There is Greatness in you.

Do you know that everyone has greatness in them?  True greatness.  There is greatness in you.  That top of the mountain, light shining down on you, awesome kind of greatness.  It is in you.  On top of that, it is a word that applies to everyone; you, me, your neighbour, your friend, the delivery guy, the grocer, the nurse, the doctor, and yes, even the politician.  The important part to understand though is that there is greatness in you.

Photo by Trail on Unsplash.

I heard this for the first time in a training session I attended as an emerging leader at Colt Engineering many years ago.  Lou Tice's words, "There is greatness in you", sprung from the page and struck me in my heart.  "Really?" I thought.  I stared at the words 'you' and 'greatness' written together on the page and lost track of what was being said in the class.  I shook my head to return to the discussion and waited to later that night to stare at the words again, in wonder.  Those words, "There is greatness in you", started a glimmer of an awareness that lit up my soul. ​

 Up until that moment, greatness was not a word I would have imagined using to describe myself and most certainly was not something anyone had ever suggested, seriously in referring to me.  And yet, the thought of the word greatness in all its meaning, being referred to me, created a spark of awareness.  Awareness of a light that I carried within me.  A possibility.  That spark of self awareness has travelled with me during some very dark times and has nearly been snuffed right out many times over.  Self doubt and a head full of thoughts did not help. Thoughts like, If I'm so great, why did I lose my job?,  Why does no one like me, love me,  and many other negative stories and questions to shame myself into giving up and selling out.  Or even worse, that ever annoying doubt that I felt when I would look at the greatness that was so obvious in those around me.  Surely that is where greatness is, I would think.

Monarch Wonder, Original oil painting by Cory Acorn

I recently created a painting of a Southern Cassowary gazing in wonder at a roost of Monarch butterflies.  Could it be that we are like that, that I am like that? Looking in wonder at things so different from ourselves that we do not see our own unique, greatness?  Maybe.  Or maybe we can instead gaze in wonder at the beauty and greatness around us without in any way diminishing who and what we are.  After all, there is greatness in us all.

So that is where my spark of self awareness from a few simple words has taken me.  There is greatness in all of us so indeed, there is greatness in me and there is greatness in you.  Neither one diminishes the other.  I understand more the vastness of the meaning that we have assigned to the word greatness.  My little spark of awareness is shining a bit brighter than it did 20 years ago.  I feel the sense of greatness rise when I'm painting and or at times like this, when I decide to write a few words.  As for your greatness?  That is still much easier for me to see.