In fifth grade, I joined the elite ranks of one of the most prestigious programs offered at Longfellow Elementary School: The Crossing Guard Patrol. As a crossing guard, I wore a fluorescent orange vest, wielded a shiny red stop sign, and helped the other students cross one of the busiest corners surrounding our school to aid in their safe arrival home.

I was kind of a big deal.

However, as my tenure as a guard went on, I began to realize that my little sign wasn’t quite enough to stop the reckless drivers in my town. You see, the guards were only on duty during lunchtime and before and after school. The playground on our school was pretty legit, so kids were always coming and going. In a period of two months, two kids had gotten hit crossing on that corner. That, I decided, was unacceptable, and a flame grew inside of me

My ten year old self decided to take action. I passed a petition around on the playground asking for a REAL stop sign to be put up, accumulating over a hundred poorly formed signatures. At the end of my campaign, I wrote a letter and prepared to send it to the City Council. That’s when I got called to the principal’s office.

Mr. McKinney was a weasely looking man with a thin, tinny voice and a bad comb over. Pacing around his office, he informed me that I was in over my head. He said that I didn’t know enough about the situation to take any kind of action, and that I should, basically, mind my own business. He confiscated my petition and sent me on my way.

For a little while, I was inconsolable. I felt foolish and powerless. Then something miraculous happened. A week after my principal’s office scolding, stop signs were put up on the infamous corner of doom. It was then that I found out that Principal McKinney had taken my letter and petition to the City Council himself, which had pushed them to agree to the stop signs.

I learned a couple of things that day. 1) McKinney was a bigger tool than I thought, and 2) City Council actually cared what kids had to say.

There was one other lesson learned that day, one that has shaped every step of my life since. It would be years before I could articulate what that lesson was, but it was easily the most important thing I have ever learned.

We’ll get to that in a minute.

Flash forward to high school, where I was the quintessential geek. I did choir, theater, yearbook , newspaper, speech team and national honor society. One of the activities that I joined for college application purposes wound up expanding on this life changing lesson: student council.

I didn’t hold any leadership roles in the council, and you didn’t have to be elected to serve. Mostly, I helped arrange dances and benefits. My junior year, though, we received word that the school was contemplating changing its final examination procedures. I won’t bore you with all of the details, but suffice it to say that the changes were a bad idea.

It took a little while to organize, but I formed a committee of students to fight the changes. I pulled out my petitioning skills and paired them with a thoroughly researched report on the benefits and disadvantages associated with the conflicting examination procedures. I didn’t wait for my high school principal, Mr. Heatherington, to call me into his office. I walked in, gave him our 1200 signatures and report, and told him that the policy was no good. When he laughed and started a schpeel reminiscent of McKinney, I was ready for him. “If you won’t listen to reason,” I said. “I’m sure the school board will be interested.”

Long story short- I won.

I continued on as a debate geek in college, majoring in Corporate and Organizational Communication. My penchant for advocacy never died down, and as I delved deeper into the theory and research surrounding the field of communication, the lesson that had been guiding my life began to take a more tangible form.

The Point

Did you know we spend 80 percent of our waking hours engaged in some form of communication? Most of the time, we take this for granted, but during those hours, we are exercising our most powerful tool: our voice.

The lesson I learned all the way back in the fifth grade is that WE ARE POWERFUL. It doesn’t matter how old, young, educated, or experienced you are. Our ability to communicate and empathize is unparalleled in the known universe. If we can harness the supreme power of our voice, and fuel our communication with passion, we are literally unstoppable.

You may be wondering… what does this have to do with me? What does this have to do with writing? The answer, on both counts, is EVERYTHING. As writers, our voice is deliberately etched into the history books for posterity. The question becomes, will your voice be a whisper or an opera?

If I could give you one piece of advice, it would be to never take your power for granted. Continuously improve your writing skills. Continuously sharpen your communication tactics. Continuously pursue your passion. The combination of those pursuits is a recipe for success.

Think about it. The most successful people on the web are those who have tapped into a niche they are passionate about, and provided fantastic content on the subject. Why do you think that happens? Passion fuels your writing, and your writing can fuel your passion. It’s a symbiotic relationship, dancing on the screen in front of you.

Obviously, I have changed a great deal since fifth grade, but there’s one thing that remains. When I log on in the morning, and I see the blinking cursor on the screen in front of me, that flame, 12 years later, continues to burn.

Does yours?

*Photo courtesy of MorgueFile