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Good morning, everybody. Lee Brower here. Welcome to this week's edition of Meaningful Monday.

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I am so grateful to be here. I am so glad to be here. You know,

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sometimes things happen. Last week's Meaningful Monday touched me. The whole story about Jim Abbott and

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how this young boy in the third grade had been practicing to play baseball,

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and in his mind could play it as well as anybody with two arms because he only

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had one arm. You remember the story?

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And then how his hero, his hero after he already made Hall of Fame and Major

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League career pitching with one arm, his hero was his third grade teacher. Why?

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Because his third grade teacher took the time to figure out how to tie a shoe with one hand.

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You don't think that's a problem. That's a problem. And he taught it to Jimmy, little Jimmy Abbott.

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And Jimmy Abbott from that point on knew that he could accomplish anything he wanted.

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Well, because of that story, it's like you start to see stories around you,

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but one happened right square in my lap that I'd love to share with you.

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I had the opportunity this last week to go with my daughter Natalie and her

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two daughters to a trampoline park.

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Two daughters are ages four and six, almost seven.

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And the six-year-old, little Sloan, which means warrior, okay,

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she has spina bifida, but that doesn't stop her.

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So she's in a wheelchair chair and I get her over close to the trampolines and

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she pops right out of her chair and she's out there and she's bouncing.

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And she's just sitting, you know, sitting and bouncing like everybody else.

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And kids are running all around, all over the place. It's chaos.

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And it's like none of the other kids see her. They're just like almost running over the top of her.

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And her sister gets off into another room, which is a, you had to get quite

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a ways. We have to keep an eye on her. She's just all over the place.

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But anyway, we get over there. And so Sloan wants to go in the room.

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Well, as you go in the room, there was a little separation. She was crawling, and her legs fell in it.

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It didn't hurt her. She just caught. So I helped her out.

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But she was hesitant to go in there by herself. Well, I didn't.

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It wasn't the kind of thing that I could jump in on. But we encouraged her.

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If she felt right, we told her she's brave. She can do it.

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So she sat there thinking about it. But there was a little four-year-old girl,

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and she was watching her. Out of all those kids, this little girl was watching her. and she came over

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very quietly and she said, Hi, can I help you?

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Come on, come with me. And she sticks out her hand and she gets down on her

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knees and she goes with her and she gets her in there. This is a four-year-old with an almost seven-year-old.

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But she could see something that the other kids couldn't see,

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that the other parents couldn't see. And she got in there, and those two just played together. One time,

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little Nora crashed off of a slide, and I asked Sloane, I said,

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is she all right? She goes, yes, I gave her a hug, Papa. And those two bonded, and they had just a great time. In fact,

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her name is Nora, so we call it a Nora moment.

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Wouldn't it be great to have the eyes of a child, to be able to see things that

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other people, it's invisible to others? How cool would that be? You know, small acts of kindness.

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Small acts of kindness. They ripple out far beyond the medium moment.

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They create waves of goodwill and loyalty that just can go on forever.

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So, in fact, they've now developed a friendship.

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And little Sloan went this last Saturday and spent time with her at an event that they were having.

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And who knows where these ripples will go? Who knows who gets influenced by it?

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But I know that I saw it. and so my

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empowering question for this week is who can i see

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this week that previously might have been

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invisible to me that is struggling in

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some way that i might find a way to

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act with kindness maybe it's just a smile it might be just or it could be go

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beyond that but to do it without expecting anything in return i mean really

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it's about it's about noticing the struggles of others where we can act, if we can act, ideally,

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like I said, it could be just a smile, but we could act with kindness and compassion.

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And those moments are moments that create ripples that can carry out for generations, really.

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So I'm grateful for that Nora moment. Let's find more Nora moments, shall

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we? So why don't we make that all our empowering question for this week?

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Who can we see that normally is invisible to us that we may be able to extend

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a hand to, a smile to, but make a difference in their lives? We can be catalysts.

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Have a meaningful week. Have a meaningful week. And we'll talk next week. Bye-bye.