Thanks for the shout-out veen. Drew Dudley's speech is cute. He talks about changing someone's life to the point where the person felt compelled to thank him for it years later. The best part - he has no memory of the described event.

In other words, we do things, without even realizing it, that have a huge impact on someone else. These things can be good or bad.

Dudley also encourages people to be proud of what he calls leadership moments. I'm very lucky because my work involves helping people become more effective.

Here's an email one of my computer science students sent me. I teach empathy and nondefensive communication.

I have been meaning to tell you this story about my application of interpersonal skills. I went to a salon to have my hair cut the day after the exam. The barber looked very annoyed while I was detailing the hairstyle I desired and he just started cutting my hair before I even finished. I stopped him right away and I said: "Can you tell me why you seem so unhappy?” He then told me his frustration with customers who are too demanding about their hair styles. Then I said: "So you think I don’t trust you and you feel hurt. Is that why you were so annoyed?” He replied: “Yeah” and the haircut went very well from that point on. What’s even more amazing is that I said those lines almost unconsciously. I felt like those words just slipped out of my mouth.

Notes like those are great to get.

Most of the time, though, we don't know the impact that we've had. But sometimes, you run into that person who thanks you for something you said a long time ago.

Sometimes you even remember saying it.