The Opener | Recognizing Peoples’ Awesomeness

The Potentiality inspires and educates changemakers who are passionate about building community and enhancing well-being. We research and present stories, tools and ideas that help communities realize their potential.

One of the ways that we deliver on our goal is to share case analyses of organizations (businesses, social enterprises, schools, and non-profits) that are doing cool things to build community.

This month, we are focusing on The Awesome Awards, a pay-it-forward celebration of the human spirit, community, reciprocity, generosity, and all things awesome! Recognizing unsung heroes not only acknowledges individual awesomeness, but also inspires people – award recipients and ceremony attendees alike – to transform their lives from ordinary to extraordinary.

A few weeks ago I spoke with Eclipse Awards Founder Toby Barazzuol. And here’s the case analysis of how The Awesome Awards help people and their communities reach (and exceed) their potential.

John presenting Kurt with his Awesome Award (its name is Redwood)

Part 1 – The Context | Tell us about The Awesome Awards. What is their unique value proposition and how do you deliver on it?

At Eclipse Awards we’ve been really fortunate to have experienced 15 years of working with wonderful people doing amazing things, so to celebrate this milestone, we wanted to do something really aspirational that would give back the world. So we gathered everything that we’ve learned about recognition, happiness and community building and launched The Awesome Awards!  The Awesome Awards were created to spread happiness and build stronger communities by celebrating the unsung heroes that make those communities awesome!

The Awesome Awards are themselves unique, awesome and interconnected (see photos). Each Awesome Award is handcrafted from reclaimed wood – in fact, many of the Awesome Awards can be seamlessly reconnected because they were originally cut from the same salvaged maple tree.

The awards have also been specially cured in a way that allows them to retain their natural bark edge.  Lastly, each award is etched with a unique name that allows us to track its perpetual journey from awesome person to awesome person through community after community.

What makes the awards truly awesome, however, is that they aren’t meant to be kept. Every recipient of an Awesome Award is expected to pay their recognition forward by selecting the next awesome recipient and presenting them with their award.  In this way, the awards will continually move from person to person, making people happy, deepening relationships and building strong communities as they go. Our dream is that decades from now these Awesome Awards will still be changing hands, each time adding a new chapter into the Legend of Awesome!

Part 2 – The Challenge | Tell us about the community-based challenge you are addressing. What pain-point are you fixing? What problem are you solving?

The Awesome Awards actually address a few issues that we see out there.

The first is that there is a general lack of recognition and appreciation in our society. People are often considered replaceable and we rarely take the time to share the things that we value about each other. The Awesome Awards create situations where recognition is both encouraged and expected, which in turn reminds people just how powerful and transformative it can be to be recognized.

Secondly, there are so many people out there who quietly go about making the world a better place, yet rarely are they appreciated for their efforts. Over time, this can take a toll on people as their passions and energies wane due to feeling unappreciated. Sadly, a lot of communities lose good people because they get tired or burnt out. The Awesome Awards provide an opportunity to celebrate these people, to energize and refuel them by letting them know that they are valued and appreciated by their communities. In challenging times like these, we need to be helping people call forth their best selves, and recognition can help bring that about.

From my perspective, recognition is second-nature for us humans, and we’ve been doing it ever since we lived in groups. In this 2012 Harvard Business Review article, Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project, argues that attribution is an important antidote to worrying that sucks away our potential:

“Feeling genuinely appreciated lifts people up. At the most basic level, it makes us feel safe, which is what frees us to do our best work. It’s also energizing. When our value feels at risk, as it so often does, that worry becomes preoccupying, which drains and diverts our energy from creating value.”

The only way to win an Awesome Award is by being awesome – you need to earn the respect of your community, which is what makes the experience so special. Making meaning from – and reflecting on – such a unique achievement cannot help but send one’s roots deeper into their community.

Toby explains the Awesomeness of recognition and the history of the Awesome Awards to the guests at John and Kurt’s event.

Part 3 – The Community Potential | Tell us how The Awesome Awards builds community. How do the awards allow people to realize their potential?

The Awesome Awards help build community in three main ways:

First, when you recognize someone, you are praising them and letting them know that they are appreciated. This connection forges deeper personal ties between the presenter and receiver and also creates a sense of reciprocity – so that the receiver then wants to do a good deed in return. The Awesome Awards strengthen relationships, which are the foundations of stronger communities.

Secondly, when people are celebrated for contributions by their workplace, classroom or neighbourhood they tend to feel more engaged and committed to that community because their role has become more clearly defined. Recognition helps people understand their position and how they are perceived within a community. The boost of confidence from being recognized helps people step into their roles, which in turn strengthens the community that recognized them.

Thirdly, The Awesome Awards also expose several people to potential awesomeness. For example, during the inaugural Awesome Awards Kate Barazzuol honoured her Zumba Instructor, Luglio Romero because of the inclusive, safe and fun community that he builds. By the end of the evening this community had grown stronger, as several folks approached Luglio to sign up for his class thanks to Kate’s recommendation.

In addition to celebrating awesome people and cross-pollinating communities, The Awesome Awards inspire in-person and digital audience members to be more awesome. Striving to do more for one’s community is an absolutely fantastic channel through which to apply the competitive energy generated by the potentiality of winning an Awesome Award. After all, just because you didn’t win an Awesome Award this time doesn’t mean that you won’t win an award for your good work one day. Regardless of who wins, communities benefit from such energy.

Schwartz claims that one of the reasons that people do not express appreciation more is because we are nervous about sounding disingenuous with our praise. So, whether you are delivering an Awesome Award to a worthy community-builder or just telling somebody who is going great work that they’re awesome, here are a few tips from the Eclipse Awards team for how to deliver praise:

1. Speak from your heart – sincerity is the most important aspect of praise

2. Mention specific qualities or traits or actions that you appreciate and value.

3. Make eye contact – recognition is about communicating. See rule #1.

4. Be generous – give your praise freely, don’t drive with the brakes on.

5. Think social – recognition is like a big hug from your community. Having others present at a ceremony adds weight and meaning to the recognition.

6. Be thoughtful – think about what you’re going to say and who you’re saying it to. Craft your message of appreciation and have fun with it!

7. Enjoy! Give the recipient a little time to let things sink in. Provide them with an opportunity to say a few words or simply say thank you.

Two Awesome Awards recipients. Jon (received Chestnut from John) and Kailin (received Redwood from Kurt) showcasing their awards following the ceremony on the balcony.

The Closer | Inspire Others to Be Awesome

Each Awesome Award is a labour of love and a thing of beauty! Kurt and I can attest to this fact, as the two of us were lucky enough to receive Awesome Awards at the inaugural ceremony. Kurt passed on “Redwood” to Kailin See and I celebrated Jon Chiang by honouring him with “Chestnut”. Part of the excitement of the Legend of Awesome is seeing where these awards will end up next.

The competencies that I see most reflected by The Awesome Awards are leadership and creativity. As evidenced above, great leaders know how to show appreciation, and The Awesome Awards certainly achieve this outcome. Further, great leaders know how to accept praise with humility and responsibility, so whether an award is being given or received it absolutely highlights the ability to lead.

Recipients of Awesome Awards are innovators. Whether it means being “the glue” of the Vancouver Street Soccer League, advocating for people with barriers to legal resources, accomplishing triple-bottom-line sustainable business practices, aligning business education with community service, telling powerful stories that inspire men to embrace their vulnerability, or pioneering The Man Jam, people who earn Awesome Awards have done something – or several things – that are hyper creative.

By spreading happiness, building community and, of course, by making myriad meaning of the word “awesome”, The Awesome Awards inspire people to reach their potential and add value to their workplace, neighbourhood, classroom, and the digital spaces in which they work and play.

Stay awesome, Toby. We look forward to the evolution of this creative and inspiring project!

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Yes, the word “awesome” was used 57 times in this article. Yes, this is an awesome fact.