The Bear and the Two Travelers

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

– Marcel Proust

“Two men were traveling together when a bear suddenly met them on their path. One of them climbed quickly up into a tree and concealed himself in the branches. The other, seeing that he must be attacked, fell flat on the ground. When the bear came up and felt him with his snout and smelt him all over, the man held his breath and feigned the appearance of death as much as he could. The bear soon left him for it is said that a bear will not touch a dead body. When the bear was gone the other traveler descended from the tree and inquired of his friend what it was the bear had whispered in his ear.

‘He gave me this advice,’ his companion replied. ‘Never travel with a friend who deserts you at the approach of danger.’”

Now, I’ve never been approached by a bear, but I have been in the company of “friends” who at the sight of conflict left my side to protect their own interests. I have also been on the receiving end of great empathy and mercy shown by some truly great friends.

Recently, our family was faced with a situation we could not wrap our minds around. Frankly, we were kind of embarrassed to ask anyone for help, because we weren’t sure what to ask for or what we even needed. We were so caught up by everything we weren’t able to process any of it.

But, even in the mist of confusion, we were surrounded by great friends. We had some strong leaders come beside us; some family members, some church leaders, some long time friends, and even some acquaintances who knew our situation and reached out to help. Almost to the person they would ask, “What do you need? How can I help?” Our reply was always the same, “I don’t know”. And then, each one would say, “We’ll figure it out, together.”

It is amazing to have friends. A support network who can help you figure it out, together.

Sometimes in business and in life we don’t always know what we need. We know we are facing hard times and struggles, but we may not actually know how to communicate our hardship with others. It’s okay. We don’t always have to have all the answers. We just need a little time, a lot of compassion for one another, and a friend or two who are willing to help us figure it out, together.

We have a great community. I have heard time and time again, story after story about people in our community helping each other out. Not only in times of major disasters like tornados or fires or something truly devastating to the masses, but individual and personal times of hardship; financial crisis, family crisis, business issues, and others.

We all have struggles we face. We all have experiences we can share to help others. I hope you will take some time to be a friend to someone who needs it. Take time to listen. Take time to hurt with them. And then, take time to work out a solution, together.

I know if you do, our community will be stronger, our businesses will grow stronger, and our friendships will be bonded tighter, together.

I'm looking forward to your success!


- The story above was taken from Aesop’s Fables.

* This article was originally printed in the Sunday, September 21, 2014 issue of The Chronicle's "Planting Seeds" column.

Woodcutters

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

~ George Bernard Shaw

"Two pulpwood cutters from deep east Texas grew tired of cutting pulpwood and decided to go to Dallas to get another job. As they drove, they saw a sign that said 'Love Field'. So they whipped their pulpwood truck into Love Field and drove right up to the main office.

One of the men said to his brother, 'You stay in the truck and I'll go in and see if I can get a job.' He went inside and found the man who was in charge of hiring, and said to him, 'I want a job'. The man asked, 'What can you do?' The brother replied, 'I'm a pile-it (pilot).' The main said, 'We need lots of those around here. You've got a job.' He hired him on the spot.

The pulpwood cutter went back outside to the truck and said to his brother, 'I got me a job. They hired me on the spot. Why don't you go in and see if they have a job for you?' His brother said, 'Okay, you wait here in the truck, and I'll go in and see if they will hire me.' He went inside and told the man, 'I want a job.' The man asked, 'What can you do?' He replied, 'I'm a wood cutter.'

The man said, 'Fellow, this is an air field. We don't need any woodcutters around here.' The woodcutter then responded, 'But, you just hired my brother.' The man responded, 'Yes, but he said he was a pilot.'

The brother responded, 'Well, how do you think he's going to pile it if I don't cut it?”

Clear communication and clearly understood expectations are vital in any business. They are vital in life and they are vital to the interactions we have with each other.

If you don't clearly communicate your needs, you'll end up with what you asked for.

I've come to learn this lesson on a daily basis raising two boys. If I don't specifically tell my son to put his socks on his feet first and then put his shoes on over his socks on his feet, I'll end up having to remove socks from ears and shoes tied on hands, putting us even further behind when we are already late to school.

Do you ever have days like these? Do you ever have projects or goals you didn't meet because your team didn't complete their assigned objectives? Can you say with certainty that the objectives and expectations of those objectives were clearly defined for each team member? Did each member know what the others were doing so that the team understood explicitly the overall goals of the team?

Sometimes we as leaders think we clearly explain goals and objectives because that is how we would like to hear them. Often we have to think about how others interpret our expectations and how we can better communicate so that others will understand.

Whatever you are doing, I hope you take the time to think about how you are communicating with your team members, your coworkers, your family, and your kids. Don't just settle for, and allow extra time to pull socks off ears. Take some time to clearly communicate your instructions. Make sure others understand your expectations. Reward them when they complete them successfully and help them learn when they don't. I know that if you take the time to do these things your teams will be more cohesive, your family will be a little happier and you won't be so frustrated when deadlines are close. And, I know our community will be better off because of it!

I'm looking forward to your success!

* This article was originally printed in the Sunday, September 7, 2014 issue of The Chronicle's "Planting Seeds" column.

The Skin of a Tiger, The Heart of a Mouse

“People won't care how much you know, until they know how much you care."

~ Chuck Ewart

I was recently reminded of a tale about a mouse who was terrified of cats until a magician agreed to transform him into a cat. That resolved his fear…until he met a dog, so the magician changed him into a dog. The mouse-turned-cat-turned-dog was content until he met a tiger – so, once again, the magician changed him into what he feared. But when the tiger came complaining that he had met a hunter, the magician refused to help. “I will make you into a mouse again, for though you have the body of a tiger, you still have the heart of a mouse.”

How many of us would admit that we are in the skin of a tiger but our heart is that of a mouse? We are tough on the outside but we are afraid to follow through with action of the same stature. We want to be direct and honest with those we lead, but we want to avoid conflict. Or how about the other extreme - you lead by shouting, yelling and throwing tantrums and lack the courage to admit you are wrong. Or lack the courage to put aside your pride and exhibit patience and kindness, to simply say "I'm sorry" or "I don't know".

We probably can all relate to leaders (or people in leadership positions) who have exhibited these behaviors. All through the life of such leaders one skin is traded for another. With every new skin comes new responsibilities or positions that make these leaders feel like they are a cat, dog or tiger, but fundamentally inside they might remain a mouse, lacking important courage.

Each new position or title might impress people initially, and a leader might feel like he or she has power. However, great leaders don't seek power for the hope that it will provide more recognition, honor, and glory. Or a skin for the hope it will provide more courage. True leaders seek to positively affect the lives of others. Great leaders have the skin of the tiger in terms of position, but they also have the heart as well. They do things because it is the right thing to do regardless of how difficult it might be. They act with courage because they care.

A leader can change his or her skin as often as they would like, but a leader's integrity, character and heart will have to be intact with the skin in order to be effective.

I hope you have found to love the skin you're in. If not, are you seeking that new position, role, or next level for the right reasons? How will it effect those around you? How will it effect those you lead and influence, whether they be coworkers, spouses, kids, or friends? Whatever the case may be, lead with courage, lead with honesty, and lead with integrity.

As my momma always told me, "boy, you're never too big to say I'm sorry." I hope you create a culture of positive influence in whatever you do. I know that if you show those you work with and those you are around how much you care, they will amaze you with the lengths they will go to to support you. And, I know our community will be better off because of it!

I'm looking forward to your success!


* This article was originally printed in the Sunday, August 17, 2014 issue of The Chronicle's "Planting Seeds" column.

A Burden of Purpose

“Find a purpose in life so big it will challenge every capacity to be at your best.”

~ David O. McKay

One day a merchant was driving his donkey towards home from the seashore with a heavy and burdensome load of salt.

They came upon a river they had crossed many times without any incident. However, this time the donkey accidentally slipped half way across the river and fell.

By the time the merchant had gotten his donkey to his feet much of the salt had dissolved away. Having his burden much lighter, the donkey was very happy for the rest of the journey.

The next day the merchant went for another load of salt. The donkey, having a good memory and had not forgotten how easy his journey was the day before.

When he got about half way across the river again he purposefully fell into the water and was once more able to rid himself of most of his burden.

This angered the merchant. He immediately turned and drove the donkey back to the seashore and loaded him with two big baskets of sponges for the journey home.

Once more, half way across the river the donkey tumbled over hoping to lighten his load. This time however, once he had scrambled to his feet, a disconsolate donkey dragged himself home under a load ten times the weight of his other loads.

Like the donkey, some people just don’t like their job. They see their employment as something they HAVE to do, as opposed to something they want to do. They often find ways to cut corners, regardless of how it affects the team or company they work for.

Leaders have an obligation to instill a mission and drive a team purpose with those they lead. Doing so creates a greater commitment to the team. Do your team and/or organization understand their purpose? Does each member understand their value in the success of that purpose?

To the donkey, the purpose was simply to do as he was told so he didn’t get scolded or beaten. He didn’t understand that to the merchant the purpose was to provide his family enough income to live for a year, which in turn provided the donkey food and shelter. He also didn’t foresee the consequences of his actions.

The team purpose should be defined and communicated. If it isn’t, team members will define it themselves to the possible detriment of the team or organization.

Every employee of every team needs to know they are part of something magnificent and grand. They need something big to aspire to.

What are you driving your team to do? Do you know? If the purpose of your organization, small group, family, church, and community were clearly communicated, do you think your success would improve? Do you think your members could achieve things no one thought possible? I do.

If we clearly and concisely communicate the value and purpose each team member provides and we tie that to the overarching purpose for our team, I think we can accomplish amazing things. Our organizations would prosper. Individuals will excel and our community will be better off because of it!

I'm looking forward to your success.


* This article was originally printed in the Sunday, July 27, 2014 issue of The Chronicle's "Planting Seeds" column.

Is Your Flaw Infallible?

“We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.”

~ Alexis De Tocqueville

There is a story told of an old and weathered water bearer who had hung two large pots on each end of a long pole that he carried across his neck to deliver water each day.

One pot had a fairly large crack and only delivered a small portion of water with each daily trip – about half a pot. The other was perfect and always delivered a full portion.

For two years the bearer only delivered one and a half pots of water to his house each day.

The perfect pot felt it had reason to brag in its accomplishments in doing exactly what it was made to do.

The poor cracked pot felt ashamed that it was only able to accomplish half of what it had been created to do.

After two years of feeling ashamed, the cracked pot mustered up the courage to talk to the water bearer. He said, “I am ashamed of myself. Because of this crack in my side I cause water to leak out all the way back to your house.”

The water bearer said in response to the pot, "Yes, but did you notice the flowers all the way down the side of your path? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and one day I planted flower seeds all along the side of your path. Every day when we walk back you’ve watered them.

And now for two years you have provided beautiful flowers that I have been able to pick and decorate my table with.”

He said, “Without you being just the way you are, I wouldn’t have this beauty along this path or to grace my house.”

Each of us is uniquely and inerrantly made. We have beendesigned with a specific purpose in mind. Each freckle is in the right place. Each eye the right color. Each bit of knowledge learned at just the right time.

Have you ever thought what life would be like if each of us were good at exactly the same thing?

Have you ever thought of what our community would be like if we all thought the same? If we all agreed on the same topics? If we all shopped the same? Walmart would be nuts!

I am personally thankful we are all unique! Each of us has been given and blessed with a unique set of gifts and talents. Together we can do extraordinary things for our community. Through our diversity, we each see obstacles and opportunities through different looking glasses. Each bringing an interesting perspective to our future and where we want to go as a community.

I hope that you are embracing the diversity of your community, those you work with, those in your small groups, and the ones you interact with regularly. I hope you are blessed by their flaws and perhaps the flaws of others help you use your talents in new and interesting ways. I am excited for what our future holds.

Ken Blanchard once said “None of us is as smart as all of us.” I know that I am personally better because of those I surround myself with, flaws and all. I hope they feel the same. Surround yourself with good people. Look past their flaws and cling to their strengths and how they strengthen you. I know that if you do, our community will be that much better off because of it!

* This article was originally printed in the Sunday, July 6, 2014 issue of The Chronicle's "Planting Seeds" column.

Change You Can Keep

“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.

I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.

When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town.

I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.

Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”

~ Unknown Monk, 1100 A.D.

The poem above is one I have heard many, many times. As a younger man fresh out of college I would think on it and say to myself, “Nah, that’s not me. I have the stuff to really make a difference in this world. My generation will be the new greatest generation. There are so many more of us, how could we not be.”

Now, as a husband who has been married for more than ten years and a father of two small boys, I’m lucky if I have enough change on me to buy a Coke. But I did learn a long time ago that change is not an external thing. In order for nations to change and governments to change and large groups of people to be led to change a culture; that change takes place on an individual level. That change is personal.

The Bible tells us in Matthew 7 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

As people with ideas and dreams, desires and goals, we are hard wired to want change (however difficult it may be to accept). We want to see progress and I think we want to see positive change for the betterment of our fellow man and our community. But, we have been instructed to first change ourselves if we are to lead others to change.

As Father’s Day was approaching, I enjoyed remembering the sayings my father and grandfather and older men in my life who were father-figures to me shared with me as I was growing up. I enjoyed seeing others post on social media about what their fathers have shared with them and how those lessons, sayings, and traditions have shaped them into the people they are.

As my wife and I work hard at raising our two boys to be good faith based Southern boys, I hope that we continue to teach them lessons that help them build good character, good morals, and a good foundation for leadership. Through this leadership I hope they are encouraged to lead others to make a difference in their community. I hope their community example is a shining beacon to others and that as a whole their generation drives the change of our nation and the world.

There is an amazing plan laid out for this and every future generation. I hope that we as mothers and fathers, friends, family members, role models and community leaders are striving to lead our young people towards change. I hope that we all are looking at ourselves internally to see where we need to change our own thoughts and actions for the betterment of our community and those around us.

Above all else, I hope we are actively leading the charge for change and progress. There is an old Chinese proverb that says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” I hope you have begun the journey. I hope you have taken the first step. If not, let this be your wake up call to begin today. I know that if you do, our community will be that much better off because of it!

57 Cents Worth

“True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.”

~ Arthur Ashe

Reverend Russell H. Conwell on December 1, 1912 stood in the pulpit of the Grace Baptist (Temple) Church in Philadelphia, PA to recount the story of his friend, a little girl name Hattie May Wiatt.

“Hattie May lived in a house near the church in which we then worshipped, at Berks and Mervine, which is now occupied by the Christian Church.”, he began. “It was a small church and was crowded; tickets of admission were obtained sometimes weeks in advance for every service. The Sunday school was as crowded as the rest of the congregation, and one day when I came down to the church, I found a number of children outside. [The children] were greatly disturbed because they could not get in, on account of the crowd of children already in the Sunday school rooms of the church, and little Hattie May Wiatt, who lived nearby, had brought her books and a contribution, and was standing by the gate, hesitating whether to go back home or wait and try to get in later. I took her up in my arms, lifted her to my shoulder, and then as she held on to my head - an embrace I never can forget - I carried her through the crowd in the hall, into the Sunday school room, and seated her in a chair away back in a dark corner. The next morning as I came down to the church from my home I came by their house and she was going up the street to school. As we met, I said: ‘Hattie, we are going to have a larger Sunday school room soon’, and she said: ‘I hope you will. It is so crowded that I am afraid to go there alone’. ‘Well’, I replied, ‘When we get the money with which to erect a school building we are going to construct one large enough to get all the little children in, and we are going to begin very soon to raise the money for it’. It was only in my mind as a kind of imaginary vision, but I wished to make conversation with the child. The next that I heard about it was that Hattie was very sick, and they asked me to come in and see the child, which I did, and prayed with her. I walked up the street, praying for the little girl's recovery, and yet all the time with the conviction that it was not to be,” he remembered.

Reverend Conwell was asked to perform the funeral. After which the girl’s mother told Reverend Conwell that Hattie May had been saving money to help build a bigger church and gave him the little purse in which Hattie May had saved 57 cents. Reverend Conwell had the 57 cents exchanged for 57 pennies. He told the story of little Hattie May to his congregation and offered the 57 pennies for sale. He raised $250. In addition, 54 of the 57 pennies were returned and displayed as an encouragement to further giving. While Reverend Conwell used the story in a December 1912 sermon, the events actually occurred in 1886 when $250 was a large sum of money. Some members of the congregation formed what was called the Wiatt Mite Society which was dedicated to make Hattie May’s 57 cents raise as much money as possible toward building a new church, primarily Sunday school facilities. A house nearby was purchased and the rest is, as they say, history. The first classes of Temple College, later Temple University, were held in that very house. This house purchased to make room for Sunday school was eventually sold to allow Temple College to move and grow into Temple University which resulted in the additional founding of the Good Samaritan Hospital (now the Temple University Hospital).

Hattie May never had a vision for the lives and minds that would be (and continue to be) changed through Temple University. She only wanted to help her church provide larger rooms so that more children could attend Sunday school.

We don’t always know the outcome of the actions we take. We may have a limited vision for the circumstances in our lives. Others however, may build upon what we start and grow our tiny dreams to be larger than anything in our wildest imagination.

I encourage you to dream. I encourage you to build upon the dreams of others. Most importantly, I encourage you to do. Who knows where Temple University and its more than 35,000 students sprawled across nine campuses would be had it not been for little Hattie May Wiatt and her purse of 57 cents.

There are so many great opportunities for excellence in our community. I know that there are so many more we have yet to realize. Get out there and reach for the stars. I know that if you do, our community will be better off because of it!

Sources for further study: http://library.temple.edu/collections/scrc/hattie

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/h/hattiemaywiatt.htm#.U34f4tJdXh5

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* This article was originally printed in the Sunday, May 25, 2014 issue of The Chronicle's "Planting Seeds" column.