#12 Momentous Isn't the Same as Memorable
Being memorable doesn't always change the future.
Steve Steele
7/20/20264 min read
Tony Ludlow was an eighth grader in Memphis who hated poetry. His grades were slipping and his English teacher, Mrs. Cecil Holman, noticed. She didn't pull him out of class for a program. She didn't refer him to a counselor or organize a special intervention for him. She handed him a book with a bookmark already placed inside, pointed him to a poem (Tennyson's "Ulysses") and asked him to come back Friday and tell her what it meant. He went home, reluctantly read it, and felt the change within him. She kept giving him poems after that: "Invictus," "If," "Dulce Et Decorum Est." At the end of the school year, she shook every student's hand as they filed out. When she got to Tony, she leaned close and said six words: "Tony Ludlow, I expect greatness from you." He had never heard anything like that in his life. He went on to serve a decade in the Marine Corps, then earned a double major in English and history. His major in English was specifically because of Mrs. Holman. He taught American history and English himself for nearly twenty years. He never got to tell her though. He found out decades later, that Mrs. Holman passed away the year he graduated from high school, through her neiece, and the two became close. They were bound together by the woman who had handed a resistant eighth grader a book with a bookmark already placed inside. No grandeur, and no stage. Simply a book, a bookmark, and six words.
In December of 2018, Terri Powers of Fredericksburg, Virginia had just lost her mother. She went to the grocery store a few days later because the tasks of grief keep coming whether she was ready for them or not. At checkout, the cashier asked how she was doing, and Terri couldn't manage the usual "fine." She said she wasn't doing great as her mother had just passed. The cashier expressed condolences and they finished the transaction. Then the young man who had been bagging her groceries looked her directly in the eye and asked: "Can I give you a hug?" He had been standing there the whole time, listening, watching, and reading the room well enough to know what was actually needed. She said yes. They hugged. That was it. Terri later described it as the most healing hug she had received in a long time. The hug was not from a therapist, not from a close friend who knew her history, but from an anonymous grocery store bagger who had no title, no platform, no training in grief care. Just enough presence to notice what was needed and enough courage to offer it. She thinks about him still, years later, and wishes she could thank him. He almost certainly has no idea.
The Point
Today's blog is another focusing on little blurbs from NPR's program, "My Unsung Hero" from their Hidden Brain Team. Many of those interviews are small, short snippets that are about someone who was MOMENTOUS in their life, but maybe in a role they hadn't appreciated until later. The last couple posts are just a few examples of the many they have on the subject.
We tend to conflate scale with significance. Bigger event, bigger budget, bigger stage would surely lead to a bigger impact, right? But momentousness isn't a function of production value. It's a function of precision: the right words, to the right person, at the right moment, landing on something that mattered to them specifically. A gala can be memorable to a room. A moment is momentous to a person.
Notice what Mrs. Holman spent: a bookmark, some time, and six words at the end of a school year. Notice what the grocery bagger spent: nothing at all, except the willingness to pay attention and act on what he saw. Neither had resources that most leaders would consider significant. Both produced something that outlasted every expensive event those people had ever attended. This distinction matters most for leaders who feel like they don't have the resources to make an impact. Good news: you don't need significant resources either. The things that actually change people are almost always small, specific, and nearly free. What they require isn't money but attention. You have to actually know (or simply observe) the person in front of you well enough to know what would land well.
The danger of chasing "memorable" instead of "momentous" is that it lets leaders off the hook from the harder, more personal work. It's easier to plan an event for two hundred people than it is to notice that one specific person stopped raising their hand, or is standing at a checkout counter trying to hold themselves together. But the event, however well executed, rarely produces the kind of moment that shows up in someone's life story years later. The quiet, specific, perfectly timed gesture does.
Parting Thoughts
Audit your recent leadership investments. Look at where your energy, planning, and resources went in the last month. How much of it was aimed at things that are visible, impressive, and photographable? How much was aimed at something specific to one person who needed it? The ratio tells you something important.
Ask what you actually remember. Think back to the best event, retreat, or program you've ever attended. Now ask: what do you remember most vividly? Odds are it isn't the keynote or the production quality. It's probably a conversation, a comment, a moment with one person. That's the thing you're capable of creating for someone else, every single week, without a budget.
Notice who's at the checkout counter. The grocery bagger didn't have a leadership title or a training program. He just paid attention. The question for any leader is whether you're actually present enough with the people around you to see what Terri Powers needed in that moment. Then whether you'd have the courage to act on it if you did.
Separate the goal from the vehicle. Galas, retreats, and events aren't wrong, but they're vehicles, not destinations. Ask yourself: what is this event actually supposed to do for a specific person? If you can't answer that, the event is memorable by design and momentous only by accident. Build the moment into the vehicle, not just the vehicle itself.
"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
Maya Angelou