He Needed Me

A nurse escorted a tired, anxious young man to the bed side of an elderly man. "Your son is here," she whispered to the patient. She had to repeat the words several times before the patient's eyes opened. He was heavily sedated because of the pain of his heart attack and he dimly saw the young man standing outside the oxygen tent.

He reached out his hand and the young man tightly wrapped his fingers around it, squeezing a message of encouragement. The nurse brought a chair next to the bedside. All through the night the young man sat holding the old mans hand, and offering gentle words of hope. The dying man said nothing as he held tightly to his son.

As dawn approached, the patient died. The young man placed on the bed the lifeless hand he had been holding, and then he went to notify the nurse.

While the nurse did what was necessary, the young man waited. When she had finished her task, the nurse began to say words of sympathy to the young man.

But he interrupted her. "Who was that man?" He asked.

The startled nurse replied, "I thought he was your father."

"No, he was not my father," he answered. "I never saw him before in my life."

"Then why didn't you say something when I took you to him?" asked the nurse.

He replied, "I also knew he needed his son, and his son just wasn't here. When I realized he was too sick to tell whether or not I was his son, I knew how much he needed me..."

Butterfly Insights

A marvelous lesson appeared for me just now as I was exiting thru the garage, to come to this little playplace they call an office.

As I opened the garage door, I startled a large moth, which, upon spreading it's wings, displayed a bright red "tail" hidden by the motley brown wings, more a "butterfly" than a moth.

It flew immediately to its perceived escape, the circle-topped window where it frantically tried to exit thru the invisible wall of closed glass.

I raised the third-car garage door in hopes of aiding it's escape. That caused it to fly higher and higher and become entangled in a spider web. Fearful that it would remain entangled in the web, I selected a long-handled broom to assist him escaping the tangled threads.

At this, he returned to furiously pumping his wings and banging into the glass, which was, in his perspective, the pathway of escape, but remained his cage.

By simply turning his focus to one side, he would have easily exited his prison. Rather, due to his intent on one direction, he remained confined, captive.

Song Of The Bird

I was doing well, running a district office in Denver for a Fortune 500 company. I had a company car, was making good money, was my own boss and could come and go as I pleased. And I was bored. I was discovering the stress associated with doing something that neither held my attention nor gave me pleasure. I found myself getting into the office by 10:00 A.M. to avoid the rush hour traffic, and leaving by 4:00 P.M. to beat the traffic home. Subtract two hours for lunch, an hour for whatever, and I was working three hours a day.

My wife suggested that I go back to school to get a graduate degree. I took her advice, and my future was forever changed.

I was well-schooled in the world of business, comfortable with a spreadsheet and calculator. But because I had found people so different and so unpredictable, I'd stopped worrying about the people involved in a project with me and focused on just moving forward. Enter Leonard Chusmir, a former executive with Knight-Ridder and a formidable instructor. Leonard taught me that people do matter. He taught me to look behind the drama in people's lives. He helped me to see better the "why" in what people do or don't do. The power of his teaching lay not in the ability to analyze others, but in the ability to analyze myself.

Then I met a fellow night-scholar named Bruce Fitch. He ran the Professional Development Program for the Colorado Outward Bound School, and he asked me to participate in an upcoming program. He had a "Rolex" group coming in - senior executives making lots of money. Bruce felt my business background would help supplement the staff's professional background in mountaineering.

So there I was with a group of "go-getter" executives and managers from a Fortune 500 organization. We're out in some of the most beautiful land in the world. We're hiking, we're climbing, we are having the time of our lives.

I became friends with the group's senior ranking executive. "Would you like to go for a walk?" he asked me one night. We walked through the clear, star-filled night with the full moon as our guide. I was as content as a person can be, when suddenly, this senior executive started to cry. Then his shoulders started to heave and he appeared to be unraveling. I was schooled in business, not the human heart. We were miles from base camp and I was at a loss as to what to do.

After a while he began to speak of a life lived with no relationship with his wife, his children, or even with himself. "Do you want to know what a day in my life is like?" he asked. "When I finally get home, I have two or three martinis and fall asleep in front of the television, only to wake up and start over the next day. I've been dead from the neck down for as long as I can remember. For the first time, on this trip, I feel alive." And then he thanked me. I realized that this man's awakening to the poverty of his life was what my experiences, friends and wife had been telling me.

With that insight, I sat at the crossroads between could and would. I could continue to live my life as I had been, or I could choose a life that would make a difference in someone's life, such as this man's.

Today, I only work with clients on what they would like to do, not on what they could do. I invite everyone to take a walk in the "woulds."

A Friend

(A)ccepts you as you are
(B)elieves in "you"
(C)alls you just to say "HI"
(D)oesn't give up on you
(E)nvisions the whole of you (even the unfinished parts)
(F)orgives your mistakes
(G)ives unconditionally
(H)elps you
(I)nvites you over
(J)ust "be" with you
(K)eeps you close at heart
(L)oves you for who you are
(M)akes a difference in your life
(N)ever Judges
(O)ffer support
(P)icks you up
(Q)uiets your fears
(R)aises your spirits
(S)ays nice things about you
(T)ells you the truth when you need to hear it
(U)nderstands you
(V)alues you
(W)alks beside you
(X)-plains thing you don't understand
(Y)ells when you won't listen and
(Z)aps you back to reality

Earthquake

One day there was an earthquake that shook the entire Zen temple. Parts of it even collapsed! Many of the monks were terrified.

When the earthquake stopped the teacher said, "Now you have had the opportunity to see how a Zen man behaves in a crisis situation. You may have noticed that I did not panic.

I was quite aware of what was happening and what to do. I led you all to the kitchen, the strongest part of the temple.

It was a good decision, because you see we have all survived without any injuries.

However, despite my self-control and composure, I did feel a little bit tense-which you may have deduced from the fact that I drank a large glass of water, something I never do under ordinary circumstances."

One of the monks smiled, but didn't say anything.

"What are you laughing at? asked the teacher.

"That wasn't water," the monk replied, "it was a large glass of soy sauce."

The Watermelon Hunter

Once upon a time there was a man who strayed from his own country into the world known as the Land of Fools. He soon saw a number of people flying in terror from a field where they had been trying to reap wheat. "There is a monster in that field," they told him. He looked, and saw that the "monster" was merely a watermelon.

He offered to kill the "monster" for them. When he had cut the melon from its stalk, he took a slice and began to eat it. The people became even more terrified of him than they had been of the melon. They drove him away with pitchforks, crying, "He will kill us next, unless we get rid of him."

It so happened that shortly afterward another man also strayed into the Land of Fools. But instead of offering to help the people with the "monster," he agreed with them that it must be dangerous, and by tiptoeing away from it with them he gained their confidence. He spent a long time with them in their homes until he could teach them, little by little, the basic facts which would enable them not only to lose their fear of melons, but eventually to cultivate melons themselves.

Just For 5 Minutes

While at the park one day, a woman sat down next to a man on a bench near a playground.
“That’s my son over there,” she said, pointing to a little boy in a red sweater who was gliding down the slide.

“He’s a fine looking boy” the man said. “That’s my daughter on the bike in the white dress.”

Then, looking at his watch, he called to his daughter. “What do you say we go, Melissa?”

Melissa pleaded, “Just five more minutes, Dad. Please? Just five more minutes.”

The man nodded and Melissa continued to ride her bike to her heart’s content. Minutes passed and the father stood and called again to his daughter. “Time to go now?”

Again Melissa pleaded, “Five more minutes, Dad. Just five more minutes.”

The man smiled and said, “OK.”

“My, you certainly are a patient father,” the woman responded.

The man smiled and then said, “Her older brother Tommy was killed by a drunk driver last year while he was riding his bike near here. I never spent much time with Tommy and now I’d give anything for just five more minutes with him. I’ve vowed not to make the same mistake with Melissa.

She thinks she has five more minutes to ride her bike. The truth is, I get Five more minutes to watch her play.”

Life is all about making priorities, what are your priorities?
Give someone you love 5 more minutes of your time today!