The Little Things


Small plant emerging from sand in a desert.
Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash

Relationships and the little things matter. As I continue to grow as a leader, I have the opportunity to connect with many people in many different places. As I have these interactions, it reminds me of how important relationships and the little things truly are. Even the things that we may not recognize as a big deal or think that highly of, could have a lasting impact. 

I was recently sent a link to a video (the part I am referencing starts at the 2:46:00 mark) of a student that participates in our FIRST Robotics Program. This student shares the experience of participating in FIRST Tech Challenge and then missing out on participating on the FIRST Robotics Challenge in high school. The student then lays out their extreme difficulty in their high school years. 

As the student talks, he says that he reached out to a former Robotics mentor and that moment shifted his outlook and his outcomes. The mentor only had to answer the student’s email and put the student in contact with the high school mentor. That is it. A series of a few emails and it drastically changed the student’s perception, outcomes, and outlook on school. The student goes from contemplating giving up completely to working towards a paying internship with a local technology company.

The point of this video is to share how our interactions, regardless of how small and how trivia they seem to us, can have a lasting and larger than life impact on those that we interact with. Many of us do not sit down to compose an email with even the slightest expectation that will help to spur change in someone else’s life, but that is the power of the little things.


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