Here's my quote for the day...
"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you." - John Wooden
This weekend, I came across the story of Caine Monroy (thanks to this blog post from Seth Godin). If you're not familiar with Caine's story, here's the gist:
"Caine Monroy is a 9-year old boy who spent his summer vacation building an elaborate DIY cardboard arcade in his dad’s used auto parts store.
Caine dreamed of the day he would have lots of customers visit his arcade, and he spent months preparing everything, perfecting the game design, making displays for the prizes, designing elaborate security systems, and hand labeling paper-lunch-gift-bags. However, his dad’s autoparts store (located in an industrial part of East LA) gets almost zero foot traffic, so Caine’s chances of getting a customer were very small, and the few walk in customers that came through were always in too much of a hurry to get their auto part to play Caine’s Arcade. But Caine never gave up..."
If you've got a few minutes, I highly recommend watching the short film below. If nothing else, it might just restore your faith in humanity. In my opinion, there are four heroes (i.e. leaders) in this story. Caine - his creativity, enthusiasm, perseverance and infectious optimism are an inspiration and a reminder of everything that is right and good about being a kid. Caine's Dad - mad props to the dad who lets his son tinker and "set up shop" in his own workspace, letting the boy's imagination run wild. The Internet - kudos to the people who took time out of their busy lives to show up at the flash mob, helping to create one of the most meaningful events in Caine's life. Nirvan Mullick - the quote above says it all.
Caine Monroy is my new hero. Go, Caine go!
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