Lloyd giving me a hand at the recent Northern Voices conference. Notes his t-shirt: code is poetry (Photo by KK)

Some things are complicated.  Some things are complex.  Some things though are simple.  Deceptively simple.

Like kindness.

I love Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Thought Bubble – Kindness video for that reason.  It’s not huge and hairy and hard to reach.  Rather it’s simple, soft and within our grasp.  It’s also easy to teach.  Kindness is the ultimate ‘lead by example’.

Spoiler alert: I love that she marries the guy in the end.

With all things kind in mind, here’s some reasons to say thanks:

Thanks to Lloyd Budd of WordPress fame who helped me out something fierce and magical (in my eyes) at the recent Northern Voices conference with some tech headaches I’d been having.  That’s him above doing his magic while I look on in awe.  He was gracious.  He was smart.  He was hugely helpful.  He was kind.

Thanks to Julie Szabo from Capulet Communications, my social media mentor.  Every month we meet she pours her wisdom into my social media starved brain cells.  I used to feel like a giraffe on rollerblades trying to cross a frozen wasteland.  Now I feel smarter and more able to navigate what once was a social media swampland.  Julie’s incredibly savvy.  She’s a keen listener.  She directs her wisdom to what I need both in the moment and for future success.  She’s kind.

Thanks to a friend who many moons ago was kind enough to rescue a bedraggled me.  I was soaked from a bike ride in the rain and this person swapped out clothes while washing and drying mine.  This person gave me some passes to a pub I loved.  This person lent me a bag for the first ocean kayak trip I was about to embark on.  In short, this person was and continues to be incredibly kind.  One of the kindest souls I know.

That’s one of the reasons I married him, my husband Doug.

Kindness.  It’s simple.