Harley King

I still remember the very first standing ovation that I received 26 years ago.  I had spent three hours speaking to a group of 250 managers.  I was surprised and elated.  I had connected with my audience and moved them to stand and applaud.  As a professional speaker, I have since received numerous standing ovations.  Each one was a powerful form of recognition and appreciation for a job well done.



We all need standing ovations.  We need the people in our lives to recognize and appreciate what we have done.  We need people to say thank you.  You have touched my life.  But we also need to give standing ovations to the people in our lives — to say thank you to a spouse, a child and a friend.  We need to develop an attitude of gratitude.



Most of us are not hermits, living alone, isolated from friends and family.  We need the help of others — including people we have never met — from the person who assembled your cell phone to the farmer who provided the food on your table.  Think how barren your life would be if there were not other people to fill it with laughter and hope.



Who in your life needs a standing ovation today?  Reach out and touch their lives.  Say thank you.  Tell them how much they mean to you.

 

Harley King

Conversation is becoming a lost art.  People pass each other like shadows in the night, absorbed in their small worlds.  We seldom listen to the stories that people have to share about their lives.  We have little time for family and friends and rarely do we risk speaking to strangers.



Growing up in a small midwestern farming community, we left our doors unlocked and our cars running when we went to the post office.  Everybody knew everyone else and rarely did we meet a stranger.  Our conversations were filled with stories, gossip and laughter.



Yet, today I live in a much different world.  I lock the doors of my car even when it sits in my driveway and I always lock the doors of my house even when I am home.  And most of the people I meet are strangers and rarely do we speak.



Life is about the relationships we develop with family, friends and even strangers on the paths that we choose to travel.  Some of the best conversations that I have had in my life have happened on an airplane with someone I had never met and will never encounter again.  



With strangers, we often open up and share our stories in ways that we do not with family and friends.  We know that the strangers are passing through our lives and that it is unlikely that we will meet again.  When we listen to stories of strangers, there is so much we can learn about the world and the people that inhabit it.  We will often find that we are alike and have much in common.



Listening to the stories of others can spark our creativity and make us better writers and artists.  Something they say may plant a seed that will grow and bear fruit.  Something they say may free us from the chains that bind our thinking.  Listening to the stories of strangers will give us small moments of pleasure and joy.