To answer this, let’s look at an example from World War II—when my neighbor trained to parachute from a C-47. Despite the fact that he would be plummeting only once, he told me that the instructor had his undivided attention. Later when he packed his parachute, he meticulously followed every instruction. When he finally made the leap, he followed his training instructions to the T.

I use this example because it clearly demonstrates two critical factors in any transfer of learning. First, my neighbor’s life depended on his ability to implement what he had learned, so he did his best to do exactly as instructed. He was motivated. Second, he knew exactly when and where he’d bring his new skills into play. It’s not hard to recognize that you’re staring out of a hole in the plane and it’s now time to put your parachuting skills into play.

A great deal has been said about how to build motivation into training, so let’s examine what is often the bigger and more stubborn issue—not knowing when and where to bring training skills into play.

Contrast parachuting instructions with corporate learning. Much of the content participants learn in corporate classrooms prepares them to deal with events that spring up spontaneously, emotionally, and unannounced. Training topics such as conflict resolution or meeting management require participants to apply what they learned on the fly. When it’s time to implement their new skills, trainees don’t walk up to an open C-47 hatch and stare out onto France. Instead, the call to action sneaks up on them (often in the form of an emotional outburst) and they’re caught by surprise.

Consider Melinda, a design engineer who has just finished a conflict resolution course. Later that week she’s talking with a coworker who suddenly becomes hostile. The good news is that Melinda studied exactly how to deal with this situation. The bad news is that she falls back into her old habits. When you ask her why she failed to implement what she had learned, she cries: “I didn’t even think about what I had learned. I was caught off guard!”

What happened to Melinda? An old stimulus led to an old response. To break long-held habits, we have to find ways to connect old stimuli to new responses. For example, imagine that you’re training women how to avoid an assault, what can you do to break old and unsafe habits? In traditional self-defense seminars, trainers warn women to never put themselves into a situation where they’re alone with a strange man. This advice seems to be just what the doctor ordered. Participants are warned well in advance of exactly what to look for so they won’t be caught by surprise. But is this enough?

To see if these traditional warnings work, a group of researchers approached women who were walking to their car immediately following self-defense training. To manipulate the trainees, the researchers walked up to the subjects and asked them to help “videotape an advertisement” on the dangers of smoking. Wanting to help out, each of the women climbed into the “media van” with a strange man.

The researchers then chastise the subjects for stupidly getting caught alone with a stranger, and as you might suspect, each admits that she knew better. The person conducting the experiment then turns to the camera (it’s all being taped for a TV special) and begs women not to be so naïve.

As you watch this frightening scenario you think: What’s wrong with these people? On the other hand, as you muse over the fact that not a single person avoided the trap, you’re forced to ask, what’s wrong with the training? Harsh warnings followed by indignant finger wagging certainly didn’t work.

So, what does it take to prepare participants who face unexpected and emotional cues? How do you link old stimuli to new responses?

Place Visual Markers

Scientists who design stress-training learned a long time ago that the very things that cause stress don’t remind people to use the stress techniques they learn. To deal with this “hidden stimulus” problem, trainers now encourage participants to place a small red sticker at locations where they are likely to feel stress. For instance, people who become uptight in traffic jams place them on the steering wheel. Others learn to put stickers on the phone where they often get into heated arguments. If you know where the skills you’re training will be required, place visual markers that warn: Be careful, you may soon need to call on your newly learned skill.

Identify the Entry Condition

When teaching human interaction skills, you can’t exactly place a red sticker on, say, your boss’s forehead. Instead, focus on the condition that calls each new skill into action. Never separate the skill from the call to action. When you’re showing video examples, first show the stimulus or entry condition, and then show the response.

Clarify Details

Don’t assume that a statement such as “Never be alone with a stranger” is readily understood. Explore each element in detail. For instance, what do you mean by the term “alone”? You’re walking down a busy street in a strange city at night. You turn a corner and suddenly you’re all by yourself. Someone could spring out from behind a dumpster and now you’re “alone with a stranger.” The hair should stand up on your neck when you experience being alone in a new and dark place. That’s the “alone” you’re talking about and the “alone” others need to fear. It may sound silly to suggest that you have to instruct what you mean by common terms, but you do.

Use Contrasting

Finally, explain what you don’t mean. For instance, with children you have to teach that the “stranger” they should never be alone with is not likely to be a big, scary, ugly person holding a gun. The stranger could be a kind neighbor who is going to ask you to help find his lost doggy. Obviously the same technique applies to adults. A stranger is not just a frightening fellow with bolts screwed into his head; it’s the friendly guy asking you to step into the “media van.”

In summary, be aware of the fact that you’re often training people to enact skills that don’t make it out of the classroom because the cue to use them isn’t obvious. The call to action comes out of nowhere. So, with each new skill, focus on the entry condition. Where possible, build in visual cues. When teaching interactive skills, couple the stimulus with the skill. Finally, describe each element and detail and use contrasting to clear up any confusion.

The post Transference Techniques: Connecting Training to the Real World appeared first on Crucial Learning.

According to a survey we conducted during the last US economic recession, 80 percent of respondents felt that their stress levels increased because of the recession, and more than half said that, as a result of that added stress, the intensity level of daily business and family conversations had increased dramatically.

Does this added stress motivate or help people to hold important business and family conversations in a professional and calm manner? No. When you’re stressed, your body sends blood to your extremities so you’ll be able to either take flight or engage in a fight. To do so, it borrows blood from the less important organs, such as the brain. This physical response actually dumbs you down, making you ill-suited for complex human interactions. And in extended periods of stress, your body produces cortisol which makes you paranoid. Under the influence of cortisol, even innocent events appear suspicious. “Good morning? What did the boss mean by Good morning?”

So in stressful times, when it matters the most, we’re on our worst behavior. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. By taking a few steps to keep your emotions in check and ensure that others feel safe to talk, you can prevent yourself from getting angry and escalating these important conversations.

Tell Yourself a Good Story

When you find yourself getting angry with others, it’s because you’ve told yourself a story about their intent. “They don’t care about cost cutting; they’re selfish.” “They don’t care about the situation; they just want to get their way.” While there may be a germ of truth in any story you tell, starting an interaction with accusations and recriminations leads to anger and loss of control. In addition to your words, your nonverbal communication reflects your negative conclusion. You appear uptight, even angry. With this as your starting point, it won’t be long until the other person becomes defensive and you find yourself in the middle of a verbal battle.

Reverse this common tendency to vilify others by asking a simple question: “Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do that?” Rarely do we know others’ complete views on a topic, so take care to not think the worst. It may be that a harsh assumption is indeed valid, but starting the conversation with a negative conclusion poisons your view and only weakens your ability to have a professional and controlled experience. If you lose control, you become the center of attention instead of the person who committed the original infraction.

Establish Mutual Purpose

Most high-stakes conversations during an economic downturn have the same punch line—somebody is going to have to go without something. The natural reaction to this nasty reality is to work hard to ensure that you’re not the one who is going to suffer. It would be nice if someone would volunteer to make the sacrifice, but most watch how others are responding and follow suit. This usually means that everyone is fighting to keep all of the resources for themselves because “they’re central to everything and can’t afford to cut anything.”

To cut this process short, start with a statement of mutual purpose. Ask: “What can we do that will best serve all of our needs over the long run? What can each of us do to serve the long-term financial stability of our business or family?” Say this and mean it.

Two years ago my brother-in-law was laid off from one of the only well-paying jobs in the small community where he lived. He eventually found another job, but he knew it would call for dramatic cutbacks so he gathered his wife and four boys together and made a proposal. They could either take the job and live with the restricted wage and make extreme budget cuts, or they could move to a larger community where he could earn more. The boys wanted to stay near their lifelong friends so, from that moment on, they began a financial regime that would make a miser proud. To this day, nobody complains about their financial challenge because they started with one goal in mind—to do what was best for the whole family.

Quell Rumors through Contrasting

Another tendency humans have is to pass on rumors when they are stressed. For example, if a company is laying off 10 percent of the workforce, it usually won’t be long before the word on the street is that 30 percent will be leaving. As you prepare and make statements about the future, don’t make promises you can’t keep, but also take care to ensure that you nip any false rumors in the bud. Do this with a contrasting statement. For example, “You may have heard this, but in truth this is what will really happen.”

Encourage Honest Communication

Finally, as you gather teams together to discuss what projects need to be eliminated and even what jobs might be cut, make sure that everyone speaks his or her mind. You don’t want a vocal few carrying the day simply because they say the most. Here’s what you can do to ensure maximum involvement.

As you gather people to discuss the future, take care to call on everyone. Ask employees what they think should happen. Don’t criticize their suggestions, simply listen carefully and then check with the group. “Do others agree with this point of view?” By making it safe for everyone to share their views, you gather the best information available and then you and others in positions of leadership can make the best choice. Explain this process up front and make sure they know that you are making a consult decision, not a consensus decision. By allowing everyone to take part in the dialogue, you’re getting the best ideas and including everyone in the decision-making process.

Tough times call for tough Crucial Conversations. Avoid falling under the influence of stress-related hormones by telling yourself healthy stories, establishing mutual purpose, quelling rumors, and encouraging honest communication.

The post How to Reduce Workplace Stress in a Downturn appeared first on Crucial Learning.

Sadly, the second day of class brought no new amusing words. Instead, it involved a lot of verb and gender hoo-hah that seemed far too complicated to learn. Especially when my preferred mode of learning was passing notes to the girl who sat next to me. Perhaps I should drop the class before it was too late? The only other elective offered during that time slot was metal shop—which a friend told me consisted largely of burning things in a forge. Let’s see, which would I prefer? Conjugating French verbs or melting American lunch boxes?

After two weeks of falling hopelessly behind in French, I said goodbye to Miss Limply, crossed the great cultural divide that separated the language learning center from the metal shop, and began the task of making a cup out of a soup can. To this day, the only thing I recall from my brief brush with French is that “loup” means wolf, and I’ve not once had an occasion to use that tidbit.

That’s not entirely true. I did try to sneak “loup” into the conversation one afternoon when I was having lunch with a group of European executives in Munich. We were chatting about American authors and I was keeping up nicely until the conversation turned to European authors of whom I knew nothing. It was embarrassing to see how much these Europeans knew about American culture and how little I knew about anything European.

To joke my way out of my egregiously parochial view, I decided to say that I didn’t know much about European authors because I had been raised by wolves. Ha, ha! Get it? Raised by wolves! This entire conversation was taking place in English but, for reasons I’ll never know, I decided that this was the perfect time to impress my European colleagues by using my one French word, loup. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure what the plural was for loup so I said: “I was raised by loupies.” My European colleagues thought I said lupus and stared at me with an odd mix of confusion and pity. It was really quite awkward.

I had forgotten about these language misfires until the day of my fifty-year high-school reunion when I ran into an old friend, Bernadine Westin. She introduced me to her husband as “her French connection.” At first, I had no idea what she was talking about. Bernadine reminded me that during those two weeks I had studied French back in 1959, Miss Limply had passed out the names and addresses of eighth-grade students in France who were eager to be our pen pals. Every month we were supposed to write our pal a chatty letter in French and he or she would write us back in English.

This sounded like a lot of work to me so I gladly gave the name and address of my proposed pen pal to Bernadine. She desperately wanted to correspond with someone in Europe, but hadn’t signed up for a language class. Now, some fifty-five years later, Bernadine was thanking me for graciously giving up my chance to make a European connection.

Bernadine went on to explain that since 1959, she had faithfully written her French pen pal every month. To this day, the two continue to write each other, occasionally travel together, and (in her own words) embody the meaning of “BFFs.” According to Bernadine, all this had transpired, thanks to me! Me, a selfless classmate who had abandoned any hope of a rewarding international experience by giving her my pen pal, without asking for anything in return. I took the praise like a man. That is, I took full credit for something I didn’t actually do.

The effort Bernadine put in to being a successful pen pal was truly remarkable. She had to learn French, travel to the post office, buy stamps, mail the letters, and did I mention learn French? But then again, her dedication had earned her something the rest of us never gained—a precious friend from a whole new culture—and an enriching world view.

And then it hit me. Everyone should have their own life-long pen-pal! Only without so much work. With the aid of today’s technology, you could just push a button and voilà! There on the screen would appear a live person from France, or China, or Uzbekistan!

I’m imagining software that could immediately translate whatever you say, with no confusion or awkward waiting. It would also match your lips to the words your smart device conjures so it would look and feel like an actual conversation. It would be an actual conversation. As an aside, my colleagues tell me that Google Translate and other language recognition software may not be far off in creating something like this.

Having meaningful contact with pals from afar would go a long way toward engendering cross-cultural awareness. At a time when many of today’s youth (and adults) are capturing every little thing they do in “selfies,” and when narcissism scores are (you guessed it) on the rise, what would it be like if today’s youngsters were in frequent contact and deep conversation with e-pals around the world?

Fortunately, lots of young people are doing just that. They have international e-friends, and many are entering language-immersion schools starting as early as the first grade. But what if we turned the best-and-brightest of Silicon Valley to designing the technology required to produce the software I’ve proposed? Once created, we could give a device to every grade-school child in the world—along with an e-pal address of a person they’d be assigned to chat with (e-face to e-face) a couple of times a week.

Imagine a world where we’ve all been transformed into a Bernadine. With constant contact from friends abroad, we would gain a deep appreciation for cultural differences along with a true empathy for others’ challenges. Plus we’d know enough about world events and people that we would never again have to say that we had been raised by loupies.

Best of all, if negotiations were to break down at, say, a world peace conference and leaders started to consider using forceful methods, they’d fondly remember their e-pal. And so would millions of other people who would have been chatting with their foreign buddies about sports, music, fake vomit, and annoying relatives twice a week since the first grade. Having enjoyed thousands of casual yet curiously bonding conversations with friends from afar, nobody would think of using force (and certainly not violence) as a tool for dealing with “foreigners.”

So what do you think of my proposal Miss Limply? Mucho clever, right? Mucho clever.

The post French-fried Memories appeared first on Crucial Learning.

Not knowing what Mom was talking about, I put down the psychology text my neighbor Gary and I were studying (we had a midterm the next day) and the two of us got up from the kitchen table and headed straight to the family room. There we found Mom standing with a brown paper bag clutched in her right hand. Next to her stood Dad, looking two parts hangdog and three parts nervous. Something unpleasant was afoot.

As Gary and I approached my parents, Mom continued, “Do you two college boys see this bag I’m holding?”

“Yes,” we replied.

“Of course, you do!” Mom barked. “But can you tell what’s inside it?

“The bag’s opaque,” I answered, “it could contain almost anything.”

“Alright, I’ll give you guys a hint,” Mom said, “because I’m feeling generous.”

Mom (who usually looked as if she were about to give you a batch of cookies) didn’t look like she was feeling generous. She looked like she was searching for revenge. And Dad looked like he was about to eat a dish served cold.

Not wanting to get caught up in what appeared to be an escalating marital tiff, I directed the conversation away from the brown paper bag by making the following pronouncement: “Speaking of trying to guess what’s inside of something, were you aware that researchers now know exactly what’s inside the human brain and how it works? Not to get too complicated, but scientists poke wires into a cranium and then pump in electricity until a body part flops around. It’s fascinating.”

“Well, look at you!” Dad exclaimed as he patted me on the back. “I knew sending you to the local community college was the right thing to do. Not to say that I told you so, but I told you so.”

It turns out that Dad was also interested in dodging Mom’s brown-bag guessing game and was now diverting the discussion to an argument our family I had engaged in earlier that month. The quarrel had been a real heart breaker. Due to an unexpected decline in our family’s income, my folks let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I would not be attending the ivy-clad, sorority-rich university of my dreams. Instead, I would be enrolling in the sad little community college located across town—a school comprised mostly of Quonset huts.

I know I shouldn’t have been humiliated by this change in schools, but I was. Enough so that when people asked me the meaning of the “GCC” printed on the back of a school sweatshirt I had purchased at the bookstore/cafetorium, I ducked. Instead of answering Grandview Community College, I replied: Grandview Ca-College. It was the best I could come up with.

Realizing that Dad and I were directing the conversation away from the contents of the brown paper sack, Mom exclaimed, “Let’s get back to the gift bag!”

Ah-ha! Now I knew the mystery object Mom was clutching was something small enough to fit into a bag, and that it was some sort of gift.

“I’ll give you two college whizzes a hint,” Mom offered, “What day is it today?”

“That didn’t feel like a hint,” Gary replied. “It felt like a question.”

“It’s February 14th. Do you know what happens every February 14th?”

“Oh yeah,” I responded. “I forgot about the holiday. I’m sort of between girlfriends.” (Of course, I was “between girlfriends.” I lived with my parents and studied psychology in a Quonset hut.)

“Alright,” I answered. “Does the bag contain a Valentine’s Day gift that Dad gave you?”

“Exactly!” Mom shouted as she yanked a heart-shaped box out of the bag and shook it in my face as if it were evidence in a murder trial and not a box of candy.

“This pathetic offering is what your father gave me.”

“It looks nice,” I said. “And who doesn’t like assorted chocolates?”

“Ask your father where he got the box,” Mom insisted. I remained silent.

“Go ahead, Son, ask ‘moneybags’ where he got it.”

“Okay,” I acquiesced. “So, Dad, where did the yummy chocolates come from?”

“He got it for free!” Mom interrupted. “At the convenience store he manages. He ordered 50 cases of beer to augment the store’s inventory, and as a reward for such an unusually large purchase, the vendor gave him a free box of chocolates—which your father then crammed into a brown paper bag and gave to me. So, this box of candy isn’t whispering ‘Happy Valentine’s Day! I love you!’ It’s saying, ‘I didn’t get around to buying you a gift, but I did manage to place an order for 50 cases of beer.’”

No wonder Dad didn’t want to open the bag. Mom had grilled him about the chocolates until he had admitted to the beer deal, and now he was going to have to face the music.

“So, let this be a lesson to the two of you,” Mom added as she turned her attention to Gary and me. “One day, each of you is going to find a life-mate and you’ll want to give her something special for Valentine’s Day—something that says, ‘I lay awake nights trying to find a way to express my undying affection for you.’ Giving your sweetheart a gift that you obtained (for free) from a beer-truck driver isn’t likely to send that message.”

“You’re absolutely right!” Gary shouted as he eased his way out the front door, thoroughly befuddled and bolting for home.

Of course, Mom was right. A gift needs to be the product of careful thought—particularly when it’s a Valentine’s offering. Surely everyone understands this point and, if not, Dad’s choice of gifts serves as a helpful reminder.

However, there was another lesson I learned that day, and it wasn’t contained in Mom’s lecture. It was displayed in the way she had treated Dad. She mocked him in public and this was a violation of the loyalty pledge the two of them made when they first got married. In fact, when any couple ties the knot, both parties pledge to speak respectfully about each other in the presence of others. They may not say this pledge aloud, or sign an official document, but they feel it in their hearts. When it comes to the love of your life, how could you do otherwise? And when it comes to Valentine’s Day, how could you not renew this pledge every year?

Naturally, even within the healthiest of relationships, couples disappoint, annoy, and offend each other and arguments ensue. Happily, seasoned professionals know not to go public with their grievances. They resolve them in private. They most certainly don’t transform the contents of their marital spats into back-fence gossip, water-cooler banter, or condescending punch lines.

So, here’s a Valentine’s message for everyone. Never trade a colossal beer order for, say, a box of chocolates, and then pass it off as a special gift. Equally important, should you be the recipient of such a “gift,” don’t badmouth your mate to a neighbor, or worse still, to one of your children. After all, you and your partner made a promise to steer clear of such thoughtless acts of disloyalty. And as we grads from Grandview Ca-College are wont to point out: a promise is a promise.

The post A Valentine’s Lesson for All of Us appeared first on Crucial Learning.

“No,” I answered. “It’s just a little something to dress up my cubicle at school.”

“Well,” our neighbor continued, “you can’t get started too early when it comes to the pageant. No siree! Not when it comes to the pageant.”

The event to which Mr. Mulroney was referring was our congregation’s annual potluck dinner—complete with a visit from Santa Claus, holiday carols, and the ever-favorite nativity play performed by the Sunday school children.

Later that day, as I mentioned the upcoming gathering to my wife, Louise, we both spoke of how enjoyable the pageant had been over the years. Then we quickly added: “Hopefully we’ll be assigned to do something simple—like bake a pie.”

Just then the phone rang.

“But we don’t have money to pay for any incidental expenses that might arise if we take charge of the pageant,” I pled to our pastor. “Plus, I’m in the final stages of graduate school. Louise and I don’t have time to be in charge of an entire Christmas program.”

Naturally, there was parish money set aside for the pageant’s expenses, so my poverty plea faded quickly and my complaint about not having time was . . . well, nobody ever has time to produce a holiday pageant, and yet somehow, we enjoy one every year.

“Actually, the job is easier than you might imagine,” the pastor explained. “You simply delegate the various activities to other congregants. You’re in the business school. You should know all about delegation. Right?”

Low blow.

“Alright,” I acquiesced, “but only under the following conditions. Louise and I will stay within the budget, and assign out all of the work . . . ”

“Joyful preparations,” the pastor corrected.

“We’ll assign out the ‘joyful preparations,’” I continued, “but only if we have total control. We don’t want to be second-guessed.”

“Right down to his last Ho! Ho! Ho!” The pastor agreed. The deal was sealed.

“Here’s our first decision,” Louise proclaimed. “It has to do with Saint Nick.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “There won’t be a Saint Nick at our gathering.”

“Bingo!” she responded. “We’ve had enough Santa calamities to last a lifetime.”

Louise was referring to a couple of recent holiday flops. One year, our pastor thought it would be clever if he himself played the Jolly Old Fellow, but he was so skinny that the pillows he stuffed under his crushed satin costume kept falling out. The overall effect was creepy. Young children cried as he approached them—one emaciated hand clenching a candy cane, the other holding tightly to his leaking torso.

The next year we reversed course by hiring a professional Santa Claus. Unfortunately, the guy was so serious about his craft that he insisted everyone remain absolutely silent as he delivered a lengthy lecture on the evils of consumerism. Eventually, the Old Elf chewed out the celebrants and left in a huff. Between these two events, I don’t know which left the children more scarred.

Since our pageant didn’t include Santa, we had time to add group singing and tree decorating to the program. A vocal orchestration grad student was assigned to lead the music and, as we had hoped, it went off flawlessly. The music was sublime. I can’t say the same for the tree decorating. It turns out (according to the decorators, at least) there are two kinds of Christmas tree aficionados: those who hang tinsel in orderly rows that show proper respect for the sacred holiday, and undisciplined heathens who carelessly hurl fistfuls of tinsel at the angel atop the tree. Let’s just say the activity was tense.

And then there was the nativity play. Screenwriters typically portray them as disasters by having either the bleachers collapse, or the kids fumble the script. The truth is, as the children (particularly the little ones) forget their lines, trip over their bathrobes, and knock down the set pieces, the pageant gets that much more adorable. I’m proud to say that ours was the most adorable ever.

My favorite part of the evening took place in plain sight, and yet (like many acts of kindness) it largely remained unseen. Louise and I had assigned the much-anticipated holiday meal to the Fishers—a grad student in physics, his wife, and their three children. We asked them to organize a pot-luck dinner (easy-peasy), plus they needed to buy a couple dozen precooked turkey breasts that would be the crown jewel of the feast.

In retrospect, the Fishers were probably an unwise choice. As poor as most of us congregants were, they were the poorest. Their view of what was supposed to be a lip-smacking turkey meal had been so distorted by years of going without that, even though they had a generous budget to work from, the Fishers purchased two dozen dirt-cheap, refrigerated, bologna-like concoctions that they thought were delicious and everyone else feared. As each pressed turkey breast was ceremoniously placed on the serving table by the Fishers, it jiggled, in true Christmas fashion, like a bowl full of jelly.

Before the crowd could pounce on the Fishers for choosing egregiously gelatinous, nearly translucent, pressed turkey parts that could be “carved” with a plastic spoon, Louise proclaimed, “Oh look, turkey aspic—just like the elegant food they eat in France. How chic!” From that point on Louise graciously shielded the Fishers from the disappointed crowd with her raw energy and optimistic talk of fancified French food.

Eventually, Louise found a way to set aside most of the untouched pressed turkey breasts and give them to the Fishers who had stayed behind to help with the cleanup. With a few subtle moves, and a well-chosen word or two, Louise had graciously and respectfully provided a needy family with food they were able to freeze and then consume over the entire next semester.

Three decades later when we ran into the Fishers at the local shopping mall, (quite by accident) our conversation quickly turned to that Christmas party. “I still remember all that turkey we were able to take home and freeze.” Pat Fisher enthused. “It was yummy and lasted us for months. It was literally an answer to our prayers.”

I later learned that Louise didn’t remember much about that meal. And why should she? Her handling of what could have been an embarrassing situation was so natural and selfless that it wasn’t something she’d recall, it was just something she did. And so it was with all the parishioners. From cleaning up the little shepherd who ate too much fudge, to learning that there wasn’t going to be a Santa Claus and not freaking out—everyone didn’t merely celebrate the holiday, they lived it. One tiny act at a time.

May your holiday season be similarly real. May you experience joy not only from, say, hosting a pageant, but also from enacting simple deeds of service that for years to come are likely to remain unseen in plain sight.

Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?

Want to master these crucial skills? Attend one of our public training workshops in a city near you. Learn more at www.vitalsmarts.com/events.

The post Unseen in Plain Sight appeared first on Crucial Learning.

“Hey, Clodhopper,” the boys would shout as they passed by Norman. “Do you think your shoes are big enough?” Or, if they were feeling especially clever: “Hey Clod, Sasquatch called and he wants his shoes back.”

This particular Monday, Norman (big shoes and all) walked into the community’s cream colored, 1930s, WPA high school building and quietly pressed his way through a tangle of students rummaging through their lockers. Buck Forester, the school’s star linebacker, saw Norman coming and shouted: “Hey Clod, how’s ‘bout an Elvis song!”

Norman enjoyed performing Presley numbers in the hallway. A throng of students would gather and laugh and clap as he climbed onto a bench, strummed on his imaginary guitar, and launched into his best imitation of “The King.” But not without repercussions. As much as Norman enjoyed performing, no one on the faculty approved of his spontaneous shows—especially Mr. Hunter, the football coach.

“You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog,” Norman bellowed to a group of kids gathering near Buck’s locker, “cryin’ all the time.”

“Go for it!” Buck shouted, “Rock out!”

The crowd grew as Norman’s tortured gyrations and off-pitch caterwauling reached new heights of awkwardness.

“You ain’t never caught a rabbit, and you ain’t no friend of mine.”

And then, as the crowd’s derisive hoots and hollers reached their zenith, Buck yelled: “Go Clod! Work your guitar, swing those hips, and . . .”

Bang! Buck’s locker exploded as Coach Hunter grabbed Buck by the collar and lifted him off his feet. The once-grinning linebacker was now pinned to his locker—grimacing in pain while his feet frantically banged out a call for help.

“Shame on you!” Mr. Hunter barked to the crowd as he lowered Buck to the floor. “Go straight to your classes! You all know better than this!”

The moment Buck regained his footing, he scurried off to his upcoming class while complaining to anyone within earshot that the coach had attacked him even though he had just been “kidding around.” Coach Hunter took several deep breaths, shook his head in disgust, and escorted Norman to the special-education classroom.

For the next few days, students talked about what had taken place. Some focused on the coach’s violent outburst, while others discussed how cruel Buck had been in the first place. After all, Buck and his friends had egged on a special-needs tenth-grader who thought he was being applauded for his Elvis act, when he was actually being ridiculed. It was disgraceful. And yet, nobody tried to intervene. A few kids wanted to shut down the spectacle, but they didn’t know what to say or do.

Decades have passed since that shameful episode and the question still remains: “What’s the best way for an individual to express his or her disapproval when others start to behave inappropriately? Equally important, how does one respond without mirroring Coach Hunter’s regrettable reaction?

To find an example of how to deal effectively with a breach of civility (from minor acts of disrespect to full-fledged episodes of bullying or harassment) we need not travel any farther than a few paces down the hall from the spot where Coach Hunter demonstrated how not to deal with Buck, the errant linebacker. This time, I was privy to the incident in question. Actually, I was part of the incident. To be totally honest, I was the incident. It took place on the first day of my tenth-grade geometry class. Miss Grace, the school’s aging geometer, had been lecturing at the chalkboard when I made a wisecrack to a classmate across the room. Miss Grace turned to face me and said, “Why, Kerry, you talked while I was talking!”

My first thought was, “Of course! That’s how things work around here. It’s how students make school tolerable.” Only, on this day, when Miss Grace said that I had talked while she was talking, her look of utter shock and deep disappointment was something you’d expect to accompany an outcry such as: “Why, Kerry, you robbed an orphanage!”

The impact of Miss Grace’s startled reaction and look of total disappointment was immediate. Classmates who usually laughed at my tomfoolery were now chastising me. “What were you thinking?” asked Susan LaMont (the girl seated next to me). “Miss Grace was talking. You can’t talk while Miss Grace is talking.”

So powerful had been our geometry teacher’s reaction, it wasn’t long until everyone in her class adhered to her rules of comportment. Weighing in at about 90 pounds and with less than a year until she retired, Miss Grace’s wide-eyed look of astonishment and disapproval carried with it a force that Mr. Hunter had been unable to generate with a choke hold. The coach was correct in recognizing that what Buck and his friends had been doing was shameful, but when he allowed his disappointment to grow into a violent reaction, he created a whole new set of problems.

So, what should a person do in order to follow Miss Grace’s positive example while avoiding Mr. Hunter’s egregious reaction?

When people around you begin to grossly misbehave, it’s important that you do something. Fleeing the scene or clamming up only makes matters worse. For instance, turning a blind eye to a racist comment, or shrugging off a harassing remark, suggests that you’re giving tacit approval to dreadful behavior. Not good. It’s also unwise to verbally attack the original offenders for their disrespectful actions and then strut around triumphantly as if your own brand of abuse just saved the day. Instead, it’s best to replace silence and anger with surprise and disappointment. Acting surprised may not eliminate dreadful behavior in a single stroke, but it helps set a clear standard. Showing disappointment provides a proper sense of magnitude without being abusive on its own.

And now, returning to the hallway kids . . . one might predict that recent advances in the social sciences have led to improvements in how humans treat one another. Even members of that rowdy hallway bunch may have picked up a few social skills along the way. Then again, the explosive arguments and debates that are repeatedly aired on TV are so crammed full of vile tirades and personal attacks that it makes one question the viability of one’s own species. Maybe we aren’t getting any better. Maybe we’re getting worse.

Fortunately (according to former classmates who are in the know) most members of Buck’s hallway gang have emotionally and tactically matured—replacing cheap shots and verbal attacks with acts of respect and benevolence. Equally encouraging, many of the individuals who had once been voiceless dissenters have learned to step out of the shadows and tactfully, yet firmly, deal with inappropriate behavior. And as far as Norman is concerned, I’m told that he’s treated with the kindness and respect he deserves—as a matter of course.

And for this . . . I’m truly grateful.

The post A New Gratitude appeared first on Crucial Learning.

Trick-or-treat rule number one: Don’t slow down for anything. During the precious few hours of the one night of the year when candy is free for the asking, chatting with a friend could cost you a chocolate candy bar—which, by the way, just happens to be your only reason for going out in the first place. (It’s all about the chocolate.) One Halloween, I sprinted by a house that was on fire and didn’t break stride. You think I’m going to go trick-or-treating with a friend?

Here’s another time-related hint. Today’s kids typically tote plastic pumpkins and similar store-bought containers for holding their goodies. I carried, and I’m not making this up, a burlap bag that had once contained a hundred pounds of potatoes. I didn’t have time to be swapping out tiny totes in the middle of the evening—ergo, the massive potato sack. Of course, the bag came at a cost. By the end of the evening it weighed just as much as I did and looked positively gluttonous. “Look at that thing!” adults would shout as I held open a bag large enough to schlep a yak. “It’s disgusting!”

Rule number two: Run from door to door. When you only have a four-hour window to get free candy, you run between houses. You don’t walk, you don’t jog, and you don’t even trot. You run. You also need to take advantage of the entire evening. I was always the first and last kid on the street. Every year my Halloween adventure started with someone shouting: “It’s not time yet you moron! I’m still doing the lunch dishes!” and ended with: “You woke me out of a dead sleep!”

Rule number three: Put the trick back in trick-or-treat. The candy companies of the fifties didn’t produce the pathetic miniature bars they now make in such abundance, so when someone gave you a candy bar back in my day (and I firmly believe this qualified them for sainthood), you got a full-sized one. This didn’t happen very often, but when it did, you scored big.

So, here was the trick. I’d carry several masks. I didn’t normally don a mask because it would limit my vision and slow me down. But if someone gave me, say, a Hershey bar (most people gave out penny candy) I’d hit a couple of nearby doors, put on one of my masks, and return to the place that was giving out the mother lode. I would repeat this stunt with a different mask until I got caught. “Say, haven’t you been here before?” Using the mask trick, you could score as many as a half dozen full-sized candy bars at a single house.

Rule number four: Beware of baked goods. I was raised at a time when a handful of elderly homemakers still made pumpkin-shaped cupcakes frosted with an inch of gooey chocolate icing. They’d beam with pride when they opened their front door. “Here you go, sonny,” they’d say as they held out a tray full of their sticky creations while eyeing my burlap bag suspiciously. Now, what was I supposed to do with a gooey cupcake? Consuming it was out of the question. That violated the fifth rule of trick-or-treating: Never eat on the job.

One year, I made the grievous error of letting a well-intended grandmother drop a cupcake into the center of my burlap bag. I swear the chocolate-covered treat had its own gravitational field—sucking every decent piece of candy into its icing atmosphere until, by the end of the evening, it had grown to the size of a basketball. I learned to take cupcakes gingerly in my hand and then use them to mulch the neighbors’ flower beds.

Now for today’s broader (and less Halloween-y) lesson. Before chronicling my trick-or-treating habits for this column, I had never shared my Halloween techniques with my own children. As helpful as the information might have been for them, I kept my goofy methods a secret for fear of revealing that at one time I was greedy, weird, and (dare I say it) a bit of a nerd. I wanted my kids to think I was cool. Is that asking so much? This reluctance to share an unflattering side of our personality comes at a tremendous cost. When we eagerly share our accomplishments but not our embarrassing moments, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities, we’re less human. We’re hard to connect to. We’re not particularly interesting to hang out with.

This desire to keep up an impeccable image also plays a big role at work. I’m confident in assuming that almost everyone in corporate America has a file full of stories similar to my Halloween tale that they’d rather keep locked away rather than air them in front of their friends and coworkers. To ensure our rosy reputations and bolster our own self-esteem, we primarily share lists of accomplishments, notable experiences, and tales that make us out to be a hero.

Ironically, sharing a steady stream of accomplishments can create more fragmentation than unity. Perfection is tiring. It feeds jealousy. It’s hard to relate to. At a time when organizations expect employees to coalesce into high-performance teams, it becomes just that much more difficult for employees to bond with others when all that coworkers know about each other is what can be found on their hyperbolic, sanitized resumes.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. Unity finds a foothold in any environment where individuals willingly share a more balanced picture of themselves than is currently the rage. By occasionally sharing fears, missteps, and trick-or-treating oddities we become unthreatening, relatable, and likable. We become someone who makes a good friend or teammate.

So, let’s strip away our masks this Halloween season and dare to be the normal (quirky) people that we are. Consider sharing a more complete image of yourself, not one that’s hidden behind masks of solemnity, perfection, and accomplishments; rather, share with friends, family, and coworkers glimpses of the more interesting you—the childlike you—the oddball you. For instance, did you dunk for apples as a teenager until you choked and spit up on your date? Did you make your own costume for a neighborhood competition only to have critical parts of it fall off during the awards ceremony? Or, as related earlier, did you aggressively knock doors on Halloween night until someone finally shouted: “Hey kid, it’s time for you to haul your potato sack home!”

Sharing stuff like that binds people together.

Want to master these crucial skills? Attend one of our public training workshops in a city near you. Learn more at www.vitalsmarts.com/events.

The post Kerrying On: Confessions of a Professional Trick-or-Treater appeared first on Crucial Learning.

My mom was a big believer in teaching her boys how to sing for their supper. Unlike many parents who were satisfied once they had taught their kids how to make their beds, my mother wanted me to master a more arduous, less prissy task. In her view, it was high time I learned how to clean the toilet.

Transforming our toilet from a repugnant bathroom fixture into a shining porcelain trophy, wasn’t going to be easy. Not if it was done properly. And you can bet your can of Bon Ami that Mom was going to have it done properly. After all, our toilet was the one household accessary that separated our family from a hillbilly life. We may have lived in a tiny house perched on the edge of a swamp, but by golly when nature called, we would sit on a throne fit for royalty—that is, if I learned how to clean it properly.

My journey into the world of the custodial arts began with a lesson on germ theory, complete with hand-drawn pictures of bacteria and the role they play in causing pandemics. After delivering the microbiology lecture, Mother (always ahead of her time) implemented what social scientists now refer to as “deliberate practice.” She divided the toilet-cleaning job into separate tasks, set clear standards for each one, demonstrated the first task, and then had me copy her movements. After I attempted each component, Mom eyeballed my work from several angles until she found something wrong, at which point she showed me the proper remediation technique and had me replicate what she had just done.

It took me a long time to clean our toilet that day. At first, I thought Mom was unreasonably picky, but I soon learned that there was more to the story—much more. Later that Saturday morning, when three of Mom’s colleagues from work showed up with a deck of cards in hand, Mom immediately ushered them to the bathroom and told them to take a close look at the toilet I had just cleaned—which I might point out was now shining gloriously. You didn’t HAVE to wear sun glasses to stare directly at my sparkling masterpiece, but it helped.

Learning that a mere kindergartener had produced the lustrous toilet now on display in the Patterson’s bathroom jolted Mom’s friends into some sort of genetically triggered admiration response. They couldn’t say enough good about me and my work. The praise that they gushed was the kind that is normally reserved for cakes adorned with fondant kittens chasing pastel butterflies. It certainly wasn’t the reaction you’d expect from three ladies peering into a toilet. But peer they did. Then came a long chorus of oohs and aahs.

This was the reaction my mother was seeking. Lydia had a son who was sure to be a rocket scientist, Elenore was raising a surgeon, Marge’s daughter was a shoo-in at the Seattle Symphony, and Mom—not to be outdone—had a son who . . . well, she wasn’t sure what I would achieve; nevertheless, the glow radiating from our bathroom suggested that I was headed for some sort of acclaim. And now her friends knew it as well.

Finally, as the foursome settled into their card game, Lydia offered the ultimate accolade: “Did any of you get a glimpse of the toilet’s chrome-plated handle?” she asked. “You can see your reflection in the chrome-plated handle!”

Why someone wanted to look at a toilet and see her own reflection staring back at her was beyond me, but even my five-your-old brain understood that doing a repugnant job, and doing it well, garnered a great deal of admiration from the 25th Street crowd.

I was reminded of this incident last week when I met with a group of sixteen-year-old Sunday school students to share tips for succeeding in their summer jobs. At least, that’s the topic our Sunday school president had assigned me to cover, but none of the youth actually had a summer job. They were taking summer lessons—a lot of sports and music lessons. Plus, they would be enjoying extended family vacations. Some were going to Europe.

Granted, participating in these particular summer activities would certainly be beneficial, but they left no time for tasks such as flipping burgers, tending toddlers, or mowing lawns. And unlike my friends and I at the age of sixteen, none of the kids would be picking strawberries, raspberries, and beans—in the blazing sun—and getting paid by the pound.

This is not to suggest that you can’t develop respectable work habits without doing filthy, painful, and strenuous jobs. Surely, practicing the violin for hours every day teaches how short-term sacrifice can lead to long-term gains. Lifting weights while being spurred on by a personal trainer teaches what it feels like to work until it hurts. Receiving detailed instruction from a piano teacher reveals the importance of meticulously practicing techniques. Putting in long hours, pushing yourself, staying focused, mastering methods—all help create a strong work ethic. Right? Then again, I can’t help but think that when it comes to developing healthy work habits—dirt should be involved in some way. I just can’t shake the idea.

In truth, I actually don’t know what to think. It’s not as if we want our progeny to end up in a career that requires a lifetime of back-breaking, filthy work. We encourage the next generation to study hard so that one day they’ll be able to wear cashmere sweaters to “the office” where they’ll sit in sumptuous leather chairs and make important decisions. Nevertheless, I still see the value of teenagers performing jobs that involve muck, sweat, and at least a few disgusting components—executed at a rate that demands an all-out-effort.

At this point you might argue that I’m just an old codger clinging to old ways. Could be. But then I’m reminded of my daughter Rebecca who, at a very young age, learned (from me) the same toilet-cleaning techniques I had learned from my mother. Only in Rebecca’s case, as she practiced scrubbing and polishing, I explained that I wasn’t paying her a cent for the job. Instead, I was giving her the best reward possible: I was imbuing her with an unflagging commitment to working hard. There’s no inheritance greater than that. Nothing you can bequeath your children can serve them better than the willingness and ability to tackle tough jobs. How you go about passing on such a work ethic doesn’t really matter. It just matters that you do.

I fear that all this hard-labor talk sounds suspiciously old-fashioned, but it seems to have served my children well. For example, the other day as our family cleaned a friend’s cabin we had borrowed for a three-day weekend, I caught a glimpse of Rebecca as she feverishly and meticulously cleaned a toilet. It brought a smile to my face. I know it brought a smile because I could see my reflection in the chrome-plated handle.

Want to master these crucial skills? Attend one of our public training workshops in a city near you. Learn more at www.vitalsmarts.com/events.

The post The Perfect Inheritance appeared first on Crucial Learning.

Throughout my teenage years, I worked for my mom and dad painting an eighty-year-old boarding house they had purchased. It was a sprawling, artless, clapboard building that hadn’t been given much attention for decades, so it took me several summers to finish the job. It was like painting a giant sponge. Plus, the job almost killed me. I learned that if I placed a giant, borrowed, professional extension ladder nearly parallel to the front of the house and stood chest to the wall on my tippy toes, on the very top rung, I could paint the highest point on the house—which I did.

I didn’t plunge to my death, but according to our next-door neighbor, I should have. In fact, he had bet on it. It turns out that he and the other men in the neighborhood had taken to watching my insane painting maneuvers (of which there were many) and wagering on whether I’d get injured. Apparently, my neighbors mixed up the notion that it takes a village to raise a boy with the idea that it takes a handful of village idiots. In any case, my neighbors underestimated me. Not only did I make it out alive, but the painting job provided me with money for college—money my parents promised to pay me one day when I went off to school.

Unhappily, when I finally did head off to a junior college in Rexburg, Idaho, I was woefully unprepared. For starters, I had no idea how cold cold can be. There are days in Rexburg when your nostrils freeze shut just from breathing. The light jacket I wore because it was (1) the only jacket I owned and (2) very James-Dean like, put me in danger of frostbite whenever I ventured outdoors. So I finally broke down and bought a thick coat (good idea) with all of the food money my parents had given me for the semester (bad idea). In short, I traded cold for hunger.

Not being one to suffer silently, I wrote my parents and asked for more money. Mom feared that I would waste any additional cash she sent me on dating and other such non-food items, or—if left to cook on my own—I would only prepare junk food. So she sent me a check for forty dollars and insisted that I purchase a cafeteria punch card that could be used to buy dinner for, hopefully, a couple of months. Students who lived in the dorms and ate at said cafeteria, ate all the food they could eat. My puny card granted me entrance to the facility. However, when I arrived at the end of the line, since I didn’t live in the dorms, a cafeteria employee would take my paper card and punch out the price of each item I had selected—eventually reducing my card’s value to zero.

I quickly learned that if I bought a full dinner each day, the card wouldn’t last until the end of the semester. Not even close. This turned dining into a tortuous, lonely affair. I couldn’t sit next to the dorm kids. They would look at my solo scoop of mashed potatoes and ask why I didn’t take more food. “It’s delicious!” they’d rave as they wolfed down a slab of meatloaf large enough to serve as a flotation device. So I sat alone and ate soda crackers to supplement my mashed potatoes. For dessert, I sucked cinnamon from the cafeteria toothpicks.

After a couple of weeks of nursing my food card along, I fell into a routine. It centered on Molly, a farm girl from Rigby, Idaho, who now took classes at the junior college and worked at the cafeteria punching my card. As Molly took inventory of my tray, she would ask me about my classes, encourage me to buy more food, and tease me about my losing weight. “You look like your cells are dying,” she once told me. Molly never asked about my financial circumstances, but I could tell from the look in her eyes that we were now playing a game. She was the Red Cross volunteer and I was the refugee who had washed onto the shores of Rexburg.

We played this game until my Spartan diet began to wear on both of us. One day, while serving a thick slice of chocolate pie to a regular dorm patron, Molly looked at me apologetically, as if somehow she were responsible for the vicissitudes of capitalism. Later, when the pie came back with only a couple of bites out of it, she kicked the garbage can. It was growing positively Dickensian.

Finally, a couple of weeks before the semester came to an end, I started loading more on my tray so I could make it through finals. I piled it on for several days without having the courage to examine my card. And here’s where it gets weird. With each new food item I added to my tray, Molly seemed happier. In fact, she now tracked my intake with an odd flourish. “Take that!” she would shout as she punched my card.

Eventually, I pulled out my meal card to determine when my life would start turning ugly. To my surprise, a miracle had transpired. Molly had dutifully punched my waning card, but it still had several dollars left on it. How could that be?

As you’ve probably guessed, the farm girl from Rigby had wrought the miracle. The day I started loading more food on my tray, Molly started punching the air, and not my food ticket. Once I figured out the deception, I was extremely grateful, but said nothing. The least I could do was to quietly accept Molly’s offering—even if it meant colluding to steal from the college. Eventually the semester ended, we went our separate ways, and Molly vanished from my life. Years later, I paid back the school (a hundred times over), trying to make up for my criminal ways. Nevertheless, I still have a tender place in my heart for Molly, the selfless guardian angel who had risked expulsion on my behalf.

Decades passed without my thinking about any of this, until I started teaching an MBA class that was offered during the dinner hour. Since many of the students came to class looking hungry, I decided to honor Molly by paying her kindness forward. So, for several years, I provided MBA students a meal (tacos, pizza, etc.) at the beginning of every class period. Many thought I was trying to curry their favor. Others suggested that my actions were guilt-induced. The truth is far more complicated. It all started with a careless kid who fortuitously didn’t fall to his death while painting a house. This was followed by a string of payments for painting that house. Next came an act of kindness—since the payments were never fully completed. Then, the careless kid grew up and honored the act of kindness by paying it forward.

So, here’s what this weird chain of events boils down to. Let us look at our own lives and see where we can pass on the kindnesses we’ve been shown—let’s see how we can be the hero for someone else. Who knows? Maybe our own small acts of kindness will have a ripple effect in the world we live in.

When MBA students asked me whom they should thank for their dinner, I told them to thank Molly. She’s the hero of this tale. You can’t be a selfless, punch-faking guardian angel who risks being fired and thrown out of college to help out a hungry stranger without being a hero.

The post Good Golly Miss Molly appeared first on Crucial Learning.

When I was a young boy and our extended family gathered to celebrate holidays, it was common for the adults to congregate in the dining room and play pinochle while we kids romped around the yard or (when it was raining) watched The Hopalong Cassidy Show on our 19” DuMont TV console.

But not always. Sometimes my uncle Vic would break away from the adults and teach me a trick or two. It was Vic who showed me how to press two fingers to my lower lip to create a wolf whistle. It was Uncle Vic who taught me how to tie a cat’s cradle, how to spin a button on a string, how to make a coin disappear, and dozens of other childhood tricks and games.

I often wondered why my uncle so readily slipped away from the rest of the adults—just to spend time with a kid. One day, long after he had passed away, I asked my mother why Uncle Vic was as likely to spend time with me as he was to mingle with his peers. Vic’s actions were particularly curious given that his wife, my aunt Mickey, was such a vibrant, vocal personality. I couldn’t imagine how she ever ended up with such a quiet man.

“Don’t you know what happened to your uncle?” my mother asked. “When my sister first met Vic, he had been the life of the party, oozed confidence, and looked the part of a movie star. Why, when he and Mickey walked into a restaurant, the crowd would hush and stare at them. It was as if celebrities had entered the room.”

“And then what happened?” I asked.

“World War II.” She explained. “It happened to all of us—only more so to Vic. You see,” Mom reluctantly continued, “your uncle joined the Army and was immediately sent to the Philippines where he was put in charge of a platoon. It was the job of Sergeant Victor Veloni and his platoon to clear the remote islands.”

“Clear them of what?” I asked.

“Of enemy soldiers who stayed behind to cause havoc with the American troops and Philippine civilians. Surely you’ve heard about them. You know, the soldiers who perched in palm trees—some for years—waiting for a chance to shoot anyone who came into view. Your uncle Vic and his team would land on an island and then do whatever was required to remove the tree-dwelling snipers.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

I could tell that Mom didn’t want to talk about the details.

“Vic and his team would police the island until someone would shoot at them, and then they’d deal with the sniper.”

“They walked around until someone shot at them!” I exclaimed.

“Mostly,” Mom replied. “It was the best way to draw the enemy into the open.”

I could hardly imagine trudging around a steamy, tropical island in full military gear, while waiting for a bullet to pierce my helmet. It’s beyond comprehension.

“Wasn’t that dangerous?” I asked.

“Dangerous?” Mom continued, “Vic ended up losing every single man in his platoon and half of the replacements. One by one, he lost his dear friends and comrades as they fell prey to sniper fire. Our prayers were answered when Vic came home alive, but he never forgave himself for doing so.”

“And that’s what changed him?”

“When the war ended and your uncle returned to Seattle, I hardly knew him. He was the same handsome man who had gone off to war, but the vibrant, fun-loving Vic that used to live behind that chiseled face was no longer there. The horror of watching his friends die, the tension of waiting for the next bullet, the self-imposed guilt for not taking one of his own—it killed the Vic we knew and left behind the quiet, withdrawn man you grew up with. Not everyone who survived the war actually survived the war. Vic went off to battle, but somebody else came home.”

I had no idea about any of this. I was just glad my uncle Vic had spent time with me. I just wanted to know why he had always been so kind, gentle, and attentive.

Earlier this month, as teenagers from the local Boy Scout troop posted a flag in our front yard to help celebrate the Fourth of July, my thoughts turned to the scores of people—like Vic—who have sacrificed in so many different ways, so that you and I can enjoy our many freedoms. As the scouts unfurled the flag, my mind turned to an earlier day with a different group of scouts I had taken to a military cemetery. As these young men and I gathered on a grassy hillside just outside San Francisco, we stood by the graves of decorated soldiers and read aloud the detailed stories of the selfless acts that had earned each fallen soldier both his medal and his grave.

Today my thoughts turn to not only these young men and others who have fallen in the field, but also to those who have returned home—many injured, all affected, and some, like my uncle Vic, transformed into a completely different person. When TV news commentators talk of the number of wounded and killed in current battles, or when statistics pop up on the screen to summarize what’s happening overseas—I don’t see the numbers. I don’t think of the statistics. Instead, I see an image of my uncle Vic. It’s not the image you might imagine. It’s not of a crowd gathered to pay homage to his sacrifice. It isn’t of a general draping a medal around his neck. Nor is it of a band trumpeting his glory. It’s far more humble—and more important—than any of that. It’s the image of a little boy holding a cat’s cradle string, and sitting on the lap of a true American hero.

The post Kerrying On: Uncle Vic appeared first on Crucial Learning.