If you're the kind of person who collects good ideas from film, books, or historical documents, you're perfect! And if you happen to have found just one good idea, that's welcome, too.
Ideas should take up no more than 1:15 seconds when you read it. If it comes from printed material/film/etc., I will need title, author, publisher, page. Whatever you have that will facilitate gaining permission to use it.
These ideas are meant to be multi-layered, interesting, prone to stimulate paying attention and looking beneath the surface. No "have a nice day" or "Be kind." Thinking minutes, minutes that linger for the rest of the day ... with the power to change the world.
Some samples:
Colin Powell said, "I sometimes use the metaphor of the pinball machine. You know, you shoot this ball out and out comes this kid, and the kid goes bouncing around the pinball machine, hitting the bumpers and heading into the holes that take you nowhere, and just about the time you're about to slide off into nowhere, the flippers kick you back into play. That's your parents, it's your family, your cousins, your peers, your teachers, your coaches, your ministers, your rabbis. Kids need adults to keep them in play while they're figuring out where they want to go." Today, hold this thought: What if everyone kept a kid in play? Find a kid, try it.
Conversation was never begun at once, nor in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation. Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and his granting a space of silence to the speech-maker and his own moment of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness and regard for the rule that "thought comes before speech." -- Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux Chief, 1868-1939. Try this today: pause before answering, pause after listening. Add silence to your conversations.
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