Child
Leaders
“With
realization of one's own potential and self-confidence in one's
ability, one can build a better world.” Dalai Lama
There's
been a story on the NBC evening news about a little six-year-old boy,
Dylan Siegel, and his best friend, Jonah Pournazarian. Jonah has a
rare liver disorder that prevents his body from storing glycogen, and
Dylan wants to help cure this disorder so his friend can live a
normal life. With that in mind, he wrote a book called, Chocolate
Bar, that expresses how he feels about all kinds of good life
happenings. “That's so chocolate bar,” is his expression for
something he finds incredible. Dylan nudged his parents to
self-publish the little picture book, and to set up a website for
selling it. To date, Dylan's book has raised about $100,000.00, with
all money going to fund research for Jonah's disorder. His goal is
one-million dollars.
Now,
I doubt that Dylan stopped to ponder whether he had the potential to
do such a lofty project, and he was awfully fortunate to have parents
who took him seriously. No, as most children would, he went about
doing something without thought as to whether it made sense for him,
at six, to succeed. Do you remember having the confidence to say,
“I'm going to do this and let the chips fall where they may,”
and, if no one tells you all the reasons why you can't, you just do
it! I'm fairly certain that LeBron James was saying, “Let's play
this game,” at six, and look where it got him.
Sometimes
little children are the best leaders. They see the world in vivid
color, and they call it from a place of guileless optimism. They
don't yet have the capacity to fain interest, or camouflage their
feelings, or be anything other than honest, sometimes painfully so.
They know instinctively what is good, and what is not. If we adults
could tap into some of that child-like confidence and clear-minded
idealism in ourselves, the world most assuredly would be a better
place.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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