Blog #569: It’s Silently Being Written

Occasionally…
An email raises my eyebrows.

Like this one:

It was a simple email asking three not-so-simple questions:

#1. If you had to reflect about death, what would be your words?

#2. Do you believe in God, and if you do, what’s his or her name? Is there many or one?

#3. If you were having your last meal, who would be at your table dead or alive?

That was the entire email.

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After answering…

I appreciated the chance to have done a little soul-sleuthing into myself…
and to have been forced to come up with words to match what I feel.

And while her “asks” are not the sorta’ topics I write about in a blog or book (yet)…I humbly wrote back my best “What I really think…” answers.

Because I always write back.

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So with THAT as this blog’s preface…

Let me do some match-making and add this second conversation:

A friend asked: “Why don’t you spend more time on LinkedIn?”
I answered: “I only have so much time to do what I do.”
She politely argued back: “But it wouldn’t take long.”

In responding…

I ran down my current project list…including how much time it takes to answer emails I receive from Extra Mile Thursdays.

She asked: “Why don’t you let your staff answer emails?”

I responded: “Because when people write to me personally, they deserve me to write to them personally.”

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If we had the magical power to add up the numbers…

We’ve interacted with thousands of people in our lifetimes.

There are those…

A hug away, a desk away, a house away…a customer away.
A client away, a call away, a student away…an email away.

If we could melt down all those interactions…
we’d find our “Human Being Report Card.”

“What kind of person is he or she?”

It’s in those interactions where our “Success Bio” is silently being written.

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ONCE…

I only saw my BIG numbers.

How many readers do I have?
How many books did I write?
How many speeches did I give?
How many book orders are there?
How many “Likes” did it get?

“Am I successful?”

Those were my gauges.

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From the beginning…

We’re taught to measure our success by what society tells us is “success.”

Did you go to college?
What kind of car do you drive?
What kind of job do you have?
How much money do you make?
How big is your home?
How many “Likes” did you get?

But…

Do those gauges really measure our success as human beings?

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I think these gauges are far more important:

Did you shine positive when negative was darkening?
Did you choose to be kind when kindness was absent?
Did you lift courage when courage was dragging?
Did you smile when a person needed to see one?
Did you listen when an ear was needed?
Did you see the person when you walked by?
Did you inspire hope when hopes were down?
Did you offer a hand when another was reaching up?

These answers reveal the REAL truth to the big question:

“Am I successful?”

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So I will continue to answer every email.

Because…

Leaving footprints for 1,000,000 to see might be an inspiring personal goal.
But leaving a series of fingerprints that are felt will determine my real success.