I wrote this in 2018 while I was in the air, on the way home from a week of site inspections in Vancouver Canada. While there, some colleagues and I were silenced for having an opinion about a very important topic that impacted the hotel industry and our personal pocket books. I felt like a teenager who had spoken out of turn at the dinner table. This rant had been brewing in my brains all week. Finally, on my Delta Flight home, I let it rip. Buckle Up, as this is some raw goodness.
We need to have an opinion. Everything we do matters. Our opinion matters. We belong to institutions and social circles where our opinions don’t match. That’s ok. We need to make a practice of understanding each other. We need to make a practice of debating each other, respectfully. The world we live in is diverse. We can have so many things in common yet there might a couple areas of difference. Let’s not let that divide us, split social circles or make us so different that we can’t get along. Let’s use that as ammo to ignite us to take a pause. A pause to say, I really like this person, this human, and we think differently about this one topic only. This doesn’t make us enemies or foes. This doesn’t mean I will shut my trap for fear of offending or disrupting the apple cart. This means I have a voice. I have a mind. It’s ok if we differ. Let’s figure out how to make it all work. We can make it all work. We can’t be afraid to speak our mind. We have to be in a world we can speak up, step out, do what we believe. We have to be wiser, smarter, better than those afraid to hear the voice of what’s different. We have to be who we are and encourage those around us to be who they are. We have to accept, encourage and ignite.