promote other people
a new year's resolution: be a Bob
I want to write a brief series of posts during the first few weeks of the year detailing some New Year’s resolutions for 2025. These are not of the get swole and wear 32x34 pants again variety. These are more character-based, how I want to live this year. This is the first post.
This one is simple and won’t take too long to delineate.
One of my major resolutions this year is to become a cheerleader for other people and to, in the words of Aaron Renn, “elevate people’s sights.” Here is how Renn defines the concept:
One of the most important things we can do as a parent, mentor or friend to others is to elevate their sights, to help them think bigger or about possibilities they’d never imagined.
Renn tags a Tyler Cowen article that I cited last year. Cowen refers to this as “raising others’ aspirations.” Cowen’s angle is helping graduate students pursue deeper study in a subject. As a university economist, this is a natural lever for him to pull. Here is Cowen’s framing:
At critical moments in time, you can raise the aspirations of other people significantly, especially when they are relatively young, simply by suggesting they do something better or more ambitious than what they might have in mind. It costs you relatively little to do this, but the benefit to them, and to the broader world, may be enormous.
Naturally, I think about this a lot in my contexts as a parent or a teacher, so I appreciate Cowen’s encouragement to do this more often, but the way I want to apply this insight this year is with my colleagues, employees, and friends.
Years ago, when I was a new teacher, there were a few people who elevated my sights. One was the man who hired me. We only worked together for six months, but my career was set on its course by his belief in me (and has been buoyed by his encouragement from a distance across the subsequent decade). Another was an administrator at my school who helped me launch the academic program that would eventually give me an avenue for broader leadership.
But the person I thought immediately about when reading both Cowen’s and Renn’s articles was my former department chair, Bob Dixon. Literally, no one has provided as much professional encouragement to me as Bob. He’s the reason I write as much as I do; he’s the reason I waited out some job postings I could have applied for before going for the position I now hold.
During my second year as a teacher, when I was still in the throes of doubt as to whether or not I was any good at this, Bob visited my classroom and told me this afterward: “You have no idea how influential you are and how much students are paying attention. Be careful with the power you wield.” In an instant, he validated my entire professional calling.
During my third year as a teacher, Bob took me for a walk. He had read something I wrote and wanted to call me out for being a coward about self-promotion. He told me I had a gift, and that I was going to squander it unless I did more to call attention to it. He essentially demanded that 1) I continue to write, and 2) that I share what I write with other people. You are reading this because of that talk with Bob.
Earlier this year, when I was in the running for a competitive new position at my school, Bob was the person I chatted up on a bus ride from Canterbury to London, seeking advice for how to go about pursuing this position and actually doing a good job at it. Both at a philosophical and practical level, Bob helped get me ready for what the Lord had next for me.
These are but a few examples of many. He’s been my consigliere, my constant counselor, my traveling buddy, my advisor, and my friend. I would not be where I am without him. He lifted my gaze at just the right time and changed my life forever. Each of us, I believe, have the capacity to do this for people around us. Whether it is your children, your siblings, your friends, or your colleagues, each of us are embedded in spheres of relationships where we can help people expand their vision.
Find yourself a Bob, and, more importantly, be a Bob to other people. That’s my goal this year: to be a Bob to people in my church, my school, and my life more broadly.