Web of Love

Listen to how a simple ball of yarn became a web of love for one classroom of high school students.

Their teacher seated the students in a circle on the carpeted floor. One member of the group was instructed to toss a ball of yarn to someone across the circle, holding tightly to one end. The recipient took hold of the string and listened as the one who tossed it shared something that she especially liked about him. Keeping hold of the string, he then tossed the ball across the circle to someone else and affirmed something positive about her. The ball of yarn was tossed across and around the circle until everyone had both heard and shared encouragement...and thus the yarn became a woven web of love and good feelings....

Before they went their separate ways, the teacher took scissors and snipped through the web. Each person took a piece of yarn away as a remembrance of the special words they heard. Surprisingly, many of them wore cherished pieces of yarn around their wrists for days and weeks afterward.

Every year now, students ask their teacher to end the term with the Web of Love. It has become an annual tradition in their high school. Which goes to show how much encouragement means to most people.

Why wait? We can find opportunities to affirm others throughout the day. Few people grow weary of hearing sincere appreciation and praise. And each time you give it you help to create an invisible web of love that can last a lifetime.

--  Steve Goodier

One Minute Can Change A Life

He almost killed somebody, but one minute changed his life. The beautiful story comes from Sherman Rogers’ book, Foremen: Leaders or Drivers? In his true-life story, Rogers illustrates the importance of effective relationships.

During his college years, Rogers spent a summer in an Idaho logging camp. When the superintendent had to leave for a few days, he put Rogers in charge.

“What if the men refuse to follow my orders?” Rogers asked. He thought of Tony, an immigrant worker who grumbled and growled all day, giving the other men a hard time. 

“Fire them,” the superintendent said. Then, as if reading Rogers’ mind, he added, “I suppose you think you are going to fire Tony if you get the chance. I’d feel badly about that. I have been logging for 40 years. Tony is the most reliable worker I’ve ever had. I know he is a grouch and that he hates everybody and everything. But he comes in first and leaves last. There has not been an accident for eight years on the hill where he works.”

Rogers took over the next day. He went to Tony and spoke to him. “Tony, do you know I’m in charge here today?” Tony grunted. “I was going to fire you the first time we tangled, but I want you to know I’m not,” he told Tony, adding what the superintendent had said. 

When he finished, Tony dropped the shovelful of sand he had held and tears streamed down his face. “Why he no tell me dat eight years ago?”

That day Tony worked harder than ever before – and he smiled! He later said to Rogers, “I told Maria you first foreman in deese country who ever say, ‘Good work, Tony,’ and it make Maria feel like Christmas.”

Rogers went back to school after that summer. Twelve years later he met Tony again. He was superintendent for railroad construction for one of the largest logging companies in the West. Rogers asked him how he came to California and happened to have such success.

Tony replied, “If it not be for the one minute you talk to me back in Idaho, I keel somebody someday. One minute, she change my whole life.” 

Effective managers know the importance of taking a moment to point out what a worker is doing well. But what a difference a minute of affirmation can make in any relationship! 

One minute. Have you got one minute to thank someone? A minute to tell someone what you sincerely like or appreciate about her? A minute to elaborate on something he did well? One minute. It can make a difference for a lifetime.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/Kat Martin

Driving Away the Shadows

Image by Frank Gruber

Here is a little habit that can make a big difference.

How do you drive away shadows?

Apparently, when Abraham Lincoln was fatally shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., he was carrying two pairs of spectacles and a lens polisher, a pocketknife, a watch fob, a linen handkerchief, and a brown leather wallet containing a five-dollar Confederate note as well as several newspaper clippings on the Lincoln presidency.

The newspaper articles are a curiosity. Why did he carry them with him? The eight clippings found in his pockets were largely positive portrayals of his leadership, but the president was not egotistical. In fact, if we know anything about Lincoln, we know that humility was one of his most attractive virtues. Many historians stress that his possession of these clippings was less proof of a president's ego than of a man who needed reassurance. The recently- ended war had been long and costly. His re-election campaign had also been a difficult slog. Lincoln rarely knew a day without public criticism. The newspaper articles would have been affirming to him.

Historians are aware that Abraham Lincoln suffered from bouts of serious depression. Could it be that in those "dark nights of the soul," when despair settled over his mind like a cold and heavy snow, that he could reach into his pocket and find hope? Could it be that these words reminded him of what he had dedicated his life to, the good he had tried to do and the lives he had affected?

Francis of Assisi once said, "A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows." Maybe each newspaper article was a sunbeam that he collected and kept with him.

Have you collected sunbeams? Have you saved away letters and mementos that warm your heart and encourage you when you need a lift? They can drive away many a dark shadow.

Dale Carnegie tells us this: “You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world’s happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”

Here is little habit that can make a big difference. Send sunbeams. Intentionally send a word of encouragement or appreciation every day to one person. Plan ahead. Keep open to those who need a lift. A letter, card or email will suffice. Or a phone call. It can be short, but must be personal and it must be sincere. 

Occasionally you'll learn what a difference your communication made. Sometimes you won't. But know this – as you drive away the world's shadows you will also fill your life daily with a little more joy.

-- Steve Goodier

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Do You Believe in You?

Image by Bethany Carlson

Did you know that Albert Einstein could not speak until he was four years old and did not read until he was seven? His parents and teachers worried about his mental ability.
   
Or that Beethoven’s music teacher said about him, “As a composer he is hopeless”? What if young Ludwig believed it?
   
When Thomas Edison was a young boy, his teachers said he was so stupid he could never learn anything. He once said, “I remember I used to never be able to get along at school. I was always at the foot of my class...my father thought I was stupid, and I almost decided that I was a dunce.” What if young Thomas believed what they said about him?
   
When F. W. Woolworth was 21, he got a job in a store, but was not allowed to wait on customers because, according to his boss, he “didn’t have enough sense.” I wonder if the boss was around when Woolworth became one of the most successful retailers of his day.
   
When the sculptor Auguste Rodin was young he had difficulty learning to read and write. Today, we may say he had a learning disability, but his father said of him, “I have an idiot for a son.” His uncle agreed. “He’s uneducable,” he said. What if the boy had doubted his ability to excel?
   
A newspaper editor once fired Walt Disney because he was thought to have no “good ideas.” The great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso was told by one music teacher, “You can’t sing. You have no voice at all.” And an editor told Louisa May Alcott, just a few years before she wrote the classic novel Little Women, that she was incapable of writing anything that would have popular appeal.

History will long praise each of these famous people, but what became of their critics? Nobody even remembers some of their names, which is all that need be said.
   
But what if these young people had listened to those critical voices and became discouraged? Where would our world be without the music of Beethoven and Caruso, the art of Rodin, the ideas of Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, the imagination of Walt Disney or the literary contributions of Louisa May Alcott? As it was so accurately put, “It’s not what you are, it’s what you don’t become that hurts.” (That from Oscar Levant.) What if these people had not become what they were capable becoming, had not done what they actually could have accomplished, just because they were discouraged by people who couldn't see them for what they were?
   
We all have potential and, whether you realize it or not, your desire to do or be more than you are is your best indicator of future success. Others may discourage you, but the most important voice to listen to is your own. Do you believe in you?

Still the voices of your critics. Listen intently to your own voice, to the person who knows you best. Then answer these questions: Do you think you should move ahead? How will you feel if you quit pursuing this thing you want to do? And what does your best self advise?

What you hear may change your life.

-- Steve Goodier
 
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Dream-Busters and Dream-Builders

A little girl was asked to bring her birth certificate to school one day. Her mother wisely cautioned her about the important document and told her to be especially careful with it. But in spite of her good intentions, the child lost it. When she became aware of its loss, she began to cry.

“What’s the problem, Honey?” her teacher asked sympathetically.

The little girl wailed, “I lost my excuse for being born!”

There are enough reasons to say, “Excuse me.” I am not about to apologize for being born.

Some people live, though, as if they are sorry for being different, or for having an opposing opinion than others or for not running with the herd.

Author Linda Stafford was one of those people. When she was fifteen, Linda announced to her English class that she would someday write and illustrate her own books. She remembers that half of the class sneered and the remainder just laughed at her prophecy. To make matters worse, her English teacher responded that only geniuses become writers and then smugly added that she was on track to receive a D as a grade for the semester. Linda broke into tears.

She went home and wrote a sad, short poem about broken dreams and mailed it to a weekly paper. To her astonishment, the newspaper not only chose to print the poem but they also sent her two dollars for publishing her writing. When she shared the news with her teacher, her only reply was that "everybody experiences some blind luck from time to time." 

But as if to defy her teacher’s assertion, Linda continued to write. During the next two years, she sold dozens of poems, letters, jokes and recipes. And by the time she graduated from high school, she had a scrapbook filled with her published writing. 

Linda never again mentioned a word of it to her teachers or to her fellow students. Why not? Some people are "dream-busters," Linda would later say. And her dream was too important, and, at this time in her life, too fragile to risk being shattered by careless comments from people who didn’t believe in her.

Mark Twain said this about dream busters: “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

Linda made no apologies for her ambitions, for her confident belief in herself or for wanting something more out of life. Even at her young age, she somehow knew that nobody on planet earth was more (or less) valuable than she; nobody was more deserving of happiness. She knew that she needed no excuse for wanting to make the most of her brief time in this life and eventually she did become the author she desired to be.

I have found plenty of dream-busters over the years, and I imagine that you have, too. But I have also discovered a few dream-builders along the way – people who encouraged my aspirations and challenged me to take the next step. It was the dream-builders who said yes when others said no. They were the ones who held my vision before me when I wanted to turn away in discouragement. They protected my dreams and reminded me who I really was.

It has always been the dream-builders who made the greatest impact. It is to them I am most grateful.

If some people are dream-busters, others are dream-builders. And I know which ones to listen to. I also know which I want to be.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/June Yarham