From the 2/9/96 D4G discussion, W2026 transcript, p 119.:
I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Howard Thurman, which is, “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask you what makes you come alive and go and do that. Because the world needs people who have come alive.” And so that question of, what engages me? Just a quick side story. So I was at… a NetHope lunch. So we were in a public restaurant for this gathering, and I'm having a conversation with Sam Memberg, who was the CIO for the New York Public Library. We're chatting back and forth. And all of a sudden I catch at the periphery a mom walking her young child, who couldn't have been older than one. And I immediately turned and was engaging with the child, smiling and raising my eyebrows and things like that. And then they passed by, and then I turned back to the table, and Sam said, “What just happened?” And the point was that that was an engagement moment, and an opportunity later, to reflect on what was engaging me, and how can I have more of those moments in the work that I'm doing? So engagement moments are, this is what I had mentioned earlier, that one of my advisors says, pay attention to when you become Italian. And I'm thinking, Okay, well, my mother's Italian. What do you mean? He said, Well, when you start doing this with your hands, you indicate that you're really engaged with the conversation. Take a pause and think about what it was you were talking about that caused you to start, to do that. And so that ability to pay attention to engagement moments is, I think, a very important part of career development. So that's another, another side note on it, and an opportunity to share a couple of other stories |