I spent this week down in Washington DC with the crew from the National Retail Federation (NRF). If you don't know, Google, but if you do, you will understand the important work they do for retailers - both large and small - advocating on our behalf with members of Congress, Senate and the Administration.
I have been lucky enough to be one of their Small Business advocates for the last year, which has meant stepping into the offices of some of the most powerful decision-makers in America, and telling them (politely) what they're getting wrong. Most of the people we spoke to had never worked in the private sector and certainly not considered some of the downstream effects of their choices on real businesses. For this (measured honesty) the NRF honored me with a nomination as a Rising Star, which actually means more to me than they probably realize.
I think a lot about the current world we live in and the world-it-should-be, and realized this: the only way to get it there, is to walk the walk. Small voices joining together, sharing individual stories, become one loud message thats impossible to ignore.
And, look - I am hardly a revolutionary - but without doing our best to properly inform to the people that invent the rules of the game, how can we say we've left it all on the field. For ourselves. For others. For the future.