In this motivational monologue, keynote speaker and best‑selling author Sally Koering Zimney delivers her weekly “professional nudge,” urging listeners to recognize that truly magical outcomes arise only when each person knows their specific role and shows up with full enthusiasm. She illustrates the principle with three vivid anecdotes: the seamless, behind‑the‑scenes coordination at an airport, a TikTok video where every participant must perfectly time a card flip, and the layered, synchronized experience of a university football game (band, cheerleaders, fans, and players). Zimney critiques a culture that glorifies lone‑hero narratives, emphasizing that even celebrated CEOs, athletes, and creators rely on extensive support networks. Citing Margaret Mead’s famous quote about small, committed groups changing the world, she challenges the audience to identify their own part in current collaborative efforts and to bring their whole self to it. The episode concludes with a direct call‑to‑action: assess your role, amplify your enthusiasm, and contribute to the collective magic.
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We don't accomplish anything truly magical alone. None of us, none of us do. The most extraordinary moments happen when each individual knows their part and then shows up enthusiastically for that part. Welcome to This Week in Me, a moment to help you move in the direction of your purpose and your dreams. My name is Sally Koering Zimney, keynote speaker, best-selling author, and your go-to professional nudger because the world needs more leaders who refuse to be held back by their self-doubt and here. So many ideas are going unshared. Too many bold moves never happen. So consider this your weekly professional nudge to stop dreaming and start doing, to get you moving for you and others. I am right now sitting in the airport, and it's kind of a cool example of exactly that sometimes maybe the enthusiasm is a little lacking, but there's a lot of coordinated effort here and the magic happens when we show up and do our part enthusiastically. Okay, I just saw this TikTok. Now, every single person that was putting that together, they had to know exactly what their role was, when to hold up their card, when to flip it, like Can you just imagine the coordination and getting everybody on board, excited, ready, the practicing? I'm just imagining how much practice that took to do that. If one person had decided, I don't really feel like participating today, or, man, you know, like, my part really doesn't matter in this. If just one person had done that, the subconsciousness, that internal kind of self-doubt that would start taking over. What if I look stupid? What if this doesn't work? What if everybody's laughing at us or looking at me, et cetera, et cetera. It's yes thoughts that we have. There would've been a literal hole in that picture. The magic would not have happened. And this proves to me, it was such a perfect visual. On one hand, it means that a whole bunch of random people come together in pursuit of a shared vision. Last week I was at my son's university football game. Just to be clear, he was Watching Not Playing, and it was like watching that same kind of synchronous improvised show of that coordinated effort, not just on the field, because sports of course are such a powerful example, but all the parts that make it a fun, memorable, uplifting experience. Why you go to the games, it's not just about what happens on the field. The band, the cheerleaders, the fans, the choreographed to the fight song. It was magic. It was definitely coordinated effort again and again. Individuals coming together, each playing their part, their unique part. This former actor has a very special place in my heart for the role of the ensemble. What happens when every role, no matter how big or how small, how out front or behind the scenes, whatever the role, if we show up to it enthusiastically, something magical happens when you put it all together. It's like the joy multiplies when we coordinate our effort. And I think this is especially important right now because it looks like a lot of things are individual. We live in a culture that really loves to celebrate the individual accomplishments as if their accomplishment was theirs alone, and nobody's accomplishment is individual. Nobody's, even the individual visionary CEO is not successful just on her own. Like the star athlete, there's trainers, there's coaches, hours and hours, the people who get the court ready, the Oscar winner, the YouTuber. Let's be clear, this video is not produced just because of me. There's a lot of people just to get this little video right. The extraordinary and the everyday successes happen through coordinated effort, especially the ones that have that magic, that joy, that multiplication effect. In truly successful, magical coordinated efforts, people don't just show up, know their part, and do it. That's fine. That's sort of basic minimum. But True magical efforts are all parts, when people show up with full enthusiasm, joy, excitement, and they know specifically what it is that they bring, and then find other people who have something else to bring and coordinate it all together. We all know Margaret Mead, and she famously said, "Remember now that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, because indeed it is the only thing that ever has. What thoughtful, committed group do you have around you? What magic can you create with people who are going to make an effort when you know you're there and show up and zag with it, commit to it, own it fully? Think about the best team you've ever been a part of. A work project, sports team, a show that you were in, even just like planning or going out with friends. What made it special and unique and fun wasn't just that everybody did their job, it's about all of those, what my friend Carrie Campbell calls, G&I. Yes, and showed up and did their thing. That's the difference between just being on a team and magic coordinated effort. So here's my nudge for you this week. You are in the midst of some potentially magical coordinated effort. We all are. Do you know your part? How enthusiastically are you playing your part? Bring your full self to that part. Every card flipper in that stadium owned their part and It mattered. Every single card flipper in the set is true for you. This movement team, what is moving you? I'd love to hear something that spoke to you. You know what that was. At the airport, when they drop off my baggage, it's because there was some coordinated effort
