what do you give that doesn't cost a thing?

Last month, just after visiting IDEO in Palo Alto, I asked, what is your relationship with money? More important though, is IDEO's question on their facebook group Big Conversations & Small Talk: "What do you give that doesn't cost a thing?"

It makes for good reflection just after the holidays. We give a lot of gifts. We give time. We give experiences & memories. We give hope. We give dreams.

Honesty.

Courage.

Momentum.

Things that don't cost anything.

the power of one

I'm making good use of a gorgeous snow day in Atlanta by writing a keynote for the Georgia International Leadership Conference in February, and as I run through speech ideas and themes, I came across this video that served as great inspiration in college:

(The Power of One video, courtesy of YouTube)

I'm not sure that I'm qualified to be a keynote speaker on leadership and a global world, but I do know that it takes only one person to create something, to build something. It's up to us to decide what that something is going to be. Whether we lead for better, or for worse. To paraphrase the inauguration speech of President Obama, your people will remember you for what you create, not what you destroy.

Thomas Friedman closes his book The World Is Flat with this, and I will close my speech with the same:

“I can’t tell any other society or culture what to say to its own children, but I can tell you what I say to my own: The world is being flattened. I didn’t start it, and you can’t stop it, except at a great cost to human development and your own future. But we can tilt it, and shape it, for better or for worse. If it is to be for better, not for worse, then you and your generation must not live in fear of either terrorists or tomorrow, of either Al-Qaeda or Infosys. You can flourish in this flat world, but it does take the right imagination and the right motivation. While your lives have been powerfully shaped by 9/11, the world needs you to be forever the generation of 11/9 – the generation of strategic optimists, the generation with more dreams than memories, the generation that wakes up each morning and not only imagines that things can be better but also acts on that imagination every day.”

The power of one is the power to do something.
Anything.

goals, resolutions, and the new year

When I was about ten or eleven years old, I was doing a "family tree" project for school. Since I am a first-generation immigrant without the benefit of being surrounded by extended family, my choices for interviews were pretty limited (seeing as my older brother didn't really qualify as an expert on "family traditions and history"). I had written a set of questions to ask my dad, and a few nights before the assignment was due, we were sitting at the kitchen table talking through them.

We were almost done. He had told me stories about his childhood, his parents, about wrecking a car in the garage when he was no more than twelve or thirteen. About coming from a relatively poor family with nine siblings and parents that had retired by the time he started school. About putting himself through college as best he could, and moving to the United States to follow a dream.

The question I asked him was, "What is your greatest accomplishment?"

My father is a successful man. He has built a life for himself and his family - a life that straddles cultures and continents. He has earned a PhD, been tenured at a top-10 school of management in the world, lectured on three continents, started companies. But in that instant, he didn't hesitate. He looked at me without blinking, smiled, and said, "My greatest accomplishment is yet to come."

More than ten years later, I am still in awe of the kind of legacy that my father has left for me. The kind of unflinching resolve to do something better, to be more, than I was this year, this day, this moment. That's the kind of life I hope to design for myself.

Grand Canyon, Arizona - I was there. (feel free to use with credit)

In 2010, I learned to ski. Ran my first 5k (and then my first 10k!). Got a puppy and started a blog. I hiked through the hills of Palm Springs and rafted down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. Asked tough questions of myself, my friends, my family, and my coworkers. Launched two products. Spearheaded a partnership between Bard and MedShare to donate more than 500 volunteer hours to send medical supplies to the developing world. Flew almost 40,000 miles, deepened friendships, spent more time with my family, and had my first ever white Christmas. It was, to date, the best year of my life.

But just as 2010 was better than 2009, and 2009 better than 2008, 2011 lies ahead of me, and I'm excited. I don't do resolutions, but this I know - my family took some big risks to get where we are. And this year, I resolve to take some big risks myself - personally, professionally, culturally - to make this the best year of my life.

So ask yourself, what goals have you set? What pieces of your past are you calling on to make your future brighter? What risks do you want to take to make this the best year ever?