When I was 4 years old my dad left to work in another country, this was before the internet and social media became normal so since then, my only memories of my childhood with him were the monthly 30-minute phone calls that we had.
As I grew up I always looked forward to speaking with him every Sunday, he was always interested in me, showed empathy and gave me the best advice I could find on any of my problems, when I was in junior high school I started to notice that he had a lot of knowledge, he helped me solve my problems in school homework and personal, I really admired him.
One day, I asked my mom why was he so smart? He always had the answer for my homework and the solution to my problems; my mom’s response was: Well, since I met him he always reads a lot, he used to have a shelf full of books in our previous home! We put them in a box when we moved to this new home.
The more I spoke to him every week, the more I realized that I wanted to be like him and since the reason that I knew for his intelligence was all the books he read, at the age of 15, I decided that I was going to read all of them also.
I went to the storage room in our home and search over all the boxes we had (they were a lot) and when I finally found it I started taking them all out… There were books about politics, history, math, and many other topics.
My initial thought was to read all the books, but as I started skimming through some of them and after a few hours, I found myself overwhelmed with all those topics that I never really pay attention to or even understood at the moment I started to worry that I would never be able to read all and I would never be as smart as my dad, it was frustrating! But suddenly as I was pulling another old book, it called my attention that is had no cover, I look inside a few pages and there it was the title that read: “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” by Dale Carnegie. Right timing! At the moment I started feeling worried this book crosses my path, so I grabbed this and other few books to start with and carried them with me for the next few months.
It took me a while to be honest to even finish one book since I didn't have the habit, but the more I read the more I was interested in learning more and now on our weekly calls with my dad that by then were now 60min calls, I could bring topics of the books I read, one day I mentioned the Dale Carnegie book and my dad told me that he got it in one training he took years ago, so in my mind, since I wanted to become as smart as he was, I immediately wrote a note to research more about that training so I can also take it; we always talked about the experiences mentioned in that book and others, and my motivation for reading just grew more and more.
Today I am 34 years old, I’ve read hundreds of books and I still get excited when I find a new one that calls my attention, I keep 5 books that I read every single year, and I lost count of how many self-development training or seminars I have attended. All that self-education that I’ve done has helped me be prepared for the challenges I had in my life and had developed in me the interest of always learning and keep growing as a person which has brought success to my life. I am grateful that 19 years ago I opened that dusty box and picked up that first book because that opened up a whole world of possibilities for me; but I am most grateful to my dad and the example he set for me, the idea that I had when I was 15 years old, thinking that “ my dad is so smart because he reads a lot” planted a seed in my me.
And that brings me to the title of this article: Change the world by Your Example.
No matter what you do, you have people that care about you and people you care about and they are watching you, they are looking at what you do, the decisions you take and how you react to what happens to you, and even if you don’t have anyone and are alone in this planet, there are other fellow humans beings that will most likely do the right thing when they see someone doing it because that will remind them of their core values and if someone has the same values and has the courage to stay true to them, that will be enough motivation for someone else to do the right thing too, something simple like picking up an empty bottle from the street and placing it in the garbage bin can set the example for some kid watching you at the distance.
What is the right thing to do? I don’t know that’s up to your values, but what I know is that when we live up to our values we set an example, we don’t need to wait for the government or our boss or anyone to do the right thing if we know something doesn’t align with our values is our full responsibility to do it right and set an example, it might be painful or embarrassing but in the long run, is totally worth it.
Whatever you do, hold to your values and when the opportunity comes to do something right, set the example, with time, you will notice how your actions or “the seed you planted” flourishes and affects positively other people around you, making the world a better place one action at a time.