Excerpts
More than a Pep Rally!
Throughout the year, Spark Plug PLUS Members receive an incredible array of resources for personal motivation, leadership development, goal achievement, and spiritual fulfillment. These are examples of the informative and motivating resources that Spark Plug PLUS Members receive on a regular basis.
Click on a heading to go straight to the excerpt, or scroll down to review them all:
Example of a BookSpark™
Exclusively for the members of spark plug plus March 23, 2005
Hey There, Spark Plug PLUS Members:
The older I get, the more impressed I am that the famous Serenity Prayer (authored by Reinhold Niebuhr) is one of the most cosmically wise collections of words ever assembled. Another variation shows up in Joe Torre’s excellent new book of advice for leaders (whether or not they currently see themselves as being winners!).
I strongly recommend that you follow his advice of making that “control/no control” list. It can keep you from beating your head against walls that won’t move, then complaining about their immovability. More important, it can prevent you from falling into the swamp of learned helplessness when confronted with problems on which you really do have the potential to act. As Tom Peters likes to say, “you’re only powerless if you think you are.”
Joe Torre: Joe Torre’s Ground Rules for Winners
“I recommend that as an executive, manager, or employee, you create your own lists of factors you can control and ones you cannot. Pay close attention to the list and heed its lessons. If I tried to gain mastery over things I really can’t influence, I’d get myself into big fights with the media, my boss, and my players. On the other hand, if I gave up mastery over things I can control, I’d be a poorly prepared manager who gave himself little chance for either success or victory.”
Joe Tye, Your Values Coach
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Excerpt from Values Coach Strategy Letter
Great Idea #7: Recruit an accountability group
While doing research for the Integrity modules of Spark Plug, I came across this remark: nobody can really be accountable to only themselves. SP+ Member Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown gave me the idea of having an Accountability Advisory Board. Mine includes people I respect a great deal, and who I’d like to have be impressed with what I do. Every month, I send a short report to my AAB, and periodically we have a teleconference. It’s not (I hope) too much trouble for them, but knowing that I’m going to be writing that report (this evening, actually) helps me stay focused and moving ahead on the things I’ve told them I’m going to do.
If you want to put together an accountability group of your own, the first step is to think of what it is you want to be held accountable for. Losing weight? Quitting smoking? Making a certain number of sales calls every month?
The second step is to identify people who can help you hold to that goal. If your goal is to get out of debt, an obvious candidate for receiving your monthly report might be your banker or financial planner. If your goal is to clean up your language and stop losing your temper, think about adding your mother. Don’t shy away from asking people you think might be too busy, or too famous.
The third step is to tell your accounters (for lack of a dictionary term) what it is you want to be monitored for and how it will be measured. Be very clear about this, though – they are not the ones doing the work of measuring, you are. All you are asking them to do is read your report or participate in a short telephone call, and to comment on it if appropriate. And to give you a gentle (or not so gentle) kick if you need it.
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Excerpt from the True Wealth Newsletter
Cash Management Idea #1 : Do not confuse debt capacity with spending capacity.
Of all the applications I received for scholarships for receiving the audio program True Wealth – Your Values and Your Money, this one was an almost constant theme. One of two things (and sometimes both) typically happened. First, the individual used a credit card for shopping therapy or used other consumer debt for a big ticket item, then was unable to keep up with payments, so debt continued to escalate (often in consort with continued spending), always with the expectation of some future windfall somehow coming through to pay it off.
Second, some unfortunate outside event such as loss of a job, divorce, or medical problem caused a sudden reduction in income. Rather than immediately cut back on standard of living so as to live within the reduced income level, the individual used debt – including especially credit cards but also home equity loans and other debt – to maintain things, again with the expectation of quickly paying it off when things turned around, an expectation that at least in these cases has not yet panned out.
Since few of us know ahead of time when such events might turn our lives upside down, it is wise to prospectively analyze your debt capacity versus your spending capacity at various income levels. Banks and (especially) credit card companies will often loan people more money than they can truly afford to borrow.
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Excerpt from The Job Search Checklist
Unless you are using an academic curriculum vitae, keep your resume to two pages (unless you are new to the job market, one page is probably is not enough). But here is a great idea for adding heft to your two-page resume: attach a one-page case study summarizes one of your past accomplishments, which shows how your experience and enthusiasm can help the prospective employer deal with their biggest challenge(s). Use these headings:
1) the nature of the project or challenge;
2) your interventions/ actions;
3) the results and outcomes;
4) the lessons you learned.
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Excerpt from Leadership Lessons –
What You Can Learn from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Classic Works
Direct Fear Into Constructive Channels
When the hobbits told Strider (Aragorn) they feared the Black Riders of Mordor, he told them that they needed to fear them even more. He knew that when the hobbits were sufficiently afraid of the Black Riders, they would focus more on escape and survival and less on their next meal and pint of beer.
This is the essential message of Andrew Grove's book Only the Paranoid Survive. The Intel chairman says that in order to survive and thrive in today's competitive business world, you need to focus people's fears away from petty things such as office politics and toward critical issues such as the competition, losing a customer or falling behind in technology. Even George Washington – remembered for having been one of history's most enlightened leaders – was not above hanging a few deserters during the Revolutionary War, or marching out the army to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, in order to create an appropriate fear in the hearts of followers.
There are two crucial factors that every leader should understand about channeling fear. First, motivating by fear is most effective when used only in exceptional circumstances, and least effective when used as a matter of routine. When a manager who is known for being compassionate and empowering tells an employee that she will lose the job if her performance does not improve, that fear is more likely to have constructive consequences than fear created by a manager whose daily routine is to bully and browbeat.
Second, the leader must always frame the object of fear as an external threat, not an internal one. Herb Kelleher, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, may well be the most beloved boss in America, but he knows when to channel fear rather than drive it out of the workplace. When United Airlines attacked Southwest in several key markets, Kelleher created a David-versus-Goliath atmosphere that kept his people's fear focused on the competition. Managers who achieve their ends by screaming, threatening and punishing end up building a culture in which fear becomes internalized, endemic and corrosive. When people are more afraid of the boss than the competition, the competition will prevail. Here are five steps leaders can take to channel fear effectively:
1) Cultivate an open environment free of secrets, in which information is freely shared and people are confident that they can discuss their fears in safety.
2) Keep attention focused on external threats and create a sense of confidence that these challenges can be surmounted.
3) Do not tolerate disrespectful or abusive behavior at any level.
4) Cultivate a culture in which people really care for each other, for their work and for their customers and communities.
5) Teach people practical skills of emotional intelligence to help them more effectively manage their own stress, anxiety, fear and other negative emotions.
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Excerpt from The Great Commanders on Success Workbook
Strategy 16: Use Speed to Build Momentum
Napoleon believed that on the battlefield, as in the laws of physics, force was a product of mass and velocity – that speed could make up for a lack of numbers. On the march, his men maintained a cadence of 120 steps per minute, versus the “industry standard” of 70. When the Persians landed their invasion force at Marathon in 490 BC, they outnumbered the Greek defenders by a wide margin. Led by Miltiades, the Greeks attacked immediately, before the Persians could consolidate their beachhead; his men covered the final several hundred yards at a dead run, and hit the Persian line with devastating impact.
After a fierce battle in which the Persians suffered disproportionate losses, they were driven back into their boats. Knowing the Persians would sail down the coast for Athens, Miltiades did not allow his troops to rest or celebrate. He sent Pheidippedes to run the 26.2 miles to Athens (the first marathon) to alert the city to the danger. Then he marched his army through the night. As the Persians approached the shore, they saw in front of them not the undefended city they had anticipated, but the glittering spear tips of the army that had punished them so badly the day before. They did not land, but rather made their way back to Persia.
There is an integral linkage between speed and momentum. Success builds on itself; the faster you move, the more successful you can be. Speed is essential for breaking out of the “Pareto Prison” mentioned above. Equally important, when you’re moving fast, you’re much less likely to fall into emotional traps like fear, depression, and despair that can paralyze action.
Exercise: Couple “impossible” goals with “impossible” deadlines
In 1985, Rotary International took on the “impossible” goal of eradicating the disease of polio with the “impossible” deadline of doing it by the year 2005 (the 100 th anniversary of the organization). In 1988, an estimated 350,000 people contracted polio around the world.
By the year 2000, this had been reduced by more than 99 percent, to fewer than 3,500 cases worldwide. The Western Hemisphere was certified as being polio-free in 1994, and there are now only seven countries in the world in which people are subject to the ravages of this disease. To date, Rotary’s PolioPlus program has invested over $500 million from contributions by Rotarians, and raised several billion dollars from other organizations. Nearly two billion children have been vaccinated.
During World War II, the Sea Bees famously said that the difficult they accomplished immediately, while the impossible took a bit longer. That’s the philosophy adopted by Rotary, and one that will help you achieve success if you take it to heart. David Ramsey, author of The Total Money Makeover, says that when people quickly get out of debt, it’s usually because of some variation of this principle. They couple the “impossible” goal of becoming and remaining debt-free, then couple it with the “impossible” deadline of doing it in months or years, not decades or never.
What is YOUR “impossible” goal, and what is the “impossible deadline that you will couple it with?
“I think the time has come now when we should attempt the boldest moves, and my experience is that they are easier of execution than more timid ones.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
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Excerpt from Winning the War with Yourself Field Manual
The miracle of boot camp
Anyone who’s ever been the parent of a teenage boy will appreciate how profound a transformation is wrought by military boot camp. The slovenly adolescent with an attitude whose response to being asked to mow the yard is a mumbled “whatever” becomes, in a matter of weeks, the spit-shined soldier who, when told to jump asks, “how high?” If that’s not a miracle, what is?
And how do the boot camp drill instructors perform this magical transformation? Well, to begin with, they don’t do it by having recruits sit in a classroom all day watching a teacher draw it out on the blackboard. They march! And do push-ups! And run the obstacle course! And then they march some more!
There’s a lesson in this for anyone who wants to bring about their own personal transformation. Get your body into the act. Stand a bit straighter and taller. Walk a little faster. If you start feeling sorry for yourself, drop and do push-ups until it goes away. Your Own Worst Enemy will rebel against this new discipline, just as the young recruit might be seething on the inside as he jumps and hollers, “how high, Sir?” YOWE will tell you to grow up and act your age, tell you how stupid you look marching and doing push-ups in public, tell you anything to get you back into the little box of your comfort zone. Don’t listen. Instead, stand even straighter, march even faster, and do a few more push-ups.
The mystic Sufi poet Rumi wrote that when we’re depressed and feeling sorry for ourselves, the last thing we need is for a sympathetic friend to pat us on the shoulder, give us a bowl of chicken soup, and tell us that everything will be okay. What we really need, he said, is a tough instructor (a drill instructor) to take us and shape us and live inside of us. When Walter Anderson, publisher of Parade magazine, was in Marine Corps training, his drill instructor called the obstacle course “the confidence course,” because that’s what you earned when you conquered it ( Anderson’s book The Confidence Course provides an excellent prescription for building your confidence).
“When your body is strong, it will bend to your commands. When your body is weak, you must submit to its demands.”
Samurai Warrior Paradox
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Excerpts from the Spark Plug PLUS special report 78 Actions You Can Take to Have More Energy.
Energy is a Decision
The first principle of optimizing energy is to accept that to a much greater extent than many of us care to admit, energy is a decision. To a greater extent than many of us care to admit to ourselves, whether or not we have the energy to do the things we want to do and the things we must do is based on a decision made at a point of apparent fatigue.
To demonstrate: imagine that you have come home at the end of a long, stressful and frustrating day. You have just plopped down on the sofa in front of the TV and there is a knock on the door. Reluctantly, you get up to answer it and there on your porch step, flanked by a camera crew, is Ed McMahon with a sweepstakes check made out in your name.
Now, if you tell him to come back tomorrow because you have no energy today, that’s fine. Go back to the couch. But that’s not likely, is it? No, you will find that you had an incredible store of energy, just waiting for the right catalyst to release it. If you want to live your life with a sense of purpose and a spirit of adventure, then it is your job to discover and activate those things which will galvanize your energy, because Ed McMahon is not going to do it for you.
This special report includes a number of great ideas and strategies for having the energy you need to pursue your greatest dreams and to become the person that you are meant to be. Your energy is perhaps your most precious physical resource, and how you choose to use that energy is perhaps the most important choice you make on a daily basis. So read this report, then get off the couch, turn of the television, and do something that moves you in the direction of your dreams. As Thoreau promised, you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours!
If an unusual necessity forces us onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain point, then, gradually or suddenly, it passes away and we are fresher than before! We have evidently tapped a new level of energy. There may be layer of this experience, a third and a fourth wind. We find amounts of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves to own, sources of strength habitually not taxed, because habitually we never push through the obstruction of fatigue.
William James
Energy is a Renewable Resource
When you make the decision to have energy, and then to expend it, you expand it. When you come home after a long, hard day at work and do not give in to the temptation of lounging in front of the television set having your brains transformed into pudding but instead go for a walk, or when you determine yourself to pick up the phone and make the call that you have been putting off, you not only lose the energy it takes for that action, you will find that the energy you thought you had expended has actually come back to you stronger than before.
Husband Your Dissatisfaction and Channel it to Productive Uses
Although most of us are rarely at a loss to find something to complain about, we only have so much genuine dissatisfaction to go around – that is, if we are only expressing dissatisfaction about those things we intend to change. The more powerfully you can focus your dissatisfaction on a few key gaps, and not fritter it away on every little thing that bothers you, the more powerfully motivating and energizing it will be. Think of dissatisfaction as a limited resource, just like time and money, and don’t fritter it away on things that don’t really matter, or that won’t really change. If you really want a new house, let that be the only thing you’re dissatisfied about, and stop complaining about the weather, co-workers, or anything else that you can’t or won’t do anything about.
Grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niehbur: The Serenity Prayer
Be an Energy Faucet
Are you an energy faucet or an energy drain? When you leave a group, do others feel energized by your smile and cheerfulness, or exhausted by your pessimism and complaining? People like to be around those who energize them, and seek to avoid those who sap their energy. Mark Twain said to have a friend, be a friend. The same principle applies to energy – to have more energy, energize others.
Avoid Drain People
In his book Million Dollar Habits, Robert J. Ringer says to avoid people who drain your energy. This includes the ones who are always complaining, pointing fingers, bragging, criticizing, and anything else that saps you of spunk and life. Ringer says: “What all drain people have in common is that they drain you of time, energy, peace of mind, relaxation, comfort, and/or money. Interpersonal conflicts waste time and energy, and Drain People are masters at causing interpersonal conflicts.” Can you think of any better reason to stay away from negative people?
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The Self-Empowerment Pledge
The Self-Empowerment Pledge is a powerful tool for transforming your attitudes and behaviors. Simply repeat each daily promise to yourself at least four times a day – morning, afternoon, evening, and right before bed. Post a copy on the bathroom mirror, in your daily planner, and wherever else you will see it often. You will be astonished at the changes you see in your thinking, in your attitudes, and in your behaviors after the first few months.
Commit yourself to one minute per day repeating to yourself that day’s promise from The Self-Empowerment Pledge. Devoting yourself to a mere fifteen seconds every morning, noon, afternoon, and evening to repeat that day’s promise can be profoundly life-changing. That’s only 365 minutes a year (the amount of time the average person spends watching television every two or three days). The return on your investment will be enormous!
Think of a rocket ship that’s been launched toward the moon. If you alter its course by just one tiny degree as it is coming off the launch pad, it will miss the moon altogether and end up in the stars. In the same way, small changes made as a result of taking the seven simple promises of The Self-Empowerment Pledge, if they are sustained over time, can have a huge impact upon your future success and happiness.
Five or ten years from now (and quite probably by December 31 of this year!), you will be in a much better place – professionally, personally, financially, and in many other ways – than you would have been otherwise.
You have my permission to make as many copies of The Pledge as you need, and to share it with anyone else who could benefit from making these seven simple promises to himself or herself. Happy New Year!
THE SELF-EMPOWERMENT PLEDGE™
Seven Simple Promises That Will Change Your Life
Monday’s Promise: Responsibility
I will take complete responsibility for my health, my happiness, my success, and my life, and will not blame others for my problems or predicaments.
Tuesday’s Promise: Accountability
I will not allow low self-esteem, self-limiting beliefs, or the negativity of others to prevent me from achieving my authentic goals and from becoming the person I am meant to be.
Wednesday’s Promise: Determination
I will do the things I’m afraid to do, but which I know should be done. Sometimes this will mean asking for help to do that which I cannot do by myself.
Thursday’s Promise: Contribution
I will earn the help I need in advance by helping other people now, and repay the help I receive by serving others later.
Friday’s Promise: Resilience
I will face rejection and failure with courage, awareness, and perseverance, making these experiences the platform for future acceptance and success.
Saturday’s Promise: Perspective
I will have faith that, though I might not understand why adversity happens, by my conscious choice I can find strength, compassion, and grace through my trials.
Sunday’s Promise: Faith
My faith and my gratitude for all that I have been blessed with will shine through in my attitudes and in my actions
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PLEDGE STORIES
The Self-Empowerment Pledge
Seven Simple Promises that Will Change Your Life
Story #3 – Wednesday’s Promise
By Joe Tye
Copyright © 2004
Rachel Williams sat in her new office chair , staring at the telephone, anxiously hopeful. The telephone squatted on her new office desk staring back, truculently silent. Last week she had sent out 5,000 flyers announcing her new business, Pretty Pouches: Purses with Distinction. In this town where so many people knew her, Rachel was sure she’d do better than the two percent response rate the marketing consultant had told her was the best she could hope for. One hundred or so orders would launch her business with a bang. Even her projected worst case of one-half percent, netting her 25 orders, would be a good start.
Not in her worst nightmare had she imagined zero-point-zero percent. For the third time this morning, Rachel picked up the receiver to make sure there was a dial tone. There was. For the third time this morning, she checked her email to see if there were any orders, or even inquiries, in the inbox. There weren’t. For the third time this morning, she walked over to see if the fax machine bin was still empty. It was. She got up to go check the mail, walking slowly through the shop she’d set up in her basement, as if the extra few seconds would give the mailman a bit more time to stuff her box full of orders. It didn’t.
Back in the shop, Rachel made rounds past the tables she’d set up. She caressed the piles of soft leather and fuzzy felt, played her fingers through the containers full of beads and baubles, and gazed at the six different purse patterns she’d so lovingly designed. Then she sat down at her idle sewing machine, not sure whether to scream or cry.
“First I’ll scream, then I’ll cry,” she said aloud, but before she had a chance to do either the phone rang. Rachel jumped off the stool, banged her thigh on the sewing machine table, tripped over the power cable, and was still able to make it to her desk by the third ring. Taking a deep, calming breath, she picked up the receiver. “Pretty Pouches, home of the Proud Peacock Pocketbook. This is Rachel – how may I help you?”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line, then a burst of laughter from a very familiar voice. “Oh, Rachel, I’m so proud of you. By golly, you said you were going to do it, and now you’re doing it.” It was Amy Martin, one of Rachel’s best friends, and a real role model as well. Amy was a national director with Mary Kay Cosmetics, and her pink Cadillac was well-known around town. Rachel slumped down into her new office chair.
“Oh, hi Amy.”
“What’s the matter, Kiddo, did your pet hamster just die?” Amy had a wonderful way of putting things into perspective.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Amy. It’s just that, well, I haven’t had a single order yet, and I was hoping this call would be the first one.”
“And what makes you think it’s not?”
“For one thing, you already have a purse – the one I gave you for Christmas.”
“Well, I can see I’m going to have to work with you on this.” It was the voice of an exasperated schoolteacher. “First of all, you never assume that one of anything as wonderful as your purses is ever enough.”
“Okay, how’s this,” asked Rachel in her best high school girl popping bubble gum behind the department store counter tone of voice, “you wouldn’t care to buy another purse, would ya?”
Amy surprised Rachel by not laughing. “Rachel, do you want this to be a business or just a glorified hobby?”
“It’s been a hobby for a long time. Now I want it to be a business.”
“Would you like some help getting it started?”
“I would love some help. I guess it’s pretty obvious I need it.”
“Alright, I’ll be over at 2:30 and we’ll get started.” It was vintage Amy – if a pipe was leaking, she didn’t call a plumber, she grabbed a wrench.
---
“Would you like some tea or something?” Rachel asked when Amy arrived.
“No time for that, kiddo, we have work to do. Get your pad and a pen, and let’s go to the kitchen table.”
The two women situated themselves at the table, and Rachel prepared to take notes. “The first thing you have to appreciate,” Amy began, “is what I call the paradox of selling: for your business to succeed, you must sell your product to customers, but selling is the worst way to reach your customers.”
Rachel stopped her pen mid-sentence. “Amy, that doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense. What do you do with all the sales letters you get in the mail?”
“Hmm. I throw most of them away without looking at them.”
“Precisely. You recognize them as sales come-ons and you toss them. That’s why I tell my beauty consultants we’re notselling – we’re sharing our joy. Your purses bring you joy, don’t they?”
“Absolutely,” Rachel replied with a vigorous shake of her head.
“If you can share the joy you feel about these works of art – and they really are works of art, Rachel – don’t you think the sale will take care of itself?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I know so,” said Amy, “and I’ve got the pink Cadillac to prove it. Now, you told me that you’ve sent out 5,000 flyers but gotten no response. What do you suppose the problem is?”
Rachel frowned. “Frankly, Amy, I think it’s the small town mentality of this place. People aren’t willing to spend a hundred dollars for a beautiful purse when they can get something plain and functional down at Target for twenty.”
Amy shook her head. “Not so. The second thing you need to appreciate is that the customer is always right. Always. Even when she doesn’t buy from you. Never blame the customer for not buying. If you have the right product and the right pitch, she will buy. If she doesn’t buy, it just means you’ve got to work on your product or work on your pitch.”
“But I don’t want to change my product. I put a lot of love into these purses.”
“Then you need to change your pitch.” Amy was unyielding when she was right – and when she was talking about business, she was almost always right. “What do you suppose could be wrong with your sales pitch, the reason your flyer isn’t working?”
Rachel stared at the wall for a few seconds, shrugged, then ventured, “It’s hard to share joy with a mail-order flyer?”
“Bravo,” Amy applauded. “Someday Pretty Pouches might be a household name like Starbucks and Krispy Kreme, and Peacock Pocketbooks will sell themselves. But until then, you have to share your joy, and that means talking to people, one-on-one.”
“But that’s the whole problem, Amy – talking to people. I’m not very good at it, and…” Rachel stopped mid-sentence. She had just stumbled upon one of the great fears in her life, a fear that had held her back for as long as she could remember. “And I’m scared to death that right there in the middle of a conversation I’ll go blank, have nothing at all to say, and just stand there like a total moron.”
Amy nodded. “Me too.”
Rachel’s jaw dropped. “You? But Amy, you’re never at a loss for words.”
“That’s because I learned the secret.”
“The secret? What secret?”
“You don’t have to say much of anything as long as you ask questions, then let the other person start talking. Like right now. You could as me how I like the purse you gave me for Christmas.”
Rachel shrugged. “Okay, how do you like the purse I gave you for Christmas?”
Amy hugged the purse to her chest. “I adore it! And I’ll bet you want to know how it’s held up, and how it goes with the different things I wear, and whether I ever get any compliments on it. Are you getting the picture, Kiddo?”
Rachel smiled and nodded. “Yes, teacher, I’m getting the picture. What would I do without your help?”
“Another good question,” Amy replied with a laugh. “And here’s another one you could ask me – who else do I know that might want a beautiful new custom purse. Think you can bring yourself to ask that one, Rachel? You’ll never do it all by yourself, you know. You need raving fans like me out there talking about Pretty Pouches.”
“But – I wouldn’t want to take advantage…”
Amy cut her off with a wagging finger. “You’re not taking advantage. I want you to sell lots of these beautiful purses. Then you send all those happy customers on over to me, because I can stock them with all the things every woman needs to have in her purse. Understand?”
Now Rachel laughed. “Well, I suppose I can do that.”
“Yes, I suppose you can. Now, let’s wrap up with one final lesson.” Amy opened her purse and unzipped the inside pocket, then pulled out a laminated card. “Here, let me share something with you. It’s a promise I made to myself years ago, a promise that has been the foundation of my success. You make this promise to yourself – you live this promise every day – and your business will take off. And that’s my promise to you.” Rachel read the card:
The Determination Promise:
I will do the things I’m afraid to do, but which I know should be done. Sometimes this will mean asking for help to do that which I cannot do by myself.
“If all you want to do is just make purses, Rachel, then keep it a hobby, or get a job at a purse-making factory. But it you want to create a business out of it, then you’re going to have to share your joy – transfer the joy you feel for creating purses into the joy women will feel carrying them, and the joy men will feel giving them to the women they love.”
Rachel looked at he ceiling, looked out the window, then looked at the hands in her lap. “You make it all sound so easy when we’re sitting here, Amy, but as soon as you leave, I won’t even know where to start.”
“Yes, you will. You’ll know. You’ve always known.” Amy stood up and slung her purse over he shoulder. “Gotta run, Kiddo, or I’ll be late for my next appointment.”
“What do you mean, I’ve always known?” Amy didn’t answer as they headed out of the kitchen. They walked to the front door in silence, then Rachel repeated her question, more insistently this time. “What do you mean, I’ve always known?”
Amy extracted the car keys from her purse. “Think about it, Rachel. Stop all the noise for a while and listen to your heart. I think you’ll hear the answer to your question.”
Rachel watched Amy’s pink Cadillac back out of the driveway and disappear down the street. Then she stood for a long time at the head of the basement stairs before slowly walking back down into her creative sanctuary. Across the room, a little girl was seated at Rachel’s drafting table, intensely focused on the drawing she was making with colored markers. Rachel knew this little girl with the upturned nose and the taffy-pull pigtails, this little girl wearing the fuzzy pink sweater that her grandmother had made for her sixth birthday.
Walking slowly so as not to disturb the little girl’s concentration, or to disrupt the magic of this fracture in time and space, Rachel glided across the room. She stood for a long time at the little girl’s shoulder, hardly breathing, as she watched a forest of purple trees, orange birds, and blue stick people with big red smiles flow out across the paper. She had to stuff her hands deep down into the pockets of her dress to keep them from reaching out for the little girl that her father used to call Pop Tart.
Finally, Rachel leaned over and whispered, “that’s a beautiful picture. What’s it of?”
The little girl didn’t look up from the smiley-face sun she was adding to her sky. “It’s Afca,” she said. “Don’t you see the jraff?”
Rachel now saw that one of the scribbled figures did indeed have quite a long neck. “Oh, yeah. But I’ve never seen a green giraffe before.”
“Oh, yes you have,” the little girl insisted, finally turning around to look into the eyes of the woman she would one day become.
You’ve always known. The little girl went all blurry as Rachel’s eyes welled up with tears. “Then I guess I’ve forgotten, haven’t I?”
The little girl shook her head. “You didn’t forget. You just learned too many things that get in the way.”
“What do you mean, I learned too many things that get in the way?” There was no answer. The drafting table chair was empty.
Rachel looked down at the sketch pad. Where a moment ago there had been a child’s portrait of Africa, there was now a vivid motion picture scene from a schoolyard. Six-year-old Rachel Williams was running laughing toward the swing set. But when her little feet could no longer keep up with her racing body, she pitched forward, face-first into the grass.
Slowly, little Rachel pushed herself to her knees, then got up to her feet. With quiet dignity, she smoothed down her dress and brushed the dirt from her knees. Then she laughed out loud and raced off again toward the swing set. Stopping just short, the little girl looked up out of the vision on the sketch pad at the older Rachel. “See?” she said with a gap-toothed smile that up until today Rachel had only seen in old photographs.
Rachel blinked hard and looked back down at the sketch pad. It was once again filled with last night’s doodles for new purse designs. You just learned too many things that get in the way. What were those things she learned as she’d gotten older? That if you run too fast, you might fall down? That if you fall down, it might hurt?
Rachel sat down at the drafting table, picked up a green marker and started to draw a giraffe. Maybe if she could somehow unlearn all those things that kept getting in her way, she could resurrect the natural wisdom that had come so easily when she was six: that when you fall down, you get back up. You brush the dirt off your knees and you laugh. And then you start running again. Because even with the falls and the hurts, life is still a wild adventure all-filled-up with purple trees and green giraffes and blue stick people with big red smiles – if you only open your eyes to see them.
What was it that Amy had told her when she’d first shared the idea of starting a purse business? Proceed until apprehended.
Rachel got up, walked over to her new office desk, picked up the telephone receiver, and punched in a number. “Hello, Gail? It’s Rachel. What’s going on?” Rachel had met Gail when they worked together at Empiricon, and they’d become good friends.
“Hey, Rachel. I’m just about to take the kids to soccer practice. What’s up with you?”
“I won’t keep you then, I just had a question. Do you still have that book club?”
“Why, yes. We meet Thursday evenings. Would you like to join us?”
“I might.” Rachel replied. “Let me know when you start a new book. But right now, I just wanted to ask a favor. I started a new business selling my purses.” Gail already had a Pretty Pouch; Rachel had given it to her for her birthday the year before.
“Oh, yeah, I thought I saw a flyer or something about that. Good luck with it! I really love my purse.”
“Thanks, Gail. Well, I was wondering – uhm, wondering if I could come over one evening and show some purses to the ladies in your book club.”
“You want to make a sales pitch to my book club?”
“Well, uhm, it’s no big deal, really. I mean, I wouldn’t want to intrude or anything. I just…”
Gail laughed. “Good grief, Rachel. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I’m always using your purse to haul books back and forth to the library. Why don’t you come by on Thursday? The girls would love to see you.”
Rachel hung up the phone and marked the appointment in her calendar. Then she set the answering machine and went upstairs to change into jeans and tennis shoes. The sun was warm on her face as she walked the eight blocks to her old school. She ran across the playground and plopped down onto one of the swings, then began pumping herself higher and higher.
There was a lot of forgetting of all those things-that-get-in-the-way to be done, so that she could once more remember those things she had always known, but that somehow had gotten crowded out along with the green giraffes.
At the far end of the playground, the little girl with the taffy-pull pigtails and skinned knees smiled and waved. Then she turned and skipped away.
THE END
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