There's 60 seconds in every minute.

Boulder, Colorado---If you’re lucky, there will be one friend or a tiny handful of friends in your life that, for whatever reason, hold you to a higher standard. And for that, they make you want to be a better person.

For me there is a woman that shares a bond that’s hard to explain, it’s just something I feel.  I think she is just a little bit more daring, just a little bit more adventuresome, just a little bit more entrepreneurial,  just a little bit more. Her constant encouragement without pressure lifts me.

While skiing, she was hit full blast by another skier a few years ago. Even though she was wearing a helmet she had severe head trauma and was airlifted off the slopes to Denver. She remembers being put in a helicopter. She remembers saying goodbye to her husband. She believed it really was good bye.

Lisa and I met in College.  We share over 30 years of memories and secrets about each other. At school, like many journalism students, we spent a lot of time in that department. Because we were often together, the department secretary nicknamed us “Sunshine and Smiley” and would leave us messages on the board under that name.  As seniors, she was president of the Student Public Relations Society of America and I was president of the Society for Collegiate Journalists with both serving on each other’s boards. It was a busy college life of fun and academics.

Before class we would sit impatiently awaiting the teacher’s arrival and she would look at me and say, “I could really use a Diet Coke.”

I’d look at my watch and see six minutes before class started and would say, “There's 60 seconds in every minute.”

That was our cue. At the same time we leaped into action.

We knew that it would take exactly 120 seconds to run across the street to the Student Union. Another 60 seconds at the soda fountain, another 60 to pay followed by the grand return with 120 more to dash back and fall gasping in our chairs. Happy with having our Diet Cokes for the duration of class, it was only the launching pad.

This became our creed. But for us it meant more than the obvious: a minute has 60 seconds.  It meant that if you use every second in your day, in your life, you could truly get more done than you really thought you could.

And years later every minute would count as the helicopter lifted her off the snow covered mountain, leaving her husband and one son below to look on helplessly. The miracle happened and what seemed to be a possible end didn’t happen.  With time, she fully recovered.

Time is a funny thing. We think it passes very quickly. But if you think in seconds and take the time to live those seconds, it can stretch to “just a little bit more.”