What Do You Do With Your Opportunities?


Taking time to show appreciation, say a kind word or right a brief note can have a lasting impact. 

Too often we discredit a simple gesture thinking that it lacks the flair or the ability to be quoted on social media when something simple may be the most impactful and long lasting.

Several years ago I listened to Iowa State Athletic Director Jamie Pollard share the story of a life changing health scare he had and how it helped to change his perspective on life. It was very real and showed the kind of man and leader that he is.

Later that day I decided to send him an email thanking him for speaking to our group and sharing his story. He’s a busy man leading a Power 5 University and likely wouldn’t see it or would just skim through it and move on to something much more important.  How wrong I was.

A few days later he sent me a hand written note and a leadership book that he had read in the mail.  The leader with 1,000 things to do took time to say Thank You and encourage someone he had never met or would even recognize passing on the street.

I keep that note as a bookmark in every book that I am reading to help remind me of two things.

1) It is impactful to take time to encourage someone with a kind word or gesture, even if you may never cross paths.

2) Words, rather spoken or written, can have an impact long after they are shared.

Use your words wisely and as a way to build others up. They are more powerful than we may ever know.

I’m cheering for you.

#leadership #motivation #coaching
#bebetter #beblessed

Advertisement

Published by toddagordon

Currently in his 37th year in the education field. Currently the District Activities Director at Greene County Community Schools in Jefferson, Iowa. Celebrating 37 years of marriage with Deb. Deb works remotely as the Assistant Controller for Treynor (IA) State Bank. We have 3 kids, two son in laws, a daughter in law, two wonderful grandsons, Jonathan and Parker, and three lovely granddaughters, Mia, Madison and Faye. Nicole and Brett are parents to Jonathan and Madison, and are working in ministry in Urbandale, IA. AJ and Regan live in Waukee, IA. A.J. currently works for Thrivent after a few years coaching college basketball including winning a National Championship as an Assistant Men's Basketball Coach at Graceland University. Regan is a Kindergarten teacher with the Des Moines Public Schools at Hubbell Elementary School. Abby and Anthony are parents to Parker and Mia and they outside of Ogden, IA. Abby works as a Physical Therapy Assistant and Anthony works for a landscaping company.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: