When I think about my tribe, I think about the Reluctant Hero because most of the people that I know that have something extraordinary inside of them, they’re weren’t born a hero—they just get to the point where they’re no longer willing to standby and let life happen and let the problem that they solved continue to happen.
So I’m thinking about my student in particular, Dawn Thompson, she runs a nonprofit called Improving Birth, which is all about making birth safer for all. But she didn’t start out as this non-profit leader, she started out as a woman who had a challenging birth and she was thinking and thinking, I wish someone would solve this problem. I wish someone would make birth safer for all, around the country, around the world and improve the hospitals, improve the health care. And she really imagined that someday this knight in shining armor will just pull up on a horse and go “woah” and it’s like “Hop on! And I’m going to fix everything for you.”
In that moment, she realized all of a sudden, she had this massive revelation—that she was the knight in shining armor that she was waiting for. This wasn’t about waiting for someone to arrive and save the situation, but it was about stepping up to become the knight—to become the person that you’ve been waiting for because there’s a point where you to got to be like, “I’ve had enough. I’m not going to wait for somebody to change this, I’m not going to wait for somebody to step forward but I’m going to do this because that’s what I’m here for.”
And here’s the thing, have you spent your whole life waiting for somebody else to make the change? Waiting for someone else to swoop in and save you? You may wait your entire life. The train may never come into the station. You may be sitting on a platform, waiting and waiting and waiting and the train may never arrive.
But what if you choose to step up? What if you choose to step forward? What if you realized that you are the superhero you’ve been waiting for? And all it takes is a choice.
So I believe that no matter who you are, no matter how short or tall you are—I’m pretty short—no matter how young or old you are, no matter where you come from, what your background is, that you’ve got extraordinary power to change the world in a small way.
Years ago, before I became an entrepreneur, I worked in a non-profit world. And I thought that being part of this big organization that I’ll be able to make changes in the world. I kind of thought that change happen from the top down when a lot of people got together to make a change, but what I ultimately realized is that every movement is comprised with individual people who’s had enough to realize it’s my time, that I’m here to do something, that I’m here to make a difference in the world.
So you can stand by and wait for somebody else to do it or you can be that person. And so what I’ve come to realize is that the world changes from the bottom up and not the top down. The world changes when you’ve realized that you’ve got a piece of a puzzle that nobody else has. And when you have that realization, you’re here to solve a problem that only you can solve in the way that you can solve it.
So don’t wait. Allow yourself to realize that you are the knight in shining armor; you are the person that you’ve been waiting for, that you’ve got the power to make a change that you want to see in the world.
The train has officially arrive, your turn to get on board and go wherever you want to go.
Now go out there and Live Your Message.