This is such a good example of how humans often miscommunicate:
If folks do not understand what is being said: USE an example.
To increase understanding: help people FIND THEMSELVES in what you are trying to say.
Examples. Use them.
In case my link above gives you trouble:
http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2013/02/colbert-to-gavin-newsom-what-the-bleep-does-any-of-that-mean.html#storylink=cpy
Read More
I’m so thinking of you
All of you
Who left your family and your home
To serve your country
Honor
Gratitude
In absolute awe of you
I think of you today knowing my ability to peek in on a sleeping boy
And listen to his breathing and dream words
Even tiptoe in to smell his hair and rearrange his blankets
I am lucky for that
You left your family and left that
For me
For all of us
I can’t imagine the strength and the honor it took to do that
and
so
Today – I think of you.
I thank you.
I love you.
We all must live each day
Being worthy of the incredible heart
It took for you to do that for us
We must act now in a way that makes you proud
All of us
Each of us
Me.
Thank you
Read MoreA long walk returning to the office
It is pouring
It wasn’t a few hours ago
when I decided not to bring my umbrella
My shoes soaked
My back and shoulders damp
At least I have a hat
I buy an umbrella
Leave the store
Watch her run trying to avoid the drops
Light blue pants suit
Heels
Purse above her head
Nice hairdo slowly making its way into disarray
HERE
Oh, no, really, I’m okay
HERE, Take it
She is verklempt
Really?
PLEASE
I walk away
She yells thank you
I walk
Soaked
Happy
I duck into another store
Buy two more umbrellas
Stand in the rain
The drops feel like little kisses on my face
I wait
A man with a nice suit and a brief case on his head
and
A woman with a black dress and a book on her head
Each surprised
Thankful
Me?
Soaked with gratitude
Jumping in the puddles
Squishing feet
Feeling the kind of warm
That only human kindness can kindle
Today: a great day
Read More
Writing this down.
Here.
Cheapens it.
I know.
Yet. I’d like more people to have it. So. I offer it.
I’ve committed every day of my life to kindness. Every nightI ask myself if I am proud of the wake I left in the world. If I am not, I do something to answer yes.
I stayed in Boston months ago for 4 nights. Hard to be away from my kid for that long. It is a trip I do once a year to fill my head and heart with expansiveness.
Since I do this every year, I have a lot of affection for the people who work at the facility.
If you have read my blog before, you may remember the post I did about secretly doing kind things for people. Under the radar. I have posted about the people who clean up after us in hotels. How often they do not receive a tip or a thank you note. I leave a thank you note and a tip every time.
Felt like it wasn’t enough.
It isn’t. The people (mostly women) who clean up after us are underpaid.
Don’t think so? Do me a favor. Take 15-minutes and stand over the bed you sleep in. Put a pillow case on and off a pillow for 10 minutes. See if you can do it without hurting. No matter how big your arms are- 15 pillow cases later it hurts.
Now, do that all day. This is not easy labor. I’m not even talking about how gross their job must be at times.
So. I put a “do not disturb” sign on my door for the entire stay. I talked to the woman who came to clean my room. I told her I needed something from her. I asked her if she had a moment?
Sure.
How long does it take to clean a room like this?
About 15-20 minutes depending on the person who stays in it.
Are you willing to do something for me.. maybe a little unusual?
Sure. What do you need. (no hesitation)
See that chair over there. The one by the window?
um.. yes….
Will you sit in it for 15 minutes?
What?
I do not need you to clean. I’m fine. The room looks great. I’d love it if you just closed the door, put your feet up and hung out. For me.
She teared up.
I’m not sure if I’m allowed to…
allowed to what.. do what a guest is asking? I smile at her…
She hugged me. Not the weird pat on the back hug. We had, well, a moment.
I let her know she wasn’t allowed to clean my room all week. That is was the least I could do and it would make me feel like I did something.
We touched hands each time we walked by each other in the hallway that week. I felt like I had this person there with me that understood.
Understood? What the heck?
We talked about her son and my son. About the days she is away from him and someone else picks him up from school. All the ways she wishes she could see him run out of the oak doors of his school. We talked about our boys: mine 6 and hers 9. The grow up so fast.
Those moments in the hallway I had a connection to another mom and it just felt yummy.
She left me an origami bird on the chair in my room with a note. She used to spend hours creating things and spent the 15 minutes making decorations for her upcoming anniversary. She wanted me to have one because if I lived in town, she’d make sure there was a place at her table for me.
So. I sat on this blog for 4 months. I felt it would cheapen the story if I talked about it. Anonymous matters to me in doing kind acts.
Then. I thought of what I got from this act. Just for me. Selfishly.
So.
Do this for me.
It feels too good, the feeling I had in April, to not share it with you so you can have it too.
Read More
I see it like this:
If the world is a building. And the building is on fire.
And I am waiting for the fire department to come and help me.
No one is coming.
There isn’t some person who is going to rally all the humans required to make it happen.
I will.
And not with the kind of action that brings news cameras, gets a magazine to write about me or deserves a street to be named after me.
Small actions chip away at the big issues.
There is a lot of talking going on. More than I think I have ever seen. People often come to my company because they want to “INFLUENCE” and learn to talk so people will listen. I have developed all this Intellectual Property around NO ONE IS COMING. Because they aren’t.
The most effective influence is DOING, not talking. Doing the small pieces of the puzzle that change the picture.
We try to DO too much though. I do. We do. Our sights get a little too high and we work on the WHOLE thing instead of small actions that can change everything.
We try to change the whole world… our entire organization.. our whole family.. community.. marriage… we try to change the whole thing instead of just deciding to do little actions that start turning the ‘barge’ in the direction we’d like. Little small actions that rarely get applauded, noticed… there will be no award or recognition for this type of doing.
Example:
If the meetings in your company suck you don’t have to start a global initiative that gets board approval to change the meetings. Just make a little list about what you do not like and decide, “In the next meeting I will do this…” and keep trying. Little things.
Example:
“If we knew these 5 things before we started an initiative in this company, we’d perform better.” So this person does a PowerPoint presentation to convince the executive committee to make this a requirement. Why? This takes WAY too long. Instead, in the next ramp up meeting for the initiative, just ASK those 5 questions. Write them down. Give them to everyone. If it is a good idea it will take off. It may take a while. We don’t have to WAIT for someone to come. Start doing.
No one is coming.
IN the year 2000 less than 50% of adults were on line. Think about our world now? We are buried in information. We know the big problems. Can we own the little TINY things that will make it change in the right direction?
We must ACT.
DO.
Something. The small things.
If our ideas sound like complaints… no one is really listening anyway. Not only is there no one to save us.. the ones who could are sick of listening.
I live in a small town filled with people who care A LOT about the community. A few weeks ago there was a post discussing dog poop. Passionate people get frustrated by dog owners who do not clean up after their pet in the soccer field. Our kids play there. Stepping in dog crap sucks.
I didn’t respond to the post reminding everyone that raccoon poop looks very similar to dog poop. That sure, some of it is a careless pet owner. Some of it is just nature.
Instead, I made a commitment to small action. My son and I pick up poop now when we go for our walks.
So today, instead of being frustrated by the poop in my community,(or starting an initiative to hire someone to fix the problem) I am going to just pick some up. That is all I have to do. I may not be big enough to change the whole world, I can improve a sidewalk. I can also use all this crap (nice metaphor eh?) to teach my son what citizenship is. Not the kind of citizenship I’ve done most of my life. Not the kind where I get a gold plaque on the side of a building with my name on it or a wooden engraved thing for my wall. True citizenship.
I live in a town of moms who are like that. The person who wrote the post wasn’t complaining – she was RALLYING a team of moms that she knew would DO something. This is what the moms in this town do. I must admit, I often feel small around all of their power and doing. Small things that create big lives for the kids in this town.
My small actions dedicate me to the community I live in. Somewhere there is a person in my town that I do now know that has clean shoes because of my little action.
No one is coming! It is me. Christina the dog poop collector. (careful shaking hands with me)
My new rule for me: if I complain about it, I own it. I will DO something small to start changing it. My conversations from here on will be about what I CAN DO instead of what is wrong.
I dedicate this post to my sister. She is a woman who has lived her life doing the quiet small moments. A street should be named after people like her.
**No One is Coming is a product of my company. Yes. In all transparency, I make all this stuff to drive my behavior too. So that at the end of the day I can ask myself one question, “Did I act in a way that makes me proud today.” If not, I need to get out and change the answer to that question. 
NOTE: There are humans who dedicate their lives to change the BIG things. My heart and adoration to you. I’m not saying what you do isn’t valuable. It is just rare. I’m here dedicating myself to the small things that will help you in your big quest.
Read More