---
title: "9/11: A Day to Celebrate Personal Greatness"
description: For coaches, an inspiring story of personal greatness on 9/11.
---

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# 9/11: A Day to Celebrate Personal Greatness

[Julia Stewart](https://www.schoolofcoachingmastery.com/coaching-blog/author/julia-stewart)

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### The 10-Year anniversary of 9/11 is a day of sadness and mourning for many of us.

**But it's also a day when we saw the best in people a million times over.** As a resident of New York City, someone who could see the towers burning from my street, I can say that I never felt as close to my fellow New Yorkers as I did that day and in the months following.

**One snide conservative politician said New Yorkers became uncharacteristically 'human' on 9/11.** He's wrong. New Yorkers are some of the kindest people I've ever known.

**Today, I live in a small town, where farmers stop their pickup trucks to chat, blocking roads in both directions.** You can do that in a small town. In fact, small-town people value that kind of friendliness.

**In a huge crowded city, where there are always millions of people behind you trying to get home or pick up their kids, kindness is often expressed via efficiency, impatience and hurrying.** We're all getting out of the way of our fellow citizens, because passing the time of day can cause traffic jams and delays.

**In 2001, I lived on a small, nautical NYC island, called, City Island.** The local clam-diggers, or those born on the island, were often descended from generations of sailors, boat builders and sail makers. Most were poor and uneducated, but great people.

**The great 9/11 Boatlift, above, is one of the untold stories about the attacks.** One radio distress call from the Coast Guard that morning, brought hundreds of boats within minutes - work boats, pleasure boats, ferries - to lower Manhattan and rescued 500,000 people who were trapped behind the destruction. It was the biggest boatlift in history.

### They didn't know if they'd be killed in the attacks. They came because they were needed.

**My work, as a coach and coach trainer, has always been to bring out the Personal Greatness, also known as the [Great Self](https://www.schoolofcoachingmastery.com/great-self-coaching-group/), in my clients and students.** Horrific tragedy elicits Greatness in many, but we don't have to wait for  awful moments. We can choose to be Great, daily.

**As one Boatlift hero says in the film, above,** "I believe somebody has a little hero in them. Got to look in. It's in there. It'll come out when it needs to be."

**Choosing to be great may mean to show a little more compassion or a little less criticism.** It may mean smiling at a stranger or acknowledging a cashier. It also means serving others when it's inconvenient or dangerous to ourselves. We all do it uniquely. That's why we're different.

### There is courage in Greatness.

**Another hero says,** "I have a theory in life. I never want to say, 'I should have.' If I do it and I fail, I tried. If I do it and I succeed, better for me. I tell my children the same thing, 'Never go through life saying I should have. If you want to do something, you do it."

**These men aren't philosophers, coaches or motivational speakers; just regular guys who stepped up.**

### How can you step up today and celebrate Personal Greatness in your world?

### Leave a Comment

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