invisible web behind it. The driver who needed health, strength, and training. The truck that required parts, materials, and maintenance. The metal that required mines. The mines that required machines. The machines that required inventors. The inventors who needed teachers. The teachers who needed food. The farmers who needed sun, soil, rain, and forces far beyond human control.

All of it so that I could click “add to cart” and open a box.

...

This episode is not a denial of the real problems that exist in global systems. Exploitation, environmental harm, corruption, and injustice are real and worth confronting. But that is not the path I take today. Today is about gratitude. About choosing to see the human effort that usually remains invisible. About honoring the thousands of small contributions that make modern life possible.

I offer a direct thank you to the people behind the ideas, the funding, the design, the engineering, the manufacturing, the packing, the coding, the logistics, the driving, the maintenance, the teaching, the parenting, the farming, and the natural forces that sustain it all. This is a reminder that we never receive alone. We are always beneficiaries of lives we will never meet.

Gratitude, in this framing, is not sentimentality. It is perspective. It is state management. It is leadership. And it is a practice that can transform an ordinary moment into a grounding reminder of our interdependence.

This episode is an invitation to pause before the next package is opened. To see the invisible threads. To let gratitude recalibrate your state. And to remember that even the smallest things often carry the weight of the world behind them.

If this episode resonated with you, consider who else might need the reminder. Share it. Pay it forward. And as always, go forth and influence for good... every day.