“I know some people…” …who do great things. So do you.

I stood next to the passenger van, my hand extended through the open window to shake hands with the driver.  I was congratulating him on the statewide award that he and his wife will soon be receiving. (I can’t say yet what it is because the official announcement has not yet been made.) He thanked me for writing the nomination. I had the easy part. I proudly told him that my son’s nonprofit also won an award and I had the privilege of writing that nomination, too.

“You write great nominations,” he said.

“Thanks, but really it is just that I know some people who are doing great things. I have the easy part.”

It strikes me that we all know people who do great things. The question is whether we take the effort to acknowledge their work. I say this while kicking myself for missing a great opportunity to do that when my wife and I experienced attentive service from a great waitress the other day. I tipped her well, but I missed the chance to ask for her manager to compliment her to him. Truth be told, if all the restaurant’s waitstaff were as good as ours, they would always have customers lined out the door to get in.

It is one thing to acknowledge someone’s efforts to their face, and quite another to share the news of their great work with others, whether a manager, a governor’s committee or someone the achiever knows, like a friend, spouse or neighbor.

There are many ways to acknowledge the great things done by the people we know, and we all know people who are doing things that deserve recognition. Let’s do it.