Trust Blog
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(Day 187) One Child At A Time
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(Day 186) The Meaning Of Memorial Day
We celebrated our Memorial Day by having a backyard cookout with the family. We played Frisbee, ate chicken kabobs and shared some small talk, capping off a nice family day. Nobody ever mentioned a word about war or death or the sacrifice made to make this day possible. As I looked around, I was reminded that the meaning of Memorial Day seemed to be lost. I felt a little guilty. Weren’t we were supposed to be honoring the people that have died for our freedoms? I wondered how we strayed so far from the intention. If you did not know any better, you would have thought the holiday was intended to act as a three day weekend to mark the beginning of summer season.My father-in-law, who was at the picnic, was probably the only person there that understood the real meaning of the day. He was a medic during World War II and he saw the brutal reality, much which he chooses to keep to himself. He is probably also aware that we have just finished the bloodiest century of all time, a time when a hundred million people were murdered. That equals a dying human every 30 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 100 years. This is not from some natural disaster, a tsunami, hurricane or an earthquake. This is man made, a conscious decision of one human to snuff out the life of another, one hundred million times. We did it on purpose. We killed over ideology, over power, over an arbitrary line in the sand.
This Memorial Day as I write, I feel the sacrifice that was made to stop the manipulation of others. I also feel the outrage, the sadness, the incredible disrespect and wastefulness of it all. How many brilliant, wonderful, interesting, beautiful, creative people did we murder? Was our next Edison, Amelia Earhart, Einstein, Mother Teresa, Mozart or Lincoln among them? Worse, we now have exponentially more powerful weapons at our disposal to kill .. how many more are we going to kill this century? Will it be 200,000,000? Maybe we will only kill 50,000,000. Wouldn’t that be great? We could tell our grandchildren we made a 50% improvement.
I am concerned but I also have great hope for the future… or I would not be on the trust tour…to me, Memorial Day is about trust and respect. A day I honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice. A day to remind myself to live my life with as much integrity as I can… if I do that, and others do too… maybe future Memorials Days will be renamed Family days and we can just throw the Frisbee, eat chicken kabobs and share some small talk and not have to feel guilty about missing the true meaning of the holiday.
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(Day 185) Your Gut, Do You Trust IT?
On Friday, I set out to do a trust tour video blog on a man with an incredible story of survival. I had read a story on CNN.com.about a boy who was abducted years ago. Later, in a amazing stroke of luck, he was found alive by hunters. His journey did not stop there however, his parents and the community were not well prepared for this kind of event and, as a result, he suffered a sense of shame. This, although maybe not intentional, was a deep betrayal of their relationship, the worst kind of mistrust.This story caught my interest and I wondered, “How could he trust anything or anyone ever again?” I wanted to learn more: How did he get through it? How is he doing now? What can we all learn from his experience? It took almost six months to get an appointment and finally, on Friday, I was going to meet him. I got up early in the morning to start my drive to Virginia.
I was feeling anxious given the gravity of the subject matter and decided to spend some time getting to know him before the camera started rolling. About 45 minutes into our meeting I began to have a little bit of an uneasy feeling. As he shared more and more of his story, I had deeper and deeper respect for what he had been through. It’s been almost 40 years since the event but he is still in the process of healing. I knew his story could be of interest to a large group of people, so I really wanted to capture it on video… but my gut did not feel right. I started to check in on what I was feeling. I knew he had told his story to other media organizations, so that was not the issue… I started to think that the real story was about his healing, and what his life is about now. It was starting to become more clear that this larger, more important, story was not fully cooked yet…. if I forced it, it would not be the truth and that would be wrong for everyone. I could not record the interview – crap!
I stayed a while longer and we had a very interesting conversation. I gave him my best ideas on trust and shared my view for the future. I hope I was able to help in some small way. I thanked him for spending time with me and got in my car for a long drive back on Friday night in Memorial Day holiday traffic. It was a 17 hour day and very long ride home without “the story.” What I got was a far greater gift however…the honor to be with him and living up to my own integrity and trusting my gut, IT (Integrity and Trust) never lets me down. Do you trust your gut?
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(Day 184) Jack Stack Part III – Innovation
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(Day 183) Jack Stack Part II – You Can Do It
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(Day 182) Jack Stack Part I – Open Book Management
Recently I visited Jack Stack CEO of Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation at the 18th Annual Gathering of The Games Conference in Saint Louis Mo. There is no one that understands the concept of Open Book Management better than Jack. He literally wrote the book on this movement. I am always looking for a unique way to look at trust and Jack has one. He believes you can find trust in the numbers. I had the incredible honor to spend and hour with Jack talking about his philosophy. Here is Part I of a threes part interview with the amazing Jack Stack.
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(Day 181) Join The Trust Tour!
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