by dan robling
The following speech is delivered to 400/750 high school students weekly. Yesterday it was given to five classes (150 students) at a local high school. Three of the classes responded with generous applause. Three seniors came up to me and hugged me as they thanked me for the speech. Two individual students came to me and said, "What you said today will change my life forever. Thank you for sharing your story with us." ……………………………………………………………………………………………..
I am here today to share a quotation from C.W. Buecher with you and explain how applying the concepts, contained in the quote, can help you become personally and professionally successful. The quote is: "People will forget what you said. They may forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel."
I grew up in the inner city of a large metropolitan area. It was not a nice way to live. It was a terrible way to grow up. It was a violent place. The violence was horrible. Even though being violent was contrary to my nature, it was necessary to do violent things to survive in that environment. Ever-prevalent poverty was unacceptable to me. I did not really view it as poverty. I just thought we were broke. I viewed poverty as a permanent state of mind. Being broke was a temporary condition that I could and would fix eventually. The concept of being either poor or broke was totally unacceptable to me.
While attending the eighth grade, I devised a plan for getting out of the inner city permanently. The plan was very simple. I was not capable of developing a complicated plan at the age of thirteen. Preparation for plan implementation included meeting as many people as possible. It required being where things were happening and meeting people of all stations of life.
There were two simple strategies included in my plan. The first strategy required meeting and observing successful people. I would look for common characteristics shared by them. Being highly successful, by my definition, did not mean achieving the ability to pay large house and car payments. Success was not about a "big year or five years." Success for me meant being effective over the course of a lifetime. As I detected common characteristics among successful people, I would embrace those characteristics and assimilate them into my evolving adult personality. My hope was that sharing common characteristics with successful people would facilitate my success.
The second strategy was to observe total "losers." I would try to identify unique characteristics shared by losers and make sure to never embrace or emulate them.
The first vivid impression that evolved as my plan was being implemented was the vast difference between the behaviors of successful people and losers. They shared little more than their humanity. 'They did not act, think, or respond to other people in similar ways.
The second discovery was that most of the people who were highly effective, over the course of a lifetime, were sensitive to how they made other people feel. This characteristic made sense to me. When we respond positively and in a supportive manner to what other people are feeling, they will like us. If they like us, they will become our friends. They will hire us, give us raises, promote us, work for us, and buy what we have to sell. They will vote for us and if there are enough of them THEY will make us successful.
I eventually got a job running a machine in a large factory owned by the world's fifth largest corporation. The job was a "big deal" for a guy from the old neighborhood. The pay has fantastic! I was paid $2.57 per hour, overtime pay, health insurance, and life insurance. It was also an opportunity for implementing my plan for success. I responded to what my peers were feeling in an empathetic and supportive manner. I treated the people for whom I worked the same way.
Guess what! They liked me! Within five weeks, I was promoted to an office job. Approximately five years later, I was an executive. A few years later, I was leading some the worlds largest manufacturing operations. By the time I was fifty-three, it was no longer necessary for me to work another day of my life. At the age of fifty-four, I decided to retire.
Before submitting a retirement notice, my employer provided a timely assignment. I was assigned, along with a team of respected associates, to the dream assignment for a manufacturing executive. We were told to build the world's latest, greatest, state of the art, manufacturing plant. The plant would produce automatic transmissions for the 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee. We were required to complete the plant within two years. The entire project could not exceed one billion - four hundred million dollars. The initial product launch must occur in 1997 to provide transmissions for endurance and process testing. Missing the timing and budget requirements would be interpreted as failure.
We accepted the challenge. We traveled throughout the industrialized world visiting some of the world's best manufacturing plants. We observed best technologies, organizational cultural concepts, and management practices.
We proceeded to build the plant, develop the processes, purchase the manufacturing equipment, install the equipment, hire the employees, train the employees and launch the plant.
After our objectives for the assignment were met, I realized that I had achieved everything professionally that was included in my plan. My eighth-grade plan had worked! All of my financial objectives were met as well. The realization became clear that another dollar or another million dollars would not contribute one whit of additional happiness to my life. I decided to retire.
I had to make a decision as to what I should do with the rest of my life at the age of fifty-six. I thought about the old neighborhood and how wonderfully I had been blessed throughout the years. I felt an obligation to give thanks for my many blessings by dedicating the rest of my life to my religion and my community. You are my community. My life is now, in part, dedicated to each of you.
As news spread of my retirement, a university asked if I would be interested in teaching in their Business graduate degree programs. They asked me to teach because they believed that my business experience, academic achievements, and sensitivity to others would contribute positively to the learning experiences of evolving business leaders. It seemed like a wonderful opportunity to share this story. I could share successful strategies with the students and also help them learn from some of my professional failures.
I taught on campus for Indiana Wesleyan University for a year. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. At the end of the year, we decided to move here to Scottsdale. We wanted to be near our only daughter and grandchild. Our daughter had moved here twenty years before to attend Arizona State University. She loved the Valley of the Sun so much, she did not return to the land of snowy winters. A vice-president from IWU contacted a vice-president of Grand Canyon University here in Phoenix. He recommended that GCU should use me in their College of Business. I taught International Business at GCU for a year. At the end of the GCU school year, I received a request from IWU to become one of the charter professors in the launch of their online MBA program.
I accepted the challenge. My ownership in an early internet service provider company was good preparation for such an adventure. My new classroom would be expanded with worldwide opportunities for helping more developing business leaders. Teaching worldwide is exciting and interesting. One of my recent students was living in Kuwait. I am constantly learning from my students. The online forum for teaching provides great flexibility for time-management. I am free to be involved in other community and religious activities.
During our first year here in Scottsdale, I frequently heard about a critical shortage of substitute teachers in the public school district. My teenage son and teenage grandson were constantly telling me how mean and stupid their teachers are, how mean and unruly the students are, and how vicious and unfair the school administrators are to students. I decided that, with my new flexible teaching schedule, there would be time to answer the call for substitute teachers. It would provide an opportunity to help teachers and students while analyzing the school system from within. If the system were truly bad, I would organize and lead a political movement to change it.
Last year I taught all grades including kindergarten through twelfth-grade. It was a wonderful learning experience. Learning, by the way, is part of my daily life-plan. I try to make one person's life better and learn something new each day. It is not an ambitious plan. After all, I am sixty-one now. It is achievable though even for this "old" person. I met many terrific teachers and administrators last year. I also met many wonderful students. Some of you are more wonderful than others. Some of you are just beginning to work on becoming wonderful. I have confidence that you will all achieve being wonderful eventually.
We live in a time and place where being "cool" involves dividing ourselves into little groups. Each group has an agenda. Each agenda includes doing and saying cruel things to people in other groups. It is cool to be insensitive to people who of different religions, color, national origins, gender, are fat, ugly, have zits, or are poor. Listen closely to me! This is the definition of a loser! Losers are insensitive to others.
You must soon make a decision. You must decide whether you will become a successful achieving adult or spend your life as a loser. If you embrace the "cool" agenda, you will be a loser for life. On the other hand, if you try to respond positively to the feelings of everybody you encounter every day of your life, I promise that you will be successful. You will build a network of friends that will make you successful in every way.
I have told you all of this "stuff" about myself for a reason. I want you to understand that I could be anywhere in the world today doing virtually anything I want to do because I have the time and the money to do so. I chose to be here with you sharing this quotation. I think it is the most important thing I should be doing today. If you listen, understand, and apply the lesson of this quote you too will become personally and professionally successful. By the way, the people I have learned from and emulated were the happiest people I have ever known. Happiness is the truest measure of success. I know, because I am probably the happiest person you will ever meet.
"People will forget what you said. They may forget what you did. But, they will never forget how you made them feel."
Dan Robling 2001