Ripple Effects: How One Family's Idea Changed a Country

What if one small idea — born from a family vacation — could change the trajectory of an entire community, an entire country, and your own family forever?

This week on Spark Me, Liz and Michele reflect on one of the most moving stories they've covered: Barb Cox, a mom who turned a trip to visit her kids' former au pair in South Africa into a years-long mission that introduced lacrosse to an entire nation. What started with her sons asking, "Can they play lacrosse?" grew into organized camps, a 501(c)(3), partnerships with U.S. Lacrosse, equipment donations from British Airways, and — most powerfully — scholarships that sent kids to high school and college who otherwise couldn't afford the $50 annual tuition.

Liz and Michele unpack the layers of Barb's story: the opening ceremony where South African children showed up in their Sunday best to greet the American visitors. The moment Barb's kids realized the real need wasn't sports — it was education. The way Barb taught herself to build a nonprofit from scratch. The three children she informally adopted and supported through college. And how her two sons, who started this as teenagers, carried the mission well into adulthood — building skills in leadership, public speaking, and problem-solving that shaped their careers.

The conversation also turns personal. Michele shares her own lesson in overcoming excuses through the Landmark Forum, when a simple phone call she'd been avoiding unlocked an entire project. Liz opens up about her dad's recent health scare and the resilience he's shown at 90 — a reminder that the ability to get back up matters at every age. Together, they explore why the people with the most extraordinary stories are often the ones sitting right next to you — not on a stage, but in your neighborhood, your community, your circle.

This is an episode about starting before you're ready, refusing to let obstacles become excuses, and trusting that when you put a big idea into the world, the solutions have a way of finding you.

In This Episode You'll Learn

• How a family vacation to South Africa turned into a nonprofit that introduced lacrosse to an entire country
• Why Barb's kids saw beyond the sport and identified education as the deeper need • How Barb built a 501(c)(3) from scratch — managing fundraising, travel logistics, equipment, and scholarships
• The unintended ripple effects: English language programming, college scholarships, and lifelong bonds across continents
• Why the people with the most extraordinary stories are often ordinary people in your own community • Michele's Landmark Forum experience and what it taught her about excuses vs. real barriers
• The ICANN framework for turning ideas into action: Idea, Conversations, Action, Never give up
• The starfish parable and why impact doesn't need to be massive to be meaningful
• Why resilience is a skill you need at every stage of life — and why it starts with simply getting back up

Resources From This Episode

Barb Cox's Full Spark Me Episode - (https://www.sparkmepodcast.com/from-one-trip-to-a-movement-how-lacrosse-and-135-sticks-changed-lives-in-south-africa/) Landmark Forum - https://www.landmarkworldwide.com/ Steve Jobs Biography by Walter Isaacson - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Steve-Jobs/Walter-Isaacson/9781451648539

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