I sat at a professional women’s soccer game, soaking in the dynamics of women’s sports. A few rows in front of me, a woman suddenly stood and started shouting instructions to start the wave. Moments later, she made her first attempt. It didn’t work. The wave died out before leaving our section.
I watched as she started to sit down, discouraged. A friend in the crowd shouted, “Try it again.” She scanned the crowd and saw something different. The crowd in our section was ready. So, she gave it another try.
We rose together and flung our arms in the air. The next section did the same, but not in the direction we expected. Instead, the wave caught in the opposite direction picked and began to build. It was electric to see the wave moving around the stadium.
When it returned to us, the woman stood again with confidence and led our section. Three full times, the wave circled the stadium. All because one woman had an idea and another woman encouraged her not to quit.
The power of this experience inspires me.
We all have the ability to influence the environment around us. We can start something new, shift the trajectory of something struggling, or breathe life into something that’s fading. It begins with the courage to act on an idea.
But just as important is what happens when the momentum falters. That’s when we need people around us that will nudge us to keep going. I know how valuable these people are in my life. Left to myself, my inner voice defaults to sitting down too soon, replaying the failure instead of risking another attempt. That’s when I need strong voices around me that say, “Try it again.”
And when the momentum finally builds, it is important for me to remember it may take a direction I didn’t expect. The wave didn’t follow the path we expected, but it still worked. It still grew. It still created something powerful.
If I focus too narrowly on the outcome I had in mind, I risk missing the beauty unfolding in a completely different way. Because sometimes the impact we hope for doesn’t arrive the way we imagined. Sometimes it starts in a different direction entirely and becomes something even more powerful.
I want to be both people in that moment: the one brave enough to take a chance on an idea and the one wise enough to say to those around me, “Try it again.”