ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
READ MORE

Listen to Kerrying On via MP3
Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes

About six months ago, as I walked into church I was warmly greeted by my two neighbors, Betsy and Howard Nielson. The two warmly shook my hand, gave me a weekly bulletin, and smiled as they politely moved to the people standing behind me. This charming pair in their late 60s had been appointed to the newly-created position of “greeters.” Each Sunday it would be their job to stand at the chapel door, smile, hand out church bulletins, and make small talk.

By profession, Howard had been a chemistry professor and Betsy a lawyer. Both had been retired for about five years. When I first met the two at a neighborhood gathering I discovered they lived in the Bay Area in the early 70s at the same time I had been stationed there in the Coast Guard. As we shared memories of the area and era, the conversation somehow turned to the marvelous regional theater. I enthusiastically explained that one of the highlights of my stay in California had been a local theater competition I had attended. The theme had been “One, Two, Three” and one of the ten-minute skits that competed was aptly re-titled “One-tooth Ree.” As you’ve probably guessed, it was about a poor fellow named Ree who had but one tooth and the challenges he faced trying to find a girlfriend. The music, lyrics, script, and staging were delightful and I gushed over its creativity.

“One-tooth-Ree!” Howard exclaimed. “Why Betsy wrote the play, the music, and the lyrics. I did the costuming, sets, and staging.” Then the two began singing the theme song as I stood there with my mouth agape. Somehow, after thirty years of moving about the country, I had run into the people who produced my favorite mini-musical of all time. The three of us laughed about the coincidence and I marveled that a chemist and lawyer had crafted such an incredible production. Both were modest in their response and eventually went on to talk about their other surprise talents—the books she had written and the photo contests he had won.

“Actually I’ve written quite a lot,” Betsy enthused, “but over the past few years nobody has asked me about my work.”

From there the conversation turned to the fact that aging, along with its physical challenges, was putting them out to pasture despite the fact that they still wanted to be yoked. It turns out both Betsy and Howard had been (in their own words) “given the bum’s rush” into retirement. And now within their own parish, two vibrant parishioners who had once run the church’s charity drives and led the youth camping programs had been politely released from their volunteer jobs and appointed “greeters.”

“It’s a token job,” Betsy explained with a sad smile. “You can’t exactly fire people at church so you make up some position and move them to that.”

“Not that people don’t need to be greeted,” Howard added. “It’s just that we have so much more to offer.”

Since talking with Betsy and Howard that day, I’ve made it a point to converse with each of the retired people in my environs to learn what it’s been like as they moved into their “golden” years. Some have loved the transition to a life of less stress and more free time, some report a hollow feeling they can’t seem to fill, and all allude to the fact that once you reach a certain age (or look), people don’t exactly view you as a cauldron of wisdom. Friends, family, and neighbors don’t seem to care a whit about the photos you shot back in the old days or the books you wrote back when the earth was still cooling, or for that matter, the advice you might want to proffer today.

What must it be like to be bubbling over with ideas and never asked for your point of view? How does it feel to stand on the sidelines and crave to be sent back in the game? “Put me in coach,” you think to yourself. “I can do it!”

But nobody calls.

At some level I understand why today’s senior citizens aren’t always valued for their years of priceless experience. Centuries ago, when people worked in jobs like saddle maker or silver-bowl master, it took years to learn the craft. Consequently, older people were quite likely to know more about how to complete a job than just about anyone. Two hundred years ago, skilled craftsmen remained rock stars right up until the day they died.

But things have changed. Today’s older generation isn’t going to pass on the wisdom of five generations of haberdashery or the finer points of millinery arts. Nowadays, technology moves so fast that almost no form of expertise remains relevant for very long. For instance, my folks learned how to sell radio advertising space and process black-and-white photos, but those fields have long since been replaced with new technologies. Nobody cares much about them any more.

But that doesn’t mean that today’s more senior and experienced citizens don’t still have a lot to offer. I know this is true because I took my cue from the Nielsons and started making it a point to talk to older people—no longer making small talk—but now making big talk. In church, between meetings, and after exchanging greetings, I ask: “What’s the most interesting thing you learned in your career?” or “What advice do you have for me as a new grandparent?” or “What’s the most important book you ever read?”

From there the discussion always turns lively and interesting. It’s like opening the door to a library. For instance, last week when my neighbor George (a retired geologist) stopped by to take a look at our remodeling project, I took him over to the new granite countertops and asked him to teach me about the stone.

“If I were still teaching Geology 101,” George enthused, “I’d bring my students by your place just to look at this! Examining this stone is like reading an ancient manuscript. The granite you see in the field is covered with dirt and even when it’s exposed it’s hard to examine. But when you slice and polish a massive piece like this, you can peer back into the very formation of the earth. For example, you see this dark brown scar that runs across this slab? The stone had a crack in it and millennia ago magma poured into the void. And you see these tiny marks that look like ancient writing, they’re called ‘glyphs,’ but they’re not made by man, they’re made by nature. It all starts when . . .”

After enjoying several equally enlightening conversations with several other friends and neighbors, I decided to ask Betsy Nielson to share some of her writing with me. She had suggested that nobody asked her about her work anymore, so I asked her. Within hours, Betsy appeared at our front door with a large book in hand. She reverently opened it to a picture of a smiling young man standing at attention in full flight gear. It was her brother Roy and he had just graduated from flight school.

“In this book,” Betsy explained, “I contributed a story about my brother Roy’s flight experience in World War II.”

Then I noticed Betsy cradling a letter in her hands—holding it more like a religious artifact than an epistle.

“It’s a letter Roy sent me,” Betsy said as she fought back a tear. “It starts out, ‘Dear Sis.’”

She then paused to regain her composure.

“Roy was eight years older than me, and kind enough to write his kid sister about once a month. Receiving a letter from him was the highlight of my youth. In this particular letter Roy makes small talk about his daily goings-on and ends by hoping that his flight scheduled for later that day will be successful. He and his crew were hunting down enemy submarines and that was always dangerous.”

“So what happened?” I asked.

“You’ll note the date on the letter.” Betsy answered. “You’re a bit young to know this, but it was the last day of the war.”

“And?”

“And Roy’s plane was shot down. He and his entire crew were lost. My brother and his buddies were among the last soldiers to die—they may have been the last soldiers to lose their lives in the war.”

No wonder Betsy was cradling the letter. It was a poignant and tender piece of history. Tears ran down our cheeks as we discussed Roy’s sacrifice and Betsy’s feelings. It was a cherished moment for me and it had been the result of asking a simple question: “Would you share some of your writings?” I had called Betsy back into the game and both of us were blessed for my having done so.

And what did I do to get Betsy back into the game? How did I open the library door? First, I took the time to talk with an older friend. Second, I traded small talk for big talk. Third, I listened intently as my friend shared a story.

In Betsy’s own words, unlocking untold treasures had been as simple as One-tooth Ree.

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

When I was a boy, only a handful of rich families had access to a television—or the newscasts that came with it. Consequently, the local movie theaters (which our family attended as often as three times a week) showed a newsreel at the beginning of each double feature. These ten-minute news clips updated audiences on everything from sports scores to changes in the war effort.

It was during just such a theater-hosted news broadcast that I first became aware of the Soap Box Derby. According to a newsreel that came on just before the MGM lion roared, boys “from all walks of life” would gather each year in Akron, Ohio and compete for prizes by building and racing a gravity-driven race car. After watching a young man leap triumphantly from his wooden vehicle, whip off his nifty-looking goggles, and claim a cash award, I wanted a soap box car of my very own. I craved one of my own. And why shouldn’t I compete? I certainly qualified. I was a boy. I was from some sort of walk of life. I could be a winner.

Of course, qualifying for the race was one matter, acquiring an actual soap box racer was an entirely different matter. This was the early fifties and our family was hardly flush with such things as wood, wheels, axles, paint, and tools. In fact, I didn’t even own a bike or pair of skates. That meant I couldn’t build a gravity-driven car, as most boys did, by piecing together parts from cast-off vehicles because we never had anything to cast off.

Nevertheless, this was a soap box derby and soap boxes could be found at a junk yard—which was kind of where I lived in the first place. Our humble neighborhood was knee-deep in junk. With a little luck, I would one day be hurling down a northeastern Ohio hillside in a vehicle of my own making. All I had to do was find the right junk and fashion it into my very own derby car.

At first, the task turned out to be fairly easy. Previous neighbors had built a tree house in the woods behind our house and since it had long ago fallen into disrepair I tore down the eyesore and scrounged a few two-by-fours to make up my chassis. Next, I pulled out and straightened old nails I found in boards left around empty lots. It only took me a couple of days to marry nails and lumber into a frame and when I eventually found an old soap box and secured it onto the frame; I had the makings of a race car.

But wheels were going to be a problem. The dumps I visited had been stripped of anything as valuable as wheels. Eventually, I begged four odd-sized wagon wheels from four different friends and ran a large nail through the center of each—the wheels, that is, not the friends. Then I hammered the nails into the end of the former tree-house two-by-fours that now crisscrossed the chassis. The only problem was that one of the two-by-four ends contained a huge knot so I couldn’t hammer the nail into it. Try as I might, it just bent the nail. I eventually borrowed a bigger hammer but that did nothing but take a large chunk out of the lumber. So there my potential award-winning vehicle sat in our basement—a complete soap box car—minus one wheel.

For the next few weeks, I begged my dad to help me nail in that last wheel. But he never got around to it. His job at the plant was physically taxing, it was a hot summer, and he just didn’t have any energy left over for nailing together a soap box derby car. “I’ll get to it later,” he’d say each day as he slowly climbed the stairs from our basement garage.

But Dad didn’t get to it later. My race car sat in our basement completely finished—minus one wheel. When I came home from school each day I’d walk by my three-wheeled contrivance and be reminded that we were poor, Dad wasn’t exactly a handy man, I didn’t finish the job I had started (something my mom was quick to point out), and I’d never get to feel the wind rushing through my hair.

I protected my homely little vehicle until the next spring when the rains subsided and I hoped I’d have another chance to race in the derby. But a boy can only hold onto a newsreel vision for so long. So, one day, when my older brother Bill needed a piece of rope, he took it off the steering mechanism of my car, and I didn’t even put up a fuss. I had let go of my dream. A couple weeks later, I detached the wooden soap box to use as a control module on the stove-pipe “rocket ship” I was now making in the back yard. Then, I stripped away the remaining lumber to be used as fuel for the rocket ship’s inaugural flight. Eventually, all that remained of my dream car was four wheels—bitter reminders of a job never finished.

I hadn’t thought of this particular disappointment in decades. But last week, I was reminded of that soap box derby car while standing on our bathroom scale and seeing a number I hadn’t tipped since I was in my mid 30s (I’d lost the equivalent of an nine-year-old boy). You see, I had been trying to shed weight for more than twenty years, but had never made any progress. Like most people attempting to lose weight, I’d experience some success with various diets, but then regain the weight and put my health at further risk.

Eventually, after yo-yoing for decades, I settled on the notion that if I was going to make heroic efforts to lose weight by suffering all the while, I’d never be able to keep it up. So I decided to find healthier, less sugary and fatty foods that I actually enjoyed eating. Next, I learned how to eat smaller, less caloric meals to avoid being hungry so often. Then I started exercising by engaging in activities I actually enjoyed. Next came weighing myself daily followed by learning which restaurants carried healthy food I liked, and so forth. As the months rolled on, board by board I cobbled together my very own soap box diet plan. And like the original homemade vehicle from my youth, my plan remained incomplete and unsuccessful for quite a long time.

Then one day, I decided to seek help from a trainer who taught me correct exercise techniques and offered me constant encouragement. Soon I was shedding pounds. In fact, I’m now halfway to my goal (eventually, I need to lose the equivalent of a twelve-year-old).

Why was I finally successful after so many failures? It would be easy to credit the trainer. It would also be wrong. Every sensible thing I had done up until that point was an important part of my success. I really did have to find healthy foods I like, learn how to navigate restaurants, calculate my daily caloric intake, and so forth.

It turns out that, as with my race-car building, when it came to my health goals, I had done most of what I needed to do, but hadn’t quite reached critical mass. The tactics I had employed hadn’t been wrong, they just hadn’t been enough. As was the case with my derby car, I had been one wheel short of success. In my case, including one more change strategy—finding a trainer—put me over the top. But it was the trainer, plus everything else I had already done, that ultimately led to my success.

Now I’m left wondering how many other times in my life have I completed most of what I needed to do in order to succeed, but failed to achieve my objective for lack of one more technique or change strategy. How many times have I been one wheel short? The thought of putting in 90 percent of the work only to enjoy—not 90 percent but precious little of the benefits—gave me the willies.

I know from recent research conducted at VitalSmarts that when people use four or more change strategies when trying to reach a goal, they are four times more likely to succeed than those who use three or fewer. At the corporate level, the same research team learned that when leaders move from implementing just a couple of influence techniques to using four or more, they increase their chances of success by a factor of ten. This encouraging data certainly supports the idea that when you’re faced with challenging and persistent problems, you need to add to and adjust your plans until you eventually break through to success.

So, today I offer a message of hope. If you’ve tried to solve a problem in your personal life or within your company but have come up short, maybe you’re closer than you think. Maybe you’re about to break through to success. Look at your latest barrier, add one more influence strategy to your current plan and see what happens. Chances are you’re just one wheel away from the feeling the wind in your hair.

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.
READ MORE

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
READ MORE

Listen to Kerrying On via MP3
Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
READ MORE

Listen to Kerrying On via MP3
Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
READ MORE

Listen to Kerrying On via MP3
Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes

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.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is the author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
READ MORE

Listen to Kerrying On via MP3
Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes

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.

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

Listen to Kerrying On via MP3
Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes

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.

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

Listen to Kerrying On via MP3
Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes

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!

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

Listen to Kerrying On via MP3
Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes

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.