Small Story Big

For the last two weeks, much of the world has just witnessed the incredible human jostle for the gold, silver and bronze rewards that represent the pinnacle of sport.  How we love to witness the colossal effort men and woman exert to dominate their field!  We feel such a sense of pride when those who represent our country do so with accomplishment.  Above all, we love the story behind the victory.  They are usually big stories.  Stories about great obstacles overcome to even get to the games.  Stories about pain, injury and healing.  Stories about odds crushed and bodies pushed to (and beyond) their limit.  Stories about the will to succeed and the resilience of the human spirit.

However, most of the stories of humanity are not so celebrated or so media-saturated.  We all have stories, and most of them go unnoticed and unacknowledged.  But does this matter?  As Martin Luther King Jnr. once said, 'Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve.  You don't have to have  a college degree to serve.  You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace.  A soul generated by love.'  

Yours may be a 'small', everyday kind of story, like most of us.  But it doesn't mean it won't have big - or even great - consequences.  We all know a small service to others can generate big changes to their lives.  But it's up to you.  Only YOU can make your small story, big!

Got the Sneezes?

Are you a sneezer?  No, I'm not talking about the winter flu.  But I am referring to a way to spread a virus - an 'idea' virus*. You see, the internet is a tool which enables us to spread ideas around just like a virus.  If you like an idea (if you 'get it'), you become the carrier of something that has the potential to go 'viral'.  YOU become the one to keep the idea going, or stop it there.  All you have to do is 'sneeze' the idea so that others - for example everyone in your address book and internet networks - are able to catch the idea too.  It is like infecting as many people as you can with an idea.  This may sound malicious in the context of a flu-virus.  But what if it is a virus set in motion to bring life, food, shelter, health, education and livelihood to some of the world's poorest people?  That is a virus worth spreading... so 'sneeze' away, all you one-hit-wonders!

the ohw team.

*'Unleashing the Ideavirus' by Seth Godin (2000) www.ideavirus.com.