The Hero Wall

Many years ago, I had an idea. I wanted to dedicate a wall in our office to "Heros" - pictures of people who provided each employee with inspiration in their daily lives. The photos might have been of family, friends, community leaders, military, sports, business or political leaders.

The idea was, that eveyone in the office could identify three people who inspire them the most, and put their images on the Hero wall.

I was going to create an "inspiration gallery". It was to be a conversation starter - to provide each employee the opportunity to explain to their co-workers why the photos were especially meaningful to them - a personal daily reminder to "be all we can be".

I wondered whether personal inspiration could be contageous.

And it would have been a way to encourage my staff to look for inspiration all around them.

In the end, I never tried the experiment. Frankly, it might have made some of the staff uncomfortable and I didn't want to run afoul of HR, in case the staff wanted to post religious photos or controversial figures. It might have been a distraction more than an inspiration and in the end I decided that didn't want to take the risk.

Had I had the courage to proceed, Bill Strickland might have been one of my photos. Until yesterday, I had never heard of Bill Strickland. Thanks to Guy Kawasaki's blog, I was introduced to him via his inspiring talk at TED.

After watching the 30 minute video I dare you to be uninspired.