What is your impact in this world? How do you affect the people in your life? The people you have never met? How about those you will meet but don’t yet know or to those you will never have contact with? What do you mean to them and how have you affected their lives?

These are big questions and if you follow the questions long enough and far enough, the possibilities become too big. It becomes impossible to wrap your head around it. If you are like me, your head starts to spin with the overwhelming amount of potential answers. Or maybe you don’t think about it at all, each day passing by in the focus of daily tasks.

During the Christmas season one of the things we do as a family is attend the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert. Recently we attended the show and I noticed something that happened a few times throughout the evening. Trans Siberian Orchestra is skilled at using silence and dramatic pauses in their performance. During these times of silence, there would be a moment of silence that hung in the air, followed by a single clap. And then another clap and another, and more rapidly another until the entire stadium was filled with a resounding round of applause. The single clap did not always start from the same area of the arena, it was like a shared responsibility with different people feeling moved to start the momentum at different times. As I observed this time and time again, I thought about that one person, the one clap who started the applause. What had provoked them to respond with the applause and why then?

Have you ever noticed this type of phenomenon in other places? What if you attended a concert and nobody cheered or clapped. How much energy would be in the performance. Have you ever watched a speaker and as soon as one person asks a question, ten hands go up to ask questions. In the classes I teach when I am building energy and encouraging participation, it takes that one person to yell or make a noise. And then suddenly others do too! We do this with embarrassing things too, don’t we? We don’t admit to something until somebody else makes it an open topic. I have a really funny story of this. Recently I did the R2R2R adventure with Project Athena. While it was the most amazing experience, one of the obvious limitations was lack of restroom facilites along the way. I am sure I am not the only one who wondered about this issue long before we started this adventure and how it would possibly be handled. Let’s just say that by the end of the trip, modesty was not a word in our vocabulary. However, it was the same phenomenon. We would cover mile after mile, and nobody would stop. But as soon as one person mentioned the need to stop, everybody had to!

I think about my decision to fill out the application for Project Athena. I am always amused thinking of this because if I had known they would select me, would I have filled it out and told them my dream was to run a marathon in China? I am not sure I would have because in my mind I was not a marathon runner. And yet that simple action in the course of my life has changed me in ways I could never have imagined. And through my changes, I have heard from others how they have made changes because of me! A woman who takes my classes and is now a dear friend told me she would never have thought of running through the pain until I talked about doing it. A mother and daughter in law, seeing me run to the gym to teach my class decided they too could run home from the gym. Endless ripples have been shared with me as a result of telling my story. I love hearing about things like this. Not because they ran, but because of the connection and the impact we have created together. I believe my ripples extend beyond running and physical fitness. I believe each of us has the power to make a splash, which ultimately affects hundreds and thousands of people.

I realized sitting at the concert that we spend a lot of time waiting for somebody else to clap first. Because what if we clap and nobody else does? Or what if we stand and everybody else sits? What does that say about us if we lead and nobody else follows? I believe the truth is that it is impossible to be left standing by yourself. We all wait for that one person to make the first move and to lead us don’t we? If somebody else claps we know it’s ok. If somebody else speaks up it gives us permission to speak up too.

I wonder how many dreams we would pursue with absolute conviction if we knew we wouldn’t be clapping by ourselves or standing alone. As I filled out the application for Project Athena I had no idea how big my action was. That ignorance allowed me to say that running a marathon on the Great Wall of China was my dream. And that same ignorance allowed me to say yes to Rim2Rim2Rim, and to say I want to run in Namibia. It’s not that I see the big picture and believe in myself. The big picture scares me to death. But I have learned that when I wait for someone else to clap I miss my chance. The big picture is frightening for me, but what scares me more is that I wind up with a life full of regrets, too heavy to stand. One of the questions I am asked most often is why I run. And I wish there were a simple answer but the layers are complex. There is something so gratifying about moving my body through space and propelling myself, one step at a time, toward a goal I have created in my mind. In the purely selfish gratification I get, I have been blessed to be a part of so many connections and ripples.

As you go through your day, don’t try to follow every ripple you create. Remember it’s not what we do that is remarkable it’s that when we do anything that it becomes remarkable. Live with purpose and make the biggest waves you can possibly make.