The Reward Of Supporting Others

Over the past few weeks I have been working with a couple of ladies, Georgia Feiste and Heather Coleman, to organize a blog series called Women’s Leadership Month. This series is being hosted during January 2011 on the Lead Swag website, which is a collaborative project of Heather and me. It’s focus is to bring fun to leadership and show that leaders can enjoy themselves and still be responsible.

It all started with a conversation with Georgia about her passions, which led us to talk about women and leadership. After a bit of discussion, we decided to let Georgia and her band of merry women take over the site and blog about women and their perspectives of leadership. It was all very exciting to have the opportunity to host such a great blog series.

What came next, I hadn’t quite prepared myself to experience. In the process of contacting those who would be contributing, I had some conversations with many of these fine ladies. The amount of excitement and gratitude expressed was quite overwhelming for me. What these ladies do for a living was irrelevant, the response was uniform. It was friendly and sincere thankfulness for having been asked to contribute.

I can’t honestly say what I had expected. I don’t think I had any expectations, I was just focused on making sure it happened because of the respect I have for Georgia and what she does to support women leaders. In the process of all this, I realized I was the one who was being rewarded.  There is something extremely valuable and yet intangible in receiving heartfelt thanks for supporting the dreams and interests of others.

Sure each of these ladies will have an additional outlet to bring their voice to the masses, and I’m happy that I was able to be a part (however small or great) of helping to make that possible. The real gem for me was experiencing the joy of helping others do what they are passionate about doing. I’ve done this many times over, but each time I’m amazed at how much it impacts me as a person. It’s like it’s always the first time and I never grow tired of it nor get used to it.

What can you do to support those around you? How can you help make their voice louder and reach a larger group of people? Let’s make 2011 the year of altruism. A year where we do what we can to lift up those around us. You will be amazed at how much of a reward you truly receive!