If you pay close attention to professional athletes, you're likely to see them visiting, making friends with and serving children with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. The cynic would watch the video of the athlete in the hospital or home of the child and surmise that it's good public relations to show that you're giving back. (That term and concept make little sense to me, and that's another topic for another breakfast.)
This skeptic is now a believer that these athletes and celebrities are getting much more than they're giving. Here's how I know. I just returned from serving children with cancer and their siblings at Camp Merry Times, the annual summer camp experience held each May (when the physical camp is available) at Camp Ton-A-Wandah near Flat Rock, North Carolina. Once a year, parents get a 72-hour respite from caring for these children for whom illness is far too familiar and medical attention focuses most on managing the illness. Likewise with the siblings of these children who are often starved for attention with all eyes and ears on the sick child.
Spend some time in a challenging and fun setting with a child who is in some stage of cancer and cancer treatment and you'll see what I mean. Once a child has faced the possibility of death before reaching double digits in age, he or she tends to be ready to face and handle just about anything in terms of adventure and challenge. Take one young man whom I'll call Ben to protect his privacy. Ben has suffered from cancerous brain tumors and a resulting stroke. He is physically unable to smile after the effects of the stroke, so when he pauses to smile for a photo, his mouth has an unbalanced shape to it. Ben also ranks high on the manners scale (yes sir and yes ma'am at all times) and doesn't budge the fear needle (he's first on the high ropes course and the zip line across the lake).
Then there's the young lady we'll call Christina. She had to leave camp one morning to get a spinal tap and a chemo treatment. I've heard those are painful and nauseating, respectively, and I'm grateful that I've experienced neither one. Christina completed the spinal tap, headed straight into her chemo treatment and stepped out saying she was ready to get moving to lunch because she had to get back to camp.
Here's my point about the pro athlete and Ben or Christina: while the media and others would idolize the athlete and call him or her a hero, the athlete who befriends Ben and others like him learns quickly who the real heroes are. The heroes are the children who face death eye to eye and treat every moment of life as the precious gem that it is. They go about their day with the attitude of taking things in stride, enduring the pain and discomfort of illness, treatment and medicine and remaining mostly bright and cheery through it all.
These children are indeed heroes, along with the 70 or so counselors who give up a long weekend, many taking personal vacation days from their places of employment. They arrive Wednesday for orientation, welcome campers Thursday and provide unconditional, one-on-one, loving attention to these children through Sunday lunch. When they hand them back safe and sound to the children's parents, campers are revved up to tell anyone who will listen about their exploits in the canoe, on horseback and in the relay races. Counselors head home in that exhausted but happy state, knowing that they've made a difference in the lives of children who will treasure the memories for, well, as long as they live.
Some children return year after year to enjoy the generous help of everyone from the camp's organizers, Friends of Santa Claus of North Carolina, and the medical staff that makes sure children are safe, properly medicated and tended to at a moment's notice with the slightest hint of a bruise or minor cut. Other children, such as Harriet (again, not her real name) survive only a month or two beyond their camp experience. Their names are inscribed on a special brick and placed on the open-air chapel's entrance walk among the nearly 50 campers and nine counselors who have passed in the 18 years since Camp Merry Times began.
I'm honored to serve as board chair for Camp Rise Above (http://www.campriseabove.org/) whose executive director is the co-founder of Friends of Santa Claus and Camp Merry Times, Barbara Denton. She and her late husband Ted Van Thullenar created a legacy that will last as long as the Western North Carolina mountains where these children have run and jumped, smiled and swam to their hearts' content. Barbara is now focused on serving children with life-threatening illness and serious life challenges in her home base of Charleston, South Carolina, where her latest organization aspires to build a camp that will host children all summer long and entire families for getaway weekends through fall, winter and spring.
Yes, now I understand why athletes find and remain friends with these children and those who care for them in special ways. It's because athletes also need heroes, and this is where they find them.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
What we learned from the financial crisis
Business executives can take three key lessons from the financial crisis. First, conditions never reach the level of alarmist media pronouncements. Questions such as, "Is this the end of the capitalist free economy as we know it?" push concern into needless worry and fear among listeners, readers and viewers. In the meantime, audiences come away unsettled, even immobilized, wondering what to do next besides catching tomorrow’s scarecast.
Second, conditions are rarely as good or as bad as we think they are. By putting a caution meter on the extremes, organizations are more likely to top off the rainy day fund during a growth spurt and invest in a new marketing, product or service initiative during a lull. These safeguards run contrary to what most do during such segments of the economic cycle, thereby lifting the high-functioning organization above the crowded, confined space of current thinking.
Third, too much of a good thing eventually goes bad. When there’s too much money available for real estate deals, that sector and everything touching it suffer. With too much focus on profit, your best customers and employees leave you and damage future profitability. With too much information compromising your ability to think clearly, wisdom watches from the sidelines while mistakes are made and the inevitable fall ensues. Instead of American football’s two-minute warning, savvy executives adopt their own personal alert known as the "too much warning."
Second, conditions are rarely as good or as bad as we think they are. By putting a caution meter on the extremes, organizations are more likely to top off the rainy day fund during a growth spurt and invest in a new marketing, product or service initiative during a lull. These safeguards run contrary to what most do during such segments of the economic cycle, thereby lifting the high-functioning organization above the crowded, confined space of current thinking.
Third, too much of a good thing eventually goes bad. When there’s too much money available for real estate deals, that sector and everything touching it suffer. With too much focus on profit, your best customers and employees leave you and damage future profitability. With too much information compromising your ability to think clearly, wisdom watches from the sidelines while mistakes are made and the inevitable fall ensues. Instead of American football’s two-minute warning, savvy executives adopt their own personal alert known as the "too much warning."
Monday, April 23, 2012
Wax on, wax off
In the movie classic The Karate Kid, the Japanese sensei or teacher, Mr. Miyagi begins instructing young Danny Larusso in the martial art of karate. The elder opens the lesson by saying, “Wash all the cars. Then wax them." When you wax them, he says, while illustrating, “Wax on, right hand, wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off. Breathe in through nose, breathe out the mouth. Don’t forget to breathe.” Miyagi demonstrates wax on by moving his right hand in a clockwise motion, then wax off with his left hand going counterclockwise.
This first lesson’s value becomes instantly apparent the first time Miyagi feigns an attack with his hands. Danny deflects one blow then another with the same motion he’s been “practicing” for hours on end.
Just as Miyagi was a source of wisdom for the teen in this fictional story, God our Father is the Source of wisdom who can help us in teaching, demonstrating and finally showing the value of what we’ve learned once we’ve faithfully practiced what we’ve learned.
Considering God’s equivalent of first moving the right hand clockwise, we would do well to think of it as God-wise. We move first in the direction of God, following Him in everything. We put God first and everything else second because, as we learn in Matthew’s Gospel, “Seek first the kingdom of God (and His righteousness) and all these things will be given to you besides.” (Matthew 6:33)
In this way we are moving in the same direction as God and following Him rather than resisting Him. It has taken me many years to realize that resisting is futile when this Almighty God Who loves me beyond my understanding pursues me relentlessly. While I like to think of myself as persistent (my wife prefers the term stubborn) I can’t hold a candle to the One Who wants my heart to be His own and won’t give up until He gets it.
As God instructs us to move the left hand counterclockwise, we might think of it as counter cultural wise. Once we’re moving in the direction that God would have us go, it’s good to follow that up with our own reminder that following and obeying God runs completely counter to the cultural setting of the day. With eyes wide open, one can easily see that the society in which we live isn’t God-centered at all. Sure, we have the window dressing of “In God We Trust” printed on our currency and “one nation under God” as pronounced each time we recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Go much deeper than that and the practice of your faith in all its forms prompts more questions than it does affirmations.
Following God is truly counter-cultural. Examples abound, including giving the first fruits of our labors to God, His Church and those around us in need. He is, after all, the true Source of those funds. Society would have us spend, spend, spend, to look, feel and smell better. God would have us be quiet in His Presence as the first item of the day, while our culture wants us to get up and go, go, go. When God is the single most important part of your life, you willingly give Him that time just as you would to someone with whom you’re deeply in love.
By society’s standards, God doesn’t pass the cool test. Nor does He stand a chance of getting headlines or the lead story ahead of the latest shooting, the latest controversy in which someone has been wronged or the most recent technological advancement which everyone who is anyone simply must have in his or her pocket or home. He’s a distant fourth with these and falls further down the list with every item you can think to add.
Keep this in mind, especially when you find yourself needing to address opportunities to lean into God as well as opportunities to move away from culturally accepted practices. When it comes time to defend yourself, simply remember, “Wax on, wax off.” And don’t forget to breathe.
This first lesson’s value becomes instantly apparent the first time Miyagi feigns an attack with his hands. Danny deflects one blow then another with the same motion he’s been “practicing” for hours on end.
Just as Miyagi was a source of wisdom for the teen in this fictional story, God our Father is the Source of wisdom who can help us in teaching, demonstrating and finally showing the value of what we’ve learned once we’ve faithfully practiced what we’ve learned.
Considering God’s equivalent of first moving the right hand clockwise, we would do well to think of it as God-wise. We move first in the direction of God, following Him in everything. We put God first and everything else second because, as we learn in Matthew’s Gospel, “Seek first the kingdom of God (and His righteousness) and all these things will be given to you besides.” (Matthew 6:33)
In this way we are moving in the same direction as God and following Him rather than resisting Him. It has taken me many years to realize that resisting is futile when this Almighty God Who loves me beyond my understanding pursues me relentlessly. While I like to think of myself as persistent (my wife prefers the term stubborn) I can’t hold a candle to the One Who wants my heart to be His own and won’t give up until He gets it.
As God instructs us to move the left hand counterclockwise, we might think of it as counter cultural wise. Once we’re moving in the direction that God would have us go, it’s good to follow that up with our own reminder that following and obeying God runs completely counter to the cultural setting of the day. With eyes wide open, one can easily see that the society in which we live isn’t God-centered at all. Sure, we have the window dressing of “In God We Trust” printed on our currency and “one nation under God” as pronounced each time we recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Go much deeper than that and the practice of your faith in all its forms prompts more questions than it does affirmations.
Following God is truly counter-cultural. Examples abound, including giving the first fruits of our labors to God, His Church and those around us in need. He is, after all, the true Source of those funds. Society would have us spend, spend, spend, to look, feel and smell better. God would have us be quiet in His Presence as the first item of the day, while our culture wants us to get up and go, go, go. When God is the single most important part of your life, you willingly give Him that time just as you would to someone with whom you’re deeply in love.
By society’s standards, God doesn’t pass the cool test. Nor does He stand a chance of getting headlines or the lead story ahead of the latest shooting, the latest controversy in which someone has been wronged or the most recent technological advancement which everyone who is anyone simply must have in his or her pocket or home. He’s a distant fourth with these and falls further down the list with every item you can think to add.
Keep this in mind, especially when you find yourself needing to address opportunities to lean into God as well as opportunities to move away from culturally accepted practices. When it comes time to defend yourself, simply remember, “Wax on, wax off.” And don’t forget to breathe.
Monday, March 19, 2012
A tale of two groceries
Saturday afforded me a comparison study of groceries that I hadn’t set out to conduct. First stop was Trader Joe’s, a grocery that doesn’t take itself too seriously and makes sure that people are enjoying their experience when they visit. Examples include the plush animal hidden somewhere in the store that children are challenged to find and return to the front for a prize and the personable crew members at checkout. (One day recently I had more cloth bags than I had groceries. The crew member assured me that he’d be kind in this instance but warned me jokingly that if this happened again, I’d be asked to go find more groceries to fill those bags.)
So I’m in Trader Joe’s and looking for their store brand of the fig cookies we know as Fig Newtons. They weren’t with the cookies, so I asked Chris, the store’s captain (love the nautical terms) who promptly led me to the breakfast section and pulled a box of breakfast bars from the shelf. He assured me they were good, which probably would have sufficed. Then, in what I found to be astonishing, he asked if I’d like to try one. I said yes, and he broke open the box, handed me a bar and promptly headed down the aisle offering the remaining bars to other shoppers. Not only did I enjoy a delicious fig bar, but I also made some friends as they realized the free samples came available due to my request for information. Pleasantly stunned, I basked in the warm glow of the positively memorable experience. The associate at the checkout confirmed that crew members love (her exact word) to open product and provide samples for customers.
Next grocery stop is my primary grocery, one where I’ve shopped faithfully for years. I regularly drive past a grocery closer to my home to spend money at this one. I headed to the milk section for the soy milk my wife likes when she’s making the coffee at home or at work. I knew I didn’t want vanilla light, nor did I want very vanilla. Not seeing the specific brand and combination I had in mind, I asked the associate stocking the case if he could help me. I told him what I wanted, and his initial answer was, “No.” One word, no. It wasn’t, “No, I’m sorry, we don’t have that particular flavor today.” It wasn’t, “No, I’m sorry, that’s not one of the versions we normally stock.” It was, “No.” When I pointed to a particular row that was completely empty and asked if that’s where it might normally be, he pointed to the shelf label and gave a more complete answer: “No, see, that’s where the organic would be.”
Guess where I felt a little more special, a little warmer and a little more inclined to go the next time I want to feel special during grocery shopping…
So I’m in Trader Joe’s and looking for their store brand of the fig cookies we know as Fig Newtons. They weren’t with the cookies, so I asked Chris, the store’s captain (love the nautical terms) who promptly led me to the breakfast section and pulled a box of breakfast bars from the shelf. He assured me they were good, which probably would have sufficed. Then, in what I found to be astonishing, he asked if I’d like to try one. I said yes, and he broke open the box, handed me a bar and promptly headed down the aisle offering the remaining bars to other shoppers. Not only did I enjoy a delicious fig bar, but I also made some friends as they realized the free samples came available due to my request for information. Pleasantly stunned, I basked in the warm glow of the positively memorable experience. The associate at the checkout confirmed that crew members love (her exact word) to open product and provide samples for customers.
Next grocery stop is my primary grocery, one where I’ve shopped faithfully for years. I regularly drive past a grocery closer to my home to spend money at this one. I headed to the milk section for the soy milk my wife likes when she’s making the coffee at home or at work. I knew I didn’t want vanilla light, nor did I want very vanilla. Not seeing the specific brand and combination I had in mind, I asked the associate stocking the case if he could help me. I told him what I wanted, and his initial answer was, “No.” One word, no. It wasn’t, “No, I’m sorry, we don’t have that particular flavor today.” It wasn’t, “No, I’m sorry, that’s not one of the versions we normally stock.” It was, “No.” When I pointed to a particular row that was completely empty and asked if that’s where it might normally be, he pointed to the shelf label and gave a more complete answer: “No, see, that’s where the organic would be.”
Guess where I felt a little more special, a little warmer and a little more inclined to go the next time I want to feel special during grocery shopping…
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Special delivery of a special person
One day not so long ago, late in the 1960s to be exact, God noticed that some of His children were a bit down in the mouth, so He decided to liven things up a bit. He felt that this particular situation required divine intervention. Giving it quite a bit of thought, He sketched out a couple of prototypes that didn’t quite fit. Finally, after one very focused creative session, He came up with the perfect mix of bright, beautiful, funny, adventurous, caring and giving.
This was indeed a tall order, so He fashioned His newest child accordingly and delivered her to a wonderful, loving family that would properly nurture and care for this special bundle. She showed up one day shortly before the arrival of spring with a smile that brightened the room and the lives of all who saw her.
The creature flourished in that loving environment and matured, but never so much that she failed to appreciate life’s humor while enjoying the trip. She grew, tough enough to hang with the Bulldogs and gentle enough to appreciate the beauty of the azaleas each spring and sunsets each summer in her adopted Southern surroundings.
The television cameras loved her and she them, and thousands of viewers in several markets counted on her for the day’s news and current events. She never disappointed. She adapted to her surroundings, added to her skill sets and accepted challenges in undertakings as far ranging as entrepreneurial enterprise and academic accomplishment and instruction. She added value everywhere she went, with clients and students alike singing her praises. She made friends easily and kept those friendships through the years.
Of course there’s more to be added to this abridged version of a wonderful biography as it continues to unfold. As you may have guessed by now, she was born to a member of the Ohio branch of the Aselage clan. They named her Maria and the rest, as they say, is history.
Happy Birthday, Maria. May God bless you abundantly this and every year.
This was indeed a tall order, so He fashioned His newest child accordingly and delivered her to a wonderful, loving family that would properly nurture and care for this special bundle. She showed up one day shortly before the arrival of spring with a smile that brightened the room and the lives of all who saw her.
The creature flourished in that loving environment and matured, but never so much that she failed to appreciate life’s humor while enjoying the trip. She grew, tough enough to hang with the Bulldogs and gentle enough to appreciate the beauty of the azaleas each spring and sunsets each summer in her adopted Southern surroundings.
The television cameras loved her and she them, and thousands of viewers in several markets counted on her for the day’s news and current events. She never disappointed. She adapted to her surroundings, added to her skill sets and accepted challenges in undertakings as far ranging as entrepreneurial enterprise and academic accomplishment and instruction. She added value everywhere she went, with clients and students alike singing her praises. She made friends easily and kept those friendships through the years.
Of course there’s more to be added to this abridged version of a wonderful biography as it continues to unfold. As you may have guessed by now, she was born to a member of the Ohio branch of the Aselage clan. They named her Maria and the rest, as they say, is history.
Happy Birthday, Maria. May God bless you abundantly this and every year.
Monday, September 12, 2011
5 sentences worth sharing
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
I think this is worth sharing. Can you think of a reason for not sharing this?
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
I think this is worth sharing. Can you think of a reason for not sharing this?
Saturday, May 9, 2009
More on opportunity
This past week I presented a teleconference topic on seizing opportunity. As so often happens, something else showed up that coincided with that topic and is perfectly relevant to add here. (If you'd like to join us for upcoming Focus on Results teleconferences (free except for long-distance charges) send me a note to john@johncarroll.com and I'll make sure you get the notice with the details.
Here now are the quotes on opportunity that showed up, thanks to our friend Bob Kelly and his monthly KellyGram. Learn more about Bob at www.wordcrafters.com
Quotes on opportunity:
Look sharply and you will see opportunity; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.
-Francis Bacon
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death. -James F. Byrnes
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because, when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers. -Walter P. Chrysler
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
-Thomas A. Edison
We are all continually faced with a series of great opportunities, brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. -John W. Gardner
Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.
-Napoleon Hill
To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life. -Samuel Johnson
It's when things are going badly that you should build. Why wait for things to pick up, and for everything to cost more? -Ray Kroc
One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.
-Rosamond Lehmann
We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities. -Pogo (Walt Kelly)
The tragedy of many lives is not that our talents are few, but that too frequently we do not use the ones entrusted to us. We pray for bigger opportunities but do not make use of the opportunities that lie in our paths. -Virgil A. Reed
God's best gift to us is not things, but opportunities. -Alice W. Rollins
Do what you're afraid to do. When you run away because you are afraid to do something big, you pass opportunity by. -W. Clement Stone
Opportunists take now for an answer. -Bob Talbert
Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, thicker than gnats at sundown. We walk through a cloud of them. -Henry Van Dyke
Here now are the quotes on opportunity that showed up, thanks to our friend Bob Kelly and his monthly KellyGram. Learn more about Bob at www.wordcrafters.com
Quotes on opportunity:
Look sharply and you will see opportunity; for though she is blind, she is not invisible.
-Francis Bacon
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death. -James F. Byrnes
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because, when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers. -Walter P. Chrysler
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
-Thomas A. Edison
We are all continually faced with a series of great opportunities, brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. -John W. Gardner
Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.
-Napoleon Hill
To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life. -Samuel Johnson
It's when things are going badly that you should build. Why wait for things to pick up, and for everything to cost more? -Ray Kroc
One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.
-Rosamond Lehmann
We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities. -Pogo (Walt Kelly)
The tragedy of many lives is not that our talents are few, but that too frequently we do not use the ones entrusted to us. We pray for bigger opportunities but do not make use of the opportunities that lie in our paths. -Virgil A. Reed
God's best gift to us is not things, but opportunities. -Alice W. Rollins
Do what you're afraid to do. When you run away because you are afraid to do something big, you pass opportunity by. -W. Clement Stone
Opportunists take now for an answer. -Bob Talbert
Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, thicker than gnats at sundown. We walk through a cloud of them. -Henry Van Dyke
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