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Fueled by Compassion

This entire post is lifted directly from Angie Mizzell’s blog. I’m sure there’s some fancy way to re-blog it, but I’m just not that smart. Anyway, I thought it was worth the effort because what’s being said is so important. I really hope you’ll take the time to read it in it’s entirety. Thanks for posting this, Angie!

In Friday’s post, I introduced you to Hannah Brencher. At 23, she’s figured out something that took me a decade in a career as a TV news anchor and reporter to realize. Today, I share the rest of my conversation with her.
In NYC, Hannah Brencher is known as the “love letter writer.” She understands that for her website & blog The World Needs More Love Letters to succeed, it has to look like and operate like a business. But dollar signs and the bottom line don’t drive this work. It’s fueled by the “compassion of others and my own faith that others will latch onto the cause at hand,” she says.
Hannah and her team write and mail notes to strangers all over the world. Encouraging them. Reminding them that their life is worth fighting for. Reminding them that they are loved. “I never thought to call it a movement but that is what everyone around me has called it. And to that I say, well if it is going to bring more love, more compassion, and more intentionality into the world, then let it move. Let it rock. Let it roll and plow the way that it’s meant to, and I will guide and steer it from the background.”
Brencher has a day job, working at a leading non-profit for children. “One day, it would be nice to move into a more full time role with the love letters or writing but, just as this whole thing has unfolded, I trust that this opportunity will also unfold in time.”
At 23, she already gets it. She understands she’s a person who can’t be fit into a box. “I cannot define what I want to do on a daily basis, much less my whole life.” But she knows this:
“I am successful. Without a doubt, I am successful. I would not have said that a few months ago, when I was defining success in terms of ladders and climbing them. Today, success, to me, is doing something each day that I know I will be proud of in one year from now. Success is finding a way to be a blessing to other people. If I get to the end of a day and I cannot look over the hours and say, I was good to that person or I found a way to value that person, then I better just head to sleep and try harder in the morning. I’ve found that when I wake up with that being my sole purpose, to be a blessing to other people, life is so much easier.“
The world needs more love letters. Yes. Yes it does. But it also needs more people like Hannah Brencher, don’t you think?

Posted in Guest Posts, Health & Wellness, Rants & Raves, Uncategorized.


One Response

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  1. Angie Mizzell says

    Jodi! Thank you for reposting this. It’s so cool when something like the simple concept of love catches on and spreads. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family!



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