Steve Christilaw: Right words have power to unlock potential

I attend any number of fundraising events each year. I am not a major contributor, although I do what I can to support the causes and organizations I believe in.

My significant other, Julie, heads one of the organizations that helps people on our community who are in need with myriad o programs, and I am extraordinarily proud of the work she does. Attending fundraisers, especially hers, is the least I can do to provide support.

Over the years, there have been some fascinating keynote speakers, and the thing that always surprises me is that there is a significant overlap between the world I travel in and the world Julie works in.

Former Gonzaga president Father Robert Spitzer and former GU point guard Matt Santangelo have filled that role. After reading both of Bud Withers books about GU basketball, it was interesting to hear two of its architects talk about it all.

Last year it was the Iron Nun, Sister Madonna Buder. I once interviewed her after a triathlon in Coeur d’Alene, I had an interesting conversation with her at our table before and after her talk. She is a force of nature and living, breathing icon.

But Tuesday’s speaker was someone who gave me plenty of food for thought. The overlap is certainly subtle. But it was every bit as fascinating.

Ilsa Flanagan is the executive director of an organization called Images & Voices of Hope, and her expertise is in helping organizations talk about the work they do in a way that doesn’t feed into the highly charged political climate in which we live.

There are any number of areas she’s studied, and it’s interesting to see how the way we traditionally discuss issues can get sidetracked by words that have come to have a whole new meaning after years of heated discourse. In fact, the words can become so loaded that we tend to tune out the conversation and leap to a conclusion. Right or wrong, we jump ahead because we tend to think we already know what the speaker is going to say based on a word or two and the hidden meaning that has become embedded in them.

Words are a passion of mine. They are the arrows in my professional quiver and I love finding just the right word for the right situation. Mark Twain synthesized my thoughts on the matter when he said: “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter – it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

So anyone who can help me refine my quiver has my attention.

Her conclusion surprised me a bit.

After talking at length about how a majority of people hear the vocabulary of human services, her suggestion was to talk in terms of unlocking human potential.

I had to smile at that.

If you listen to the way coaches talk about their work and talk about their goals, it’s all about the many and various aspects of unlocking human potential. It’s about using the tools of sport, discipline, dedication and hard work, to open new horizons for young athletes.

I won’t go into how that applies to organizations – I cannot do it proper service in this context. But I know how open and receptive we are to the concepts Flanagan talked about. We all deserve the opportunity to reach our potential and we instinctively accept and appreciate how hard and how precious that can be for the people around us.

We get it.

If someone watches the video floating around Facebook of Mondo Duplantis pole vault a high school record 19 feet, 1 inch, we feel inspired. That a high school kid can fly that high at an indoor track meet doesn’t take away from our own feelings of possibility. No, we applaud him for his accomplishment.

If you watch high school senior and Olympic runner Sydney McLaughlin run the fastest 400 meter split in prep history, it doesn’t make us feel any slower. Athletic accomplishment doesn’t take away our own potential.

And that’s a lesson we should all keep in mind.

I am quite lucky. I get to be around young people learning to exceed their own expectations and unlock a potential even greater than they imagined, and it inspires me.

I hope it inspires you, dear reader.

I hope it inspires us all.