The Fire Within

With the recent election in the US, depending on the state you are in it can feel like your vote doesn't matter. After all 150 million votes were cast 1 single vote doesn't change the outcome. Your vote is your right, and your voice. It used to be that women or African Americans couldn't vote. They didn't have a voice. If your voice doesn't matter, why do so many people fight for the right to be heard? Your voice matters. The vast majority of us in the human race will not be remembered after we are gone. What we say or what we write may not be heard or read by many people, but you have influence over your audience, no matter how small it is. The audience that counts probably more than any other is ourselves. Even if nobody else hears us, even if nobody else thinks that our vote matters, it is what we tell ourselves that becomes more true than anything.  Never let anyone tell you your voice doesn't matter.

You can never go wrong in life by being kind and generous. You may have seen this story as it has gone viral, about a girl who gave two hockey pucks to a couple of boys next to her during warm-ups, one of which desperately wanted to get a puck. At the end of the video you could see the admiration the young boy had as he told her thank you. A simple act of kindness, a story which could have ended there. However, with the power of the Internet, it was not the end of the story. The Minnesota Wild organization was able to track down 11-year-old Emily and they repaid her kindness by inviting her back to the next game, allowing her to meet some of the team and they presented her with a signed jersey and signed pucks from every member of the team. We don't act kind to others because we expect or even hope to get something in return. Emily didn't do it because she expected to become a viral sensation and be presented with some amazing gifts from her favorite team. She did it becau...

When we make a mistake we think we need to hide it or come up with an excuse as to why it happened. Society makes it seem like you can't let on that you don't know something, or that you have a weakness. When we have scars we try to cover them. The fact is we are all fallible human beings, we all make mistakes, so why do we try so hard to hide them? Some of the best life lessons have come from learning from my mistakes. The second best lessons come from learning from others mistakes. That is how society and innovation continue to progress forward, we build on what was learned in the previous generation. Everyone doesn't need to start out in life inventing the wheel and discovering fire. When you allow ourselves to be vulnerable and share your mistakes there is someone in your life that will benefit in learning about it. Unfortunately there are still plenty of people who will exploit your weaknesses and mistakes, so you have to be careful on who you share it with. The bene...

Last week was a bad week for me. Nothing really major, just little problems at work and feeling like I'm not getting the job done. You know that feeling when you start debating in your head about what you believe people think about you. That maybe you aren't good at your job or whatever area of your life is weighing you down. That was me, trying to justify to myself why things were the way they were and knowing they are moving forward in the right direction, just never near as fast as I would like them to be. But an encouraging word came, when it didn't need to be sent it arrived right when I needed to hear it. It allowed me to refocus and stop stressing about the things I couldn't control. Our words have such power and too often we only use them to tear each other down. We withhold saying what we're thinking for the fear of sounding cheesy or insincere. Each of us contain so much ability to lift up, strengthen and motivate each other. We have the ability to res...

As a manager, as a parent or as a leader, it is easy to feel like we have to repeat ourselves. Having that feeling that we've talked about this before and being a little disappointed that you are telling them the same thing again. It really shouldn't surprise us though, how many times do we ourselves have to hear something before it sinks in? If you are working on changing a culture or building a skill in your team expect to repeat yourself. Different people learn differently so some might get it during the team meeting you share with the group, some might get it during a one-on-one conversation and some might need to read the handout for themselves. Individuals have other things going on in their life too, struggles with a sick child, an ailing parent or some other dynamic that takes focus off of their work. Maybe everything doesn't click for them until the outside distractions subside and they hear it from you again two months from now. It is interesting how we talk a...

The saying, "Knowledge Is Power" is well known and frequently misapplied in the world. Power means strength and just like physical strength it can be used for good or bad purposes. Being physically stronger helps you to be fit and healthy, it prevents injuries and illness. But if you use your physical strength to bully someone weaker than you everyone sees that as a bad thing. Knowledge is no different. We think that we have to have all of the information and if we know more than others that makes us more powerful, safe in our jobs or more important than our co-workers. But if we use our knowledge to control others, control conversations and use the knowledge we have against others we are just a different kind of bully. I like to think about knowledge as flame. When we take the fire on our candle to light another candle we don't extinguish our flame, it burns just as bright as it did before. If every person has a candle in a room one person starting it can light up ...