Life-changing advice from a six-year-old girl.
Twenty three years ago I was sitting at my kitchen table, hard at work. I was compiling a book of quotations from some of the world’s most inspiring women. Rosie, my six-year-old daughter, was sitting quietly on the other side of the table, scribbling with crayons.
“What are you up to?” I asked her.
“I’m writing quotes for your book,” she answered. “Here’s one.” And she handed me a scrap of notebook paper. On it, she had carefully printed in green block letters this thought: If you love someone, hurry up and show it.
I didn’t say anything for a moment, I was letting her quote sink in. I liked it. It was just nine little words from the heart of a child, but I remember thinking, “Geez—what a world this would be if all of us actually lived by those words.”
Six months later the quote book rolled off the presses. We decided to call it Brilliance, and there on page 93, nestled among the great quotations from Emily Dickinson, Margaret Mead, Maya Angelou and others was that beautiful reminder from Rose Zadra, age 6: If you love someone, hurry up and show it.
Over the next 20 years, the Brilliance book was reprinted nine times, and Rosie’s quote took on a life of its own. The Nordstrom Company included her quote in a line of inspiring bookmarks by famous women. The Salvation Army used her quote as the core message in one of their most successful fundraising campaigns ever. Today, 23 years later, I still see that quote circulated on blogs, Facebook and Pintrest.