Are you giving back to your community - and I don't mean volunteerism

I met yesterday with someone that I consider a mentor in my life. He gave me employment for a number of years, taught me to negotiate tough deals, set and meet tough deadlines,.... and most of all re-inforced that you must treat other people with kindness and respect. He drove this point home by the way he treated people, even when the corporate politics made it seem that we were being challenged for our jobs.

So, you are wondering what my point is. Well, this meeting was not a sales call. It was just catching up with an old friend to see how things were going. The amazing thing with this guy is that you can talk about any issue, no matter how pleasant or tough the issue is, and the conversation will end on a positive note. It just will, I can never think of a time a conversation has not.

Today, we see a lot of challenges. Incomes seem to be frozen, jobs seem to be scarce, (insert your favorite gripe here). We can easily catch and spread the sour grapes syndrome if we don't watch or attitudes closely.

During our lunch we talked about all the same topics that every other casual conversation contains, and at the end I walked away again with a smile. The entire rest of my day was better than what is typical, and I just was able to see every challenge as a possible win.

We all leave a wake wherever we go. In this mans wake is eternal optimism. I am going to make an intentional effort to leave the same in my wake today. How about you?