By HOWARD BROWN
Author of Shining Brightly

In my life, I am forever grateful for all the people who brought me a little sunshine, a little hope, when I was at my worst. Whether I was battling stage IV cancer or was facing the ups and inevitable downs of launching a new company or building up a nonprofit—I learned that these are team sports.

When I travel and talk to audiences now, the first thing I tell people about finding the resilience to succeed in life is: You can’t do it alone.

I take that to heart in my social media, too, often thinking of simple questions that may remind my online friends of the many ways people are shining brightly around them, every day.

So, today, I’m sharing two recent posts to show you a couple of ways I have done this. Maybe, after looking at these posts, you might decide to shine a little brighter in your own social media.

I’m sending you this creative sunshine in the form of this ReadTheSpirit column—so that, if you’re inspired, you may pass that sunshine on to others.

Sharing Our Happy Places

The first post is from Facebook. Because basketball is the “happy place” that literally has saved my life more than once, I often post about shooting hoops with friends. My hope is not that everybody is going to start playing basketball, but that each person who sees these posts may decide to get active, may head outside for some exercise and may be more thankful for their own family and friends. I’m modeling that in this Facebook post by also giving a “shout out” to one of my long-time friends Martin Davis, who wrote the book about coaches.

(Want to learn more about hoops as a “happy place”? Head over to Amazon and get a copy of Shining Brightly)

.

Linked-in illustrates that “leadership” is more than a job title

I also use Linked-in posts to illustrate the many challenges of effective leadership. True leadership involves far more than a job title. Authentic leadership depends on understanding and valuing the entire community we represent—shining light on everyone’s role and encouraging everyone to be their best.

Here’s a creative example of a post that you might never have expected to see on Linked-in, which many people regard as a place to celebrate their latest professional accomplishment. As I just explained, above, true leadership is about more than our individual resumes.

So, this Linked-in post is about—Barbie!

My wife and I had fun seeing the Barbie movie and that led to lots of conversations with friends and family. I’m well aware that social media mavens tell us that you shouldn’t use too many hashtags in your posts. But, in this case, I intentionally grouped a lot of the common Barbie hashtags together—along with a fun photo of me inside the giant Barbie box at the theater where we saw the film. My question asked friends to simply think about which of those hashtags mean the most to them.

That kind of reflection is one of the many daily steps toward effective leadership.

.

.

.

Care to learn more?

This is a perfect moment to become one of Howard’s growing global community of friends by ordering your copy of his book.

Here are other articles we have published, exploring the launch of this book:

Take a look at the book’s Foreword: ‘Shining Brightly’ Foreword by Dr. Robert J. Wicks: ‘Learn anew about the American Dream’

And especially read this story: Two-time cancer survivor Howard Brown writes ‘Shining Brightly’ to encourage others to stay healthy

Free Resource Guides

Download (and free-to-share) resource guides for discussing Shining Brightly:

• First is What are the ‘Keys to Resiliency when Confronting Cancer?’ Howard is freely sharing resources from the Discussion Guide for his new book—a page that lists 18 keys to resiliency that have proven valuable in his life and in the lives of people he has mentored through cancer.
• Second is Why should we become mentors?
• And finally Interfaith Bridge Building: Why do this work? 

.

.

.