Share What You Learn - You'll Never Know Who May Benefit

I'm a passionate ongoing learner and reader of new ideas on the people side of business, I also make sure I pass those good ideas along to my clients and to my family. One of those ideas made it to a place I've never been - a small Hutterite community in southern Alberta.
An optimist and positivist by nature, reading new ideas from the field of Positive Psychology reinforces what many of us intuitively know - people thrive in positive work environments where they feel valued. Simple daily acts of recognition, acknowledgement - can make a world of difference. Read Barbara Fredrickson's very readable research in Positivity and you'll understand scientifically that this works.
About a year ago, I came across a great book in the field of Positive Psychology co-authored by Tom Rath and Donald Clifton (also known for Strengthsfinder) entitled "How Full is Your Bucket (Positive Strategies for Work and Life)." I passed this along to my family network. My sister loved it so much - she found out there was a children's version book - "How Full is Your Bucket - for Kids". She promptly bought one right away for her grandsons - that was about a year ago.
The mother of these little guys is a teaching assistant in a small school on a Hutterite community. She had a new module starting a few weeks ago in health about liking yourself and others. She decided to photocopy a bucket and give one to all the kids. Once they got them, they passed them along to the next student to write something about them on the bucket. Something about them that they liked. She said it was amazing. As they live on the colony, they are "like brothers and sisters "and for the most part don't get along all that great. She said what happened was amazing. They would look at each other and say "I didn't know you liked that about me" or whatever it was. She put up their buckets on the walls in the classroom so every morning they can see these things. The kids from the older grades heard about it and wanted to know if they could get a bucket - so now she's checking in with the other teachers.
What sometimes feels like a complete act of self indulgence or self development has the capacity to have a much broader impact – if you ‘share what you learn’. We also know it’s the best way to lock in new learning but teaching/telling others about it. Imagine you’re in a relay. You know where you start in the relay and the difference is you never know where it goes. But know that it will keep going – Rath and Clifton wrote a book, a childrens’ book was written, I shared information, my sister passed it along, my niece took it to school, the students got to experience the positive impact of being recognized for something someone liked about them. Don't you wonder what's next?