Chapter 7

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Compassion

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

— Dalai Lama

When her son Daniel was 13 years old, Debra Poneman signed a consent form allowing him to attend an eighth-grade class trip to Washington, D.C. The plane ride, the cool hotel with a swimming pool, and how they were going to sneak into the girls’ rooms was all Debra remembers Daniel and his friends talking about for weeks leading up to the big trip.

Two nights before the scheduled departure, Debra attended a parents’ meeting at which the travel itineraries were distributed and the hotel roommate assignments were announced. She learned that Daniel would be rooming with an autistic boy named Ricky, along with Ricky’s 30-year-old personal aide. She knew Daniel loved Ricky, who had been to their house many times, but this was different. Debra had so much empathy toward her son’s excitement, and her heart sank at the thought of all of his plans being turned upside down. How am I going to break this news to him?, she thought.

“I consider myself to be a loving and compassionate person, but this was a tough one for me,” Debra admitted. “I was so afraid that Daniel would be hugely disappointed that driving home from the meeting I went into full mother-bear mode. I decided that if necessary I would call the school and see if we could work this out a different way.”

When she got home, she told Daniel every other exciting detail about the trip before she mustered the courage to share the roommate news. “Daniel,” she said, “the roommates were announced at the meeting. I want you to know that if you’re really upset, I’ll see what I can do, but they put you in a room with Ricky and his aide.”

Daniel was silent for a long moment, studying his mother quizzically, and then shared, “Mom, they didn’t put me with Ricky; I asked to be with Ricky. I figured that if he wasn’t with me, he’d probably get left out—and you know, Mom, it’s his eighth-grade class trip too.”

“After my own long pause, the words that came out of my mouth were, ‘Yes, it is Daniel,’ but the words in my heart, as I choked back tears, were, ‘You are probably the kindest 13-year-old boy who ever lived—and this is one of the proudest moments of my life.’”¹ Now, anyone who knows Debra and her work as the founder and CEO of Yes to Success Seminars, Inc., wouldn’t be surprised that she raised such a compassionate and empathetic boy. Debra is known for her own warmth and authenticity as an award-winning keynote speaker, popular seminar leader, and best-selling author. She teaches people all about structuring their lives and business ventures in alignment with their true selves. Additionally, she cofounded Your Year of Miracles virtual mentoring program for women.²

Ironically, Debra credits her current success to the two decades spent outside of the business world when she took time off to be a full-time mom to her own biological children and numerous other young people who needed a stable refuge for a few hours—or a few years. Compassion and empathy for her extended family laid the foundation for Debra and her brand to soar to new heights. Debra knows the secret sauce is kindness. And as the years go on, her legacy is being played out through the amazing contributions all her “children” are now making in various aspects of the business world and society at large.

Buddhism Meets Business?

The Dalai Lama walks into an arena in Silicon Valley to a crowd of 4,000 people to talk about big business. If you’re waiting for the punch line, it will be a while since this isn’t a joke. Turns out His Holiness has a lot to say about how to be a good boss, a great leader, and a transformational entrepreneur. His mission is to inspire business thinking to increase productivity, reduce stress, and achieve personal fulfillment.

Stress, anxiety, and depression in the workplace costs U.S. businesses about 200 to 300 billion dollars a year in lost productivity, turnover, and medical claims. What is a clock-watcher to do? Recognizing these problems, the Dalai Lama helped fund and found the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford’s School of Medicine in 2008. In order to put into effect a “rigorous scientific study of the neural, mental, and social biases of compassion and altruism behavior,”³ the Dalai Lama made a personal donation of $150,000—confirmation of his firm belief that there is a link between compassion and productivity.

Why Compassion Matters

When you work with people for a long time, your colleagues, customers, vendors, and clients become friends. You share the joy on their wedding days, send balloons when their children are born, let them cry in your office when they experience a loss, and stand by them in their decision to leave the company. We travel through life with one another, and there is no way around that fact. When you see someone in tears, go to them and practice compassion. Compassion means you feel a conscious sympathy for someone in trouble or pain and have an overpowering need to ease that pain. Sadly, we can’t reverse the tragedy, but we can be there for someone. We can give them our greatest gift: our time and presence. You don’t even have to say a word, just go to their office, close the door, put your arm around him or her. Even for the most grief-stricken person, receiving your compassion will elevate his or her spirit. It will lead to more productivity later as well, because when employees feel liked or, dare I say, loved, they feel like they matter and they want to stay together and help each other out. They want to see everyone succeed, because they are succeeding with one another, and that is truly rewarding and validating. Where compassion is present, a tight bond is formed. When social interactions are positive and supportive, psychological distress decreases and employees experience better health. The entire staff realizes there is no “I” in “team.”

It comes down to culture. Do you have a compassionate culture? Research on compassion in the workplace and how to implement it for a new management culture is still emerging. To help communicate scientists’ best practices to business leaders—literally bridging the gap between the research world and the business world—is one of the main objectives of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education.

Associate Director of CCARE Emma M. Seppala reports: “Compassionate, friendly, and supportive coworkers tend to build higher-quality relationships with others at work. In doing so, they boost coworkers’ productivity levels and increase coworkers’ feeling of social connection, as well as their commitment to the workplace and their levels of engagement with their job.”⁴

Compassion causes a ripple effect as well. Jonathan Haidt at New York University calls the heightened state of well-being that happens after seeing someone helping another person “elevate.”⁵ Not only are we elevated when we see compassion in action, we are more apt to act compassionately toward someone else.

For example, there is a high incidence of burnout and stress in the healthcare field, which is detrimental to patients, staff, and medical providers. A growing body of research has correlated provider burnout to a decrease in compassion for patients. What happens when compassion levels are restored or elevated? A research study led by Emma M. Seppala, published in 2014 in the Journal of Compassionate Health Care, investigated the effectiveness of a brief session of loving-kindness meditation, practiced for just 10 minutes by medical providers. The findings reported that a brief “compassion intervention,” which can be easily implemented and improves well-being and feelings of connection, increased overall job performance and satisfaction in a short period of time, even in beginner meditators.⁶

We have already established that our innate desire and need to bond with others, to be connected, is a driving biological force that motivates our actions, reactions, and decision making. It is not surprising that when the connection through compassion is threatened or taken away, we respond in emotionally undesirable ways toward others and ourselves. Our perceptions about what we are doing are skewed toward feelings of meaninglessness instead of empowerment and purpose. Restoring the connectivity at work through teaching employees, colleagues, clients, and customers to feel compassion in business increases satisfaction and loyalty.

Care and compassion cannot be faked. We as leaders must want to be authentic in connecting with people and building it into our mission and our business and company culture. Kindness, especially in the form of compassion, is contagious, so when we are communicating our own connectivity, it catches on and spreads like wildfire.

Authentic institutionalized compassion will be a magnet for authentic and compassionate customers, employees, clients, and colleagues. Research on management has shown that people who are kind, compassionate, and giving tend to gravitate toward and be chosen by organizations who share those qualities.

Bill Taylor of the Harvard Business Review cites a compassionate act performed by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. A Zappos customer who had a husband with hard-to-fit feet tracked down a pair of shoes for him and ordered them through the Internet retailer. But before they arrived, her husband died. On behalf of the company, the customer service personnel at Zappos sent flowers to the woman.⁷

Similarly, Kay Johnson, former vice president and associate creative director for a large advertising agency, remembers a compassionate act that kept her loyal to the company for her entire career. “I was afraid to fly, so when the team went to close a deal in North Carolina, I had someone drive me there from Jacksonville,” Kay said. “I was the last one there, and the owner of the ad agency walked over to me before our meeting began and said flatly, “Monday morning. See you in my office.”

Kay was a little nervous as she knocked on the open door, alerting her boss that she was ready for whatever news he had to break.

I really thought he was going to tell me I was unprofessional, or worse, tell me to get over it, which I knew was going to be hard. But then my boss did the unexpected. He gave me a lesson in aerodynamics. Instead of berating or judging me, he patiently explained the mechanics of his plane and even provided visuals, compassionately relating facts about flying that he thought would be helpful in mitigating my apprehension…. It was utter kindness, and from then on, I knew he cared about me as a person first and second as an employee. Out of the sheer desire to please him and to repay him for his tenderness, I worked hard to get on that jet. It didn’t happen overnight, but it did finally happen, and I spent the rest of my career under his tutelage, learning not only how to be an incredible ad exec, but a stellar human being.⁸

Zappos’s floral delivery to a widowed customer and Kay Johnson’s crash course in flying are both remarkable examples of how compassion can be shown to customers and employees in the smallest of ways. Compassion is driven by the understanding of how to truly connect with people on their levels, to meet them where they are, and to remind them through our supportive actions that they are not alone. In fact, kindness doesn’t get any better than making sure your colleagues are not alone. If the kids are sick, the nanny doesn’t show, a pipe burst, the car broke down, whatever the reason people can’t make it in, let them work from home. A colleague who is struggling with a deadline or experiencing a creative block can be shown compassion by being asked what he or she needs to overcome the obstacle. Putting pressure on workers has been shown to backfire, so it’s important, as much as our patience might be tested, that we lead with compassion.

A compassion culture will result in employee satisfaction, which translates into better customer service. In fact, Yvon Chouinard, founder and chairman of the outdoor clothing manufacturer Patagonia, outlines in his book Let My People Go Surfing, how being compassionate for the busy lives of his employees led to the creation of a lifestyle benefits package.⁹ “When I’m in the office, I always eat lunch with the staff,” Chouinard told Liz Welch for an Inc. magazine article. He continued:

We serve a subsidized healthy lunch daily in our café. Not only are we feeding our employees good food, but we are building a community too. Socializing is important. We also have on-site child care for our employees. That was my wife Malinda’s idea, and it was radical when we first introduced it in 1981. It really does take a village to raise a child, and we don’t live in villages anymore. So companies need to be more like villages. I think the kids who come out of here are Patagonia’s best products.¹⁰

Chouinard’s compassion for his employees’ needs, whether it be living and eating healthily or taking the stress off of young families, has resulted in a company comprised of more than 1,300 people, with more than $540 million in annual revenue. This 77-year-old entrepreneur eats lunch with his staff and adheres to a leadership philosophy of “The worst managers try to manage behind a desk. The only way to manage is to walk around and talk to people.” While contemplating that idea, I was reminded of something someone once told me: Have you ever walked into a lunch room or a boardroom and the people already there suddenly stop talking? Just by you entering, the room falls silent, like the needle scratching on the record, and you feel as if you should say “Please, don’t stop talking on my account.” The entire scene is a dead giveaway that the people engrossed in conversation do not consider you a collaborator. They do not consider you one of them, and that means they do not believe you feel they are equal to you.

Nobody wants to lead like that. We are naturally geared for compassion, to share and bond and ease the pain and stress of others. There is room in business for compassion and you do not need to go to great lengths to begin spotting the opportunities for that type of connection. When thinking about revamping your company culture into a compassion culture, consider some of the following tactics:

Practice forgiveness. Holding a grudge is just bad business. It ruins the energy and atmosphere of an organization, doesn’t help in facilitating learning from mistakes, and generally makes a person look small. Clearing the air and forgiving the mistake or action, will help everyone live in the present and remain focused. Loyalty and an eagerness to do good work usually result after a person is forgiven, while feelings of guilt and shame will cloud a relationship in no time.

Offer constructive criticism. Being too tough on others can hold you back as a leader. You can know what you want and still be a kind businessperson, but thinking about your words and mindfully communicating them can make the difference between the words sinking in or falling on deaf ears. Constructive criticism is much different than negative feedback, because criticism implies you are coming from a place of genuine concern.

As Dale Carnegie wrote in How to Win Friends and Influence People, “Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, but it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.”¹¹ Destructive criticism is what people say when they don’t have the ability to think. Receiving words of thoughtlessness, because they can be deliberately malicious and hurtful, can lead to anger and aggression. Constructive criticism, on the other hand, is designed to point out people’s mistakes, but also is useful feedback because it shows them where and how improvements can be made. When criticism is constructive it is usually easier to accept, because it doesn’t feel like an outright put down.

As human beings, but especially as businesspeople, our patience and fortitude is tested day in and day out. There will be more times than not when we will want to emotionally react and lash out at a disgruntled employee or client, or a dissatisfied customer—especially if she’s nasty. It is important to stop before you speak, to consider why you are about to deliver the criticism. Is it to prove a point, to protect your ego, to be hurtful or punishing? Then hold your tongue. Practice what the Buddhists call “mindful speech.” The goal is to offer constructive criticism: feedback that might still pinch a little, but that both parties trust is coming from a heartfelt place, delivered with the intent of resulting in success and improvement. It is not malicious or reactive in any way. When practicing compassion, think before you speak. And if you believe you have nothing nice to say, keep it to yourself.

Give the benefit of the doubt. Your vendor is late, your client is pissed. Give the vendor the benefit of the doubt: maybe there was a power outage, a delivery truck accident, a loss in the family. Try not to have your first response be one of distrust. Generally speaking, most people are good and want to do good work for others. Remember why you began doing business together in the first place and trust your instincts. Only then can you decide your next steps, calmly and effectively.

Showing Compassion by Easing Someone’s Tension

I was talking to Tony Wilkins, one of the premiere authorities on connecting people of influence to one another, about how kindness, compassion in particular, can be shown anywhere and everywhere. We have all seen the person in the room who looks like he doesn’t know anyone, and we have all been in that awkward predicament. Even though Tony now has a popular Internet radio show, Small Business Forum Radio (www.blogtalkradio.com/tonywilkins), that reaches more than 200,000 business owners globally and is one of the top business shows on the network, he remembers the time when he didn’t know a soul and his insecurity made him question his ambition. It is probably because Tony has been there himself as the reason why he developed his workshops not only to educate business leaders on a better way to connect, but to offer valuable and available resources for building powerful business connections. He is a master networker whose global connections span multiple industries including film, media, art, literary, political, small business, start-ups, and culinary, with ties to organizations like the Small Business Administration, Public Speakers Association, NAWBO, BNI, various business chambers, San Francisco City Hall, and the Golden Gate Business Association. Tony is the author of several books including the best-selling Telemarketing Success for small and mid-sized firms, The Single Person’s Cookbook, and Surviving the Economy. His new book, The Career Whisperer: Behind the Podium is a step-by-step guide for anyone looking to launch a career as a public speaker or for sales professionals looking for a better way to reach more prospects faster and easier. Mr. Wilkins is also the publisher of Small Business Forum magazine, Foodie Quarterly, and Podium magazine and speaker’s directory. In addition, he has launched a very successful booking service for authors and speakers and is the creator of the annual Small Business Empowerment Conference and the Women of Influence Summit. And even with a resume as accomplished as his, Tony partly credits his wild success to the compassion of his friend J.P. Leddy.

For this book, Tony wrote a heartfelt email message of appreciation for Mr. Leddy:

Every now and then you meet someone in your business life who exemplifies what it means to be kind. For me, it was meeting my buddy J.P. Leddy, who was the most recent president of the Golden Gate Business Alliance (GGBA), which is the oldest professional LGBT network in the world. I don’t really remember how we met, but I’m sure it was at a networking function where I was this shy and introverted business owner, fresh off the plane from Chicago. This was more than 20 years ago, when networking was still new to me and like anyone that’s put into a new and unfamiliar situation, I was nervous and apprehensive. Back then I was still considered a B2B telemarketing consultant and wannabe author. I remember that no one that I met up until that point had any use for who I was or what I did, until they needed help with telemarketing. I’m sure (although I don’t remember) that I made my way to the nearest bar at the event, holding on for dear life to my glass, occasionally making small talk with the uninterested bartender. As I said, I was racked with insecurities. Would anyone talk to me? Should I approach them? Would they reject me?

At some point, I was approached by J.P., who I’m sure graciously extended his hand and asked me numerous questions about my work and the reason for my being there and if I knew anyone at the event. He took me around and introduced me to many people at the function, making sure that I did not leave without meeting some of the more influential members of the group. We became friends after that. When I launched my now very successful Internet radio show in 2011, he was one of the very few people who not only encouraged me but chastised naysayers (in my presence). When I launched my three magazines and speaking practice, J.P. was the one who made sure I was someone worth meeting at events. When I launched my Small Business Spirit Awards in 2015, J.P. was one of the many recipients. In 2016, just in his 50s, J.P. Leddy died of natural causes. What I remember and will always remember was his random acts of kindness to make sure that everyone and anyone who came into his circle felt welcome. Rest in peace, my friend.¹²

Be Good to Yourself When Nobody Else Will

Every single day, it is likely we will feel frustrated, rushed, stressed, worried, annoyed, angry, lost, and a whole host of other negative vibes. Whatever you want to call the angst and the suffering, we can’t let ourselves be dominated by it. Because as business owners, our backs might be up against the wall a bit too much for our liking, we must learn to take care of ourselves, to reconnect with who we are and what we want, and that means taking our compassion culture and turning it inward. By learning to practice some self-compassion, you can begin to treat yourself like a friend and give yourself the time and presence that you would give to someone else. Kristin Neff, PhD, is probably one of the most renowned researchers and teachers of the concept of self-compassion. In her work she has defined self-compassion and offered some caveats to those just getting their feet wet in the concept. On her website she writes:

Self-compassion is a practice of goodwill, not good feelings. With self-compassion we mindfully accept that the moment is painful, and embrace ourselves with kindness and care in response, remembering that imperfection is part of the shared human experience. This allows us to hold ourselves in love and connection, giving ourselves the support and comfort needed to bear the pain, while providing the optimal conditions for growth and transformation.¹³

Self-compassion can lead to more focus because it helps us deal with the garbage that distracts us all day long—the self-doubt, the mistakes we make, the argument we might have had—and then dismiss it. It is a way of understanding your own motivations, reigniting the passion for your work, and learning to forgive others and let go of situations so you are no longer stuck in the rut of despair, deceit, and disgust.

So how do we do it? It is not enough to promise we will not be so hard on ourselves. In the end, too many of us punish ourselves in ways that don’t even fit the crime. We go overboard with self-loathing or insecurity, and we need to stop that!

The first step is to stop critical self-talk. You wouldn’t let a friend call herself a “loser” or a “failure.” You would try to lift her up. So why is it okay to put yourself down? That’s right, it’s not. So practice becoming more mindful. Keep track of your negative self-talk. When you think something bad about yourself or your business, write it down. Can you identify the trigger or find the common themes that cause you to turn against yourself? Does the voice inside your head sound like someone who once hurt you, such as a former boss, professor, or parent?

The second step is a bit trickier. Dr. Neff suggests we make an active effort to soften the self-critical voice, but do so with compassion rather than self-judgment (that is, don’t say “you’re so stupid” to your inner critic).

Last, we need to reframe the inner critic. Can you figure out how to tell yourself why you might have done something that you are not proud of? Can you help yourself understand your rationale or motivations better? Can you even find a silver lining to the problem or mistake? A good start is to practice the compassion actions outlined earlier in this book: forgive, give yourself the benefit of the doubt, and give yourself a game plan using constructive criticism. Using the example of eating a bag of cookies, Neff offers the following dialogue as an example of reframing. ‘“I know you ate that bag of cookies because you’re feeling really sad right now and you thought it would cheer you up. Why don’t you take a long walk so you feel better?’ Physical gestures of warmth can tap into the caregiving system…. Start acting kindly, and feelings of true warmth and caring will eventually follow.”¹⁴

Empathy

Usually confused with compassion, empathy is the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions, or more simply stated, it is the ability to share someone else’s feelings.¹⁵ Whereas compassion might lean more toward action to alleviate someone’s pain (like sending food when someone gets sick), empathy means you make attempts to understand a person’s perspectives, decisions, and motivations for their actions. Empathy has been called a vicarious experience—if your friend is feeling betrayed, you too will experience a feeling of betrayal in your body; if they are elated, you too will feel happy. Feeling empathy is to tune into another person’s emotions. Compassion typically happens a little more easily because it reminds us of something we’ve experienced; empathy doesn’t require a shared experience. In fact, developing empathy is a skill set that most successful leaders have because it means the leader is working very hard to see another person through a different and much deeper lens, regardless of whether he or she has worn those shoes.¹⁶

Just as compassion is making waves in the business world, so is the study of empathy, and the sharing and connection that can go on if leaders practice it with their staff, clients, customers, and vendors. After all, business is all about relationships because successful people do not operate in a vacuum. Empathy is a combination of understanding others’ emotional and logical decisions that happen on a day-to-day basis. In his article for Forbes, “Why Empathy Is the Force that Moves Business Forward,” Jayson Boyers describes the connection created through empathy as a biological principle known as co-evolution, which explains that an organism’s adaptation is triggered by the change of a related object. And if we are to think of our business not as an organization, but as a living breathing organism, we can begin to see that Boyers is on to something.

Similarly, businesses and their leaders participate in co-evolution-type relationships. Business success depends on empathetic leaders who are able to adapt, build on the strengths around them, and relate to their environment. When businesses fail, it is often because leaders have stopped focusing on understanding their environment intimately and instead stay insulated in their own operations. Successful business leaders are receptive to disruption and innately aware of what is going on in their organizations both internally and externally.¹⁷

Empathy is a clear path to seeing and hearing everything that goes on in an organization. It is also a communication method that keeps lines open and connections active. In order to develop empathy skills we need to learn to be deep listeners, nonjudgmental, and have the imagination to put ourselves into nearly any predicament. If you are generally curious about people and what makes them tick, empathy will be easier to practice, and as long as you look for the things you have in common with a person, instead of noticing the differences, you can develop that sense of awareness for the other person’s emotions much more quickly.

How to Practice Empathetic Listening

Good leaders are great listeners. The Greek philosopher Epicetus said “We have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak.”¹⁸ As a constant connector myself, I depend on the ability to listen and really take in what a person is sharing with me. I can’t connect them to the right person or resource unless I understand their needs, desires, challenges, and goals. I use compassion and empathy all the time in my work with clients and it really comes down to letting other people talk much more than you do. To quote Mark Twain, “The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”¹⁹

Being an empathetic and compassionate listener means you know when to stop talking. In her article “9 Things Good Listeners Do Differently,” Lindsay Holmes of the Huffington Post says research shows that the average person only listens with 25 percent efficiency.²⁰

Learning to listen goes beyond making eye contact and mirroring of people’s poses and expressions, which we will talk more about in the chapter on positivity. For now, we need to be focused on developing our empathetic ear by becoming active listeners. Active listeners draw out more information from people by knowing how to ask the right questions and then follow-up with deeper questions. It’s a natural progression and one that can seem quite seamless when the listener is truly engaged and practicing empathy. Allowing your imagination to lead you to the larger story of a person will help you form more interesting questions. In the end, we want to get to a conclusion and develop a strategy for our colleague, staff member, client, and so on, but we won’t get down to the nitty gritty without asking the right questions. Staying on the surface during crucial conversations will only act as a Band-Aid. We need the salve that can only come through the compassion and empathy that results from active listening.

Because your empathy and compassion keep them less focused on your ego, good listeners are not defensive. They don’t take things personally, which helps the speaker stay as open as possible and not shut down. When having serious conversations about a person’s complaints, problems, and challenges, we must be able to hear them out in order to respond properly and rationally.

Furthermore, good listeners don’t mind being put in awkward situations. They are not bothered by silence or by a person getting extremely emotional. If you are going to have a heart-to-heart with a business partner, you expect that there may be tears, interruptions, or shiftiness during the conversation. People who can deal with uncomfortable scenarios know how to keep it respectful and focused. Remember, it is called a heart-to-heart for a reason: You are getting out of the logical space of your brain and more into the heart space of vulnerability—the place where true connection lives.

Use Compassion and Empathy to Make a Difference

Before Facebook, there was Myspace. Myspace had groups with specific themes, and Keith Leon joined a group called “Committed to Love.” Because he and his wife were relationship experts and were new to coaching, they decided to utilize the group to offer free coaching to anyone who wanted it for the purpose of connection. Fast forward to today: Keith is a best-selling author and the creator of You Speak It Books. Keith was kind enough to share his story of how he discovered the incredible, lifesaving powers of empathy and compassion and why he practices it in his business today.

One day, I logged into the “Committed to Love” group and saw that one of the teens I had met in the group was online. I sent a message saying, “I see you are online. I hope you are having a great day. I want to you know that you have made a difference in my life.”

She replied, “Really, how?”

I told her that we are all making a difference whether we know it or not. There were a few things she had shared with me in our chats in the past, and they had touched my heart and made me think of things in a different way. We chatted for another 20 minutes or so and then said our goodbyes.

A few days later, I received the following message from that teenager:

“I want you to know that you saved my life the other day. I thought that nobody saw me or cared about me. I was feeling depressed and unseen. I had a handful of pills and a glass of water in my hand when you messaged me and told me that I had made a difference in your life. The chat we had pulled me back and talked me out of killing myself. If I have made a difference in your life, maybe I have done the same for others too and just don’t know it. Thanks for making a difference in mine. Thanks for saving my life.”

This experience led me to become a very successful coach, speaker, and book publisher because making a difference (by helping others to see how they make a difference) has always been my top priority.

We never know how we are touching people’s lives. One smile, one hello, one note or letter, one hug can make all the difference in the world. You make a difference!²¹