During the month of July, we will run “best of” content from the authors. The following article first appeared on February 20, 2008.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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It was my first day of work in a small town not far outside Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, and after three months of intense language training I quickly learned I had studied the wrong language. The people I encountered didn’t speak the language I so arduously studied. Plus, every time I opened my mouth they ridiculed me.

Fortunately, I discovered a wonderful tool for enhancing my language capacity without harming my battered ego. Children. The local kids spoke far better Portuguese than I did. Better still, most of them showed infinite patience when it came to pointing at objects and giving me the Portuguese word for it.

It was during just such a linguistic encounter that I discovered the topic of today’s article. I’d often heard the expression you shouldn’t judge someone until you had walked in his shoes, but the idea contained within this expression never hit home until I received a personal lesson on the topic.

Here’s what happened. An eight-year-old boy who was pointing at objects and giving me the Portuguese nouns for each asked me to teach him the English equivalents. That way we both learned a new word. The first object the boy pointed to was a cobblestone, so I carefully articulated: “Cobblestone.”

“Desculpe!” he proclaimed—suggesting I say the word again.

“Cobblestone,” I repeated, raising my voice a little. With my second pronouncement the boy fell to the ground howling and chortling in a cloud of dust. When he finally gained composure he dashed across the street, gathered a few friends, and then had me pronounce again, “cobblestone.” On cue, his friends broke into peals of laughter.

“Cahb-al-es-tone,” each muttered in a mocking tone, pointing at me and laughing—as if I myself had invented the deeply guttural and apparently hilarious word. Finally, after I’d had my fill of the boy’s mockery, I asked the lad to share the Portuguese word for cobblestone. “These things?” he asked while pointing at the pavers. “They’re called Par-a-lel-la-pee-pee-doos.”

“Par-a-lel-a-pee-pee-doo?” I thought to myself. “And you think the word “cobblestone” is funny?”

It was hard for either of us to know why the other found our word so hysterical. In fact, it’s hard to really understand how anyone else feels about anything—not at least without having lived their life.

For instance, I once read a story wherein a fellow told a dirt-poor friend who desperately wanted to take a girl on a date that he should take her to the grange dance because it would cost only two bits (this was in the early 1940s). For only a quarter, the couple would gain entrance to the co-op and access to snacks, and they’d be able to dance to a live band. Who could turn down such a bargain?

“But I don’t have a quarter,” his friend answered.

I’ve often wondered if my own children would understand that phrase: “But I don’t have a quarter.” They’d probably think the fellow didn’t have change, or he’d left his cash home. Or, that if he didn’t actually own a quarter, he could certainly get one.

Without living the life the impoverished farmer had lived, my children couldn’t possibly know the meaning of these simple words. I have a bit of an idea because I lived under similar circumstances. Like the poor children in a research study conducted over fifty years ago, if a researcher had asked me to draw a picture of a quarter, I would have drawn a big quarter—one that was much larger than the quarter the middle- and upper-class kids in the study had drawn. A quarter meant a lot to me, a boy of no means. To me, it was the size of a hubcap.

In high school my mom gave me a quarter to take the bus home each day. I was supposed to pack my own lunch and ride home on the city bus after school. But in our house the fridge contained things like a boiled cow’s tongue for sandwich makings. I hated cow’s tongue sandwiches. You couldn’t tell who was tasting whom.

Besides, even if mom had stocked the fridge with fixings other than tongue, heart, and entrails, only nerds carried their lunch to school. Cool kids drove their cars off campus to buy scrumptious burgers, shakes, and fries. Well, cool, rich kids did. My family had one old car that had been smacked a lot and then patched up and painted with dark grey primer. Since the car was originally white, everyone called the spotted beast “The Dalmatian.” My dad drove the Dalmatian to work, so I couldn’t cruise to the nearby burger place for lunch. Besides, I had no money for food.

However, not all was lost. I learned that if I walked six blocks from school to the center of town, the bus ride home only cost a dime. That maneuver gave me fifteen cents for lunch. This wasn’t very much money, even in the sixties, but I could buy one thing. Each day I ambled across the street and bought a hockey-puck sized burger. Actually, the item was so small and bereft of meat that it was against the law to call it a burger. Each day I ate a fifteen-cent “Beefy.”

By the end of the day I was famished. I’d walk to the bus stop in the center of town and wait for my ten-cent ride, stomach rumbling all the while. And then things got complicated. The bus stop stood right in front of a bakery which sported, among other tasty delights, a ten-cent chocolate éclair filled with rich vanilla pudding. From inside their glass-cased mini fridge, the éclairs called to me, whispering French enticements: “Eat-tay Moi.”

It was torture. If I gave into the Siren call of the éclair, I’d have to walk home for a mile uphill (mostly in the rain) carrying my books.

Of course, quarters weren’t just for lunches. Quarters could be combined to make larger purchases. For instance, on my mother’s birthday my bus fare came in handy. For two weeks I’d go without lunch and walk home every day so I could buy her the dangly earrings she had hinted she wanted.

After my mother passed away, my wife and I went through her belongings. Tucked neatly away next to the cache of earrings I had given her I found a scrap of paper I had made notes on in 1963. My mom kept the scrap as a memento from my Senior Prom.

On the note was written the following: Orchid-$10; Tickets-$5; Tuxedo-$7; Dinner-$13; Snack after the dance-$5.

I’m sure it wasn’t this financial account that caught my mom’s attention. What inspired her to save the note were the words I wrote at the bottom: Total-$40. Length of prom date-5 hours. Cost per hour-$8.

I had calculated how much the dance cost me per hour! I spent 160 quarters on a dance at a time where each quarter meant lunch and a ride home.

So when I read about the fellow who said he didn’t have a quarter, I think I understood what he meant. He meant he didn’t have a quarter, he wasn’t likely to get a quarter, and if he did get his hands on one, he certainly wouldn’t spend it on a dance.

Of course, I’ll never know for sure. We’re never perfect at guessing others’ meaning. Sometimes a whole life goes into the meaning behind a single word. I saw a quarter as a scarce resource that led to a meal and a ride. My kids see a quarter as something you toss into a change jar so it won’t jingle annoyingly in your pocket.

When you think about it, it’s a wonder we understand anything about each other. It’s a wonder that simple greetings such as, “What’s up?” don’t lead to fist fights—so different can be our take on things. But somehow we get by. Maybe just knowing that we don’t know much about each other helps us get along.

Fortunately, amid all of this confusion and misinterpretation, I do know one thing for certain: “cobblestone” isn’t funny. “Par-a-lel-a-pee-pee-doo”—now that’s funny.

Kerry Patterson Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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Yesterday when I stopped by our local, family-owned pharmacy I noticed a new addition to the staff. Working alongside an elderly gentleman and his adult son (both pharmacists) was a girl dressed in an apron—complete with a nametag announcing “Hello, I’m Rachel.” She was sweeping the floor behind the counter.

As I waited for my prescription, I struck up a conversation with the youngster and learned that she was, as I suspected, the owner’s granddaughter. It was her first day on the job. Of course, she wasn’t allowed to go near the drugs or the cash register. Nevertheless, she was doing her best to make a contribution.

“I mostly load the cooler with drinks,” Rachel explained. “Today I’m learning how to straighten and dust the shelves.”

“And how old are you?” I asked.

“Twelve,” she blurted as if announcing a triumph of some sort.

“Twelve!” I thought to myself. “But she’s just a child.”

Seeing Rachel in her apron caught me by surprise. Could I have been that young back in 1958 when my grandfather handed me a pale green apron and put me to work in his grocery store? It was the first Saturday after my 12th birthday when Grandpa announced that since I had come of age (in his view, at least) it now would be my job to run the store every Saturday. Grandpa would drive to the wholesale house and load up his 1943 Chevy with groceries for the week. And then he’d take care of “personal business” (play poker with his cronies at the Elk’s Club) while I held down the fort.

In my case, “holding down the fort” meant fetching items from behind the counter, scooping ice cream, slicing and wrapping baloney, pumping gas, totaling the sum on the back of a brown paper bag, counting out change, and bagging the purchases—all the while, making sure nobody stole anything. All by myself.

After a brief orientation period where Grandpa taught me how to make change and watch for thievery, he donned his grey fedora, walked out the back door, and left me in charge of everything he owned.

“That’s my training?” I thought as I heard the Chevy pull onto the street.

I quickly learned that my job consisted of sitting in the back room watching TV until the bell hanging just above the door would announce a customer: “Jingle Jingle.” Like Pavlov’s dog I’d jump to my feet, push through the swinging door that separated the store from Grandpa’s living quarters, step up to the counter, and ask: “May I help you?”

The customer would then walk around the common area while selecting items such as bread, potato chips, and canned corn. Or they would ask me to get the more expensive items located safely behind the counter. For instance, when requested, I’d grab three packs of Camels (23¢ a pack), a quart bottle of Pepsi Cola (25¢), and so forth.

Initially, the customers were nervous about being served by a boy. I was a rather short twelve-year-old. Plus my voice hadn’t gone south yet and this didn’t exactly engender confidence. But I was good with numbers so, as I zoomed through the paper-bag math, the regulars soon learned to trust me with their orders.

With time, I too became comfortable on the job. In fact, it wasn’t long until my friends were routinely visiting me at the store. We’d play cards in the back room. That is, until a customer would enter. . .

Jingle Jingle.

Then I’d break away from my buddies and reluctantly wait on whoever had walked through the door. About six months into the job, I became bored—enough so that my friends and I decided it would be fun to play a trick on the kids who arrived with a pop bottle to trade for penny candy and then take forever making their choice.

Here’s what my bent little mind came up with to keep the kids away. I would crack open a can of chili powder, remove a plug from a hollow gum-ball, and fill it with the red-hot powder. Then I would replace the plug and place the loaded candy onto the lip of the gum-ball machine that sat on the counter next to the till.

“Say, look at that!” I’d exclaim with a look of surprise as a kid walked up to the counter. “Somebody forgot their gumball.”

“I love that stuff,” one of my friends would add.

The unsuspecting kid would look at the brightly colored sphere and then glance back at me for approval. I’d pause for effect and then add the Pièce de résistance: “Go ahead, you can have it.”

Immediately a hand would dart through the air, grab the candy, and stuff it into a welcoming mouth.

Then my friends and I would wait. First the kid would roll the orb around in his or her mouth, tasting the scrumptious outer layer. Next a small nibble. Then came the payoff—a big bite followed by a few rapid chews and eyes that would suddenly widen to full aperture. Next came a howl followed by tiny feet rushing through the door—Jingle Jingle—and ending when the kid leaped off the porch and spit the fiery concoction onto the gravel.

“What’s wrong with that gum?” he or she’d ask with a look of betrayal.

Of course, we never answered because my friends and I would be doubled over with laughter. It was just the kind of thing twelve-year-old boys find hilarious. It was also mean spirited and wrong on many levels.

My buddies and I carried out this trick for two gleeful Saturdays until my grandfather finally caught wind of our shenanigans. My father lectured me, but I could tell from his repressed smile that he thought the whole thing was pretty funny. Mom went off the deep end and chided me for falling in with a crowd of “hardened criminals.” She was convinced I had started down the slippery slope to a life of crime. Grandpa took a more reasonable approach. He asked me what I was thinking. This, of course, was hard to answer because I was thinking that causing the kids to believe that their mouth was on fire was hilarious—which, as I thought about it, made me sound like a sociopath.

Eventually, Grandpa ended his reproof with the classic guilt-trip.

“I expected more of you.”

Gulp. Given that I loved Grandpa dearly, those five words were a shot to my heart. Plus he banished my friends from the store and docked me two Saturday’s wages.

From that day forward, I worked feverishly to regain my grandfather’s trust. I scrubbed the shelves, washed windows, sorted the pop bottles, and otherwise kept busy every second of every eight-hour shift. I also treated every customer with respect. Especially the kids.

I tell this story because as I watch my own grandchildren grow older, I know they too will do childish things. And then when they’re old enough to know better, they’ll still do childish things. The truth is, they’re wired that way. Research reveals the logical and responsible parts of an adolescent’s brain don’t fully develop until around age eighteen.

Fortunately, if adults follow my grandfather’s lead and watch over their errant wards as their brains develop, correct them when necessary, and hold them accountable, they probably won’t (as my mother predicted) fall in with a den of thieves. And hopefully, when they take their first job and screw up as well, a wise boss will firmly correct them and give them another chance.

At a time when the press seems to take every new statistic as evidence of an oncoming Armageddon—in a world where arguments are purposely made for their shock value alone—it’s hard to maintain a proper sense of proportion. Not every drop of rain portends an oncoming storm. Not every sighting of a locust signals a massive swarm just over the horizon. More often than not, the rain stops after a light sprinkling, the locust continues solitarily down the path, and a boy in a pale green apron surprises everyone by growing up.

Kerry Patterson Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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In January of 1965, after living their entire lives in soggy Western Washington, my mom and dad packed up their belongings and moved to sunny Arizona. After enjoying the dry climate for several months, Mom wrote a letter to her father inviting him to close up the “mom and pop” store that he operated thirteen-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week and come live with them in Tempe.

“We have a room set aside for you,” Mom explained. “And there’s a lovely park nearby filled with men playing checkers and chess.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Grandpa replied in a return letter. “I must admit that it’s tempting to move to a place where it doesn’t rain most of the time, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. You know how hard it is for a man of my age to find work.”

Grandpa was eighty-five years old at the time. He couldn’t conceive of not having a job.

My grandfather loved to work almost as much as he loved his independence. He’d always been that way. Orphaned at a young age, Grandpa had moved in with a relative who didn’t like him much and, to make that point crystal clear, beat him regularly. One day when Grandpa was ten, his school teacher began whipping a small child in his class. Grandpa could take it no longer and pummeled the cowardly teacher until he fled from the classroom. Grandpa was expelled for his efforts and while his caretakers brooded over what to do with him, he packed a change of clothing in a brown paper bag and set out from Dyersville, Iowa to live with his cousin May—the one person who had showed him love when he had met her at a family gathering a few years earlier.

For several days Grandpa trudged westward. For sustenance he drank from creeks, ate fruit from trees, and stole eggs from chicken coops.

“When we first laid eyes on Billy we were sitting on the porch drinking lemonade,” cousin May explained years later when I met her for the first time.

“At first,” May continued, “I thought it was a stray dog coming down the dirt road that passed in front of our house. I could barely make out a speck in the distance, followed by a trail of dust. But then I could see it was a person. It was a boy. The poor thing looked like he was going to collapse; he was so weak from the heat of the sun. And then as the boy drew close enough to see his face, I could tell it was Billy! Mother and I ran to greet him, took him in our arms, and smothered him with kisses.”

After days of lonely effort, Billy—at ten years of age—had walked across the entire state of Iowa to his cousin May’s house just outside Sioux City. He was finally home. For the next eight years his cousins loved and cared for Billy until he graduated from high school and set out to make a life for himself. Then, for almost two decades my grandfather worked at everything from trapping in Minnesota to playing cards on a Mississippi river boat—until he finally met my grandmother, Pricilla, and fell in love, settled down, and raised my mother.

Grandpa taught my mom to be as independent as he had been for twenty years as a bachelor. He had learned to cook and sew, and do all things domestic—not as a point of pride, but from sheer necessity. So as Grandma taught my mom how to run a household, he taught her how to swing a hammer and repair the plumbing.

By the time I was twelve, both my mom and granddad had passed the tradition to me. I’d come home from school to find Mom had torn out part of a wall with a crowbar in an effort to get a remodeling project on its feet. I’d then help her make dinner before Dad came home from work.

This independence has served me well. I love the freedom that comes from being able to do so many things on my own. However, sometimes my desire for self-sufficiency morphs from autonomy to pig-headedness and that’s when it gets me into trouble. Strengths, unguided by wisdom, often become weaknesses.

For instance, last fall when my wife Louise and I vacationed in Paris for our 40th wedding anniversary, my need for independence really pitched us a curve. Louise and I had signed up for a Segway tour by night. (I don’t know what we were thinking.) The upbeat guide taught us how to speed along on one of those motorized sticks while he pointed out the glories of the City of Lights. Unfortunately, after only a few minutes I could tell that Louise’s diminishing night vision was giving her problems and I was quite certain we needed to stop and return to the base. Trooper that she is, Louise wanted to stay the course.

But I couldn’t shake my premonition. Something bad was about to happen. I also didn’t know how to tell our guide that we needed to stop, and I most certainly didn’t want to force the entire group of tourists to return to base on our account.

So, each time my wife drove her Segway too close to a cement pillar placed to keep cars from entering the pathways, I’d shout a warning: “Not so close!” as my blood ran cold with the thought of her crashing and falling.

How could I get this band of merry tourists to do an about face? If the two of us went back on our own, how would we find the way without the help of our guide? How could I fit the blasted contrivances into a cab? How could . . .

Bang!

In what felt like a slow-motion nightmare, I saw my wife’s vehicle smash into a post and throw her ten feet through the air and onto the rough cobblestones below. Louise writhed in pain as I leaped from my Segway to her side. My worst fear had been realized. She had crashed and (as I later learned at the hospital) broken her pelvis.

For the next three days, as our return flight drew closer, I nearly went crazy trying to figure out how to get Louise back home. The doctors assured us she could travel without doing herself any harm, but her pain was so great she couldn’t take a single step. Fortunately, she could stand, slowly shuffle right or left, and slip into a wheel chair. Now, if I could just get her to the airline front desk, they would wheel her onto the plane—but how?

Out of utter desperation I eventually approached the manager of the hotel we were staying at and said something I almost never say.

“I need your help,” I nervously whispered as if sharing a deep, dark secret. Then I quietly explained our predicament.

“Yes,” the manager responded, “I can see your problem. I’m not sure how to solve it, but don’t worry Mr. Patterson, we will figure it out.”

And they did.

The independence my grandfather so fiercely demonstrated—and that has generally served me so well—occasionally keeps me from asking others for their assistance, even when I need it. Had I stopped our little tour group and said to our guide: “My wife and I need to return, but I also don’t want to disrupt the tour. Do you have any ideas on how to achieve that?” I’m sure the guide would have come up with five different solutions.

But I didn’t think to ask the guide. It simply was not in my nature. It was not the kind of thing I thought a self-sufficient person would do. Of course, we paid dearly.

I know I’m not alone in my misunderstanding of independence. At work, employees routinely avoid asking for help on a project because they fear it might make them look weak. Or a newly promoted boss refuses to say “I don’t know,” because he’s the new supervisor and thinks he’s supposed to know everything. And then, of course, there’s that whole getting lost on vacation and refusing to ask for directions thing . . .

For over sixty years I’ve honed my abilities to stand on my own—as if that’s life’s one true measure of success—when in truth it’s also a wonderful thing to both give and receive help. Stopping and asking others for their assistance is not a signal that we’re weak or that our character is flawed. It’s a sign of our underlying humanity.

Here’s to being more human.

Kerry Patterson Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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Listen to Kerrying On via MP3
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I’ve often heard that on our death beds, none of us is likely to look back on our life and lament, “I should have spent more time at the office.” To be frank, I’ve known several people who should have spent more time at the office, but this doesn’t negate the point that one day, we’ll look back on our lives and assess what we did.

Research on the topic of happiness reveals that most of us have no idea about what actually causes it. In Stumbling on Happiness, author Daniel Gilbert suggests that most of us are pretty bad at predicting what will make us happy and what won’t. For instance, when you ask people which will make them happier—a bigger salary or taking a daily walk with a loved one—people generally pick the money. However, when you measure people in both conditions, more time with a loved one typically yields more happiness.

When it comes to my own happiness, I do know a couple of things. First, happiness is not a constant state that one hunts down, tackles to the ground, and possesses. You never achieve happiness; you just experience happy moments. Second, we often assume receiving recognition for our labors will bring happiness. Not to say that it doesn’t, but sometimes, it’s surprising what kind of recognition truly matters.

Last week, as I drove my nine-year-old granddaughter, Kelsee, to our house for a short visit, she asked me what kind of job I had. For a couple of minutes I talked about training and consulting while Kelsee sat quietly and listened. Eventually, I mentioned that my partners and I also wrote books. Now this got her attention. Books she understood.

“You’re an author?” she asked.

“Yes,” I explained, “that would make me an author.”

“Can I see your books?”

As soon as we arrived home, Kelsee rushed to my office to examine the books. She touched each as if it had been retrieved from a sunken treasure chest.

“Can I have some to take to school?” Kelsee asked.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“So I can put them in the school library.”

This library Kelsee spoke of, of course, would be a grade-school library. I smiled as I imagined children dressed in three-piece suits, carrying miniature briefcases, and checking out books that explain how to wield influence over challenges such as world-wide calamities and corporate failure.

“I doubt that kids your age would enjoy the books,” I explained.

It took me a while to talk Kelsee out of the idea of placing our books in her grade-school library, but eventually she accepted my advice with quiet resolve. However, she wasn’t done. A week later, when I once again drove Kelsee to our home, she struck up the following conversation.

“Grandpa, during show-and-tell last week I told my teacher that my grandfather writes books.”

“Really? And what did she say?”

“She asked who you are.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“Your name. I said that my grandfather is Kerry Patterson.”

“And then what did she say?”

“Well,” Kelsee continued, “before she could answer, Hannah—another girl in my class—shouted real loud: ‘NOT THE KERRY PATTERSON!’”

To be honest, I was a little surprised that a nine-year-old girl had ever heard of me. Surely she had me confused with somebody else.

Kelsee enthusiastically continued her story. She was obviously enjoying the moment.

“So I asked Hannah how she had heard of you and she explained: ‘My mom reads everything he writes.’”

“And what did you say to that?” I asked.

Kelsee paused for a moment, smiled wide and then said: “So—you’re familiar with his work.”

Now, that short interaction with Kelsee will never make it onto my resume. There you’ll find a chronological list of accomplishments in which I will have taken satisfaction, but you won’t find the secret of happiness. The secret of happiness lies not in the act of creating joy. The secret of happiness lies in recognizing joy when it comes.

With this in mind, here’s what I desire to have stated in my eulogy—better yet, I want it carved in bold letters at the top of my tombstone:

“So—you’re familiar with his work.”

This one moment of recognition from my granddaughter brought me happiness.

Kerry Patterson Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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Listen to Kerrying On via MP3
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The following article first appeared on August 23, 2006.

When I’ve finished conducting a training session, it’s common for people to approach me with a series of questions about the training’s underlying philosophy. At the top of the list is: “What philosopher influenced you the most?” Sometimes people will insert a guru of their choice. “Was it Kant?” “Did you draw heavily from Rousseau?” “Were you thinking of Socrates when you . . .”

While I have a working knowledge of the icons people mention, I’d have to say that none played a very big role in my work. First, I can’t remember what most of them said, and second, none will ever displace an incident that set me on a philosophical course I continue to follow to this day. Like a lot of useful philosophy lessons, it all started with a Roy Rogers double feature.

In 1954, if you happened to be eight years old, and I did, Roy Rogers sat smack dab in the center of your universe. He was this marvelous cowboy/actor who was always chasing down the bad guys and saving the schoolmarm in the most remarkable and innovative ways. So when the newspaper announced there would be a Roy Rogers double feature showing on Saturday, I anxiously waited for the big event.

At that stage in my life, each day as I’d come home from school, I’d stop off at my Granddad’s place where I’d talk with him about Trigger, Bullet, Nelly Bell, and all of the other members of Roy Rogers’ entourage. Granddad had never seen the singing cowboy in action, but he always showed great interest in whatever caught my attention. He would patiently listen to me as I retold each tale of derring-do.

In truth, while it was Roy who had captured my eight-year-old interest, it was really Granddad who had captured my heart. At five foot four with a fireplug shape, a cigar stub in the corner of his mouth, and an amazing wit, he cut a large swath in my world. He owned and operated the local grocery store and, as far as my friends and I were concerned, that made him a celebrity. In fact, since he was the guy who stood behind the candy counter, it made him a childhood god.

Like all septuagenarians at the time, whenever Granddad visited downtown he wore a wool suit and a gray fedora. Since it was now the 1950s, the felt hat put him in a distinct minority. Most men had dropped any form of head gear at the same time women had stopped wearing gloves (in the late 40s), but Grandfather wouldn’t think of going outside without being covered. To him, you weren’t fit for public appearance if you weren’t in a suit and the suit had to have a matching hat. In Granddad’s case, it was the gray fedora.

The day of the double feature finally arrived and I stopped by Granddad’s store to let him know I’d be catching the bus that stopped in front of his establishment in order to go downtown and see Roy in action. He smiled broadly and explained that he too would be heading into the city to stock up on supplies. Maybe we’d run into each other. With the prospect of bumping into my Grandfather in mind, I headed downtown.

Later that day I merrily walked from the movie theater to the bus stop a few blocks away. While sucking on a Tootsie Pop and still musing about Roy’s latest conquest, I was confronted by an image that stopped me in my tracks. The Tootsie Pop actually fell from my mouth as I stood agape. There, at the end of the block no more that twenty yards away, lay Grandfather on the sidewalk. He appeared to be dead. His body lay askew while a withered hand clutched something bottle-shaped in a brown paper bag. What had happened? Did Granddad have a heart attack on the way to the wholesale house?

As I drew closer my fear turned to confusion and then despair. Why was nobody helping him? It was a busy Saturday afternoon and lots of people were walking right past him without even glancing. One person even stepped over him and sneered. Had the world gone mad? Were there no real heroes in Bellingham? Roy Rogers routinely shot it out with bad guys in order to right a wrong; couldn’t somebody stop and check Granddad? How hard could that be?

When I finally fell to my knees next to Granddad and moved the gray fedora that was covering his face, I discovered that it wasn’t him after all. It was a stranger—an old man who hadn’t shaved in days, smelled of wine, and who wasn’t dead, but instead was dead drunk.

Quickly I leaped to my feet. And then a warm wave of relief swept over me. It wasn’t Granddad and he wasn’t dead! It wasn’t Granddad! I stood there and cried tears of sheer joy until a kindly lady stopped and asked if I was lost. I mumbled that I was okay as I scuffled off to catch the bus.

As I rode the bus home I realized that I had equated a gray fedora with Grandfather, so when I saw a man wearing Granddad’s hat of choice, I made a logical leap that had caused me a great deal of grief. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. And then my emotions darted in another direction as my wide-eyed innocence took over. The better me couldn’t be so readily consoled. Yes, this stranger wasn’t my Grandfather, but surely he was somebody’s Grandfather. Where were his grandkids? And the strangers who passed by—why hadn’t they done anything? I sobbed for the stranger all the way home.

When I finally arrived home, I burst through the front door and told my mom how I thought Granddad was dead and how it had turned out to be somebody else. She smiled knowingly and explained that the poor fellow I had stumbled upon was known as a “wino” who was probably sleeping it off.

“But where were his grandkids?” I asked. Where was the little boy who would fall to his knees and help him home? Mom didn’t have an answer.

I was forever changed that day. First, I opened the door into the harsh part of life that my parents had protected me from. Some people become indigents who die on the street. Worse still, we don’t always know what to do about it. But the second lesson I learned was far more important and returns me to the question of the philosophy underlying our training. It’s the philosophy of the fedora. I learned that if I put Granddad’s fedora on a stranger—instantly transforming him or her into a person I loved dearly—the stranger became someone worthy of my care and attention. Putting a face on the faceless masses, assigning a name to a crime or war victim, thinking of the people who cause you grief—thinking of them as real people with children of their own—well, this humanizing act has a dramatic impact on how you first think about and then treat them.

For example, if I put the fedora on the elderly man driving the car in front of me at fifteen miles an hour in a thirty-five-mile-an-hour zone, my impatience and disgust transform into sympathy.

If a person at work lets me down and I can’t believe how uncaring he or she is, I place him or her under the fedora and I won’t be so quick to pass judgment and become angry. “Maybe,” I think, “he or she had a good reason for missing the deadline. Go find out.” Instantly I transform into a far better problem-solver than when I don’t assume the best of others but instead angrily wade into the discussion with hostile, and often groundless, accusations.

So, if you want to know what philosophy most influenced my training theories, remember the power of the fedora. Take it in your hands, turn it over and peer into its crown. There, somewhere between the manufacturer’s label and the hat size, you’ll find one of the most useful philosophies ever discovered by an eight-year-old.

Kerry Patterson Crucial Conversations, Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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This year I’ve decided to give you (kind readers) a Valentine’s Day gift. I know it’s a few days late, but since my present is neither candy nor flowers (and won’t decay) I think the gift I have in mind will do just fine. I’m giving you a nonperishable story of a Valentine’s Day I experienced some thirty-five years ago. It’s a tale that I believe might help lift your spirits some day when you’ve done something—how does one put it?—not all that clever. Plus the story provides a nice reminder of the importance of keeping focused on what you really want.

It all started one Saturday evening when I suddenly realized that I only had an hour to buy my wife a Valentine’s Day gift. Since Louise was working on a project across campus (I was a grad student at the time), I loaded our six- and four-year-old daughters into the back seat of our Volkswagen bug, strapped our six-month-old son into one of those plastic baby carriers, and headed off to the nearest shopping center I could find.

Soon, with Becca, Christine, and a Raggedy Ann doll connected to me in a daisy chain of hand holds and Taylor swinging gently in the plastic carrier clutched in my other hand, we found ourselves scurrying through a very high-end shopping center that was close to our apartment—but unlike any place I’d had ever been before (it didn’t have “Mart” or “O-rama” in the title). It was chock-full of wealthy, beautifully attired, perfectly coiffed people who frequented the luxurious stores that surrounded us.

Since I had been cleaning my outdoor grill when it struck me that I needed to buy a gift, I didn’t look much like the prim and proper patrons around me. I looked more like the Maytag repairman, and my kids appeared as if they had just been plucked from the sand pile in our back court. Which they had. The shoppers’ genial smiles turned into looks of disapproval as they scrutinized our scruffy clothes, our home-cut hair, and our barely opposable thumbs.

Eventually the four of us found our way to the home center of a posh department store where they had on display the very present my wife had hinted she wanted—a variable speed blender, complete with pulse control. Soon, a perky clerk was wrapping up a bright red blender I had chosen in honor of Valentine’s Day. I knew that a household appliance wasn’t as romantic as, say, a diamond necklace, but you have to ask yourself: Can you whip up a batch of pureed spinach with a diamond necklace? I don’t think so.

Next, as the clock continued to run, the girls and I scampered out into the shopping center in search of an affordable card. Everything was so expensive. A simple card cost five bucks.

“Daddy,” Christine uttered, “don’t you think . . .”

“Shush,” I blurted as we hurried past one high-end store after another. “I need to find your mother a card.”

“I know,” Christine continued, “but . . .”

“No ifs-ands-or-buts about it. If I don’t find a card, I’m in trouble.”

Seeing that her sister was getting nowhere, three-year-old Becca asked: “Where’s baby Taylor?”

It was like being hit by a bucket of cold water. There in the hand that had once carried my son, was a package containing a variable-speed blender, complete with pulse-control. Where was baby Taylor?

“He’s back in that big store,” Christine offered as she pointed to the far end of the shopping center.

Egads. I had left my son in the middle of the blender display! In a flash I reversed course and headed back to the scene of the crime where I frantically tried to get into the store—repeatedly banging into a locked pair of massive glass doors.

“The place is closed,” explained an older gentleman walking by. “It’s Saturday night.”

“But I left my so . . .” I cut myself off midword. “But I left something inside.”

“You’ll have to go around back to the employee entrance,” the fellow explained.

Moments later the girls and I scurried along a terribly long wall while employees disgorged from a lone door at the far end of the building. The animated employees walking our way were all talking about some idiot who had . . . (well, you can guess). Then, as they saw me frantically hustling along with my two remaining kids in hand, they quickly concluded that I was the fool they had been bad-mouthing.

If looks could kill . . .

The best I could do was smile back lamely. I just wanted my son back.

Eventually my daughters and I found ourselves inside the building and standing next to a knot of folks who were cooing and making other baby noises while my son, still in his plastic container, smiled back politely. I searched for the proper words.

“Has anyone found a baby? It seems I’ve lost one.” No, that would land me in jail for sure.

“Funny thing, I came with three kids and now I only have two. Go figure.” Equally lame.

Eventually I blurted out, “You’ve found my son! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

Pointing out that they had found (rather than I had lost) my son appeared to take the edge off the pack of store clerks. Nevertheless, the lady in charge gave me a long, hard look before barking, “Do you think you can get him home without losing him?”

“I brought my Raggedy Ann,” Christine remarked as she held up her well-worn doll. “And I didn’t lose her.”

“Yes, dear and I’m very proud of you,” I muttered back. Then looking the authority figure directly in the eye I tersely proclaimed, “So, we’ll just be heading on home now.”

With this lame pronouncement fresh off my lips, I snatched up Taylor and retreated out of the massive building.

“Do we tell Mommy the secret?” Christine asked as we walked back to the car.

“No!” I blurted. “We mustn’t tell Mommy that I bought her a variable speed blender, complete with pulse control. It would spoil the surprise and we don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

“I mean. . . how you left Taylor in the middle of the store and then got locked out?”

I was doomed. There was no way I was going to be able to keep the two girls from tattling on me. And sure enough, a few minutes later when we pulled up in front of our apartment, the girls bolted from the car as they rushed to tell mom the exciting news. They kept the blender a secret, but not the fact that I had left their baby brother in a big, scary store. That part of our little escapade they told with great relish.

“You left him in the store and then got locked out?” Louise asked incredulously as I presented her a brightly-wrapped gift.

“True,” I explained, “but you haven’t had a chance to see the gift I bought for you. I was so focused on expressing my love for you with this truly special household item—complete with pulse control—that I lost focus for a second.”

“You didn’t lose focus,” Louise accused, “you lost Taylor!”

“I didn’t lose my Raggedy Ann,” Christine offered.

And so there you have it my friends—my present to you. Never again did I leave a child locked in a department store. I learned my lesson. I learned to stay focused on what really matters.

In addition, I freely admit to my idiocy. That’s the whole point of this story. One day when you’re feeling bad because you missed a deadline at work or maybe you were late picking up your daughter at soccer practice, think of me and my Valentine’s Day debacle. Compared to me, you’ll be a saint. And should a loved one become angry at you for not flossing your kids’ teeth adequately or keeping them from getting hurt on a see-saw, you can say: “True, I messed up. But at least I’m not as bad as that idiot who left his baby in the middle of a blender display!”

That’s my present to you.

Kerry Patterson Crucial Conversations, Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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Last month, I wrote about the Patterson family Christmas of 1956. I shared how I was able to find joy during a time when we had few, if any, presents or other “things.” Many of you wrote back that the tale reminded you of similar times where you too were able to stumble on Christmas despite your challenging financial circumstances. Thank you for your kind and heart-warming reaction.

One of you wrote that after sharing the story with a friend, she replied that she had already received four similar stories that lauded the joys associated with poverty—and if this were true, why don’t we seek poverty all of the time? I can understand the response. The last thing I wanted to suggest was that the poverty itself was something worth seeking.

I’m reminded of when I was first married and attending graduate school in Palo Alto, California. Each week my wife, three children, and I went to church with a couple dozen other young struggling student couples along with a hundred or so wealthy congregants who lived on the edge of campus. These folks of extraordinary means would leave their estates in the foothills and drive their luxury German cars to church where they would then tell those of us who were living in tiny boxes called student housing just how lucky we were. They would most sincerely explain—often with tears in their eyes—how they fondly remembered their college years and recalled them as the best time of their life.

My reaction was predictable. “Really?” I thought to myself. “These are the best years? I study endlessly. I have very little time left for recreation or hobbies. Every month I worry about making ends meet. When our old jalopy breaks down, we go without something in order to pay for the repair. These are the best years of my life? Tell me it isn’t so!”

Some thirty years later, when my church assignment had me speaking to a group of young married college students, I listened intently as other older speakers shared the predictable message of “These are the best years of your life!” When it came my turn to speak, I stood up and said, “I’ve had money and I’ve not had money, and to be frank—I prefer having money.” (This brought a chuckle.)

“And as far as college years being the best years of my life, I do remember how great it was to be young and energetic and studying full time with some of the world’s best thinkers. I recall playing with my children between classes and then catching the campus bus for a ride to the psychology building where I listened to the world-famous scholar Solomon Asch as he reviewed his earlier studies of compliance and independence. As I sat and took in the words of the world’s best, I knew how lucky I was.

“I also remember the unrelenting stress of not having enough money—of not being able to give my children as much as I would have liked—the missed lessons, the thinner coats, the oatmeal instead of eggs. In fact, when I finally finished six years of graduate school, took a job, and we bought and cooked our very first chuck roast, my kids fought over who got the drumstick. They didn’t know any better. All they had ever eaten was chicken.”

So, some of the aspects of those college years were indeed wonderful, other aspects . . . not so much. With this in mind, I want to affirm that I never intended my story as an endorsement of poverty. I only wanted to say that even when times are tough (and yes, tough times come with sacrifices and suffering), you can still find joy in the simple things.

This has certainly been true for me. Going into this season, I can already tell you what my favorite memories will be. They won’t be the gifts sitting wrapped under my tree at home. They’ll be the memories of the time I’ve spent with loved ones—playing games, telling stories, and sharing hand-made gifts.

I’m already working on this. At our recent family Christmas party, we gathered at my daughter Christine’s house and sang carols and played games while the young cousins shared simple presents. As promised, I read the story of our 1956 Christmas, and at the end, I gave each of my children and grandchildren a small package of peanut brittle my wife and I had just made. It’s a memory I’ll cherish forever.

We also ooh-ed and ahh-ed over a hand-crafted alphabet book one granddaughter had made for her 18-month-old cousin; and everyone applauded and cheered as another granddaughter read a poem she had carefully composed on the computer. The poem described the joys of the season as viewed through the eyes of a nine-year-old. As I sat and took in her innocent words of wonder and encouragement, I couldn’t have been more proud.

So no, I don’t encourage poverty as a means of finding the true holiday spirit. But I do stand by the claim that often, the things that matter most can be shared by all. Time devoted to thoughtful conversation, stories told across generations, and acts of unconditional love are all free. They’re also as precious as gold.

My colleagues and I have created a holiday e-card to thank you for your support and association with our newsletter, training courses, and other services. View it now!

Kerry Patterson Crucial Conversations, Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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1956 was a hard year for the Patterson family. One evening Dad came home from work at the lumber mill in so much pain he could scarcely drag himself out of the car. He had tripped at work and hurt his back. Worried about his paycheck at the end of the week, Dad pulled himself to his feet and gutted it out until the end of his shift, despite a pain that (we later learned from a coworker) was so gut-wrenching he almost passed out several times.

Mom tried to heal Dad with a variety of homemade poultices that had such a stench they practically peeled back the wallpaper. But to no effect. Eventually Dad put himself in the care of a surgeon who cut a piece of bone from his hip and fused it into his spine. The Workers Compensation Fund refused to cover his injury (claiming he had aggravated a pre-existing condition). So two weeks later when he returned home to heal, all the money we had to live on for the next six months would come from whatever Mom could earn making and selling pastries.

The neighbors soon caught wind of our plight and hardly a day passed without someone dropping by with a slab of venison or a basket of wild asparagus. We quickly discovered that beggars, indeed, can’t be choosers as we learned to dine on everything from goose eggs to elk heart. But it wasn’t all gizzards and duck feet. One day, Walter Kaiser, the retired boatswain mate who lived across the street, brought by a huge bag of delicious unshelled peanuts he’d won playing bingo at the VFW.

As fall drifted into winter and Dad continued to heal, my thoughts turned to Christmas. Without money for presents I began to wonder if the peanuts would be our only gift that year. What I really wanted was a telescope. I’d found a picture of a swell one in the Sears catalogue, but I knew it would cost too much, so I put in a request for an inexpensive, plastic spy glass.

Mom could tell I wasn’t adjusting well to our newfound poverty and did her best to remain cheerful despite the fact that our financial crisis was exacting a toll on her. Between caring for Father, raising two boys, and making baked goods, Mother scarcely slept. And yet she was our rock. One evening she caught me crying in my room because my weekly allowance had been long abandoned and I suddenly realized I hadn’t saved enough money to buy presents for my relatives. Each year I purchased a gift for my grandparents, parents, brother, aunt and uncle, and two cousins. Now what would I do?

Mom comforted me while she searched for a solution.

“Let’s see,” she muttered. “You don’t have any money. I don’t have any money . . .” Then it came to her in a flash. “Walter’s peanuts!” she shouted with glee. “Walter’s peanuts!”

Mother then explained that she would teach me how to make peanut brittle for Christmas. A box of brittle would make a delicious present—for young and old alike—and we already had all of the ingredients we needed.

For several evenings I donned my mother’s apron, stood on a stool, and labored happily over the stove. On the last night, after the last batch of candy was finally completed, Mom brought out the end of a roll of newsprint and I colored on it until it made a suitable wrapping paper. Soon I had a nicely wrapped present for everyone.

But my holiday mood didn’t last. There was no sign of a spyglass anywhere and I was just sure my tenth Christmas was going to be the worst Christmas ever. Once again, it was Mother who came to the rescue. As I sat at the kitchen table, mooning over the Sears catalogue toys that I wouldn’t be getting, Mom gently tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and there she stood with her arm outstretched and an axe clutched in her hand.

“It’s time for you to go get our Christmas tree,” Mother said with a smile.

I couldn’t believe it. The axe was being passed on to me! Since Dad was house-bound, I would now carry the axe. Drawing myself out of my funk, I carefully took the bucolic scepter from Mom’s hand, hiked into the snow-covered forest that was our backyard, and chopped down a spruce tree.

An hour later, as I huffed, puffed, and hauled the newly cut tree to our home, I ran into Walter.

“That’s kind of a shabby looking thing,” the former navy man barked as he bit down on his pipe.

It was. The good looking trees were too far away for me to haul them all the way back to our home, so I had settled on a tree that was nearby. This tree was decent on one side and pretty shabby on the other.

“I have just the thing,” Walter offered as he disappeared into the shed behind his house. A couple minutes later he returned with his solution to our lackluster tree—a hand drill and several drill bits.

“Every place there’s a gap in the tree, drill a hole,” Walter snapped. I’ll tell you which drill size and where to drill.”

After I finished boring the holes, Walter handed me a stack of limbs he’d cut from a pine tree nearby and stated: “They’re not a perfect match, but they’re close enough for government work.”

Uncertain but hopeful, I began to insert pine branches into the holes I had drilled in the spruce tree. Then, with Walter’s help, I cut the newly affixed appendages to the right length and trimmed a little here and a little there until the tree looked surprisingly full—curiously motley, but full.

Christmas day finally came and all I could think about were the presents I had made. How would my family react? I didn’t have to wait long to get an answer, for soon my relatives were tearing away the homemade wrapping paper and sampling the treasure inside.

“It’s wonderful!” My aunt Mickey exclaimed as she bit into the brittle.

“And you made it all by yourself!” Grandpa Bill enthused.

“Why it’s far better than anything store bought,” shouted my uncle Vic.

“And just look at the tree!” my father proudly said. Then he paused for effect and asked, “Did you know that Kerry is responsible for that tree?”

“I understand you cut it down and then spruced it up.” (Actually I had pined it up.) “Is that true?” asked Grandpa.

And so, in a flurry of compliments and joyful affirmations, our 1956 came to an end. By mid-January, Dad had returned to work at the mill and things were back to normal.

I hadn’t thought much about that particular season until I started wondering about this year’s bleak economy and the challenge many people will have as they try to bring joy to the holidays. I don’t know what it will be like for others; however, I do know this. In 1956, the year of our poverty, I didn’t get a spyglass. We simply didn’t have enough money.

But you know what? It didn’t really matter. I still found Christmas. I found it in Mom’s irrepressible spirit and endless ingenuity. To this day, I can close my eyes and see her cheerfully toiling over delicious petit fours into the wee hours of the morning. Dad constantly praised me for growing into what he called “a little man.” That was his gift to me. My family complimented the brittle and the goofy looking tree I cobbled together with the same enthusiasm generally afforded a returning hero. That was their present.

During this lean year, several of my family members are taking their lead from 1956. Many are making gifts rather than buying them. My nine-year-old granddaughter, Rachel, has sewn a bunting for her sister who will be born on December 21st. The material for the outfit cost less than a dollar, but the fact that she sewed it with her own two hands makes it priceless. I suspect her gift will get most of the ooohs and ahhhs at the Patterson gathering this year. I also suspect that it’ll be Rachel’s favorite gift as well.

We’re also taking special care to spend as much time as we can together. The time of shared love and caring is the biggest part of any memory we’ll create. And when we gather on Christmas Eve, I plan on reading this story aloud. I’ll give other gifts. I’ll share other things, but they’re only things. This story, taken from memory and recorded with love, will be my favorite gift.

So there you have it—1956, the year of our poverty. The year my father tripped . . . and I stumbled on Christmas.

Kerry Patterson Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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When my best friends and I were kids growing up along the shores of the Puget Sound, the water was our favorite playground. It’s a good thing, because we certainly had a lot of it. It fell from the sky in unrelenting sheets of cold misery until it eventually gathered about us in a giant recreational hodgepodge of lakes, streams, and inlets. Hardly a summer day passed that we didn’t find a way to float in it.

By age fourteen, we had widened our tastes from floating safely in placid lagoons to using the water as a thrill park—particularly the water found underneath the docks. This was back in the early sixties when fish canneries still spewed a red stream of cast-off salmon heads and slimy innards straight into the bay. Sharks gathered at the entry point of the disgusting flow in a feeding frenzy of pink froth, teeth, and terror.

Few people have ever seen a sight such as the one found outside those canneries. Few people would want to see such a sight. Unless, of course, you were fourteen years old and pretty much lived for the chance of throwing yourself smack dab in the middle of just such a biological curiosity. Which is exactly what we did. My buddies and I took one look at the tangle of teeth and fins and knew we had to find a way to study it up close.

After scrounging logs and really thick string for a couple of days, our intrepid gang cobbled together a raft for just such idiotic purposes. We christened our highly unstable craft “Death on a Log” and then promptly paddled straight to the heart of the toothy treasure. It’s hard to describe the sheer visceral pleasure of gliding into a foaming pool of frenzied sharks. There we were, virtually surrounded by a pulsating mass of fins, teeth, and eyeballs—completely swallowed up by the roar of gushing entrails. It was fourteen-year-old heaven.

At first, we just stood there, triumphantly ensconced in the epicenter of this ecological nightmare, drawing strength from the electric energy of the moment. And then, one part adrenaline, two parts testosterone, and ten parts boy took over. First, we smacked the throbbing mass with our paddles. Take that you nasty sharks! Smack! Smack! Smack! Then we poked at the tangle with assorted sticks. Poke. Poke. Poke. We capped off the experience with a series of whoops and grins—shouting and gyrating on the very edge of sanity. It was a perfect teenage moment. And then Frank stepped over the edge and tumbled into the churning waters.

Movies generally show such life-threatening moments in slow motion. That’s because in real life they happen in slow motion. When Frank fell, it was as if time had slowed to one-tenth its normal pace. The tumble took forever. First, Frank’s left leg slipped off the edge. Then his body hung in space between the raft and death for about an hour—until death took the upper hand. As we stood, frozen to the raft, Frank plunged into the roiling sea. Only he didn’t really plunge. He hung in a grotesque, cartoon-like position above the danger below until he finally lurched toward the outstretched hands of his friends. He exerted just enough strength to propel his body to a spot six inches from the raft—except for the back of his head, which found the outside log with a sickening thud. He was out like a light, floating in a boil of ichthyoidal rage.

Tom, closest to the edge of the raft, jumped into the frenetic foam without so much as a second’s hesitation. It was stunning to watch him leap straight into the jaws of death (no metaphor here, these were the jaws of death). Okay, maybe the Puget Sound sharks weren’t thirty-foot great whites. Maybe they were only four to six feet long, but their rows of teeth were deadly enough and the danger was heart stopping. Somehow Tom managed to pull himself and Frank back onto the raft, but not before both had received several nasty bites. For five minutes we huddled together in a mist of foam, blood, fear, and gratitude. Then we slowly made our way back to shore.

For those of you who have never been a fourteen-year-old boy who has just escaped death by a whisker, you might think that we then gleefully returned home. We didn’t. Instead, we did what we always did under such ridiculous circumstances. We struggled to come up with a cover story. We couldn’t tell our moms that Frank and Tom had fallen into a whirlpool of sharks. They would have asked questions about where the sharks came from and how we happened to be so close to them in the first place. So we made up a whopper, sneaked into Frank’s house, and administered to the wounded.

I eventually told the heroic version of the shark story some twenty years later, while standing around a campfire at a father-and-son outing. By the time I was through, the crowd was ready to erect a statue in honor of Tom’s valor. In fact, I made all of us kids out to be a fanciful combination of swarthy adventurers and swashbuckling daredevils. Then, as I noted my own boys’ reactions (they hung on my every word), I reversed course. With time and the advantage of perspective, I took to adding the following editorial comments whenever I told the story anew.

Many acts of modern-day heroism are immediately preceded by acts of utter insanity—requiring the very acts of heroism that we’re bragging about in the first place. If we hadn’t been so completely insane as to paddle straight into the middle of death and then jump and hoot and slip around until one of us fell in, we wouldn’t have needed a hero. Hero stories persist because it’s not nearly as fun to avoid death by five hundred yards as it is to climb into the mouth of the grim reaper himself and then, at the very last second, scamper out in a flamboyant feat of heroism. Now that’s entertainment.

Fortunately, when you’re talking to your own children, reason prevails. You encourage your own precious offspring to avoid danger by a safe margin. With them, you give crystal clear directions: You can go into the water. No problem there. Just don’t swim into the churning waters. In fact, don’t go near the churning waters. Stay a full five hundred yards away from the churning waters.

What Does It Mean to Us?

I tell this story because it reminds me of what typically happens during training sessions when the topic turns to diversity and harassment. As class members discuss the always amazing and sometimes moronic things employees have been known to do to one another, a certain percentage always asks what they can get away with. They want to know how far they can go. Mostly it’s because they’re trying to understand the boundaries. Nobody wants to cut off human interaction in its entirety. A huge part of their life unfolds at work every day. Everyone wants to go into the water. They are going to talk with others. That’s a given. They are going to tell jokes, flirt, and tease. They just want to know where the safe waters end.

After the tenth person has asked if she can still tell blonde jokes (after all, blondes aren’t protected by law), or if he can tell a woman at work how good she looks in a sweater (because it’s about the sweater and not her body), I’m reminded of the sharks. There are some topics and actions that are obviously dangerous. They’re a veritable whirlpool of potential hazards. We all know what they are.

For example, if you start telling jokes that make fun of someone’s race or belief, you’re in dangerous water. If you’re attracted to someone who you’d like to date but who has shown you no interest (save for an occasional “bug off”), and you think to yourself, “Maybe she’s just teasing. I think I’ll keep after her until I wear her down and she finally agrees to go out with me,” you’re in dangerous water. If a coworker has annoyed you and you’re trying to come up with clever ways to get even, you’re in dangerous water.

What did we learn from the shark experience? To stay five hundred yards away from all things dangerous. So here’s what I tell anyone who asks: Don’t engage in socially risky activity. It’s that simple. Don’t tell blonde jokes. Sure, you might get the occasional laugh, but there’s a good chance that you’ll offend someone too. Don’t start a sentence with, “You know the trouble with women . . .” or “You know the trouble with men. . .” You may think that women or men have certain characteristics in common. However, throwing all of them into one big gender bundle (and a negative one at that) is bound to offend people who prefer to be viewed as individuals (i.e., most sentient beings). If you start a discussion with, “I know this might offend someone, but . . .” you’re in dangerous water. Warning people up front doesn’t lessen the risk. Quite the opposite. Warning others is akin to announcing, “Hey everybody, I’m about to say something really offensive, insensitive, and stupid, so listen up.”

Experience has taught me that when we start making exceptions to safety rules, we eventually run risks—and why run a risk when it comes to our lives? It’s just not worth it. Social issues are no different. The stakes are similarly high, so why take risks when there’s so little to be gained? Here’s the punch line: If you know what you’re about to do is risky, then don’t do it. Stay five hundred yards away from all things dangerous. Stay away from the churning waters.

Kerry Patterson Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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Dear readers,

I seem to have struck an awkward chord with several of you out there. I appreciate your watchfulness and dedication to the skills of good communication and consideration. I took a risk in distilling a rather long incident into a short story—please allow me to fill in some of the details.

Some of you have suggested that I was a bit of a wimp and should have taken a stronger stance with my step-grandfather. It’s true—at that time in my life I often chose silence over speaking directly. I was years away from studying and writing Crucial Conversations, and am grateful for the impact those skills have had on my life since. When this story occurred, I was in my mid 20s, dealing with my grandmother’s new husband, and trying to balance being nice to him with the needs of my family. I didn’t really know what to do or say. I hinted several times that we needed to cut the tour a bit short, my grandmother practically begged him, and my wife was quite direct—all to no avail. We were fairly open, but unsuccessful.

Some readers felt that I was the insensitive and excessively focused one in the story. Certainly a janitor would be interested in a janitorial tour. I agree. I was at first surprised by Bert’s reaction. I didn’t know my step-grandfather all that well, but we did adjust to his wishes and then tried to find a way to tailor a tour for him that wasn’t so painful for everyone else. In this we failed.

What I intended to illustrate in this article was the fact that we, like Bert, often get so amazingly focused on one element of our lives (or our arguments) that we miss other important features. Bert, as I learned from further exposure, was a classic low self-monitor who I believe was almost incapable of reading social cues. Recent studies of how the brain functions suggest that a certain portion of our population use their brains in different ways—making it very difficult for them to see what others see in the most simple of human interactions. I find myself acting like this when I get too caught up in an argument. Bert acted this way all the time.

It was with this in mind that I wrote my most recent column. My life has improved greatly as I’ve learned to monitor conversations around me—both the impact I’m having and the skills others are using—and I hope others might benefit from a similar awareness. My apologies to those who found me weak and insensitive. I appreciate the chance to review and improve my crucial conversations skills.

Thanks for your insightful comments,

Kerry

Kerry Patterson Kerrying On