The Ripple Effect: You Always Leave a Mark — Beneath The Surface
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This episode is about the impact you make even when you don't realize you're making one. Because every thought, every word, every action, everything we do sends a ripple outward. Our thoughts, our choices, even our energy, they're all shaping the world around us whether we see it or not. We might say something and forget it in the moment, but someone might remember that forever. We might walk away from a conversation never knowing how much it hurt, how much it helped, or how much it healed someone.

But it doesn't just stop there because those ripples, the ones we're sending out, they're not just moving outward. They're also moving inward because every thought, every word, every act, they're also shaping our own life experience. And we often assume that the impact that comes from these are the big gestures. But most of the time, it's the subtle things like the way we speak to ourselves in silence or the energy we bring to a room when we walk into it. It could even be that little glance you give someone that shifts everything.

So in this episode, we're going beneath the surface to explore the ripple effect you're already creating and how to make it more intentional. Because your life is leaving a wake, the only question is what kind. So let's get into it.

Welcome to Beneath the Surface. I'm Sean Delaney. This series is a space where I bring you the ideas I'm sitting with most, the ones I can't let go of, the ones I return to again and again in my own life, and the ones that show up constantly in the conversations behind closed doors with high performers, creatives, leaders, and people who are on the path like you, not just to do more, but to feel more alive while doing it. These episodes aren't about giving you another strategy or chasing another version of success.

They're about going a level deeper, getting quiet enough to hear what's underneath the noise, and remembering what actually matters. So if you're looking for a place to slow down, think deeply, and reconnect to the part of you that most of the world forgets to speak to, you're in the right place. Let's begin. Let's go beneath the surface.

This episode to me feels really important. It sort of feels like one of those episodes that when you're scrolling, looking through podcasts, you might just flip past or decide it might not be important. But I think this is one of the biggest, most important ideas we're going to cover. So let's dive right into this. And there's this thought I love that we have the ability in every single moment to elevate our lives.

Think about that. In every single moment, we have the ability to make a positive difference. It could be a difference on our thinking, on the people around us, even just how attuned or aware we are to the environment. In every moment, you have the ability to elevate it, to leave it better than you found it. And this could be a tiny thing. It could be a small act. It could be just a thought you had. It could just be your presence. But in each moment, all of us have a choice to make. What ripple will you create?

Think about that. Just imagine what your life would be like if you approached the next moment with this lens, that no matter how small, how ordinary, or even how grand this moment is, you are going to create a positive ripple. What would your life be like if that's how you started to live?

And like I said, these aren't grand gestures all the time. It might just be slowing down right now and actually being fully attuned to the words I'm speaking so you're not multitasking. This is what I'm trying to bring awareness to. That we have the ability, we have the choice that we can approach our lives through the lens that every moment I'm going to do the best I can to elevate it and leave it better than I found it.

You might just be sitting in a room by yourself and the most positive thing that you can do in that moment to elevate it is just take a deep breath and relax your shoulders because you've been wearing stress all day. Or maybe it's when you're giving your kids a hug goodbye instead of just rushing off and giving them a quick squeeze. You just sit there a little longer and let that hug settle in.

Or maybe it's even one of the bigger moments, right? When your teenager gets caught drinking and you just want to rip their freaking head off. But instead, you slow down. You connect on a deeper level. You elevate the moment. You put yourself in their shoes. So instead of just screaming at them, you connect with them.

Every moment, every single moment, no matter how ordinary or complex, gives us the opportunity to approach it and to act in a way that creates positive ripples. This is what it's all about. Can we create more intentional, positive ripples in our life? Because every thought we have, every word we speak, every action we do is dropping a small pebble into the pond of life. So what kind of ripples do you want going outward and inward? Michael Singer.

The author of The Untethered Soul, he had this profound line that I've thought about for years. He said, the highest life you can live is when every single moment that comes before you is better off because it did. The highest life you can live is when every single moment that comes before you is better off because it did. I'm going to say this one a third time because it is so good. The highest life you can live is when every single moment that comes before you is better off because it did.

This doesn't mean you are doing only heroic acts or making change on a grand scale. It is about how you approach the moment in front of you, no matter what situation or circumstance or place you find yourself in. Singer also said, you have to live a life that if everyone lived it, there would be peace. If you can't do that, you are part of the problem, not the solution.

Think about that. You have to live a life that if everyone lived it, there would be peace. If you can't do that, you are part of the problem, not the solution. This can become a lens we look out onto the world. This becomes a way of living where you begin thinking, what is the positive ripple choice I can make here? What is the positive ripple choice I can make right now in this moment?

Immanuel Kant said, live your life as though every act were to become a universal law. How beautiful is that line? Live your life as if every act were to become a universal law. I'm not bringing this up to put pressure on you so you have to feel like you need to live life perfectly. All we care about is heightening our awareness on how we can approach life and remembering that in each moment, even the small ones, we have the ability to elevate it and not just make our life better.

but others as well. Don't live from pressure. Live from joy that we have the opportunity to bring more positive, elevated states to ourselves and to other people. The writer Somerset Ma once wrote that in each shave lies a philosophy. In each shave lies a philosophy. And the reason I think this is relevant to our discussion about ripples is because we're talking about changing how you approach even the smallest moments and action.

One of the small ways, but very clear ways this shows up in my own life is when I'm creating negative ripples in small acts when I'm rushing in the morning, right? I got a packed calendar. I've got a lot going on. I'm scrambling to make my coffee or get the kids out the door, get their breakfast. And the inevitable always happens. I spill something. I break something. I trip over my own feet, right? And in that moment, I realize, what if I slow down?

I'm going to live more aligned. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast there. If you slow down, if you bring your full presence, that's when your actions become more fluid. So by bringing greater awareness and presence to the moment, I don't make those errors. So I catch myself real time. And all of a sudden, I realize when I'm in this hurried, flustered state. And in the next moment, I try to elevate it. I take a deep breath. I have an incredibly intentional next action.

That way I'm slowing down, my awareness is heightened, my presence is deepened, and I'm being intentional. A story I heard a few years ago that makes me think about this is from the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who I actually had on the podcast on episode 237. And he said something that was really interesting, and I made a note of it. This might have been six, seven years ago. He said he doesn't have a case on his phone to protect it. And he said the decision to remove the case is rooted in the belief that it fosters heightened awareness.

If he doesn't have a case on it, he knows there's stakes if he drops it. So he has to be more intentional about how he carries it and how he uses it. Because if there's a case and you drop it, not much of a big deal. But you see how this small little thing impacts how we do everything. Just throw a case on it and then you don't have to worry about it. And then all of a sudden your life becomes less intentional. You become less aware. You just go through the motions.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is not trying to go through the motions here. He understands that in each shape lies a philosophy and how he handles his phone lies a philosophy. The great teacher teaching at Han said, walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet. He understands that the smallest act ripples out. If somebody was watching you, yes, I'm talking to you. If somebody was watching you, how you act, how you move, what would they say your philosophy is about life?

Are you always in a rush? Are you always tense? Are you always forcing? Or are you moving through life like your feet are kissing the earth, like you're fully present, fully here, fully in control of yourself? And think about the people you're drawn to, the leaders, the people that you naturally gravitate to. I'm thinking about the people for myself, the ones that I'm drawn to. They have mastered the micro moments and they've cultivated presence and quality in what they do.

I talk to my clients a lot about micro moments to mastery. It's one of those tiny microscopic moments that you can master. And by doing so over time, you build up mastery. And if you want to think about some of these micro moments to master in your day, just begin by your reoccurring patterns. Say you're a leader.

What are the patterns that you run into every single day? You might have a morning huddle, or it might be the moment you walk in the front door and you see your spouse and kids, or it might be your first rep in the gym. These are tiny moments that happen every single day. But what you want to do, your new training ground becomes how do you embody perfect quality in this first moment and just master it? You're not trying to master the entire workout or the entire meeting or the entire conversation, just the beginning element.

That means when you walk in that front door, perfect quality, perfect presence, or that first rep, full intentionality, fully there, all of your mind and body in this one rep. Again, I think about how this shows up in my own life. And this is a small little practice I have. I call it the perfect bite. And the perfect bite is just a practical way I've distilled the principle of what it means to truly embody presence and deep quality as a way of life.

And so what happens is so many people, especially today, just rush through everything, especially they rush through eating where we're not focused at all on where our feet actually are. And so what I try to do is I think about the perfect bite. Yes, I actually do this. When I start a meal, I want to have the absolute perfect bite as that first bite of food where I am embodying the deepest level of presence and highest level of quality to start my meal.

where I am making sure I'm fully chewing, I'm fully here, I'm thinking about and enjoying the food. And by cultivating this level of presence, this level of focus, this level of slowing down, this way of being intentional and putting quality into what you do, I found that it bleeds in other ways. When I first start a conversation with someone, I want to have the perfect bite. When I'm meeting with someone, I want that perfect bite principle to be embodied. I want to show up fully with total presence, total intentionality,

So I've seen that it starts bleeding everywhere else in my life. And the more times you practice the perfect bite, you'll start seeing it again and again. And you'll see more opportunities in your own life to start embodying that principle. And over time, you actually start becoming deeply attuned to these subtle ripples that start influencing everything.

What I mean by that is you might be a leader and you start sensing that subtle ripple, like when you walk into a meeting, how profound of an effect that has on the entire team or the entire meeting. Or you might start noticing the subtle ripples, like when you're with your kids and you pull your phone out. It might even just be for a few seconds. You're just checking the text, but you notice how their energy shifts, right? All of a sudden they're on the defensive. They feel, or you can feel, that they're questioning why aren't you connected with them at the time?

And so over time, when we start practicing and cultivating this way of living, we become deeply attuned to these subtle ripples that really influence everything. And so I want you thinking deeply and getting clear on what type of ripple effect you are trying to have. And remember, this isn't just about creating ripples that extend outward. Just as importantly, or maybe actually more importantly, is creating the ripples that go inward. Think about that. Creating the ripples that go inward.

An internal ripple can influence the rest of your conscious thoughts, right? One tiny thought that goes inward can influence more and more. And oftentimes the most dangerous words are the words that actually have never been spoken out loud, but are thought in our own minds.

And I found that we tend to perpetuate these thoughts. But if we can become more aware of it, we can become more aware of what we're perpetuating. We start realizing that, huh, this one singular negative thought that is rippling inward is actually creating the tsunami effect internally. That's not what we want. We want those inward ripples to be powerful, but powerful in an elevated, positive way.

It makes me think about one of my favorite people on the planet, Brunello Cucinelli. He has this beautiful line. He says what he's trying to do is enthusiastically build an extraordinary reality day after day. Enthusiastically build an extraordinary reality day after day. That to me encapsulates what we're getting at. Be all freaking in on creating an amazing life by creating these beautiful internal and external ripples.

I want to dive into this next theme around ripples that I've just seen again and again over the years. And this happens behind closed doors when people are actually speaking truthfully about their own life and what's impacted them. And again and again, this interesting theme popped up that there were these little tiny moments, like tiny, tiny moments that actually impacted this person. And they still think about it 20, 30, 40, 50 years later. And these could be both positive and they could be both negative.

So what I mean by that is someone might have said the smallest offhanded comment, they forgot about five seconds later, but it stayed with that one person forever. And that could be a negative. It could also be a positive, right? There's going to be ripples that you'll never be acknowledged for. And you may never even remember, but someone else might carry them forever. Think how powerful that is. A small little word, a small little act that you might forget within minutes. Someone might carry forever.

Something you do or don't do might impact someone the rest of their life because ripples, they don't ask permission. We don't choose where they go or the impact they're going to make, but they shape everything they touch. So what we want to do is bring attention to the ripple effect we all have because in every single moment we have that choice. I talked about this in the beginning. What energy are we going to contribute to the world? Is it going to be that constructive energy that builds people up or completely destructive that breaks people down?

Are we raising the rumor, refracturing it? Are we creating connection here or causing someone to withdraw? In every single thing we do, we have the opportunity to make an impact. And like I was saying, that impact that we forget about might stay with people forever. So I want you thinking about that every thought, every act, every word, every idea is either pulling us towards who we can become or pushing us further away.

The idea that we are all stewards of the ripples we're creating. So I want us to be intentional about the ripples we're creating. Makes me think of this line by Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor and the author of Man's Search for Meaning. He said, what we radiate into the world, the waves that emanate from our being, that is what will remain of us when our being itself has long since passed away. So pause and think. What are the waves you're sending out? The ones that we'll remember long after you're gone.

The ones that people will remember long, long, long after you are gone. And remember, these ripples, they're not always obvious. So often they can be invisible. It might just be your presence and how that made someone feel when they felt invisible or like no one cared about them.

It could be this small little act where you embody courage and someone sees that and it just gives them the silent permission to be brave in their own life. It could even just be that your honesty, your vulnerability in a single moment just cracked open the space in someone else for them to tell their truth. You will not always be aware of the ripple, but you can be intentional about how you want to live and the pebbles you're trying to drop in the pond of life because that wave starts with you.

So when I was thinking about this episode, I was thinking about a few moments in my life that match what I was just talking about, where someone just drops a little pebble in my pond, where they say a little thing that they probably forgot moments later, but ended up staying with me 10, 15, 20 years. And I had this interesting experience about three months ago. I connected with a, he's a man now, but a kid I used to coach. This was about 15 years ago.

And I hadn't connected with him in 15 plus years. And he never really said anything when I was coaching with him or coaching him. And he told me how profound of an impact my coaching had on him, my lacrosse coaching had on him and his career. And he just thanked me for it. And I thought, here is this guy I really haven't thought about very much in the last 15 years. And he's saying it foundationally changed the trajectory of his life. So if you've ever wondered, is this making a difference? Does anyone even notice? Is it worth it?

Let that be a reminder. Just because you don't see the fruit doesn't mean that the seed didn't take root. Just because someone didn't say thank you in that moment doesn't mean your presence wasn't the turning point in their own life. So continue to live intentionally and try to create these positive ripples. And if you're thinking about some of the positive ripples someone else created in your life, reach out to them.

Tell those people the profound impact they had on you. Tell them how much it helped and what it means. That way, they might be more inspired and more inclined to push that onward and pass that onward and let others know how they've been impacted.

And for those hard-charging leaders, this is just as critical for us as well. Leadership is never, ever neutral, right? We are always radiating something. So every single meeting that you walk into, every conversation you have, every moment that you are either engaged in the conversation or you're distracted is going to ripple not only to you, but to your team. So as a leader, you are writing that invisible code into your culture through your voice, through your tone, through your actions, through your presence, through your silences.

So what you need to think about is what type of ripple am I setting in motion today? In this room, with this team, with this culture, in this moment. So as a leader, that's what you need to bring awareness to. Like I said at the beginning of this, this is a very, very important, profound idea. This is not some soft skill. And just because we're talking about positive ripples, that doesn't mean you can't use shockwave ripples at times.

Right? Sometimes people need a real shockwave in life to wake them up, to help them course correct. It makes me think of the line by Martha Beck, who was Oprah's life coach, and she's an author. She says, our truest guides don't help us get comfortable in our illusions. Instead, they rattle our cages, make us uneasy, confiscate our sedatives. So these elevating type ripples, positive type ripples, might be that. It might be rattling someone's cages.

But what I've seen is the leaders who can rattle people's cages, who can make shockwaves, but positive ones, are the ones who've already been more intentional about the shockwaves and the ripples they're creating. Because if you're overly emotional as a leader, or if you're not grounded, then those shockwaves become extremely negative. They become driven by ego or by getting frustrated that that person isn't giving you what you need. But when you're grounded,

when you're level-headed, when you're intentional about the ripples you're creating, then you can help make shockwaves in other people's lives from a grounded place. Makes me think about this line from Coach K from Duke basketball, and this is about encouraging others, which is the next evolution of these ripples. Coach K says, they'll do less wrong things if we catch the right things.

Think about that. As a leader, as a coach, as a parent, they'll do less wrong things if we catch the right things. This is our ability to elevate and encourage others. And I've seen this in my own kid's life. When we highlight the good, it helps elevate them. This leads me to our ability to encourage others because one of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. Think about those little microscopic moments in your own life.

When someone just gave you that gift, the gift of encouragement to say, you know what? I believe in you. I see you. I know what you're about. I know what you're going after. And I think you can do it. Everyone from time to time just needs that level of encouragement of someone believing in them because we don't always believe in ourselves until someone else believes in us.

There's this quote by E.E. Cummings that I think nails this. He says, we do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is something valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneity, delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit. So think about that.

There's people that we're passing every single day. They could be our spouses, our kids, our teammates, our colleagues. And maybe, maybe the greatest gift we can give them is encouragement of saying, I believe in you and here's why. And it makes me think a few weeks ago, I was listening to a conversation with one of my favorite authors of all time, Amor Tolles. He's the author of the book, A Gentleman in Moscow.

And he was telling this lovely story about the author Peter Matheson, who wrote the book The Snow Leopard. And this was a long time ago. This was when Amor, I think, was 17, 18, maybe 20 years old. And he was saying Matheson was the professor of this course that somehow Amor got invited to and got to take place in.

And one day after class, Matheson pulls Amor aside and he says, hey, can I talk to you for a few minutes? So everyone listened. He said, and this is what Matheson said to Amor told. He said, I don't know you. I don't know who you are or where you're from or what you're doing here or what you want to do. But he says, I've read three of your stories and I think there's a possibility that you may be gifted to this.

And so I'm going to take your time very seriously here in this seminar. And I hope that you're going to take your time in the seminar very seriously too for the same reasons. And Amor, this happened, I think, 30-ish years ago. And Amor is bringing this story up. And he said, this was a major, major turning point for me as a young artist. And remember, this was that he was 19, maybe 20. And he said, for the first time, all of a sudden, he thought, I can do this. He says, I think I can do this.

And he wasn't really sure, but having someone who he respected as a seasoned craft person judging his work and saying, you know what? I think you might be gifted at this. I think you've got some talent. He said that inspiration, he said it stuck with him for over 15 years. Think about that. Three sentences by someone he respected stuck with him for over 15 years. It makes me think for my own journey, and I'll bring up my podcasting journey.

Over the last, let's call it 10 years podcasting, there were two moments like this I had that I vividly remember. One was with Scott Adams, the Dilbert creator, and he said something very similar to what Matheson said to Amor Tolles. And I guarantee you,

Scott would not remember what he said to me, but at the time, it meant everything to me. It gave me that little element of encouragement and belief. And just like Amor mentioned, I believe it stuck with me for years. I carried with that because I respected who he was and how he thought about podcasting and interviewing. And I said, if he has the belief in me, if he sees the value, I know there must be some truth to that. And the other one I want to acknowledge is Will Godera.

Will was the former owner of Eleven Madison Park, which won the world's best restaurant. And he has written a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book. I cannot recommend enough Unreasonable Hospitality. And he said something very, very similar. And I remember he did not need to say this.

But he did. And it stopped me in my tracks. I remember real time when he was telling me this. And once again, this was just a small acknowledgement. Someone seeing me, the effort I was putting in and what I was doing, where it brought me to tears, essentially, because we so rarely have someone we respect acknowledge us, you know, give us the gift of encouragement or belief.

I'm saying this because if there's someone who's made an impact like that for you, tell them and also realize that you have this ability to impact people. The great poet Rumi wrote, he said, be a lamp or a lifeboat or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd. Makes me think of a line by Henry Adams. He says, a teacher affects eternity. A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops. Think about that.

Because Peter Matheson said those lines to Amor Towles, I guarantee you Amor Towles has given that same level of encouragement or belief in another young writer. And that could perpetuate onwards. And who knows for how many tens or hundreds or thousands of years.

And remember, this doesn't have to be big things. I'm bringing up little comments that the person who said them might forget, and it only took a moment of them. And sometimes it doesn't have to be words at all. It can just be presence. And thinking of how presence is so powerful, there is this beautiful story from David Brooks. And he talks about when he was teaching at Yale, he had this student, Jillian Sawyer,

And Jillian's father died of pancreatic cancer. And before he died, she and her father had this talk about all of the major life events he was going to miss in her own life, right? Like children growing up and her wedding day. And so after he passes away, she ends up being a bridesmaid at a friend's wedding. And so the father of the bride during this wedding gave just this beautiful speech about his daughter, you know, how curious she was in her beautiful spirit.

And then the infamous father-daughter dance came, and Jillian just had to get up. The moment was too much for her. She had to excuse herself and go to the bathroom to cry because she realized she was never going to have this moment with her father. And this is the part of the story that matters. This is what deals with presence. When she comes out of the bathroom, she realizes that everyone from her table and many of her friends from college were just standing there by the door.

And she says, and this is a direct quote from Jillian, she says, what I will remember forever is that no one said a word. What I will remember forever is that no one said a word. I am still amazed at the profoundness that can echo in silence. Think about that. She then goes to say, they were there for me just for a moment, and it was exactly what I needed. That is the type of impact presence can have. That is the type of positive ripple we're creating.

It doesn't always come in words. Sometimes it's just your presence. And while we're on the thread of stories that have moved me over the years, I'm going to bring up another one that I believe deals with ripples as well and was from Benjamin Zander. And he's talking about a brother and sister who were on a train to Auschwitz

And so this is the sister telling the story. And she was saying that we were on this train to Auschwitz. And she looks down at her brother's shoes. And she realized that his brother's shoes were missing. And she said, why are you so stupid? Can't you keep your things together for goodness sake? You know, and then she says, it's the way an older sister. And she says, it's the way the older sister would normally talk to the younger brother. But she says, unfortunately, it was the last thing she ever said to him. Because she never saw him again. He did not survive Auschwitz.

And so as she walked out of Auschwitz, because she did survive, she made a vow. She said, I will never say anything that couldn't stand as the last thing I ever say to someone. I will never say anything that couldn't stand as the last thing I ever say to someone. Sometime, we need these shockwave stories where we don't have that experience of saying something negative to our younger brother and then he passes away.

But maybe just that thought, that story might live in the back of your mind like it's lived in the back of my mind. Where when I might lose my temper and say something to my kids just before they go to bed, what if they don't wake up? How would I feel if that is the last thing I ever said to them? And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to ascend in life to bring our thoughts, our words, and actions to a better place. So that way, we can live more intentionally so that we can make sure

That when we say something, it actually could stand as the last thing we ever say to them. Because there are souls you are never going to meet whose healing is going to begin from your courageous ripples today. You never just speak a word in life. You send a wave that is going to travel to unknown shores. So once again, this episode of Beneath the Surface isn't one with three bullet points or takeaways or one clear answer.

All I've wanted to do during this episode is heighten our awareness around the things that matter so that we can make more intentional, conscious choices to embody them more consistently. Because Plato said, the greatest privilege of a human life is to become a midwife to the awakening of a soul in another person. And each of us, each of us can do that when we start becoming more conscious and intentional about the ripples we create. So until next time,

Keep sending out those ripples you want. And remember that each ripple you're creating right now through your thoughts, your choices, your state of being is going to impact someone and you in ways you may never know.

I'll see you on the next one. If this episode resonated with you, if it stirred something, opened something up, or even challenged something, I'd love to hear about it. You can connect with me directly at whatgotyouthere.com. That's where you'll find my writing, my books, more about my executive coaching work I do with the people who want to live and lead from a deeper place. And if this episode made you think of someone, a friend, a teammate, a partner, someone who's been in the grind and might need to hear this, send it to them.

Because sometimes all it takes is a single conversation to shift the direction we're heading in. Again, it's whatgotyouthere.com. You can reach out, learn more, or just say hi. I always love hearing from people walking this path. Thanks for listening, and until next time.