Everyone can make a difference! You can be the one person who speaks life to someone at rock bottom. One person can turn your confidence into doubt. A single smile can calm your stress. A rude friend might tarnish your memory of the good old days. One person is all it takes to make a lasting impact. Wouldn’t you agree?
We can look through history for examples of people who made a difference. Because of Abraham Lincoln, the United States outlawed slavery. Marie Curie made it possible for you to get an x-ray when you crash on your ski trip. Whether it’s Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Galileo, or Rosa Parks – we know one person can make a difference. The trick is to recognize HOW they made a difference.
Over 20 years ago, my husband – a trained chef – told me he wanted to be a firefighter. I had no idea, yet when I saw an opportunity for on-call firefighters in our city, I told him about it. Everyone knows him as a chef, and yet I was the one person who encouraged him to pursue the firefighting. He’s still a chef, and he also served as a firefighter for over 17 years, and even served as Captain for a time. He took care of HOW to get it done, once I made a difference in encouraging his willingness to try.
It’s important to remember one person can also make a negative difference. On average, one American produces over four pounds of trash per day. That adds up to about a grizzly bear of trash every year – for one person! On a personal level, I love to sing. In fact, I’ve won awards for singing and been all over the world to sing. I even performed with the former lead singer of the band Toto. Yet in high school, one person told me I wasn’t a very good singer – and it made a difference. It took a long time for me to learn HOW to get back to singing, even though I knew I loved it.
My life is full of stories where one thing made a big difference for someone. Because I love Helping Others Win, it brings me great joy to see what can happen when one person takes a step. When my dad’s high school friend died of cancer, I knew I wanted to host a fancy gala to raise money for cancer research. To date our little non-profit has raised over one million dollars. With The HOW Show podcast I host, some of my guests have gone on to start their own podcasts – with exponentially more episodes and guests than I have achieved. You can be a catalyst and you are to others. You just may not realize HOW that is happening.
I love seeing the impact one person can have. It only takes a single spark to start a wildfire, or a single drop of water to start a canyon. Do you want to be the one person who makes a positive difference in someone’s life? I choose to do everything I can to Help Others Win. I’m excited to be somebody’s ‘one’ who makes a difference.