Prejudice

Prejudice takes many forms. People discriminate on the basis of race, skin color, religion, ethnicity, social status, age and, yes, gender.

I grew up being angry about gender bias. It still makes my blood boil to hear fundamentalists from my religion, Christians, Jews, Muslims, and all the rest relegate women to a second-class status.

My reasons for feeling this way are very personal. I was raised by a single mother. She worked hard to make a living for her mother and three children. Can you imagine how livid I was to learn that my mother made less money than her male counterparts simply because she was female? I grew up thinking that right is right, wrong is wrong, and this was wrong!

Prejudice, regardless of what form it takes, is wrong, and we all need to become less and less tolerant of it.

Trustworthy Friends

Let me tell you a secret. Many of the people in prominent roles around you are not nearly as confident as they appear to be.

What are we to do when we are nervous and afraid? Whom can we talk to about our doubts and uncertainties? We cannot talk to our competitors, they will come in for the kill. We can't talk to our customers, they will bail on us. We shouldn't tell our problems to the employees, they will lose confidence in us.

Many of the leaders you think have their act together are just faking it. They are swans. They look cool and calm on the outside, but, underneath, they are paddling furiously for survival.

Everyone needs three or four trustworthy friends with whom they can bare their souls, tell everything to. It feels scary at first, but, trust me, you cannot get along without it.

What You Think of Me

I have a friend who is fond of saying, "What you think of me is none of my business." In other words, don't try to find out what others think of you and when you do find out, don't let it define you.

That's easier said than done. Each of us has engaged in impression management, whether we admit it or not. Some of us try to appear to be better than we are. Others seek to appear worse, but we care what others think of us.

The problem with impression management is that it is a trap. We end up losing touch with our true selves and we don't even know it. We think we actually are the character we have chosen to play.

Somehow we have to find a way to get to know our true selves and learn to live as authentically as possible. Then we can say with my friend, "What you think of me is none of my business."

Jazz Music

Do you like jazz music? Some people say it was the first truly American form of music.

In order to have a jazz band, you have to have two agreements. First, there has to be an agreement about who the lead is. Second, each musician has to have the freedom to improvise.

Every jazz concert is unique, because no one is sure how the music will come out. The band members are not playing off a musical score. They are making it up as they go along, so every presentation is an event which has never happened before and will never happen again.

Jazz music can either be magical or it can be chaotic. The outcome is dependent upon the musical participants following the leader and using their freedom to support the group. So it is with life.

Resiliency

I like the story of the farmer whose mule accidentally fell into an empty abandoned well. The farmer felt sad. He loved the mule, but there was no hope of his being able to pull the creature to safety. He decided to bury the mule alive, filling in the well with dirt.

Well, as the farmer shoveled in the dirt, the old mule shook it off and stepped on it. He kept doing it until he eventually stepped out of the well.

Along the way, you are going to have something bad happen. You are going to feel like you have fallen into a well. There will be people who give up on you. They will throw dirt on top of you, but just shake it off and keep looking higher and moving upward.

Everyone fails or goes through hard times. It is whether or not you have a quality called resiliency that makes the difference in life, in surrender, and survival.

Answers

There was time when I had an answer to every question about God. I felt like I had to have an answer. People expected it of me. I was their pastor. I was supposed to be a fount of wisdom, a tower of knowledge.

I spent countless hours coming up with answers to every conceivable question; including questions no one was asking. After all, they might ask. I had a lust for certainty.

One day it occurred to me that I did not believe all my answers. That's when my carefully constructed answers started falling apart.

In its place, the Almighty One gave me a profound revelation that has brought great peace to my heart: I do not have to have an answer to every question.

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie was an immigrant from Scotland. When he arrived in this country in 1848, he was penniless. His first job was a bobbin boy in a cotton mill making $1.20 per week. By the time he died in 1919, he was one of the wealthiest men in the world.

Someone asked him what he would do if he lost all his wealth. His reply was classic: "If you took away all my money, but left me the people with whom I worked, I could rebuild my empire very quickly."

Carnegie knew that the keys to his success were his compatriots, his partners, his co-laborers. He clearly understood they were the key factors in his success.

Don't try to go it alone. You need people around you who you know you can count on; people you believe in and people who believe in you.