Embrace Your Inner Kermit (when the world gets too loud).
Jan 23, 2026
In a New York minute, patience feels like a luxury.
I was in a cab in NYC and our driver LOST it because someone was backing into a parallel parking spot.
He honked.
The person trying to park, looked at our driver and yelled through his opened window, “F you!”
For a solid minute, it was a full-on profanity tennis match.
Then… it was over.
A 30-second delay.
And our driver apologized and said, “for our safety.”
When we got to the hotel, I asked the concierge for a newspaper and said, “Anything good in it?”
He didn’t even flinch.
“No.”
Then he added, “To decompress from all the anger in the world… I’ve started watching Sesame Street.”
That stopped me. I was talking to an adult.
The world will often give you something to honk at.
But peace?
Peace is a choice.
Most people let the world’s anger sink in.
Most People Don’t® build a simple decompression ritual that keeps them steady.
Today’s challenge:
Don’t honk.
Be patient.
And embrace your inner Kermit.
That evening, I was invited to speak on a panel hosted by David Meltzer (@davidmeltzer), and Andrew Cordle (@andrewcordle), absolutely two legends in this world known for teaching, inspiring, and helping others.
I had to find my "Sesame Street" place before I spoke. I tried to find calm, peace, and positivity by doing exactly this...
I walked into the room knowing three people out of forty.
That alone was a quiet reminder of how much growth still lives just outside our comfort zones.
At the table were people I’d only ever seen through a screen—individuals who, from my perspective, felt like celebrities because of how they show up in the world. Not for fame. Not for flash. But for how consistently they give, serve, and elevate others.
People like Andrew Cordle, Renee Marino, Richard Dolan, Cliona O'Hara, and many others—each with hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of likes. Yet in person, none of them led with ego. They led with curiosity, kindness, and genuine interest in others.
That’s not accidental.
David Meltzer, Chairman of the Napoleon Hill Institute, has built something rare with these dinners. They’re not networking events. They’re not transactional meetups. They’re intentional gatherings of “heart partners”—people aligned not by industry or influence, but by values.
One moment stayed with me.
Richard Dolan leaned over and told me I was a gifted speaker. Then he pulled out his phone and said he wanted to record a video together to share on Instagram. I told him, honestly, that I’m not very active on that platform. He smiled and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll help you.”
Here’s the part that matters, social media isn’t his business. Helping me didn’t benefit him. But helping is who he is.
That moment perfectly captured the spirit of the night.
What I Took Away from David’s Message: Greatness is already out there.
Our job isn’t to chase it—it’s to stop interrupting the flow that leads us to it. We interrupt it with ego. With attitude. With judgment.
With the need to prove instead of the desire to serve.
What I’ve consistently observed—and what David reinforced—is this: The people who build extraordinary success, even immense wealth, usually aren’t driven by money itself. They’re driven by contribution. By impact. By how many doors they can open for others once they’ve walked through one themselves.
David’s personal mission says it all:
To empower one billion people to be happy.
Not impressed. Not rich. Not famous.
Happy.
That night reminded me of something I never want to forget:
The rooms that change your life aren’t always the loudest ones.
They’re the ones filled with generous hearts, quiet confidence, and people who ask, “How can I help?”—even when they don’t have to.
And those rooms?
They’re worth walking into—even when you only know three people.
More about David Meltzer here: David Meltzer | Speaker | Author | Entrepreneur
More about Andrew Cordle here: Andrew Cordle | Business, Wealth & Financial Literacy Expert
David Meltzer's Office Hours with Bart Berkey as guest: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/office-hours-the-human-experience-in-ai-leadership/id1678157057?i=1000743851614
On Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6VIfHAIVdt0JWUn0tHUo3g?si=_3kXiBgvRLi2_HSCcyX-cA
