At the Annual General Meeting last night for the Calgary Counselling Centre (where I am currently working four days a week as Interim Director Communications) I held something I never imagined holding. Those involved in its creation said that having it was on their bucket list. Me, I can’t think about a time when I’ve imagined achieving it, but now, having held it, my mind is awash in possibility.

What does it take to set a Guinness World Record? What does it take to not just hold it and admire it (it is a heavy piece of paper and quite beautiful with its special silver seal of authenticity from the GWR), but to be the actual recipient of it?

Ask Richard and Trudy Fossey. They were presented with a special recognition award last night at the AGM. On April 16th of this year, Richard and Trudy helped organize the event that saw the Guinness World Record set for the most karate boards broken at one time, at an event they created through the karate club where they are both members —  AKF Amateur Karate Club. And in case you’re wondering, they had 232 attempting to break a board at that one moment in time. In the end, 204 were successfully broken.

It was about more than just breaking a karate board though.

In fact, for the past four years, it’s always been about more than breaking boards and karate kicks for this couple who created AKF Break the Cycle to draw attention, and raise funds to combat something they believe needs to be stopped, or as they call it, stomped out — domestic violence.

Richard and Trudy may be every day people living ordinary lives but they are committed to doing extraordinary things.

Richard and Trudy want to make a difference and have put their desire into action.

As I listened to them talk about the event, and their motivation for creating it and then how the idea to set the Guinness World Record came into being, I was struck with how we all have the capacity to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary simply by taking action.

When Trudy and Richard set out to set a Guinness World Record, there were a lot of hurdles, a number of set backs and challenges. And yet, they kept going. They kept pursuing their dream of ‘doing it’.

And in the end, they broke through the barriers, broke through the resistance we so often come up against when we state our goal and others look at it and say, “Why bother?” In the end, 232 people came out to support them in breaking 204 boards that would set the Record and, help AKF Break the Cycle of domestic violence.

And that’s the thing… No one can take away the achievement of ‘setting the Record’ and, nothing will ever change the actions they took to create the possibility of it happening.

Those actions, those steps they took and bridges they crossed and hurdles they overcame, they can never be changed.

They could have done nothing. They chose otherwise.

Either way — they cannot change what they did.

And that’s the thing about making a difference.

We can sit back and do nothing. We can continue on, motoring through our day, doing the steps, doing the ordinary things of life. And when an idea comes along to do something different, to create change, we can look at it and say, ‘oh look, there’s an interesting idea’, and then move along without picking it up.

Or, we can be aware, be conscious of the possibility for change, for difference making. We can see the idea and say, let’s do it! Let’s give life to this idea and see what happens next!

Trudy and Richard didn’t know if the record would be set — they needed to break 200 boards at one time to set it. But, it did not deter them. They kept taking the steps, putting one idea in front of the last and moving closer to their goal.

And they got there. They set the record and they helped break the cycle of domestic violence by raising awareness and over $30,000.

What an amazing achievement.

What a difference they make!