You can talk about connectedness or you can connect.

Hey MissionMonday Fam,

This is not a mission post. This is me processing some things and then posting my process. This might be the Sam thought equivalent felt cute might delete later. I follow an entrepreneur, a gentleman in the entrepreneur space if you will, by the name of Gary Vaynerchuk. He's made a difference for me in my approach to both my personal and professional life. When I first started listening to him years ago he made me realize I had been neglecting some of my own perspective. Sometimes we need an outside source to remind us of what we already know is important. Anyway, a quote of Gary’s I frequently mention in regard to doing the missions “You can talk about push-ups or you can do push-ups. One of those gets results.” I really believe what MissionMonday does is the cultural enhancement equivalent of doing those push-ups and getting results. That being said I’ve struggled exactly how to express that in the context of MissionMonday. Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Elli of Spencer Community Schools and in our chat I referred to Gary's quote and said “We like to talk about school culture but it's not enough to talk about school culture. You need to do school culture.” I really liked the way that that sounded but it wasn't quite right. Shortly thereafter I listened to a story on NPR about students struggling and the things schools can do. It was all about being connected. If students feel like they have a connection to someone in the school that makes a big difference. That connectedness was one of the most important factors in student success, maybe even student survival. I posted the story and commented “You can talk about connectedness or you can actually connect.” I think that's the translation. Go forth MissionMonday fam. Tell everyone. Take the random out of Random Acts of Kindness and connect rather than talk about connectedness.