I have written a lot about it this year, but losing my dad has forever changed me. It has been nine months since I lost him and going home over Christmas and him not being there was weird. I miss his stories that he used to tell, that seemed to make no sense, and were so bad that they were good. He is an awesome man.
Struggling to deal with this and feeling in a very dark place, I tried a little experiment, and it all started on October 7th with a tweet.
I am going to try a little experiment and share an awesome person every day that I first met on Twitter, but then IRL. #365greattweeps
— George Couros (@gcouros) October 7, 2013
Since that day, I have woke up almost every morning (with a couple of exceptions), and tweeted about someone who has made an impact on me in some way, big or small. It started with one of my best friends in the world, Michelle Baldwin:
1 of my favourite people in the world that has become an awesome friend is @michellek107. Heart of gold and insanely smart! #365greattweeps
— George Couros (@gcouros) October 7, 2013
What I had hoped is that by starting every day with saying something positive about someone else, and sharing it with the world, I would feel better myself. To be honest…it has helped more than I have ever thought it would.
I think that “Follow Friday” is a nice idea and it has been a mainstay on Twitter for a long time, but I guess I decided that I need to try to do that every day in a little way and in a meaningful way. To me, it goes beyond, “this person is great to follow on Twitter”, to “this person is great and I was blessed enough to meet them.”
Would I love for this idea to spread? Of course. Not because it would ever bring me attention, but because doing something good, even as small as tweeting once a day about someone who has made an impact on me, can make someone else and myself feel good, even it is for a moment.
I plan to continue this project until I run out of people that have made an impact on me. Consider it to be indefinite.
Take some time to check out the #365greattweeps hashtag and follow some of these awesome people. I am lucky to have met all of them in person.
