Leave a Piece of You

Wouldn't it be amazing if every person we met we were able to leave a piece of "us" with them?

Think about it for just a second. How are you making personal connections with those whom you come in contact with? I am not talking about friends and families either.

I'm talking about strangers.

I'm talking about acquaintances.

I'm talking about the people you'll never see again in your life.

Have you ever met someone that impacted your like in a way in which you felt compelled to tell others about this person/experience? Maybe you had a really neat cashier who inspired your day. Or maybe someone you meet randomly shared a personal story with you. Perhaps, you interacted with a stranger who made you smile. Whatever the case may be, ask yourself this: How can you make yourself be the person that other people share stories about because you impacted their life?

Here is my point: 1) Strive to leave a piece of you with everyone you meet; 2) Never be afraid to make personal connections with strangers; 3) Be you, be real.

I had a really neat experience while I was waitressing one evening. The reason it stands out to me as much as it does is because one of my best friends, Jessica, told me that she absolutely loves how I am never afraid to make personal connections with people after I had told her the story. It was not until she gave me that compliment that I really started to appreciate this skill in myself.

It was a really busy Friday night and I had a table of 6 "older" people come in. My immediate reaction was, "Great, I'm going to work super hard for them and get a bad tip because older people are not good tippers." Once I greeted them and got them beverages, they told me they were celebrating a birthday and that I would need to bring them ice cream and a knife to cut their cake. All I could think at this point was, "Great, now they are going to sit for a while, take up my table, make me do extra work, and I'll still get a bad tip." Regardless of what was all going through my head, I put on a positive attitude and embraced what my job was, and that is: to be a good waitress no matter what or who I am dealing with.

As the night carried along, these people were absolutely fabulous customers. They were fun, wanted to know about me outside of being a waitress, laughed at my corny jokes, cracked jokes with me, and sincerely appreciated the work I was doing for them (which does not happen that often with this job). Once they began eating cake, I asked the lady celebrating her birthday if I could ask how old she was. She told me she was 93. I told her how amazing that was and told the entire table about a 12-year old girl who was tragically killed just days before. Half of the table was from the local area, half was from out of town and were shocked by the news of the story I had just shared with them. When I finished my story, I looked at the woman celebrating her birthday and said, "I view growing old as a privilege and I think it is amazing that you are out celebrating your 93rd birthday because it really is remarkable. Not everyone will be able to say they did that; no one knows if they will have the privilege of saying that." The entire table gasped at what I said and told me that I was "one special young lady." As I parted ways with this table who celebrated a wonderful birthday, they told me how I was a phenomenal waitress, mature for my age, that I would go far in life, and how I had made their birthday celebration that night extra special and one they would never forget.

This experience for me was unique and emotional and as the table was leaving, I found myself thinking, "I do not want them to leave, I wish they would stay the whole night so I could get to know them more." One of the ladies came up to me, gave me a big hug and thanked me again for making their celebration so special. This table made me love being a waitress and if everyone treated waitresses the way they treated me that night, I would not even want tips. They did leave me an incredibly large tip, but I would not have cared if they left me anything. That table felt like family to me. They left just as big of an impact on me as I had made on them. That night was no about making money to me, it was about impacting people and having people impact me.

Life is all about making not only an impression, but an impact. We should all strive to build these remarkable connections with people as we go throughout our daily lives. If we do this, we will have great days everyday, feel better about ourselves, and make a difference in the lives of those around us.