Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.

Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.

Depending upon your choice of business, you may well meet hundreds, if not, thousands of people over the course of time.

With a week like we are having in Los Angeles, with LA Tech Week, those numbers multiply so quickly, we are hard pressed to remember even the full number of people with whom we spoke over the course of a given day.

What is it that makes the footprints in the heart?

They are finely crafted details that stem from camaraderie, compassion, empathy, enlightenment, great cheer, kindness, generosity, and countless other variables that give cause for someone to become more invaluable to our overall being than we may or may not have imagined.

Making the time to give of oneself and share in another person’s life takes a perspective that delivers greater benefits in non tangible assets than can ever be forecast. When we are of mind to build such a bridge with another human being, our inner persona is revealed and in the course of doing so, we are able to build a connection with the other party in such a manner as to leave that indelible impression.

Try a quick exercise, if you are so inclined…. From amongst the people whom you have actually met in person, which ten of them have left the deepest footprints in your heart?

In the course of making your list, an assortment of loved ones will most certainly make the list. As you progress past them, you may encounter your closest friends, or perhaps a teacher, coach, employer, colleague, collaborator, partner, physician, or similar.

One of the most common of the variables that such people will have is that they have gone far beyond the superficial layer of congeniality. More than likely there have been much more intimate discussions, experiences, and adventures that have lead to your own personal evolution. 

We are each, a work in progress, honing our overall being from that which we are into that which we wish to become. The evolution is often exhausting, painful, debilitating, demoralizing, dispiriting, uncomfortable, disappointing, frustrating and emotionally draining. So it is interesting that if we look closely at the ones whose footprints are in our heart, that they are most usually the ones who have been there for us in times of need. 

We all want to be the brave one. We are the hero in our own story. Yet others, find their way into our story, and cast their luminance upon our circumstances and take us into their hearts with the sole purpose of being kind and compassionate when we need them most.

Some of those footprints came from inspiration, watching how that person behaved, spoke, acted, laughed and the behaviors that they role modeled. When we are inspired by another, their indelible impression is a guide to deliver us to higher ground.

The footprints come in many sizes. They come from many kinds of people. They come for many disparate reasons. 

But they remain, for only one reason. They remain because they touched us in ways that others have never been able to accomplish. They remain because for that period of our life, long or short, they were the one who knew how to deeply reach us and make us feel special and understood. In the end, that is the effort that delivers immortality. The ability to be remembered for how you have touched others lives and helped make their journey in this 3 dimensional existence, incredibly special and profound.

Happy Thursday!

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Written by Brian Weiner
When I was 5 years old, I discovered that the lemon tree in the backyard + dixie cups + water and sugar and I was in business. I have been hooked on that ever since. In 1979, I borrowed $14,000 to create a brand new product... photographic greeting cards with no text on the inside, called Paradise Photography. That was the start of The Illusion Factory. Since then, The Illusion Factory has been entrusted by all of the major studios and broadcasters with the advertising and marketing of over $7 billion in filmed, live, broadcast, gaming, AR, VR and regulated gaming forms of entertainment, generating more than $100 Billion in revenue and 265 awards for creativity and technology for our clients. When I took a break from film school at UCLA to move to Hawaii, my mother did not lecture me. Instead, she took 150 of her favorite aphorisms and in her beautiful calligraphy, wrote them artistically throughout a blank journal. That is the origin of the Lessons from the Mountain series. Since then, on my journeys to the top of a mountain to watch the sunrise, I have spent countless hours contemplating words of wisdom from the sages of all races, genders and political persuasions, constantly accumulating the thoughts to guide me on my life path. I hope you enjoy my books. Please let me know your thoughts, as I highly value your feedback!