The Power Of One

My Blackberry has been blinking red since 2pm Friday, March 12^th.  While I’m used to a steady stream of email, that is not what was making my Blackberry work overtime.  I was the guest speaker at a women’s networking event.  I prepared my notes, as I normally did, and printed them for reference.  When it was my turn to speak, I held the mic and asked the audience if I could just have a conversation not a presentation.  The crowded room of women cheerfully agreed and I abandoned my notes.

I opened my conversation by sharing how much joy I have in my life.  I further shared that in order for them understand my joy today, I had to walk them through my journey, my story.  Because the truth is, my story, which began more than a decade ago, is not one of fairy tales, but rather a story that fully demonstrates it only takes one person to believe in you.

Once I abandoned my notes, I spoke from an unscripted heart.  The images and thoughts flooded my head and my heart overflowed.  I felt my throat tightening and I knew holding back my tears was pointless. I cried; and every woman in the room cried with me.  To be clear, I didn’t cry because of what I had endured, I cried because of what I overcame.  I cried for the woman that I became despite and in spite of everything that tried to keep me from having joy.

My message that Friday was called “Creating Your Own Storybook Ending”; a title that many of my colleagues and friends initially struggled with understanding, as I typically speak on business topics.  My message was about what happens when one person believes in you; when one person tells you it’s OK to dream; when one person says “take some time to figure it out”.  For me, that person was my husband.  After three layoffs in two years, my bruised and battle-scarred ego felt hopeless and dazed.  But it was my husband’s supportive words that helped me find absolute clarity.  Because of his faith, I found the strength to figure it out – whatever “it” was.

Too many women look for joy first.  But I’m here to tell you that you won’t find joy until you find faith.  Faith is the soil wear the seeds of hope, love and joy grow.  Without faith, nothing else exists.  Faith is not transferable, but it is infectious.  On that fateful day when my husband uttered the words “Take six months to figure it out”, he infected me with his faith; and I began to do something that I had never done before.  I began to dream.

To my surprise, I would learn through emails, notes via Facebook and DMs via Twitter, that while I thought I was merely sharing my story, I was igniting a room.  Many of the notes I received said, “There wasn’t a dry eye in the room”.

It really only takes one person to ignite your faith.  For one afternoon, I was given the opportunity to be the Power of One for every woman in the room.  When I said “I believe in you”, every woman in that room knew that I was speaking from my heart.  You can’t script that kind of magic.  You can’t fake that kind of power.  Though we were a room full of women, we stood as one for that afternoon.  It was a powerful yet quiet moment of pure faith . . . faith in each other.

Today, it’s your turn to be the power of one for someone.