“Kindness, and Kind Leadership, starts with action!”
That was one of the themes of my TEDxBoston talk on Monday!
After the event was done, I was excited to reconnect and go out to dinner with my friend Danielle Pease! I haven’t seen Danielle since 2016 so I was looking forward to a fun evening of catching up, and to introducing her to my fab friend (and 3 x TEDx speaker!) Pennie Saum! As we were sitting on the outdoor patio of the restaurant waiting for our food, Tierney Thys, another of the TEDxBoston TRACTION speakers, and her daughter Marina, passed us going into the restaurant.
“Would you like to join us,” I asked? “We can pull up an extra chair so everyone can fit at the table!” And so they did! And we had a totally fabulous evening talking about sustainability and preventing more microplastics from going into the ocean from fabric (Tierney is a National Geographic Explorer), soil contamination in New England, Marina’s fabulous hiking experiences, and the importance of belonging and bringing diverse people and ideas together to solve the problems our world is having that affect us all.
You see, just thinking about solving a problem won’t solve it: you need to take action. And just thinking about leading with kindness won’t bring people together. You need to take action! It’s as simple as opening your eyes, looking around, wherever you are, including at a restaurant, and kindly inviting others to join you! The more you include, the merrier…and kinder!
Who will you invite to join you today?
To learn more about the Key Kind Leader Practice of Acting Kindly, see Chapter 6 of The Kind Leader: A Practical Guide to Eliminating Fear, Creating Trust and Leading with Kindness!