Extraordinary People

Last updated on December 29, 2025

We are living in a time where we witness extraordinary people every single day.

That may sound like a stretch, but stay with me for a moment. In a single scroll through our phones—before we’ve even finished our morning coffee—we come across artists who make us pause, storytellers who move us to tears, dancers who remind us how powerful joy can be, and creators who take the ordinary and spin it into gold. They are thinkers. Visionaries. Builders. Movers. Sometimes they are also just neighbors, showing up as their most expressive, most curious, most alive selves.

We call them digital creators now, but that word doesn’t quite capture the electricity of their presence. Their work shows up in our lives every day—on the screens we check during lunch breaks, on the podcasts we walk to, in the artwork that pops up in our feeds and stays with us for days. Their reach is massive. And it’s fast.

Recently, I’ve been deep in research about pioneers in the art world—those who came before us and shaped the way we see beauty and meaning. Georgia O’Keeffe. Frida Kahlo. Basquiat. The kind of artists whose names are etched into the walls of museums and whose influence still lingers long after their time.

And it struck me: when their brilliance was happening in real time, the world was so much smaller. Their work traveled slowly. It had to be packed, shipped, curated, and discovered. Their influence spread by word of mouth, by gallery showing, by one person telling another, “You’ve got to see this.”

They were extraordinary people. But their extraordinariness was witnessed mostly in small circles. A gallery here. A friend group there. A quiet article in a paper or a note passed in a classroom. Recognition was rare, and legacy came years—sometimes decades—later.

But today? We are saturated with extraordinary.

We are exposed to genius, creativity, talent, beauty, innovation, and self-expression on a constant loop. It’s wild if you think about it. The sheer volume of brilliance we experience in a single week used to take a decade to travel the globe. Now it’s immediate. Constant. Pressing right up against our daily lives.

And here’s the paradox: Sometimes it’s incredibly inspiring. And sometimes it’s… overwhelming.

Because even when we’re full of admiration, even when we feel the pulse of progress and beauty and meaning, there’s a quieter truth that sits in the shadows.

Sometimes, when we witness so much brilliance, it makes us shrink a little.

It makes us compare. It makes us retreat. It makes us question our own gifts. Our own voice. Our own place in the world. There’s a moment—maybe you’ve felt it too—when you see someone doing something incredible, and your chest tightens just a bit. That little voice chimes in: “Why bother?”

It can feel like there’s no space left. Like all the originality has already been used up. Like you have to either compete or disappear.

I have felt that tug. More than once.

But I’ve also learned to reach for something more truthful in those moments.

I remind myself of two things.

First: Extraordinary people have always existed. Every generation has had its torchbearers, its innovators, its artists, its game-changers. And second: Every one of us is extraordinary in our own way.

Sometimes it just looks quieter.

It doesn’t always go viral.

It doesn’t always land in a museum.

Sometimes it’s the kind of extraordinary that only a handful of people get to experience—the way you show up for someone you love. The way you create a safe space at your dinner table. The way you rearranged your life to heal, to grow, to parent, to love better.

Extraordinary isn’t always loud.

But in the age we’re living in, it can feel like we need to shout just to be seen. So we either try to match the volume or we go silent. And I think that’s where we lose ourselves.

What if, instead, we chose to stay rooted?

To stay reflective.

To let the extraordinary around us expand us, not eclipse us.

This is a moment in human history that is moving fast. Faster than any generation before us. Creativity, technology, communication—they’re evolving in real time. And the way we meet that evolution matters. Whether we meet it with curiosity or with fear. With comparison or with courage.

That choice, I believe, is deeply personal.

So I want to ask you—reader to reader, heart to heart—what do you feel when you witness so much extraordinary?

Do you compare?

Do you retreat?

Do you get overwhelmed?

Or do you stand there a little stunned, like I do sometimes, thinking… Wow. We are living in an unprecedented age of human expression?

Maybe it’s all of those things, depending on the day.

And just when we begin to understand the scope of what’s happening, a whole new layer appears—like artificial intelligence, with its power to replicate, remix, and create at speeds and scales we haven’t fully grasped yet. It’s easy to become disoriented in a world that moves this quickly. It’s easy to question what’s real, what’s valuable, and whether our own voice still matters.

That’s why I keep writing.

That’s why I keep anchoring into my breath, into the pages, into this community.

Because even with all the noise, all the brilliance, all the evolution—I still believe this: there is room for you and your kind of extraordinary.

There’s room for the quiet poem scribbled on a napkin. The raw conversation whispered over coffee. The healing you do behind closed doors. The dream you are still daring to believe in.

You don’t have to compete with extraordinary.

You are extraordinary.

And this is not the time to shrink.

This is the time to remember who you are. To root down. To rise up. To let your brilliance expand, not in comparison, but in courage.

Because this moment in history is not just for those who are loudest or flashiest or most viral.

It’s for the ones who keep showing up.

It’s for the ones who are still willing to be amazed.

It’s for the ones who know that being witnessed starts with being willing to be seen.

Stay awake. Stay honest. Stay open.

And when in doubt, take a breath—and remember:

We are living in the age of extraordinary people.

And you are one of them.

Be well,

Leslie

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