Fairness–Taming Our Tongue (And Our Keyboard)

The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment. - Elbert Hubbard

Fairness is not an attitude. It's a professional skill that must be developed and exercised. - Brit Hume

After a busy day today, I settled down in a new restaurant for one of my favorite dishes – rack of lamb.

The staff was friendly and professional, the location was beautiful, the ambience of the new restaurant was impressive ….

…. the meal was late enough that the wait staff brought out a complementary salad as an apology (which I insisted wasn’t necessary but I appreciated the effort) ….

…. and then the lamb arrived, probably the worst I have ever had.

My request for medium-rare rack of lamb resulted in the most overdone, dry lamb I have ever experienced.

The accompanying truffle mashed potatoes were actually less than two tablespoons.  I saved them for last and then scraped them together for a photo.

My business partner had ordered wild salmon but instead of a beautiful medium-rare masterpiece, it was also overcooked to a dry semblance of its former self and heavily seasoned with salt.

What does one do when this happens?

What would you do?

I called the waitress over and explained that I had requested medium-rare but received something far more cooked than well-done and that the potatoes were almost invisible.

She was clearly nervous, wondering where I was going next.

I then explained to her that I wanted her to do absolutely nothing about it and that I was grateful for the meal.

I think that she was clearly uncertain of my approach and offered profuse apologies and intentions to do anything she could to make it right but I politely interrupted her and explained my reasoning.

First of all, I explained, while I could complain about the quality of my food, there were in fact people not far from where we sat who had absolutely nothing to eat.  They would have given anything for the problem before me.

Secondly, I added, the reason I was explaining the need to improve their offering wasn’t so that she could fix it now but so that correcting this result in the future might protect her and her colleagues from an abusive person who might forget their blessings and hurl words (or food) in the direction of the staff as they expressed disappointment.  This was a new restaurant getting the kinks out of its system and needed some support and understanding from customers.

She was extremely appreciative of my words but I’m not convinced that she thought I was authentic.

When the manager came over to ask how the meal was, I explained my concerns once again as well as concerns over the condition of my partner’s salmon.

Once again, my concern was responded to with what I feel was genuine concern and offers to correct the situation and I explained to the manager what I had said to the waitress.

When he understood that I was being authentic and not trying to throw him off in one of those passive-aggressive, “I’m telling you I’m fine but in fact I’m just trying to stop you from fixing the problem so I can continue to be an unhappy victim” moments, our conversation turned towards gratitude for journeys explored in our careers, gratitude for the place where we both found our paths crossing today and gratitude for access to things that many people couldn’t even dream of.

He was grateful for how I had reacted to a meal that didn’t meet either of our standards and I was grateful for the genuine concern expressed regarding my situation and the manner with which he accepted my criticism.

And from that mutual understanding and a sense of gratitude that was shared by both of us, I actually enjoyed a meal that many people may have thrown out.

What would you have done?

The Bottom Line

I once mused about a day when a group of women drove up to a local Starbucks in their $80,000 cars, walked inside in their high-end outfits, ordered $5 lattes and then spent over an hour complaining about how their lives were miserable, their husbands were worthless and how anyone in the world must surely be happier than they were at that moment.

Their criticism was designed to mindlessly complain or to hurt others without solving their alleged suffering and without accepting any responsibility in their respective situations, a pointless waste of time that weakened themselves individually and collectively.  While talking with their husbands would have been more useful in solving what these women thought ailed them, their complaining to someone else demonstrated that they preferred to focus on being a victim rather than on solving a problem.

Indeed – I can still feel the pain and suffering they endured.

People who constantly hurt others or make mistakes despite repeated efforts to help them, guide them or correct them deserve criticism (constructive when possible) at a minimum and sharper actions where warranted.

But when genuinely nice people learning something new make significant mistakes, it is important that we put ourselves in their shoes before being quick with the tongue or the keyboard, the latter being where social media easily becomes the place where we look for accomplices to our complaints instead of looking for a solution to our problems.

Too often we forget that we too were novices once, in a specific skill-set, in a specific location, in a specific job or something else new to us.

And likely, we made mistakes then and remember the sting from unfair criticism or the assistance from someone who thought that investing in us instead of destroying us was a better use of both of our time.

So the next time you think criticism is warranted, think carefully before delivering it and be careful how you deliver it.  The modern approach of flaming someone online or not working with the target of our concern as the women in the coffee shop did doesn't solve many issues.

Sometimes criticism is very warranted, especially when it comes to the ignorant, the greedy and miscreants of a similar ilk.

But for others, I think a gentle word to the wise becomes just as important to the person giving the advice as it is to the person receiving it.

After all, the world doesn’t get better or “improve to our standards” unless we are willing to contribute to helping it get there, otherwise we will have plenty to complain about in the future.

That’s what I think - what do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum - The Manager Responds - March 26, 2017

I sent a copy of this blog to the manager to invite his response.  I share his response with permission:

----

Harry

Thanks for sending this along. Personally, I have to agree with you in that all to often we get caught up and forget how genuinely lucky so many of us are to have the luxuries of the lives we lead. As you mentioned, many are so very less fortunate.

One thing I have thought about a number of times in being someone who handles complaints frequently and sees how worked up people can get is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The reason being is that when people are dining in an establishment or driving an $80,000 car and having a miserable husband, their base needs of security and shelter are certainly covered. I then wonder if due to their base needs so rarely getting challenged that if left unchecked their perception can get distorted to the extent that we have "1st world problems". Problems that as you point out, would be one that some wish to be so lucky to have.

Ultimately, I appreciate the article, the honest and intriguing conversation and the refreshing feedback. As I'm sure you are aware, the errors last night would have been not so kindly reported or discussed by so many others and ultimately open honest dialogue is more helpful in helping us improve. Thank you for that and thank you for the thought provoking blog and the reminder that we are very fortunate to be having the lives we do, kindness is important and feedback is a gift.

Kind regards,

----

With an approach like this, I suspect that this restaurant and the gentleman who runs it, whether he stays at the restaurant or moves on to other endeavors, are both creating a great future for themselves and the people who interact with them.

What do you think?

Birthday Musings – Overwhelmed with Gratitude

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. – Sir Isaac Newton

I haven’t written much lately.  I’m not sick, dying, disenchanted with the world or anything else.

I’m busy participating in the creation of new worlds – new worlds for business colleagues, new worlds for investors, new worlds for people trying to escape the tyranny of abuse and violence and new worlds for my family.

It’s called living your priorities.

It’s also called answering the call that is your purpose.

I continue to watch the world with a cautious eye – my mind is overwhelmed with awe at the beauty, love and potential that exists in our world while simultaneously being overwhelmed with disappointment at the ignorance, greed and fear that is far too present also.

Light and darkness co-exist in a dance that invites each of us to choose which side we would like to participate in.

As a realistic optimist, I believe that a beautiful world becomes what we believe it is as long as we don’t forget that evil exists.

Some people call that pessimism – to acknowledge that evil exists at all.

I find that many people who accuse others of pessimism are often the most pessimistic people themselves (the same is true for many people who wave the racist flag). 

I also believe that the unlimited potential for love and beauty in the world only exists as long as we continue to fight for it.  To not fight for it is to open a door that allows us to be overrun by darkness.  To deny that evil exists is like looking at the flashing light on your dashboard and covering it up with tape so that its incessant warning doesn’t annoy you.

The same is true within the small circle that is our respective lives.

So I continue to fight for light and love.

The fight is not always broadcast in a blog and is not done for glory, awards or attention.

It's not always a gentle fight nor can I be the gentle giant all the time. Sometimes you have to get in someone's face to protect and promote what you believe is important in the world (upsetting those people can sometimes be a reward in itself).

But the fight is worth it.

And it’s necessary.

As birthday greetings flowed in today from around the world, this big macho guy, standing over 6’3” and 235 pounds, found himself overcome with the emotion of gratitude.

I posted this on Facebook today:

On this day every year when birthday greetings flow in, I am staggered and overwhelmed by the love and kindness that I receive.

People from every phase of my Life, from Kindergarten through school, through every part of my career, through my personal interests, my family.

Oh what a gift all of you are in my Life.

The great things I have accomplished in my Life are because of you.

The mistakes I have made are my own doing.

Thank you for the Blessing that is my Life.

They say that you are the company that you keep. If that is true, then I am amazing ... because of how amazing you are.

Thank you from my heart.

Our world becomes what we choose to create.

If we choose to allow it to just “be” or we wait for someone else to make the world a better place, it may not become what it could be or should be for us, our families, our friends and others who are important to us.

Would you find such a world acceptable?

I don’t.

I close every email with one of two closings, a shorter or longer one, the longer of which I will share here.

Create a great day, because merely having one is too passive an experience.

Many great people have helped me create a great Life, something I am eternally grateful for.

This in turn creates a responsibility in me to help create a great Life for others.

May you be so blessed.

And may you have the opportunity to be that blessing for others.

The world is waiting for you – your talents, your gifts, your strengths, your energy, your ideas and your love.

What are you waiting for?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Christmas and the Gifts That Cannot Be Bought–A Repost

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. – William Arthur Ward

You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. - Robert Louis Stevenson

Sharing this story has become an annual tradition for me at this time of year and so, by popular demand, I share it once again (with a few minor modifications).

---

Some years ago when Harry Jr. was very young, I had pulled into a Toys R Us parking lot in New Jersey on Christmas Eve to buy him more "stuff".  Even though my son had so much stuff that he rivalled Toys R Us in inventory, for some reason I felt like I had not purchased enough for him for Christmas.

Just before I stepped out of my vehicle, a story came on my favorite National Public Radio station (WNYC in New York) and something about it caught my ear.

For the next 10 minutes, I sat in silence and listened to the story.  When the story was over, I started my truck and drove out of the parking lot in silence.

I had received an important message about Christmas when I needed to hear it.  The “teacher” always appears when the student is ready and my Christmases have never been the same since.

Of the many traditions I have at Christmas, there are two that I find to be important:

1. I always listen to the story I heard on WNYC at least once.
2. I always share the story with others and encourage them to listen to it.

The story I am referring to can be found here and in the video below.

Henry Faulk–Christmas Story

Listen to the story closely and after it has moved your heart, follow your instinct and allow it to guide you in what you do next.

The Nature of Gifts

When we are young, we look forward to the gifts that Santa will bring and that family and friends will give us.

As we move into adulthood, we learn to appreciate the opportunity to give gifts to those who are important to us as well as those to whom we send gifts to anonymously.  At the same time, we are bombarded by commercials encouraging us to buy as much as we can for others and to treat ourselves as well to “small” items such as new automobiles, expensive vacations, etc.

While the ability to give and receive gifts in difficult times is a privilege, there are many gifts around us that no one could ever afford if a price tag reflecting their true value were applied to them – gifts such as but not limited to love, friendship, camaraderie, companionship and service.

And as I reflect upon my personal and professional Life and I remember the great people who have come into my Life, whether to lift me, enrich me, teach me, learn from me or test me, I realize that some of the greatest gifts that I have received in my day-to-day Life, in addition to my faith, are those people who have made me a better person.

Where would I be without those people who knowingly or unknowingly taught me, influenced me, guided me, lifted me or corrected me?

More importantly, how can I thank so many people for such valuable gifts?

In truth, it would take as long to thank them (or longer) than the years I have remaining, but I suspect for many of them, it would be gratitude enough if I took the opportunity to make sure that I do for others as others have done for me.

Difficult times are with us and before us.  As you take time during the holidays to buy tangible gifts for others, don’t forget the value of your intangible gifts.  Gifts such as love, kindness, friendship and support are much more valuable, last much longer, never break, never tarnish, never need batteries, are always the right size, are always in style and will affect far more people than the tangible ones.

And unlike many gifts that never fit, these gifts are never returned as undesired and in fact, are often returned in kind or paid forward (oftentimes in multiples of the original gift).

When we receive such intangible gifts, we know their importance and their value.

Let’s remember this when we choose to put these gifts “under the tree” of someone who could use them this holiday season or any time of the year.

As you celebrate this holiday season, please remember those who are not as fortunate as you are.  There is more than enough love to go around – we just need to make the effort to share it unconditionally.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, Happy EID or Merry Yule.

However you celebrate these days, cherish them.

And help others find a way to cherish them as well.

In service and servanthood, love and gratitude.  Create a great holiday experience for yourself and others, because merely having one is too passive an experience.

Harry

Paul Johnson–Farewell to a Perfect, Imperfect Mentor

The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves. - Steven Spielberg

Do the right thing, the right way, right now. – Paul Johnson

On Canadian Thanksgiving Day, October 12, 2015, I was heartbroken to learn of the passing of Paul Johnson, a leading businessman and philanthropist, in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Paul, or PJ to those of us who knew him, was much more to me than just a businessman.  He was the first business mentor I had in my long career and as news of his death sank in, my thoughts tumbled back to the impact this man had on my Life.

As an impressionable young lad of 17 in 1983, I first entered the IT world as a programmer / analyst working for PJ on a new project he was dreaming of. He intended to build Canada’s first PC-based insurance system and I was selected to be developer (later architect) #1.  While everyone told PJ that such technology was a passing fad, the visionary that was PJ saw past the naysayers and with his usual heightened sense of vision and doggedness, he was determined to make it work.

It was an incredible undertaking.  Many younger people in the IT field today wouldn’t know what it is like to write computer systems that fit on SSSD (single-sided, single density) floppy disks with a capacity of 256K, make their own printer cables using manufacturer-provided pin-out diagrams or write a printer driver in assembler for every new printer that arrived.  But PJ was undeterred despite the unproven, immature technology and his vision of a PC-based insurance system, codenamed Automate and then Max, eventually rolled out on 8 single-sided, double-density floppies.

While PJ was at least a foot shorter than the 17-year-old that he hired, he was larger than Life.  On my first day on the job, I heard this announcement over the PA System:

Good morning to the good dependable people of Johnson Insurance.  Please observe the quiet hour between 8am and 9am and review your reminders for today’s important activities.  Thank-you.

It was Quiet Hour, PJ’s recognition of the importance of planning one’s day strategically instead of randomly executing haphazardly.  During Quiet Hour, you weren’t allowed to walk around, have meetings or use the phone.  You were supposed to sit and think, set goals for the day and plan out measurable outcomes by which you measured your day’s success.

33+ years later, I still begin my day with Quiet Hour.

To anyone who doubted the importance of Quiet Hour to PJ, one morning a temp was reading the announcement and thinking it was silly, burst out laughing several times over the PA.  I looked up over my desk in time to see PJ making a beeline from his office to the temp’s desk by the front door.

We never saw her again.

PJ’s attention to detail was staggering, often to the point of obsession.  One day I saw him walking through the office with a yardstick, measuring the distance between desks.  He found two desks that were a couple of inches further apart than they should have been and he yelled at Phyllis, his secretary (who should have been nominated for sainthood), to get Bob (the maintenance guy) there right away to close the gap.

Obsessive?

Perhaps – but the difference between being obsessive and paying attention to details is in the eye of the beholder.

About a year or so after I started working at Johnson Insurance, PJ had a massive heart attack and had open heart surgery.  Unable to leave the office behind (likely the thing that gave him the heart attack in the first place) and against doctor’s orders, he would leave his hospital room and wander down to the payphone at the end of the hall to call the office to see how things were going.

As an impressionable young man, I didn’t know if I was watching a mad man in action or a man who loved (and obsessed over) his work.  After the career I have enjoyed to-date, I now know it was the latter.

When PJ needed his secretary, Phyllis, he never left his office.  Everyone on the first floor of 95 Elizabeth Avenue was used to the command that often emanated out of the corner office:

Phyllis!

Truthfully, as a young man, I was fascinated by him, in awe of him and terrified of him.  He knew what he wanted and how to get it and as a shy young man, I wondered if the level of brashness (rudeness sometimes) that he exhibited was normal.

But as I grew “a skin”, I learned a lot more about this man.

His broad knowledge in many disparate areas of Life was staggering.  I remember looking at a painting on the wall of the office and PJ came along and noticed I was admiring it.  He told me the history of the artist, the subject of the painting and the techniques used by the artist to express certain elements.  “Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”, he asked, referring to the painting.  I couldn’t answer – I was still caught up in his explanation.

Similar experiences would be repeated many times in my career there.

He kept an architect’s desk (aka a drafting table) in his office for thinking and planning.  One day when I stopped into his office, he invited me around and showed me some of the things he was drawing.  He explained the importance of taking time away from noise and chaos to think through problems and solutions.  He didn’t have a name for the doodles he was making but he demonstrated the techniques he used when he was thinking through tough problems.

33+ years later, I am still drawing the same doodles that he taught me to draw.

We call them mind maps or cognitive maps today.

Time to move on

As is often the case when we outgrow a job, I left Johnson Insurance and went on to the big city of Toronto.  After I was there for about a year, I was thinking about PJ and wrote him a note, thanking him for what he had done for me in my career and that I was proud to have been “one of the good dependable people of Johnson Insurance”.

Imagine my surprise when a reply came back, with a heartfelt thanks for my note and with deep gratitude expressed for MY contribution to him.

As a young man who now wasn’t working for him, I was still learning lessons from him – the art of humility in success and for taking the time to thank others even during an impossible schedule.

By the early 2000’s, I had been living in the US for quite a while and found myself one weekend at a stamp show in Providence, Rhode Island.  There was a stamp dealer there selling Newfoundland covers (a sealed envelope with a Newfoundland stamp on it, mailed to one’s self on the day the stamp was issued) for $1 apiece and I bought them all.  Newfoundland had its own stamps prior to its entry into Canadian Confederation and as a Newfoundlander, I eagerly sought such things out.

When I returned home, I was examining my covers by holding them up to the light and I noticed that one had a letter in it instead of a blank sheet of paper or index card and I thought, “What the heck, I only paid a dollar for it” and carefully slit the envelope open.

It turned out that the envelope was not a cover but an undelivered piece of mail, where the writer was outlining some investment advice to a woman.  It was signed “Art Johnson, The Insurance Man.”

I called PJ’s son and asked if Art Johnson was any relation to him.  “Yes”, he replied, “Art Johnson, the insurance man.  That was my grandfather.”

What were the odds?

After all those years, PJ’s legacy was still with me.

Some years later, I was in Newfoundland and brought the letter over to PJ’s house with intention of returning it to him.  “I would like you to have it”, replied PJ and it still has a place of honor in my stamp collection.

While at his place, we talked about his then-current project, building walking trails on Signal Hill.  He was frustrated with the reception he was getting from people who were objecting to his “destruction of pristine land”.  “Jesus Christ”, he said to me in frustration, “Nobody talked about the pristine land when I took 50 dump truck loads of car wrecks out of the area at my own cost”.

Years after retirement, his energy to get things done and make a difference still ran unabated.

He Wasn’t Perfect

PJ wasn’t a perfect man.  I saw his anger run hot and uncontrolled at times.  He would shout at his first wife on the phone in ways that would shock many.  One day, one of his young sons stole a quarter from him and the event went unmentioned. One day about three months later, while walking with his family next to the duck pond at Bowring Park in St. John’s, he picked up his son and threw him headlong into the pond.  His son asked why he had done it and he replied, “That’s for stealing.”

Most of the family worked in the business and he had no issue with shaming them for poor performance in front of the rest of us.  My heart often felt sad for “the kids” who couldn’t be perfect enough in his eyes and who were reminded of it in a humiliating fashion right before our eyes

Sometimes when modeling a person, there is as much to be learned about how not to behave as there is in how to behave.

How I Remember Him

As I said, PJ wasn’t perfect.  It is said that saints became saints not because they are perfect but because of what they accomplish despite their imperfections.

I remember him as a brilliant, passionate, astute, generous man.  He was passionate about history and the preservation of it – especially Newfoundland history.  He loved Newfoundland and Labrador and did what he could to preserve it, spending more than $50 million of his own money to do so.

He was well-versed in many subjects, including of all things, restaurants, where he dabbled in high-end dining at the Woodstock Colonial Inn (once one of the top ten restaurants in Canada), the Starboard Quarter downtown on the harbor-front and a fast-food chain called The Top Ten.

He had a sense of humor, revealed one day when he showed me a t-shirt with the words “Whale Oil Beef Hooked” on it.  The shy teenager looking at it blushed profusely once he figured it out.  I laugh now.

He loved his family intensely and wanted the best for them and out of them so badly, that he often demonstrated it poorly. 

Then of course, there was the success of Johnson Insurance itself.

His business acumen and what he shared of it with me set the tone for my career.  He spent a lot of time with me when I was younger, teaching me what I wasn’t taught in school about strategy, goals, planning and execution, about persevering when others suggest you are crazy, you will fail (or both) and how sometimes one has to stride ahead of everyone else because that is what you are called to do.

He had a fire in him that came out as anger sometimes and at other times, dogged determination, unlimited kindness and absolute brilliance.

He was also a man who was recognized publicly for the amazing things he accomplished, being a member of the Order of Canada, a recipient of an honorary doctor of laws from Memorial University of Newfoundland, a member of the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador and a member of the Newfoundland and Labrador Business Hall of Fame.

In the end, he wanted the best out of everything and everyone around him and sometimes took to dragging us along until we could see what he could see.

He did so without fanfare or demand for recognition – the mark of a true gentleman who did what he did because he passionately believed it to be the right thing to do.

That is what it is to be the type of renaissance man that PJ was.

Sometimes, renaissance men wait patiently for us to catch up.

Other times they are not so patient.

In the meantime, they amaze us with their vision, touch us with their kindness and generosity, wow us with their knowledge and yes, sometimes terrify or offend us with their execution.

But when we do catch up to them, we are better for the experience, finally seeing what the renaissance man sees while learning a few things from him along the way.

To my first business mentor who died on Thanksgiving Day, I express my deepest gratitude for him and my deepest condolences to his family, especially Lois, Darroch and David.

My life personally and professionally is due in large part to the well-established businessman who took a chance on a geeky kid who hung out in the CompSci lab in college.

May you all be so fortunate and blessed to have such people in your lives.

In service and servanthood,

Harry – One of PJ’s good dependable people

PJ’s Obituary:

Johnson, Paul Jolliffe, C.M., O.N.L., LL.D.

Passed peacefully away at his home in St. John’s, Paul J. Johnson, at the age of 86. Predeceased by his first wife Joy (Clouston), his daughter Heather Johnson-Ballard, and his grand-daughter, Diana. He is survived by his wife Sally (Clouston), children: Darroch, David (Heather), Lois (Robert) Desjardins, John (Rosemary) Kuehn, and Robin (Dave) Kenny; brother, Evan (Neva); brother-in-law, Peter (Pearle) Clouston; sister-in-law, Donna Clouston; grand-children: Chris, Alexis, James, Paul, Laura, Beth, Sarah, Peter, Ben, Hannah, and Leah; Son-in-law Brock Ballard; and many other colleagues, former employees and dear friends as well as his long time secretary, Judy Rudofsky.

Paul Johnson entered the family business, Johnson Insurance in 1949, which he sold in 1997. The Johnson Family Foundation began in 1987, and created the Grand Concourse Authority in 1994. Even up to his passing on Thanksgiving Day, Mr. Johnson continually showed passion, energy, an unflinching drive for excellence, and absolute determination. Paul Johnson’s vision through the Johnson Family Foundation, the Johnson GEO CENTRE, (the only Project bearing his name), the Grand Concourse, and the Railway Coastal Museum, along with his many other contributions to St. John's and to all Newfoundland and Labrador, has left a legacy to be shared and appreciated for generations to come.

Many who had the opportunity to work with Paul Johnson will remember his prodigious spirit and unmatched generosity. His preservation of the stories of our past have become a story to be told for years. We have lost a great man and true leader, whose legacy will live on forever. When Paul Johnson was presented to Queen Elizabeth, he was introduced as a philanthropist who had donated millions of dollars, his time and efforts, working to make Newfoundland a better place, Queen Elizabeth asked “Why would you do that”, Paul Johnson replied “I am proud to be a Newfoundlander, and I want to help other Newfoundlanders to feel as proud”. Paul Johnson was a shy and private person who wished to have no “fan fare”, as such, following cremation, a private burial will be held.

Musings at 50–Confessions of a Self-Made Man

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude. - Denis Waitley

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. - Melody Beattie

Today as birthday greetings for my 50th birthday come to me from around the world, I feel overwhelmed with gratitude to be blessed with the love and support of so many amazing people.

It also reminds me of something else.

I have experienced many things in my Life, including walking away from a serious illness, five airplane incidents (one depressurization, one near mid-air on final, two RPM governance failures on take off and one structural integrity compromise), a lightning bolt that hit a playground set 50 feet from where I was standing, 4 NYC muggings, a serious bicycle accident, a stabbing on a subway, a tornado that touched down a block from where I was walking and a list of other things that start to look ridiculous at some point (over 25 of them according to the Starbucks napkin I scribbled on).

Many people have said that either someone is looking out for me or I’m being saved for something.

Perhaps.

I have also been blessed repeatedly in business, often being given opportunities neither desired nor sought (nor which I thought I was qualified for) but which unfolded amazingly in my favor, including an IPO of a company that I cofounded in NYC in the late 1990’s.  Most people wouldn’t have seen this in my future when one looks at the house that I lived in in my early years:

A few times when I have made presentations, organizers said they were expecting someone much older, based on what they have learned about what I have accomplished and how it was unlikely that such a list could have been squeezed into the Life of a younger man.

But as I look at the greetings that now flow in, some of which are from people I have known for 45 of my 50 years, something is tremendously obvious to me.

For all of the things I have appeared to have performed, accomplished or survived, I am in fact responsible for none of it.

The credit for everything incredible I have experienced in my Life is entirely due to the many people I have been blessed to have known over the years.

It is from those people that I acquired the wisdom, knowledge, courage and strength to learn how to build a better Life.  When I didn’t always get it right, they were there – sometimes to lift me – sometimes to straighten me up.  And yes, some served as a warning on how not to live.

When I applied myself as I should have, things worked out well.  When I didn’t …. well …. I bear responsibility for the mistakes I have made along the journey.

And so when I hear people talk about being self-made or how their self-description has a lot of “I did this”, “I did that”, etc., I wonder how cognizant they are of the impact of other people on their lives.

There is no such thing as the self-made man.  Oh sure, we all may be intelligent, wise, talented, good-looking, wealthy, etc, but it requires others to help us see those gifts and to help us leverage those gifts to the best of our potential.

Because if it weren’t for all of those people, most of us wouldn’t accomplish much if anything at all.

So as the greetings continue to pour in from family and friends, I in turn thank everyone who has helped me, encouraged me, supported me, taught me, angered me and loved me.

The first 50 years have been possible only because of who you are and what you do and for that, I am eternally grateful.

And if I have accomplished anything at all, it is only to prove true the old adage attributed to Sir Isaac Newton:

If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

YOU are the giants – thank you for a great first 50 years.  To name you all would take a LOT of space – you know who you are.  It is my privilege and honor to travel the journey with you, to learn from you and to collaborate with you towards making a better world. 

Now … have you thanked your giants today?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Lest We Forget–Has McDonald’s Forgotten?

The veterans of our military services have put their lives on the line to protect the freedoms that we enjoy. They have dedicated their lives to their country and deserve to be recognized for their commitment. - Judd Gregg

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them. - Laurence Binyon (Ode of Remembrance)

I was surprised and disappointed in speaking with a member of the Royal Canadian Legion 285 in Calgary yesterday when he expressed a mix of disappointment and anger that the McDonald’s restaurant in the area would not allow the distribution of poppies in support of November 11th.

In exploring this a little further, I found other McDonald’s restaurants that also did not provide poppies in their restaurants and so I reached out to McDonald’s on Twitter to ask why.

Here was their response:

Not only was I surprised by this but others were as well as evidenced by tweets like this one:

There were some other responses that I can’t even put here.

The men and women who serve and who have served do so to protect our freedom, including the freedom of choice.  They serve so that we may be blessed with the freedom to choose what we want to have or not have in our lives and in doing so, they have made sacrifices so that corporations like McDonald’s can make choices like this.

But on the topic of choices, the owner of a McDonald’s franchise cannot opt out of selling Big Macs, McFlurries and the other stuff that serve the corporate brand but can opt out of that which honors the brave men and women who serve in our military, in our reserves and as first responders.

If I owned such a restaurant, one of the things that I would feel blessed by is the fact that the sacrifice of others provides me with the opportunity to make a good living and to create a good living for those who work with me.  In recognition of this fact, I would sure as heck want to honor those who have enabled such a Life for me.

And this causes me to wonder, having earned the freedom of choice by way of the sacrifice of others, if we have the wisdom to make the right choices.

Maybe having made their choice that honoring those who serve is optional, that I should make a choice regarding the support of McDonald’s.

The Bottom Line

People we will never know offer their lives, their health, their freedom and yes, even their families, so that we may have our health, our happiness and our freedom.

The gift of freedom of choice is only of value when we know how to honor it wisely.

The least we can do is to say thank you from our heart and show our support whenever we can.

Lest we forget.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

---

Addendum – McDonald’s Responds – November 6, 2014

John Gibson of McDonald’s Corporation was kind enough to supply a response which is outlined below.

With apologies for posting my response before his (I needed to do so in order to post a photo that I took), I have the following items to note in response to his response.

In regards to Mr. Gibson’s comment “Since we cannot place a collection box on the front counter for food safety reasons ….”, I offer three items of note:

1. Many other restaurants in Canada do not have such a restriction for safety reasons and I am not aware of any significant cases of customer injury stemming from a poppy box.  I was in a competitor restaurant today and their poppy boxes were on the counter where my food was presented.
2. The guy standing next to me at a McDonald’s counter could easily have his poppy fall into my food as we wait, therefore I would like to ask other customers to stand back from my food (sorry – I am a literalist and couldn’t resist).
3. I took this photo in a McDonald’s restaurant in Calgary today, which would thus appear to be in violation of the policy Mr. Gibson states or prove the fact that McDonald’s can indeed place poppy collection boxes on food counters.

In regards to this comment

All McDonald’s restaurants have the option of providing a location inside or outside the restaurant where Royal Canadian Legion veterans and other authorized volunteers can distribute poppies in person.

it still provides the restaurant with the option to opt out entirely (by not providing a location) or by making it virtually impossible for the Legion to offer poppies (with the need for an excessive number of volunteers), thus allowing a restaurant to say “no” to them without actually saying no, bringing me back to my original blog comments.

In addition, in response to Mr. Gibson’s assertion of a misunderstanding, it is not helpful if their corporate Twitter account points out that restaurants can opt out without further explanation of the opt out process.  The 140 character limit on Twitter is not a rationale to explain why a vague response was provided either.

And so while I appreciate Mr. Gibson’s quick and kind response, there appears to be some corporate embellishment contained within that I couldn’t resist responding to. 

A Final Thought

I stopped by a McDonald’s in Calgary today and for fun, I asked the manager why there were no poppies available.  She informed me that they don’t offer poppies because people steal the donation cans.  That may have been a valid reason had she not followed up with the next comment: “And besides, I don’t have a number for the Royal Canadian Legion so I can’t find them to have poppies brought over.”

I don’t think they are too hard to find.

I salute McDonald’s for their support of the men and women in service to our nation as explained by Mr. Gibson but perhaps the misunderstanding Mr. Gibson refers to stems more from inconsistent execution on their part than anything else.

---

The Last Hour Of My Life

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. - Charles Darwin

Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments. - Rose Kennedy

Twice this week I have been asked to recount four airplane “events” I have survived in my many years of travel and after I shared the stories for the second time, something stood out that made me pause and reflect about how we spend the most valuable gift we have been blessed with – our time on this Earth.

Some years ago while returning from a business trip, I had an opportunity to experience some of the worst air turbulence in my 40+ years of travelling.  In the violent pitching and rolling that occurred, I suddenly felt a “bang” in the floor and for a moment I thought that we had popped a baggage compartment door and were spilling luggage all over the east coast.

The plane suddenly pitched up and after we had climbed above the turbulence, the pilot announced that he needed to speak to ops (flight operations) and that he would get back to us soon.  I thought “Ops?  That’s interesting.  That means we have a problem.”

For an hour we flew in a wide circle with no updates of any kind.  The pilot eventually came on the intercom and told us that we would be returning from whence we came and that we were to follow all instructions of the cabin staff.

We were taught the brace position required for emergency landings and then were left with our own thoughts for what could be the last hour of our lives.  A lady behind me was saying her Rosary, a few people were crying, some people were talking quietly and I, in typical fashion of always acting in a manner contrary to worrisome circumstances, was intent on finishing a book that I was rereading – The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale.

The lady sitting next to me asked me “How can you read a book at a time like this?”

My reply was basically along the lines of “I have two options, both completely out of my control.  I might hit the ground at 500 miles per hour, becoming a grease spot on the runway but feeling no pain as I am killed instantly.  If that happens, my insurance is paid up, my family will be taken care of and I will be remembered as the only person in my family to have been killed in a plane crash.  How cool is that?  My other option is that I will walk away from this totally unscathed and I will have an awesome story to tell.  So given that both options are out of my control and I know what all possible outcomes are, I have nothing else to do but read my book”.

With a mix of anger and incredulity, she told me I was crazy.

About an hour later, as I turned the last page of my book, an announcement came over the intercom that we were approaching our destination and that we were to start preparing for arrival by placing our personal effects, including shirt pocket contents, eye glasses and such in the seat pocket in front of us.

As the ground got closer, I quietly said my thank-you’s to everyone and no one in particular, asked for forgiveness for the mistakes I had made in my Life and when the call came for us to brace for impact, we all leaned forward and prepared to die.

Spoiler alert

After we had landed safely and the applause and yells from passengers had subsided, I turned to the lady sitting next to me and said “In the last hour of my Life, I finished a great book.  What did you do?”

She didn’t reply.

In a subsequent conversation with the pilot, I learned two things:

• At the moment that the “bang” had occurred, we had experienced a structural integrity compromise (translation: something broke) and the airworthiness of the aircraft was unknown until we had safely touched down.
• The pilot, who had been flying for more than 25 years, said that this event was in the top 3 scariest events of his Life.

When a pilot with that much experience and who isn’t bothered by things that bother passengers says this, that’s when you want to go back to the lavatory and throw up.

The Bottom Line

During this flight, I was given a warning by the flight crew that the last hour of my Life had potentially been identified and that it was now.

But in Life we don’t always get such warnings and in that realization, I wonder how we would live our personal, relational and professional lives if we believed that the next hour was to be our last, regardless of whether we were given a warning or not.

Most of us don’t live as if the next hour is our last.

I wonder what would happen to us individually and societally if we did.

What do you think?

Do you recognize the value of your time, especially given that you have a finite amount of it, once it is spent it cannot be reclaimed and you have no idea how much of it is remaining?

Are you sure?

Are your actions in congruence with your beliefs?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

PS – The Importance of Gratitude

All the passengers went back to the airline counter to rebook seats necessary to carry us to our original destination and I couldn’t help but notice the guys in front of me giving the lady at the counter a hard time about the impact of the delay on them, how airline staff didn’t know how to run an airline, etc.

When it was my turn, I expressed to the lady how grateful I was to be speaking to her and how I thought the airline’s maintenance program, training regimen and professionalism were the difference between me living and dying.

She thanked me, pointed to the guys that I had been observing and said “See those guys over there?  I have them on standby for tomorrow.  However, I’ve got an executive class seat for you on the next flight and here’s $75 “airport dollars” that you can spend anywhere in the airport for meals, souvenirs or anything else you need.”

Her actions remind me that kindness pays … especially when unexpected or when it seems most difficult to express.

Someone is waiting for your kindness in an unexpected way today.

What are you waiting for?

---

Addendum - February 9, 2017

I was reminded today that I have had five close calls (not four).  They include a cabin depressurization, a near mid-air collision on final, the structural integrity compromise noted in this post and two RPM governance failures on take-off.  In the latter, I've often considered them as one event because it occurred twice with the same aircraft on the same day.  Sound complicated?  On a flight some years ago, we experienced an RPM governance failure (which was explained to me later) on take-off that almost caused us to drop into the forest as we cleared the runway.  We made an emergency landing at an airport along the way, boarded a different aircraft and then proceeded to my original half-way point destination.  We waited for the aircraft that would take us to the final destination and when it arrived, I realized that I was seated in the same seat as on the original flight.  I knew this because I had noted when my journey began that someone had carved their name into the window shade and as I sat in my seat, I saw the name on the window shade again.  The airline in question had assumed that the aircraft issues had been addressed and had ferried the aircraft in to pick us up and take us to our final destination.  The assumption that the aircraft has been repaired turned out to be incorrect and we once again had an RPM governance device failure on take-off.  The resulting take-off, while completely successful with a dramatic acceleration, deceleration, acceleration (we were committed) finished with an equally interesting landing since the standard procedure for landing an aircraft with a failed RPM governance device is to land at full throttle.  It made for an interesting day.

For those who like to know technical stuff, the RPM governance device senses shaft RPM, and adjusts or controls the angle of the blades to vary the torque load on the engine. Thus as the aircraft speeds up (as in a dive) or slows (in climb) the RPM is held constant.  When this device fails, it is difficult to control the thrust of the engine (and thus speed of the aircraft) and so it is better to land at full throttle rather than risk diminishing the throttle and causing the engine to produce less power than desired.

Remembrance Day–Who Needs It Anymore?

War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

The cold, cloud-filled skies of November are a reminder that Remembrance Day is upon us yet again.

And as I think about the memorial services that will take place around the world on November 11, I wonder why we even bother anymore.

After all, who cares about …..

• The brave men and women who sacrificed their physical and mental wellbeing, their families and their lives to ensure the freedom of people they will never meet.
• The gruelling, inhumane, mind-bending conditions that they endured, whether it was the mud-filled trenches, the lice-ridden clothing, the disease and pestilence, the sight of limbs blown off, the terror of being trapped in a burning ship or tank, the incessant thunder of artillery, the whine of a sniper’s bullet zinging by someone’s helmet or some other event that most of us wouldn’t have the courage to deal with.
• A battle or war that may have physically lasted a few years but was relived in someone’s dreams and nightmares for the rest of their lives.
• The families left to raise children with a single parent.
• The families trying to help a mom, dad, brother, sister or child overcome physical disability or the equally crippling scourge of PTSD.
• The millions of civilians maimed, orphaned, wounded, killed or traumatized by the battles all around them and the ordinance left behind, to be discovered by accident over the years.
• Veterans who in later years have been abandoned by the governments whose call they answered but now barely survive on pensions that are an embarrassment.

So on Remembrance Day, when we think about the question “Who needs it anymore?”, the answer becomes clear.

We all do …. more than ever.

Our gratitude for those who serve should not be limited to a single day of the year.  Their sacrifice should be honored every day and be reflected every day in how we live our lives.

After all, this is why they serve – so that we are free to live lives of purpose, freedom and personal choice.

And so that, hopefully, the current war may be the last.

The veterans of WWI are all gone now but we still have many brave men and women around us who served in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cyprus and many other theaters of battle.

And as we stand freezing our butts off at a Remembrance Day service (if we even go) and we text a friend asking to meet up later for an uber-complicated latte while complaining that the kids won’t stop whining that they want to go home, remember this.

For many of our brave men and women, they didn’t endure such minor inconveniences from one day to the next.

For many, each day was hell and the day that followed was worse than the last.

They also couldn’t just walk away from it just because they felt like it.

And many, after enduring the worst conditions imaginable, were rewarded with death or permanent physical or mental wounds.

While we often choose many things to complain about in a world filled with abundance, most of us aren’t dealing with lice, typhoid, trench foot or PTSD, nor are we dodging exploding artillery shells, hiding from the threat of an unseen sniper, gasping for breath as poison gas tears our lungs out, jumping out of an aircraft in the dark as tracer bullets and AA fill the air around us, running across a beach while machine guns tear up the sand around us or swimming in frigid or shark-infested water while floating, burning fuel threatens to burn us alive.

May we never have to deal with the conditions and events that these brave men and women dealt with and continue to deal with.

Because that’s what they sacrificed and died for – so that someday we might finally live in a world where we won’t need to deal with these things anymore.

Wear a poppy to honor those who have served.

Find a veteran, look them in the eye and thank them.  Help one in need or make a donation to a charity in the name of a veteran; living, passed on or fallen.

We have what we have because they gave what they gave.

Lest we forget.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Remembrance Day–The Courage to be … Ungrateful??

It was with some surprise and disappointment that I noticed an article in the Edmonton Sun citing that children are permitted to opt out of Remembrance Day ceremonies for religious or personal reasons.

I was intrigued by this but thinking I was perhaps being oversensitive to the article, I tweeted Brett Wilson, noted businessman, philanthropist and supporter of our troops.

His response tells me that I didn’t overreact at all.

What followed from other people did surprise me.

Only a few people had the courage to comment publicly, with many sending me private messages and emails.  This public response stood out.

That’s right – apparently it takes courage to choose to be ungrateful to the brave men and women whom we’ve never met and who have paid or may pay the ultimate sacrifice.

The men and women who answer the call and lay it all on the line literally so that we can live a life of freedom.

Freedom to be inconsiderate or ungrateful to those who bought us our freedom with their lives.

I don’t think the brave soldiers who were pinned down on the beaches of Gallipoli suddenly said “Wait a minute, guys.  Shouldn’t we decide what’s in it for us first?”

The men who stormed the cliffs of Dieppe or the beaches of Normandy didn’t stop and reflect on the hope that someone at home might be grateful for what they were about to do.

The boys in the trenches of Europe, racked with dysentery, typhoid fever, trench foot, lice and everything else didn’t go on strike to demand better working conditions.

The pilots who flew into harms way on every sortie or the brave people who served in the Navy on the storm-tossed ocean fraught with danger didn’t do it to earn recognition for bravery.

The men and women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t demanding red carpet treatment.

They serve for the love of their country.

They serve so that their country and the world will continue to be a strong, safe place for the generations to follow.

If I am a devout Christian and an atheist saves the life of my son, I don’t say “I’d love to thank you but I can’t because I disagree with your religious beliefs”.

If I am a Democrat (or Republican) and someone of the opposite party does a great deed for me, do I deny them gratitude because of their political stripes?

If I am straight (or gay) and someone of the opposite persuasion saves my Life, do I say “Thank but not thanks” because of our differences of opinion regarding sexual orientation?

Hardly.

I say thank you – with all my heart and soul.

And by the same token, we can be anti-war / pro-peace and still express gratitude for the people who have sacrificed everything to protect our freedom.

The brave men and women who have served and continue to serve do something that most of us would never have the guts to do ….

… to put their lives on the line with no gratitude or reward expected in return.

They not only sacrifice themselves on the battlefield but they come home and struggle with what they have witnessed, experiencing nightmares that haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Many live in poverty, abandoned by the system that they fought to protect.

So to refuse to remember those who have died or been maimed so that we can be free just because some can’t seem to separate the acts of gratitude and remembrance from the glorification of war aren’t expressing anything that takes courage.

They are expressing ignorance.

And for all the values that our brave men and women strive to preserve by creating a safer world for us, I don’t think the values of ignorance and ingratitude are on the list.

I am grateful for them every day …. not just on November 11th or on Memorial Day.

Find a vet and thank them for everything you have.

It is the least we can do for those who serve so unselfishly and so courageously.

Lest we forget.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS This moving song by fellow Newfoundlander Terry Kelly, A Pittance of Time, captures the essence of the need to remember.

Terry Kelly–A Pittance of Time

The Thanksgiving Meal–Pass the Gratitude Please

As a Canadian who has spent most of his career in the US, I get the double blessing of enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday twice a year.

As I was preparing the meal today, I reflected on Thanksgiving meals of my youth.

While my years in NYC and elsewhere have been ones of personal and professional abundance, I have never forgotten the early years of my life that were spent in this house in a small town in Newfoundland.

We never had much in those days and yet, I remember my family being ferociously grateful for everything.  We never judged anything we were blessed to have.

We savored everything.

I don’t see that same level of gratitude in a lot of people today.  I see people pulling up to their local coffee shop in $60,000+ vehicles (having just left their $1 million+ mansions), walking into the coffee in their designer clothing and buying $5 lattes, only to sit down with their friends and complain about how difficult their life is.

They often try to out-complain each other, reminding me of the Monty Python sketch of the 4 Yorkshiremen.

 

The 4 Yorkshiremen

 

Their belly is full and they are not cold.  They never evaded bullets or landmines to get to the coffee shop.  They enjoy the freedom to meet with their friends without fear of being arrested.  They will probably throw out more food and clothing in the course of a year than many people in the world could imagine having access to.

Many would kill to have access to what we discard.

Many suffer or die because they don’t have that access.

And despite all that abundance, too many of us prefer to focus on what we don’t have.

I wonder if many of the difficulties in the western world stem from the fact that we are constantly focusing on what we don’t have or that we always zero in on what the “other person” has, leaving us in a perpetual state of a lack of “whatever”.

How can we ever feel grateful if we eternally live in a state of “the universe hasn’t given me what I desire or deserve yet”?

You Create What You Focus On

Many wise people over the years have told us that we create that which we focus on.

Maybe if we focused a little more on being grateful for the staggering amount of abundance that we are blessed with, we would find ourselves being more passionate about sharing it with those who have lost the will or ability to visualize or partake in such abundance.

And as we sit down to the Thanksgiving meal (or any meal), let’s not limit our gratitude to just the meal before us or the people around us at the moment.

In a world filled with challenge, being grateful for all that we have provides us with the fuel to move forward and a desire to preserve and protect that which we are grateful for instead of ignoring it in favor of something else that always seems just out of our reach.

Being grateful also creates within us the need to share more of what we are grateful for with others.

Otherwise we will manifest what we are focusing on.

And then we will have something to complain about, but it won’t matter anymore.  It will be too late and we will have created the very Life that we so vehemently complained about for years.

As many of us in the western world sit at the table of endless bounty every day, let’s remember to ask for a double helping of gratitude and with our appetite satiated, let’s work harder to bring others to the same table.

And be grateful for the opportunity to do so.

G.K. Chesterton once said:

When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.

The choice you make impacts the quality of your Life and the lives of those around you.

John F. Kennedy said:

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

How are you living?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS Every generation talks about “the new math” that is being taught in schools and how difficult it is to learn.  Eric Hoffer, though, may have said it best when he said:

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.

Count them.

Be grateful for them.

Share them.

Democracy–Be Grateful For It

Watching the Alberta election unfold and the US election get into high gear and seeing the highlights and lowlights of the various leaders and candidates, one thing comes to mind for me.

For all the warts in the political system; controversies, disappointments and other things that drive us crazy, make us angry and everything else, democracy is still a pretty cool process to watch in action.

Despite all the stuff we like to complain about in coffee shops, on blogs, on call-in programs or in social media, we are still very fortunate to have choices and to be able to openly explore and discuss those choices.

When the Occupy Wall St. movement was going in full swing, I was told by a number of people that our system had become either too fascist, too socialist or some other “ist” word.  They fail to realize that if we were one of those “ist” societies, they would have been jailed or shot long before they could have complained about it.

Meanwhile, Albertans today and Americans in 7 months or so will go to the polls and dutifully select the candidates and parties that they think will lead them.

And while we like to complain about how a lot of politicians let us down routinely, when I think of the alternatives, I can only bow my head in gratitude for the system we have.

No system is perfect, not even democracy.

Regardless of who we elect, even the ones that disappoint us, in the end they are their because we had the opportunity and the freedom to put them there.

THAT is a pretty awesome power to consider and with it comes significant responsibility.

And so whether tomorrow provides Albertans with Premier-elect Smith or Premier Redford (apologies to the other guys who won’t make it) and whether November provides Americans with President Obama (round 2) or President-elect Romney, the power is still ours to determine the future of our province, state or country and ultimately our world.

Having made our choices and regardless of who wins, we must support the leaders and their plans to make our world a better one.  Undermining them in office prevents all of us from creating a stronger society.

If in the end we don’t like who we have chosen and what they have produced, we can change our mind again in a few years and hopefully get it right (or at least better).

This power is ours and unless we screw things up really badly, it will always be ours.

In a world where many people couldn’t dare to dream of having such power, who wouldn’t be grateful for the opportunity to have as much opportunity to change the world as we have with a single vote.

Let’s make sure that the world we create with such power helps more people see the unlimited potential in the world and their unlimited opportunity to contribute to that world.

By doing so, we will have leveraged democracy to its ultimate potential.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum: April 24th

Ms. Smith’s comments after a significant loss to Premier Redford and the Progressive Conservatives are a sign of what makes some people cynical of the system.  The correct response after losing would have been something along the lines of “We look forward to serving the people of Alberta, keeping the Redford government honest on behalf of the people of Alberta, etc” and leaving it at that.

Instead, her closing comment “We look forward to defeating the Conservatives in 2016” shows a naïve dismissal of the next four years or a focus on winning an election instead of accomplishing the best things possible for the people of Alberta.

And you know what they say about wishing your time away.

A Gift From the Past

Today was one of those days where few things seemed to come together as hoped or desired.  We all have days like this, try as we might to avoid them.  The events of the day weighed heavily on me as I traveled home, unaware that a gift was waiting for me at home.

The gift was in the form of a message from a friend and client of mine in New Jersey by the name of Lucky P. whom I have not seen in almost 20 years.

What was funny about him calling is that I had been reminiscing a few days earlier about the great clients I have been blessed with over the years and I had named Lucky as one of my top three favorites.  This is no small feat, given that my career spans almost 30 years, covering almost all of the Fortune 50 and includes some of the most powerful and wealthiest people in the world as clients and colleagues.

And yet, several days after I have been praising this man as being extremely influential in my Life, here he is calling me because I am on his mind.  That’s the way my Life has always been – a sequence of serendipitous events that people find hard to believe until they witness it first hand. 

I called Lucky back and had the extreme delight and pleasure of getting “caught up”.  There were the usual niceties – family, career, home location, and such.

But there was an underlying theme in our conversation that took me back 20 years when I worked for Lucky and which made the last 20 years melt away.

When I worked for Lucky back in the early 90s in Neptune, New Jersey, there were a couple of things that struck me about him.

He treated everyone with deep respect.  Not just a cursory, obligatory, professional respect but a deep respect that made you feel like you mattered.

He also lived a life filled with gratitude – gratitude for his family, for his co-workers and for the abundance around him.  It was his deeply ingrained sense of gratitude for everything that opened my awareness to the importance of feeling and expressing gratitude, even in difficult times.

As I spoke to Lucky this evening, we effortlessly switched from one subject to another like it was only yesterday that we worked together.  As we did so, I noticed that the themes of respect and gratitude are still reflected in everything he thinks, says and does.

In fact, they seemed more ingrained now than ever … a true gift to have in the uncertain world that we live in.

When I worked for Lucky, the brunt of my career was still ahead of me - the difficulties, challenges, successes and victories that awaited my discovery.

But much of what guided me through those years to come was heavily influenced by people like Lucky – people who arrived at the right time in my Life and exhibited behaviors worth modeling.

And so as we talked, I was once again filled with gratitude for him and for the influence he had on my Life.

At a moment when I was ruminating over a difficult day, Lucky reappeared and again filled me with gratitude – gratitude that there are people in the world like him who remind the rest of us that respect-filled, gratitude-filled, heart-filled people still exist in the world.

Twenty years later, he is still teaching me but is probably too humble to take credit for it.

His call today reminds me of something else.

Each of us has an opportunity to change someone’s day (and maybe their Life) simply by reaching out and telling them that we are thinking of them.

We may have NO idea about the impact of such a call on the other person.

But they will know.

And that’s what matters.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

The People in Your Neighborhood

How many of you are old enough to remember the song “Who Are the People In Your Neighborhood” that was on Sesame Street years go?

And how many of you remember a movie from 2001 named K-PAX, in which Kevin Spacey plays the role of Prot, a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a distant planet by the name of K-PAX?  When the movie ends, the viewer is not sure if Prot is crazy or an actual extraterrestrial.

Both of these ideas coalesced in an unusual way as I rode a bus into downtown Calgary at 6:45 this morning when a man not dissimilar to Kevin Spacey sat down beside me.

After a few minutes and as a commuter deposited her fare into the fare box, this man looked at her, looked at me and said, quite matter-of-factly, “I am surprised that you still use money”.

In the wee hours of a commute into the city, I wasn’t sure how to respond so I took the most logical choice possible and one typical of a commuter. 

I didn’t say anything.

My choice of playing it safe was met with a question: “Why do you think that is?”

Realizing that being the quiet commuter minding my own business wasn’t going to work, I replied, “Why do I think what is?”.  Ooops .. did that sound too snappy?

“Why are you still using money?”

Not knowing if the guy was pulling my leg, looking to start a fight with a businessman representing “the system” or was experiencing a personal malfunction in some way, I responded with a comment along the lines of “What else would we use?”

What ensued in the next 30 minutes or so was an unusual conversation, freely and easily shifting subjects between money and poverty, faith and faithlessness, abundance and scarcity and love and war.

He was disarmingly easy to engage, informed, logical and insightful and I found the conversation to be intriguing and stimulating.  He had a gaze that was a little unusual – there was a fire burning inside his mind that was compelling to engage with and his eyes were the type that bore right through you.

Of all the subjects we covered, there were two things that stood out in our conversation.

At one point in the conversation, I noticed he used the “royal we” and the “royal you”, seeming to differentiate between two societies, his and mine.  There was a suggestion that “we” had figured it out while “you” would figure it out soon enough but not until “you” were forced to.  But, as he pointed out at one point, “we’re always around to help if you need it”.

Before I could ask what he meant by that, he signalled the bus driver that he wanted to get off at the next stop.  As he stood up, he looked at me and thanked me for the conversation.  He then said “You’ll find Calgary very interesting compared to New York”, wished me a good day and exited the bus.

As he left, I thought, “What made him make the connection between me and my many years in New York?”.  I don’t have a New York accent.  I didn’t mention it once in our interaction nor do I use my cellphone on the bus where someone could glean my background by overhearing a conversation or reading something over my shoulder.

“Weird”, I thought and shrugged it off.

I didn’t give it much thought until returning home on the bus this evening and he came to mind.

As I replayed our conversation in my mind, it seemed that he was suggesting that he was from a superior race to mine but at some point we would have an opportunity to catch up or learn something from them.

Uh huh.

The chances are much better that I had entertained a delusional or lonely person, perhaps with a prescription that needed to be refilled or a hunger for companionship.

I mean, if we were to be contacted by “someone” from “somewhere else”, wouldn’t it be with fireworks, brass bands and gift exchanges on the White House lawn (assuming they came in peace)?

Isn’t that the way galactic diplomacy is done?

Then I thought about something else.

Whether or not he was who he was implying to be is not important.

What is important is that in that brief 30 minutes, he challenged my way of thinking and my perception of things that we don’t put enough attention into in the course of our busy day-to-day existence.

Which reminds me that the simple and the mundane all around us can provide triggers to higher levels of thinking, thinking that can produce solutions to many of our societal challenges if we allow our minds to go where they need to go.

Or if we allow our minds to be guided as mine was today.

So was I sharing a seat with Prot who beamed back to K-PAX after leaving the bus or was I sharing time with a sad, lonely person trying to fit into our world?

Does it really matter or is it more important to consider the gift of the exchange itself, an exchange that I found enjoyable, thought-provoking and stimulating?

I think it is better to accept the gift that is offered instead of wondering about the motive of the bearer of that gift.

What do you think?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Expressions of Gratitude From Unexpected Sources

As I write this post, both of my feet are relaxing in an Epsom salt bath and I am feeling grateful that my journey of healing from a variety of injuries is nearing an end.

This has been a summer of “one thing after another”, resulting in a series of injuries that has severely impacted my mobility and reduced my personal travel to essential destinations only.

One of the places that I like to visit that has not been on my essential destination list (try as I might to prove otherwise) is the local Starbucks where I am a regular customer.

When it was noticed that I hadn’t been there for a while, I was surprised and grateful to receive emails, tweets, Facebook messages and the like from the staff of Starbucks, expressing concern over my absence and upon learning of my injuries, sending me get-well greetings and promises of “home delivery”.

How many Starbucks do you know that can provide home delivery?

I was also humbled when friends who see me at the same Starbucks noticed that I hadn’t been around for awhile and sent notes of inquiry, concern and subsequent get-well wishes.

However, what surprised me were the number of strangers who sent me similar queries, wondering where I was and expressing wishes that I would be back soon.

Many of these emails opened with lines similar to “You may not know me but … “ or “This may seem weird to you but ….”.

Now they weren’t complete strangers although I didn’t know their names until they wrote me.

They were from people I saw at Starbucks on a regular basis.

They were curious where the guy went who always had a nice word to say to their kids when standing in line, who answered occasional business advice questions they dared to ask, who always had an inspiring quotation or a word of advice when people struggled, who always sat there with his laptop and stack of books on the table and who always concluded an exchange with “create a great day”.

When the guy disappeared, they asked others in the coffee shop what the guy’s name was, looked him up on the web, found his email address and emailed him.

They wanted to reach out to say hi, to see how he was doing (or even if he was still in the area) and to express thanks in case the opportunity to meet again had passed.

And I was grateful, humbled and honored to receive their gratitude and to finally put some names with the faces.

Many of you have similar relationships with people that you don’t really know.  Maybe it’s the person you sit next to on the bus or subway for years on your way to work, the person who hands you breakfast in a drive thru window every day or the parent you see dropping off a child at a bus stop every morning.

They are the people you see, speak to and share a common experience with every day without REALLY getting to know them.

We don’t bother building deep relationships with all of them because we assume that if we were to do so, our lives would be overwhelmed with so many relationships.  Our lives are busy enough, we reason.

And besides, why bother building these relationships?  We aren’t really influencing each other anyway so why bother spending time to really get to know each other.

Not influencing each other at all … can we be so sure of that?

As I read emails from strangers expressing gratitude, I am reminded of how the little things we say or do have a larger impact on others than we realize.

Gratitude is an interesting thing.

Many of us claim to feel grateful for all the things we own, all the events we have experienced, our families,or friends, etc.

But too many of us keep our gratitude within, expressing it silently to ourselves in our thoughts, prayers or journals.  Sometimes we express it to others and then feel a little silly and make a joke about “a mushy moment”.  We may wait until an event like a birthday or other event where we can express our gratitude under the guise of the “I had to give them a gift because it was ____day”.

Gratitude kept within is all well and good.

But it has its greatest potential to make a difference in the world when it is freely shared, whether it be a kind word, a small act or some other token of appreciation.

It could be something as simple as an email from a stranger that says “thank you for your influence”.

It is not the size of the gift that is important.

It is the expression itself that matters.

William Arthur Ward once wrote:

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”

Take a moment and reach out to someone, even a complete stranger you see on a regular basis, and thank them for their influence on your Life.

At that moment, you will both be changed for the better.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS For my many friends and family in Canada, may you create a Blessed Thanksgiving this weekend, surrounded by the people who matter to you.  For my many friends and family in the US whose Thanksgiving is more than a month away, you still have much to be thankful for in a world filled with uncertainty.  Embrace it – gratitude expressed can form the foundation upon which better things can be built.

Hold On – Help is on the Way

I was reminded this past weekend of the tenuous hold we have on Life.

I was also reminded how important every minute is with the people that matter to us.

As I write this today, I am grateful that my son is alive – 48 hours ago, this mightn’t have been the case.

And as I sit here and wait for healthcare professionals to plan through next steps, I am grateful that his long term prognosis appears to be good.

48 hours ago, I wasn’t filled with gratitude.

I was filled with fear.

I was filled with grief.

I was filled with anxiety.

I was filled with anger.

My head was exploding with emotion.

But that wasn’t helping anyone, in particular my son.

It wasn’t helping me either.

In fact, it wasn’t doing anything positive for anyone.

In our personal and professional lives, we often find ourselves overwhelmed as we face decisions that impact ourselves and others or the need to understand “why” when we feel we are being crushed by the events around us.

And during those moments, we may find ourselves overwhelmed with many emotions, some that help us to survive and some that drag us down like a millstone around our neck.

Even during those moments, it is important to realize one thing.

As long as you are breathing, there is opportunity for hope.

There is opportunity for solutions.

There is opportunity for miracles.

And when you come to this realization as I did, you realize, as strange as it sounds, that you have something to be grateful for even as your world seems to be closing in around you.

Gratitude … an often overused word and yet a feeling that can provide the firm footing you need while you quiet the noise around you, giving you time to regroup.

Sometimes it is hard to find the things to be grateful for, especially in times of loss or pain.

But sometimes as the tempests blow around you, being grateful for the smallest thing can give you the glimmer of hope, the tiny seed of strength you need as you wait for the cavalry to arrive, bringing love, support and hope.

After all, if we don’t have hope that things can get better when they appear to be at their worst, what do we have at all?

If you feel pressured by the events of your Life, hold on – help is on the way.

And if you’re the cavalry, it’s time to mount up.  Someone needs your help today.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

For my Musings-in-a-Minute version of “Hold On – Help is on the Way”, please click here.

Living a life of gratitude

For my “Musings-in-a-Minute” version of this blog entry, please click here.

Positive Thinker's Club Presentation

Gratitude – Appreciating Life's Abundance Blessings

Speech – October 29, 2005

Good morning, Positive Thinkers.

There is an old Native American proverb that says that the soul would have no rainbows if the eyes had no tears

placing tissues on podium

So if anyone needs one of these, the penalty is that you must perform one random act of kindness at some point this weekend. I believe that to grow as people, we need to stretch our minds and so this morning, it is my intention to stretch your mind.

When Terri Myers approached me some time ago and asked me to present to the Positive Thinker's Club, I wasn't quite sure what topic I would speak about. One day Rowan, my better half, and I were driving along and I happened to mention how I was really grateful for something or other. She turned to me and said "Darlin', let's face facts – you are grateful for every breath you take". I asked her if I was really that bad and she gave me that look that all men dread – that look of you dare to question truth, how could you doubt what I say and all sorts of other things all wrapped up in a look that takes only a nanosecond to deliver yet has such force and meaning.

With that reminder of what seems to preoccupy much of my mind, I contacted Terry and gave her my topic "Living a Life of Gratitude – Appreciating Life's Abundant Blessings.

The word gratitude is derived from two Latin words – gratus which means pleasing or thankful and tudo which means "more at grace". We know gratitude to indicate a means of being thankful or expressing thanks.

From a young age, we are taught to say please, thank you and you’re welcome whenever we are provided the opportunity. We are told to say this because it is considered the polite thing to do. However, as our lives develop and we become immersed in the fast pace of society, these words become mechanical, as do our actions of gratitude. When our actions of gratitude become infrequent or forced, we lose sight of the blessings that we are surrounded with and in turn, miss many opportunities around us to help ourselves and to help others be the best that they can be.

Some people seem to be ungrateful for things and they believe that it is their nature to be the way they are. To those people, I share the following koan. A koan is in essence a Japanese story meant to provoke thought – many koans ask questions that have no answer. People reflect on these koans in the hope of finding an answer and if an answer is found, then they have found enlightenment.

This koan is about a young man who approached a wise elder about a temper problem that he had. He expressed a concern that this temper would do him in if he could not control it. The elder asked him to demonstrate this bad temper, to which the young man replied that he could not produce this temper spontaneously. The elder indicated that if he could not produce this bad temper at will, then it was not a natural tendency for him and therefore was something that was entirely in his power to control. I think that people who are down on life and appear to be ungrateful for Life's abundant blessings are in the same situation. The natural tendency for Life is to be abundant and the natural tendency of humans is to be grateful but because of life experiences and things that taint our perception of Life (and our perception of ourselves), we lose sight of the need or ability to be grateful for this abundance.

Too many of us accumulate regrets without knowing it. Many people examine their lives and see an accumulation of "what ifs" and "if onlys" and yet if we filled our lives with worthwhile endeavors, in examining our lives, we could at least say "I did the best I could with the time I had". I believe that by living a life of conscious awareness of being grateful for Life's abundant blessings, we fill our life with rich, powerful, positive memories and empower ourselves to reach our greatest potential.

When people get really upset about something and express the need to vent, I wonder sometimes if this also reflects a momentary lack of gratitude for the wonder of life. If we are truly grateful for every opportunity, good and bad, then we would not allow the bad opportunities to take root in our psyche and grow, causing us to develop the need to vent as often as we do.

So it is within this context of opening our eyes to the abundance and beauty of life that I share some thoughts with you today about living a life of gratitude and to appreciate life's abundant blessings. My original speech notes created a speech of at least four hours but with considerable effort, I have it down to what I will be speaking to you about today.

In the industry that I work in, our vocabulary is filled with acronyms to help make them easier to remember. I thought that the word gratitude as an acronym would serve as the perfect model to illustrate what I believe living a life of gratitude is all about in regards to appreciating life's abundant blessings.

G

The G in gratitude stands for giving before getting. Many of us in our busy lives make promises to others and ourselves that once we have attained a certain level of achievement in our life, then we will give our time and our money to others.

The unfortunate reality with this situation is that many of us become entangled in a trap of chasing the elusive "once I get there", and then once we get there, we raise the bar a little more. As we continue to fall deeper and deeper into chasing these elusive goals, we miss so many opportunities to either help others or help ourselves. Many people are afraid to give first, because they assume that this will have to come as an unrecoverable sacrifice of themselves.

However, to give unselfishly of ourselves always results in rewards that come in multiples of the efforts that we invest in others. Sometimes the rewards are immediate – the sense of gratification that we feel when we help others. Science tells us that when we do good things for others, it increases the amount of serotonin in the body, an organic neurotransmitter that influences our health, our immune system, our mood, our ability to sleep and our memory. The recipient also experiences an increase in serotonin and what's even more amazing is that an observer of an act of kindness also experiences the same increase.

Given that the giver, the recipient and the observer all obtain an immediate health benefit from giving to others, why deprive ourselves of feeling good and helping others at the same time.

Plus, when we live life where we look for opportunities to give before getting, we find ourselves living a more positive life, as we fill it with the good energy that we derive from helping others. When we fill our lives with this energy, rewards come to us in many forms, many of which we could not have anticipated.

Giving comes in many forms, the least of which is money. We can give our time, we can share our wisdom, we can give the gift of life in the form of blood donations, we can serve on the boards of charity organizations, we can share our life experiences with kids in school, we can serve in various levels of government, we can contribute time to a senior citizens home, work with groups like Habitat for Humanity. There is no end to the choices before us where we can choose to give unselfishly. When it comes to blood donations, only 4% of eligible blood donors actually donate blood yet if we live to 75, there is almost a 100% chance that each of us will use a blood product.

One thing that I love to do and which I encourage others to try are random acts of kindness. When you see an act of kindness, reward it and if you have an opportunity, perform a random, anonymous act. Sometimes it is a good word. Sometimes it is paying for the person behind you in a line. Maybe you are standing in a checkout line and the cashier is abusing each customer. Instead of anticipating your turn to be abused, put yourself in their shoes and when you have the opportunity, say a kind word. It changes everything. Compliment people when you don't need to. Write more letters complimenting staff for good service.

When I still lived in the US, I was traveling to Newfoundland to attend my sister's wedding. In Antigonish, Nova Scotia, we broke down on a Saturday afternoon and it was critical that we caught the ferry that day. I contacted the local Ford dealer and they told me to call their roadside assistance number. I told them that the purpose of that number was to locate the closest Ford dealer and being less than a kilometer away, they were it. A service consultant told me that he would stop over to have a look. He stopped by, looked at the component that had failed and told me to stay where I was (like I was going anywhere). He left and was gone for quite a while. It was past closing time at the dealership and I could not reach him there. As I sat there wondering what to do next, he pulled up in the parking lot with a mechanic. The parts that were needed would take 3 days to order so they cannibalized the only vehicle they had on the lot on their own time to get the parts that I needed. They repaired my truck and then refused payment. They would not accept payment on behalf of Ford nor would they accept any form of personal payment. When I strongly resisted this act of generosity, the salesman shook my hand and said, "Enjoy the wedding and your vacation". When I later wrote a letter complimenting this exemplary service, Ford Canada was so taken aback that at first they couldn't even classify the letter because as one person at Ford Canada told me "We can only categorize customer letters by the nature of the complaint".

When our life journey has come to an end, we can look back and realize that our life was so much more enriched by taking the initiative to give before getting, rather than wait for the right moment. The number of people who benefited from our unselfish giving will be far more than had we waited for that perfect moment.

R

The R in gratitude represents responsibility to ourselves, those around us and to our environment. People routinely tell their children that if they do not take care of a toy, then they are showing that they are not grateful for it and possibly don't deserve it.

By the same token, we have a moral and ethical obligation to help others be the best that they can be, provided they actually want or need the help. If they do not want or need the help, we have an equal responsibility to give them the space that they need to explore their own world in their own way.

Just as we have a responsibility to others, we also show gratitude by being responsible towards ourselves. Our minds and our bodies are living miracles and to not take care of and nurture those miracles is to not be grateful for the wonderful gifts that we have each been given. We are blessed with the opportunity and pleasure to explore and savor life and to not take care of the physical body that provides us with that opportunity is to not be grateful for those opportunities.

Responsibility as a means of showing gratitude is also reflected in our responsibility towards our environment. If we are truly grateful for the beautiful world that we live in, why do we continue to abuse it and pollute it? If we are truly deserving of the earth and wish to show that we are grateful for the paradise that it is, then we have a responsibility to take care of it.'

Responsibility towards others comes in many forms. We often don't show the necessary responsibility towards others because we think we are butting in or intruding upon someone's life or in some situations, to do so might make us look silly or stupid. Sometimes we need to take action when we know it is the right thing to do, even if we don't know why at the moment.

As some of you know, I am embroiled in a large international fraud trial in New York Supreme Court. As key witness for the prosecution, I alternate between being perceived as everyone's best friend and everyone's worst enemy. I have had death threats against myself and my family and I have been offered the most incredible bribes. On Wednesday, August 10th, I was driving up through Topsail when I received a call on my cell phone from one of the parties in the case. I wanted to concentrate on the call, so I pulled over on Topsail Beach to take it.

For the hour that I was on the call, I could not believe how Life was so complicated and how I had allowed myself to get caught up in such a mess. During that hour, I kept noticing a lady in a red car to my left who was crying profusely, with her head in her hands.

When I was finished with the call and wondering what could make my day darker, I started my truck and drove away. When I drove about 150 feet or so, I had a feeling that something wasn't right, so I turned around and went back to the red car.

I walked over to the driver's side and tapped on the glass. Now you can imagine someone 6 foot three with dark glasses on, approaching you in a remote area. The lady opened the window about an inch and I asked her if she was ok. She indicated that she was fine. I told her that from where I stood, she did not appear to be fine at all. I also told her that however dark Life appeared to her at that moment, it was in fact filled with love for her and that if she could see that, she would find the way out of the darkness that she saw. She thanked me and I walked away. As I got back to my truck, I thought "Nope, that's still not good enough". I turned around, went back and gave her my name and phone number on a piece of paper. I told her to call anytime and that there were lots of people out there who could help her find the light that she needed. She thanked me again and I left.

A week later, almost to the hour, I was driving past the same spot and realized that my cell phone wasn't on. I turned it on and it promptly told me that I had a message. I pulled over and listened to the message, a message so profound that I couldn't speak so I silently passed the phone to Rowan so she could listen to it.

It was a message left at 1:20 that morning. It was clear by the message from the mysterious lady I had met a week earlier, that while I had been wondering why my Life was so complicated, Lynn, as the caller identified herself, was contemplating why Life was worth living. It appeared that my spontaneous act had interrupted plans that would probably have had a much darker result had I not spoken to her.

She indicated in her message that my act of compassion and kindness would stay with her forever and I suspect that she will pass this compassion and kindness on to others. When my day is difficult I replay her message to help put my day back into perspective. My act of going over to speak to her had caused her to rethink her actions, to change her perception of the world and to see the beauty in Life. In return, her act of calling me to thank me caused me to change my perception of my world, putting my court case in much clearer perspective. When you change how you look at things, the things you look at change.

When you have a chance to exercise your obligation of responsibility to yourself and others, take it. You may not know until days, months or years down the road what a positive impact you had.

A

That story takes me to the A in gratitude, representing our attitude towards everything, the fact that our world is very much what we perceive it to be. If we assume that our world is filled with problems, evils, hate and impossible challenges, then we are right. Conversely, if we believe that our world is filled with beauty, opportunity and infinite love, then we are also right.

How is it that people with the same opportunities, in the same country, sometimes from the same family and the same environment, live life with completely different results? If we examine their perceptions of their world, we find that in most situations, they have created the world that they expected. Many people get angry if they are told this, because it is easier to always blame someone else, or an external factor of some kind. It is far easier to be a victim and to be swept away by the tide of bad luck and misfortune. Being a victim takes no effort at all. Unfortunately, being a victim drains the energy out of many people, not only the victim themselves.

If we look at the lives of successful or happy people, we discover that many of them overcame very serious challenges in their lives in order to get where they are. Some of the most brilliant minds in business never graduated or even attended college. Many came from financially challenged backgrounds. People who excel in a number of areas, including sports and the arts, overcame physical and mental challenges to reach a potential that many of us believe is unattainable for ourselves. It all comes down to attitude.

In November of 2004, I founded a group in Newfoundland called Freecycle that encourages community gifting while keeping things out of landfill. There is a member of that group who could be what we would term a product of the system. He was a resident of Mount Cashel and Emmanuel House. He lived on the streets in Toronto and Vancouver. He endured mental, physical and emotional hardship beyond levels most of us would be able to deal with. His wife is also physically disabled.

For many of us, this sounds like the perfect recipe to be a victim, another person who yells out to the system "Take care of me – I am unable to take care of myself because of everything done to me". I would even suggest that people who want to be a victim in this way are not grateful for or don't see the opportunities that are around them. But he doesn't want to do this. As a matter of fact, he is using his history as an impetus to make a positive difference to those around him. He is setting up a not-for-profit company to collect used computer parts and software so that he can refurbish them and provide them free of charge to needy families.

So his perception of the world, despite everything that he has experienced, is that the world is filled with opportunities to do good things and so that is how he is living his life. When I asked him about his motivational reasons, he shared a number of observations. Allow me to quote him " I feel blessed with the wealth of a good heart and soul. I believe that all good things that are worthwhile come on the heels of struggle and the strong will to persevere, to take hardship and turn it into opportunity not just for ones self but for others who are in the same situation or who have been in that situation. I want to give something to this world even if its a safer and cleaner environment, to bring resources and knowledge to people who may not have the means to do so; to show those who struggle everyday including myself and my family that someone else has taken inspiration from that struggle to make the world just a little bit better of a place in which to live."

THAT, is a positive attitude about perceiving the world in the best way possible despite the circumstances.

There is another Japanese koan that I always liked about perception. There was a traveling monk who approached a monastery one day looking for shelter. As was the custom in those days, if the visitor could defeat the host in a wordless debate, the visitor could have food and shelter for the night.

Two brothers, an educated one who was the older of the two and the other who had no education and with only one eye ran this particular monastery. The educated of the two said he was too tired and so he told his brother to engage with the visitor.

Some time later, the visitor ran into the room where the older brother sat and said quickly that he couldn't stay because his brother was so brilliant that the visitor was not worthy of them. Intrigued by this, the educated brother asked him to explain.

The visitor said "We sat and stared at each other for a while. I held up one finger to indicate there was only the Buddha. Your brother held up two fingers, signifying the Buddha and his teachings. I held up three fingers, meaning that there is the Buddha, his teachings and his followers. Your brother held up his fist, showing that it is only through the combination of all can we find true enlightenment. When I realized his brilliance, I left him and came to tell you that I could not stay". With that, the visitor stood up, bowed and left the room.

A couple of minutes later, the younger brother ran into the room, demanding to know where the visitor was. "He left", his brother said, "why are you so angry?"

"Well, when we sat down, he held up one finger, poking fun at the fact that I had one eye. I held up two fingers, indicating that he should be thankful that he has two eyes. He held up three fingers, indicating that between us, we have three eyes. I made a fist to strike him and the infidel fled the room."

So as you can see, the slightest perception change on our part changes the meaning of our very existence and indeed, the results that we produce.

T

The first T in gratitude represents time and how we choose to invest it and spend it. Time, in my opinion, is one of the most valuable things that we have, right behind Life itself and unconditional love. The reason I believe this is because we are all born with a finite amount of time allotted to us, we don't know how much we have left and once spent, time can never be recovered.

Given that time is so valuable, one of the means by which we express gratitude towards Life is to spend our time wisely. To spend it wisely is to invest it in ourselves and those around us.

We often spend time frivolously on things that do not contribute anything in a positive way. It is always nice to spend a little downtime once in a while, but when it becomes a habit to waste such an incredible gift, we are not being grateful for the precious gift that we have been given.

One of the things I noticed when I lived and worked in the New York City area was how fast time moves. Life down there is a fast-paced, grab at it and hold on for dear life ride. It is a life dedicated to winning the rat race, making the most money, and climbing the career or social ladder the fastest. Given how important climbing the career ladder seems to be, you never hear someone on their deathbed lamenting that they didn't spend enough time in the office. We need to be more appreciative of time with our children, with our families, with our friends and with nature. We need to make sure that we savor those moments, to be in the now of a moment and not be existing in one moment while being consumed by worry or thoughts about a future or past moment. When we are in the now, we are expressing our gratitude for the moment that is now. In fact, I would suggest that we are not worthy of the moment if we don't appreciate it. How many times do we look back at our past and regret not appreciating some moment or having taken advantage of an opportunity to do something, to be with someone or to have done the right thing? At least if we do our best to appreciate what is in the now, then we have a much better chance of minimizing regrets of looking at the past and seeing opportunities missed. If you're lucky and you make the most out of every moment, you can look back on your life and marvel at how busy and treasure-filled your life experiences were.

Sometimes we need reminders of how much time we have left and that reminds us of its value. In March of 1996, I was told that I had non Hodgkin's lymphoma and that I had 3 months to live. It's rough news when you are 31 and you realize that the important things that many of us take for granted were to be denied me, kids going to college, kids getting married, having kids of their own and many other wonders. I always knew how important time was, but when you know you have 3 months left, you sure figure out how to prioritize. I've never forgotten the need to revisit my life priorities every day. I hope everyone here cherishes their time without the need for such reminders.

I

The I in gratitude represents involvement in our community. We often lament about how we don't like how our world is evolving. We complain that there are not enough things for kids to do, our politicians don't understand our needs, our town has too much garbage blowing around, our province never gets the recognition it deserves, our country never gets the respect it should and our world is being destroyed by pollution.

Yet for all that we complain about, we don't do anything about it. It is easy to be an armchair quarterback, citing all the reasons why other people are letting us down. However, if we choose to do nothing to improve the conditions that we are complaining about, then in some ways, we are almost as guilty as those that we blame for the issues in the first place.

Involvement in our community shows that we are grateful for what we have and we are grateful for the opportunity to make it even better. I salute people who perform public service in elected office (and there are people here today who have served or are serving in publicly elected office). I salute people who serve tirelessly on boards of charitable organizations or church boards – there are many people here today who do this also. Many parents contribute by getting involved with their children's schools or by participating in youth groups such as Girl Guides, Boy Scouts, cadets and children's sports.

People who serve the community in groups such as Kinsmen, Rotary, the Lions Club, the Shriners and other groups like these also recognize a higher calling to serve their community. As I mentioned earlier, there are an infinite number of choices, one guaranteed to fit our interests, our available time and our ability.

When we serve in groups such as these, we must also recognize the higher calling to encourage more people to get involved. Our society is desperate for more people to get involved to make a difference – the minority of people are carrying the load in terms of contributing to our society in this way.

We often say we are too busy to get involved yet we find time to do things of no value to others or ourselves. We possibly assume that there are enough people already involved – there aren't.

T

The second T in gratitude represents thankfulness for everything. Everything before us is a gift, something to be cherished. We live in a part of the world blessed with abundance on every level – food, water, shelter, life's frills, employment opportunities, nature's beauty. Who could deny that we aren't incredibly blessed? Who hasn't walked into a supermarket at some point and looked around in wonder and gratitude for the incredible blessings of abundance all around us. We not only have our choice of what we want but in many variations and in infinite quantity. We have what 85% of the world cannot even dream of.

There are people out there who complain about this, that or the other thing. It is my experience that the people who complain the most haven't experienced the rest of the world that they perceive is so much better, the classic "the grass is always greener on the other side". Perhaps if they saw more of the world, then they would appreciate what they have here.

Newfoundland is a perfect example. If you listen to the call in radio programs, you would swear that this place that we love is a terrible place filled with corruption, incompetence, oppression, lost opportunity, lack of business, unacceptable healthcare and a hopeless education system. You name it and we suffer from it. Yet, if we could somehow send those people away to another part of the world, I don't think it would take long before they came to appreciate this beautiful place that we call home. That's not to say everything is perfect – but we have a pretty good head start.

I once worked with a team member in New York City who represented everything positive when it came to thankfulness. Narender had immigrated to the United States to follow his dreams. He married a beautiful woman and had a wonderful home in New Jersey. When he and I worked together, he never had a bad word to say about anyone, although he did teach me how to swear in Hindi. He looked at life with wonder and it was clear from his actions that he was in awe and in a perpetual state of gratitude for everything he had.

To give you an idea of how pure he was, for fun one time, we put a small porno movie in the upper corner of the software application we were building and we asked him to review our software to find a "problem" that we had discovered.

As he stared at all the screens, we stood behind him almost shaking with laughter, waiting for him to find it. All of a sudden he turned around with pride and said, pointing to the screen, "this word is not spelled correctly". He was right. He never even noticed the porn movie until we pointed it out and then we all had a good laugh.

We organized a corporate chess tournament and he signed up with many others. It wasn't until the tournament started that I discovered that he didn't even know how to play chess. So we patiently taught him and despite our best efforts, he was soundly trounced in every game.

I noticed that the more soundly he was beaten, the more he laughed. At one point, I took him aside and congratulated him for such a healthy outlook and I asked him how he was able to be so happy as he was beaten over and over.

His response summed up thankfulness perfectly. He told me that he didn't care about winning or losing. Spending time in the chess tournament was his way of learning something new and spending quality time with people he enjoyed being with and he respected. He also enjoyed taking his chess stories home and sharing them with his wife. This he said was the secret of life – making the most out of every moment and appreciating every opportunity.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Narender was on the impact floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center and a person who lived such a pure, positive life was physically taken from us.

For about a week afterward, we struggled with trying to understand the meaning of this, how something like this could happen to someone we considered a perfect human being. I then realized that I wasn't going to remember Narender in the way he died – it was how he lived that was important for his memory.

So we organized an annual charity chess tournament and named it in his honor. To play in this tournament, each player pays an entry fee and names a children's charity that he or she is playing for. We have had players from around the world. The top 4 players in the tournament divide 100% of the prize pool between their charities, with all the proceeds going to the charities that they were playing for. Since then, our tournament has donated thousands of dollars to children's charities. Narender's spirit of eternal thankfulness continues to make a difference every year in the lives of sick and needy children.

Narender's attitude was that we should accept that life is filled with good and bad. It's how thankful we are for everything that we are given and what we do with what we are given is what determines the quality of our life and the lives of those around us. He was right.

U

Understanding is what the U in gratitude represents. Understanding ourselves, understanding others and understanding our role here on earth. As far as understanding ourselves is concerned, many of us need to work harder at accepting ourselves for the beautiful people that we are. It is important to realize that understanding and knowing are not the same thing at all. It is understanding and not knowing that leads to action.

We need to spend more time developing our individual gifts and less time worrying about what others think of us. I told someone this once and they asked me what would happen to the world if everyone did whatever they wanted to do and my reply was that we would have a lot more bad poets.

We need to love ourselves more and in doing so, we open ourselves to loving others and being loved. When we fail to understand ourselves for being the miracles that each one of us is, then we lose sight of our own incredible potential. We also tend to look at others with less understanding, tolerance and appreciation than we should because we are in fact projecting our lack of understanding of ourselves onto others.

When we put more effort into understanding the reason why others act as they do, then we open ourselves up to being more positive, grateful human beings. If we remove the ego component and not react instantly to negative actions of someone else but instead, choose to understand the actions first, we save ourselves a lot of extra negative energy that can result if we are too hasty. We get upset when someone else judges us without understanding our situation yet we do the same thing.

Once we accept that our role here on earth is to help each other reach our fullest potential, we start looking for ways to help others reach that potential, just as others try to help us reach our fullest potential. When everyone is in synch bringing everyone and everything around them to new heights of success and achievement, then the world becomes a better place.

However, when we lose sight of our understanding of our role here on earth and we allow ego to intrude, we tend to strive towards personal achievement or victory at any expense. Many times the cost is great and can never be undone, including poor personal health, destroyed families, ruined friendships and relationships and an ecology left in tatters.

D

Diligence is the D in gratitude. In the fast paced world that we live in, it is not easy to live a life of gratitude without effort. Every one of us, no matter how enlightened we are and how grateful we are for everything, experience moments when our belief system is challenged and we question why we should be grateful for something that we are not particularly happy about.

What is necessary in moments like this is the diligence to push through the challenge and to look for the positive in a given situation. Sometimes we have to exercise diligence on someone else's behalf to help them see the positive in a situation.

If we do not demonstrate diligence to try to reap a positive message out of a negative situation, then we are telling Life that we are not grateful for the opportunity to learn something new or to stretch ourselves in some way. If we do this enough times, we start to change our perception of Life and to start questioning why Life is always stepping on us. If we continue to work on understanding Life's lessons and working hard to improve ourselves based on the challenge at hand, especially when times are difficult, then we accumulate more coping skills for the next challenge and find that Life rewards us as a result of the learning experience, something that we are in turn grateful for.

E

The E in gratitude represents enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for everything in life. Enthusiasm for every experience, every opportunity to share and every opportunity to learn.

If you observe successful people, one of the things you will notice is their infectious enthusiasm for everything. Every problem is a challenge to be solved with a reward to be reaped. They constantly see opportunities to share ideas and opportunities with others. Nothing stops them. They follow the old adage that failure only occurs when you refuse to get up after having been knocked down.

When you are enthusiastic about life, opportunities open as if by magic. The more you appreciate Life, the more Life rewards you. The more you appreciate and are grateful for what you have, the more Life offers you. If you want a great example of this, follow the model of the globetrotting grannies. These two young ladies are proof that when you set your mind to something, Life rewards you with rich, wonderful experiences.

An exercise that I like to do that I find makes gratitude for everything around me really come alive is a nightly review of what I am grateful for. Every night before I go to bed, I think about the things that happened that day that I was really grateful for, memories that came to mind that I am grateful for or lessons learned. I write these down on an index card that has the date of the week on it. At the end of the week, I file that card and start a fresh one. As you start to accumulate these cards, you are reminded of how many things that exist that you are truly grateful for. It has a snowball effect in that the more you become aware of in terms of things to be grateful for, the more grateful you become. People who lose sight of what they have to be grateful for tend to overlook opportunities for gratitude all around them.

Rowan and I also perform a similar exercise every autumn. We buy some of those fabric, yellow or red leaves, and we write on each one, something we are thankful for. Every year, we joke that there won't be enough room to contain everything we appreciate. We arrange these leaves on a wreath and hang it in a place of prominence in the house and leave it there for about a month. It always draws people into interesting conversations when they see it. When we take the wreath down, we put the leaves in a dated envelope and keep them. It will be interesting to review those leaves in the future or to leave them to our kids and for them to reflect on what appeared to be important to us at the time.

I printed a small card that I would like to offer each of you today that you can use as a bookmark, you can carry it in your wallet, you can scrape frost off your side view mirrors or whatever else you would like to do with it.

On one side, I have listed the terms that I associate with gratitude. On the other side, I outlined 5 ways of staying happy. For those, I would like to thank Shirley Hong, a person who lives a very positive life and who provided these to me.

On one side, the backdrop is a butterfly. The reason I chose a butterfly was to remind us of the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect states that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in the eastern hemisphere is amplified through various natural events to eventually become a hurricane in the western hemisphere. Just as this is the case, I would suggest that a positive act or an act reflecting your gratitude for life is amplified as it is passed from one person to another. So when you perform a good act for someone else, they in turn, empowered by the positive energy, will perform one or more positive acts for others, who in turn will do the same. So the butterfly reminds us about the power of a single act of gratitude.

On the other side of the card, I used the image of a water droplet hitting the surface of the water and spreading in all directions. In a similar vein to the butterfly effect, every positive action that we perform, every positive thought that we have, every act of gratitude that we show, spreads good, positive energy equally in all directions. Others who experience this will in turn perform their own acts that will cause positive energy to radiate from them. There is no limit to how far this positive energy will expand.

I mentioned earlier that it is my belief that time is one of the most valuable gifts that someone can give someone else. You have just given me an hour of your time and for that, I am extremely grateful. I would like to close with some beautiful words from a wise but anonymous person.

Be Thankful

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire,
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something
For it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations
Because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge
Because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary
Because it means you've made a difference.

It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who arealso thankful for the setbacks.

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can become your blessings.

Thank you.

Here are images of the gratitude card that I created and distributed for the presentation.




Originally posted on my blog on June 22nd, 2007.

Yours in service, servanthood and gratitude.

Harry

For my “Musings-in-a-Minute” version of this blog entry, please click here.