Soul Food for the last Friday in September 2011

Recently, as part of our Leadership development efforts we have
been taking a battery of evaluations—some that use different colors to
identify our traits, and others that use different letters as short-hand to
help us better understand our attributes. These can be quite insightful in
helping us to be more self-aware of our preferred learning/communication styles
as well as those of others, so we can both apply the Platinum Rule: “Do unto
others as others would have done unto them” and affirm the diversity
and differences that a well-rounded team can bring to bear in creating a high
performance, high accountability & high fulfillment culture.

Not surprisingly, the people part as contrasted with
attention to process or strictly delivering results is something
that is second nature for me.

In coming up with a motto to represent our group in one session,
we chose, “people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you
care”.

This week’s soul food strikes
right at the heart of the matter…

*Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

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A four-year-old child, whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman, who  had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old Gentleman’s’ yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy just said, ‘Nothing, I just helped him cry.’

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Teacher Debbie Moon’s first graders were discussing a picture of a family. One little boy in the picture had a different hair color than the other members. One of her students suggested that he was adopted.

A little girl said, ‘I know all about adoption, I was adopted..’

‘What does it mean to be adopted?’, asked another child.

‘It means’, said the girl, ‘that you grew in your mommy’s heart instead of her tummy!’

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On my way home one day, I stopped to watch a Little League base ball game that was being played in a park near my home. As I sat down behind the bench on the
first-base line, I asked one of the boys what the score was.

‘We’re behind 14 to nothing,’ he answered with a smile.

‘Really,’ I said. ‘I have to say you don’t look very discouraged.’

‘Discouraged?’, the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face.

‘Why should we be discouraged? We haven’t been up to bat yet.’

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Whenever I’m disappointed with my spot in life, I stop and think about little Jamie Scott. Jamie was trying out for a part in the school play. His mother told me that he’d set his heart on being in it, though she feared he would not be chosen.

On the day the parts were awarded, I went with her to collect him after school. Jamie rushed up to her, eyes shining with pride and excitement..  ‘Guess what,
Mom,’ he shouted, and then said those words that will remain a lesson
to me….’I’ve been chosen to clap and cheer.’

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An eye witness account from New York City , on a cold day in December, some years ago: A little boy, about 10-years-old, was standing before a shoe store on the roadway, barefooted, peering through the window, and shivering with cold.

A lady approached the young boy and said, ‘My, but you’re in such deep thought staring in that window!’

‘I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes,’ was the boy’s reply.

The lady took him by the hand, went into the store, and asked the clerk to get half a dozen
pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of
water and a towel. He quickly brought them to her.

She took the little fellow to the back part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet, and dried them with the towel.

By this time, the clerk had returned with the socks.. Placing a pair upon the boy’s feet, she
purchased him a pair of shoes. She tied up the remaining pairs of socks and gave them to him.

She patted him on the head and said,
‘No doubt, you will be more comfortable now.’

As she turned to go, the astonished kid caught her by the hand, and looking up into her face, with tears in his eyes, asked her, ‘Are you God’s wife?’