Thoughts on being a Leader

Today is the birthday of the first US President, George Washington. Also it is the birthday of Sir Baden Powell, the founder of Boy Scouts. Both were leaders in their own right. When I reflect on the word leader, I like to use this acrostic to give my definition.

L – Laughter. A good leader strives to use humor in their everyday work and personal life. If they aren’t naturally funny, they can learn how to use humor to create a better work place or organization. They can harness the talents of the funny people they work with. Humor is a known endorphin and it is perfectly legal in all 50 states! I read in the New England Journal of Medicine, “20 seconds of hearty laughter is better for you physiologically than 3 minutes on a rowing machine”. In my own non-scientific survey of people in the volunteer and auxiliary field, 100% of the respondents would rather laugh than spend any time on a rowing machine. Laughter creates a more positive work environment and helps open the doors of creative thinking. My friend and motivational speaker Karyn Buxman travels the country speaking to organizations about the power of humor (BTW, she is really funny and reminds me of Meg Ryan).

E - Example – Leaders talk the talk and walk the walk. They do what the say they are going to do. They work along side their people. They don’t ask anyone to do anything that they haven’t done or aren’t willing to try. Early in my career, I worked for the IBM Corporation. The last working day of the month was always stressful as the sales representatives were always trying to place computer orders to make their quotas. I worked as the sales reps’ order processing contact by placing orders for them. My manager would always bring in donuts on this stress filled day. It helped set the stage for the day and most importantly, this small gesture communicated care. He would also come out of his office and sit with us helping to process orders and asked who needed help. This was one of the many ways he demonstrated the positive aspects of leadership. To this day, I still hold him up as one of the best managers I ever had the pleasure of knowing.

A – Attitude. There are few things more important in life and work than a positive attitude and the ability to turn negative a situation around. It’s not a question of whether difficult things are going to occur in our lives. The question is, “How do we respond when those things happen?” Recently, I interviewed a top performer in insurance sales. She was one of the most amazing managers and leaders I have ever known. She told me in the interview that everything that happens to you happens for a reason. Her quote is “On the other side of adversity, is ALWAYS something better”. Sometimes that is hard to apply when life deals you a difficult hand. The day after something happens is usually not the best time to think about this. I have found over and over there is truth in that statement. It is difficult to accept while experiencing adversity, but encouraging to know that something good or even great can come from something really bad. Try it out. A leader can’t change anyone but they can change their response to a situation. Price Prichett, author and consultant from Dallas, TX says, “Higher management can end up having to do things that are hard for people to accept. This doesn’t mean that whoever is in charge should carry the burden of responsibility to pump you back up and give you a positive attitude.”

D - Discipline – Several year ago, Sport Illustrated conducted a survey of the top professional athletes in the world, an astonishing statistic was revealed. The time differential that separated the #1 professional athlete in the world from the #100 was as little as seven tenths of a second. However the #1 athlete had an income of as high as 5,300% greater. I am convinced that part of the difference was discipline. A suspect that the #1 athlete did things every day with greater focus and discipline. Winners in sports, politics, and in business are disciplined. They do things that others aren’t doing and they do these things everyday. It is focusing on the little things that make effective leaders.

E - Execution – Many times in my career I have suffered from paralysis of analysis. I have surveyed too much, had too many focus groups, tried to make everyone happy, waited to see what others will think, etc. Sometimes leaders must execute ideas without testing them. Perhaps they needed to approach some things like my son did when he was four years old. He would start races with me by saying, “Ready, go, set.” His attitude was let’s just do it. We’ll figure out the specifics later. In his book Selling the Invisible, Harry Beckwith says, “Execute passionately. Marginal tactics executed passionately almost always will outperform brilliant tactics executed marginally. I think Beckwith and my son are right – Ready, go, set!

R - Respect – When I graduated from college, I started my career with the IBM Corporation where one of the platitudes was “Respect for the Individual”. While it was posted everywhere, it wasn’t lived by everyone. One manager I knew had respect for those who played golf together on weekends, those who participated in the weekly football pool and those who had lunch together regularly. In other words, he respected those people who conformed to the way he thought, believed, and lived. We didn’t think alike but we didn’t need to to have mutual respect. You don’t have to agree with your team, coworkers, friends, or family; you just need to respect them. Abraham Lincoln once said, “I don’t like that man, I better get to know him better.” What a wise and respectful motto to have.

To me, being an effective leader is:

L – Learning to use Laughter to lead
E – Being an Example
A – Maintaining a great Attitude
D – Having daily Discipline
E – Executing with excellence
R – Treating everyone with Respect

Arguably, these are all simple things. But as Jan Carlson, CEO of Scandinavian Airlines said, “It’s not doing one thing 1000% better, it’s doing a 1000 things 1% better.” Jan should know. He took an airline from losing over 20 million a year to gaining a profit of over 60 million. You might not turn an airline around, but by using these skills, you can lead a team, department, or organization to a very positive outcome.

Get Trashed

Yesterday was Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I am sure there was a lot of trash on the street but probably a lot less thanks to the efforts of Katrina Krewe. Becky Zaheri started Katrina Krewe in November 2005 to provide relief along the common thoroughfares of New Orleans from the trash and debris that resulted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Since Katrina, Becky and her Krewe have mobilized thousands of local and national volunteers to bag and remove over 250,000 tons of Katrina debris from the streets of New Orleans. The Katrina Krewe coordinates anti-litter awareness among residents, schools, and businesses within the New Orleans area through various public service programs and activities.

Before Katrina, Becky was a self described soccer mom who lived a pretty good life. She enjoyed her upper class lifestyle playing tennis frequently, socializing with friends, and regular outings and travel with her family. Becky didn’t subscribe to a newspaper, wasn’t politically involved, and wasn’t a community activist. On August 29, 2005, a nasty woman named Katrina changed all that.

Becky was able to return to New Orleans earlier than most residents because her husband was a doctor. She quickly realized that the New Orleans sanitation department had their hands full. In November, Becky emailed everyone in her address book, and asked them to help clean up New Orleans. Within one hour she began receiving responses (over 75 the first few days including many from people she didn’t even know). Fifteen people gathered to pick up trash the day after Thanksgiving in 2005. Soon that number grew to 30 people, then 50, 100, 250, 300, 500, and even as many as 800 volunteers at one clean up session! As the news of their work continued to spread, thousands of people were coming from all over the world for her bi-weekly trash parties. Becky never imagined her influence would be international. Her initial idea was for “my buddies and me” to clean up a few neighborhoods.

The Katrina Krewe continues to foster anti-litter awareness among residents, schools, and businesses within the New Orleans area through various public service programs and activities. After nearly a year of cleaning up the streets of New Orleans, the group hung up its gloves on August 26, 2006, to begin placing the primary focus on their “Keep it Klean” public awareness campaign. The Katrina Krewe is reaching kids in their pilot “kids against trash” school program.

Becky has some advice for others. “Whatever your gig is, just do it. Pick the thing that works for you. Be diligent about it, until you make it happen. Be patient, be willing to sacrifice and don’t stop until you achieve your goal. Start with your friends, your family, your co-workers and get it going. As long as you feel good about it and are making a difference, you don’t need an army of people. One person can make a difference.” Check out www.cleanno.org.

HELP! Some of this material from this blog MAY appear in a book I am writing. While a grammar or spelling error MIGHT pass here, it certainly won’t in the book. PLEASE email me and let me know what you think of these post and offer a correction if needed. Please contact me at www.TimRichardson.com

The Big Give

Finally a reality show I can get excited about. I received an email today announcing a new reality show…The Big Give Open. It’s Oprah Winfrey’s concept and casting calls are happening this week in LA and in coming weeks in Nashville, New York, and Chicago. Here’s what was on the web page:

Are you America’s greatest unknown philanthropist? Are you the type of person who makes things happen and will do what ever it takes? Do you have a big personality and lots of charisma? Are you ready to pay it forward?

Harpo Productions, Inc. is pleased to announce our first primetime network series, The Big Give. This show is all about inspiring people around the country to do good for others. The Big Give will challenge contestants to dream up creative and innovative ways to help others. Contestants will travel through the U.S. completing tasks based around the communities’ needs and changing the lives within them. It’s a new, positive twist to primetime television created in the spirit of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

We are looking for competitive, creative, and adventurous individuals who want to use their resourcefulness to help others and will stop at nothing to do the right thing!

Apply at www.oprah.com
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Perhaps you would never apply for something like this. Pretend like you were on the show in your community. What do you consider the biggest challenges that need addressing? How would you creatively tackle them? If you had Oprah’s money and influence, how would you make a difference?

NEWS alert: I am actually sponsoring an essay contest for high school students to write about the REAL “Richest” people in America who are making a difference in the world. Contact me online for details. www.TimRichardson.com

Smash the Water Cooler or Bungee Jumping anyone?

I just read something on my friend Eileen McDargh’s blog (www.eileenmcdargh.com/blog/) about the Whole Foods Market CEO, John Mackey. It seems Mackey is donating all his stock options to two company foundations and working for only $1/year. This is an extraordinary example of leadership and service. As I was reading this, it reminded me of one of the most incredible leaders I have ever met - Richard Davis, the current CEO of US Bank. I met Richard before addressing 500 US Bank employees at their annual company meeting. Among the powerful points he told his managers that I would address later that day were:

Smash the Water Cooler
Bungee Jump
Get a Life!

OK that was MY interpretation. One of his first comments was “I need your help”. To the 400 or so gathered, he asked them to stop the rumors that were be discussed by the water cooler. It seems that some were saying that this #6 company in industry would be merged with or taken over by one of the 5 competitors that were bigger. It had even been inaccurately reported in the press…(imagine that?) One by one, he took each of these competitors and gave a most convincing argument as to why there wouldn’t be a merger or acquisition. His points were solid, his research was well documented, he did his homework AND I believe, he won his case. Why did he do this? He told his team, “I want your focus to be on improving on a fantastic year. I want you to do this without having to look over your shoulder and worry if you’ll have a job or not (I kind of wanted to make sure I’d have one too!)

So let’s get to work and while you at it, help me stop the unproductive gossip with those who report to you.”

WOW what a positive and powerful way to tell people to stop gossiping!

He next asked them to Bungee Jump off a 1000-foot bridge in Australia wearing a red wig and a clown suit …well that was my interpretation of his message on taking risk. He talked about their products were really commodities in their market and how once an innovation was introduced, their competitors were quick to emulate. He acknowledged the specific innovations that those in the audience had developed and praised the work of several people. He urged them for this to continue. He said “execution is almost as important as innovation and some of you will be executed if you don’t innovate”…well not really, BUT he did implore them to continue to think innovatively and even told them NOT to come back from the morning break if they weren’t prepared to put it all on the table and take risks…calculated risks. In front this audience, he asked one of his EVP’s if he had ever said no when this EVP asked him for anything for which he had asked. Randy’s reply…not once.

He concluded with this “Get a life!” He shared how he had attended 14 of 17 basketball games of his teenage daughter (where he “quietly” coached from the stands). He spoke of shopping with his wife and daughter at the mall, and about how supportive the company was of charity and community organizations. He said that he felt like he was a better leader because he turned it off when it was time to turn it off. Somehow I suspect that when he is working, he REALLY turns it on!

I must confess I wondered how a man in charge of such a large company could really do this. Could he turn it off? He had to work Saturday’s at LEAST to check his email…so I sent him one early on a Saturday morning… He responded…on Monday morning at 8:13 am!

I learned a lot more from this man for whom I would love to be mentored. I hope you have learned something too. Here’s the Tim Take on all of this

1) When you hear people in unproductive talk, stifle it…in a positive way. If you can’t convincingly dispel the unproductive talk, ask lots of questions of those for whom you trust who can. Don’t let the Wally and Wanda Whiners destroy morale of others.

2) Take more risk… If you are not falling flat on your face, you’re probably too comfortable. Develop a new idea or an innovative approach. Bounce it past a coworker for whom you trust. Share it with a colleague or friend OUTSIDE your work world, and maybe most powerful of all … get input from someone with a very divergent viewpoint. When they are telling you what you DON’T want to hear…shut up…and listen … intently. Consider their feedback… all of it. Sleep on your idea and then ACT on it.

3) Live your life with a focus on what you value. When at the office, it’s hammer time. When you’re home, it’s homer time (and I don’t mean Homer Simpson). I am not sure if attaining perfect balance is possible but I know this “When values are clear, decision making is easy.”
You or I may never be a president of a company of the magnitude of my new friend Richard Davis. BUT we certainly can smash the heck out of the water cooler, bungee jump in a clown suit, AND most importantly, GET A LIFE…a rich one at that!

Giving it all away…

I just read this article on www.slate.com by Henry Blodget. The title: How to make giving it all away part of the American success story Let me know what you think of this.

After two-plus centuries of nationhood, it’s time to update the American Dream. Not because Americans can no longer go from rags to riches. Rather because, after two centuries of the great American experiment, it’s safe to conclude that our particular blend of free enterprise and government alone leaves too many important problems unsolved. From education to health care to energy to wealth disparity to the environment, we’re living proof that being a rich nation doesn’t necessarily make us a great one.

How can we become the latter? By developing a not-for-profit sector as creative, competitive, and well-funded as our corporate sector. Private for-profit enterprises and public government agencies each have their place—the Department of Health and Human Services would do a lousy job running Wal-Mart, and the Air Force, for obvious reasons, shouldn’t report to Boeing. But each is also constrained by its own organizational principles: Government agencies need to maintain a political consensus, and corporations need to make a profit.

Between these two forms of organization, however, is a third that has the freedom to operate without the need for consensus or profit. The nonprofit sector could solve a lot more of our problems—if we make it bigger, more effective, and more central to our economy.

How can we do this? First, we can adopt more of the organizational and financing practices of the corporate world. In the past decade, for example, “venture philanthropy” has begun to build the equivalent of a Silicon Valley-style venture culture for “social entrepreneurs.” That’s a good development. But we also should vastly increase our collective investment in the sector by making over the American Dream. For future generations, getting rich must only be the first goal. To complete the dream, any self-respecting American capitalist must feel compelled to follow in the footsteps of the Slate 60 and give all (or a lot of it) away.

Before we discuss some ways of making this happen, let’s look at the big picture. According to the Urban Institute, Americans devote about 2 percent of their after-tax income each year to charitable donations. According to another nonprofit, Giving USA, these individual contributions totaled $199 billion in 2005. This is an impressive number, but it amounts to less than a quarter of the $927 billion in individual income taxes collected that year by the federal government alone. It also amounts to less than one-sixth of the collective net worth of the 400 richest Americans ($1.25 trillion). So, it does not seem a stretch to suggest that compared to the government and the corporate sectors, the nonprofit sector is, well, underfunded.

Thanks to a century’s worth of quiet philanthropy, combined with some heroic efforts in the past decade, this may be about to change. For decades, the foundations established by Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon, et al., have quietly and tastefully distributed billions. In recent years, however, high-profile megagifts by Ted Turner, Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, and others have begun making those who simply buy toys and hoard their piles look selfish, shallow, and un-American in comparison.

How can we do more to make such folks into heroes—and inspire the entire nation to follow in their footsteps? Lists like the Slate 60 and BusinessWeek 100 are a good start. Here are some more suggestions:

Find image magicians like those who created Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Diamonds Are Forever, Just Do It, the Marlboro Man, Santa Claus, and other marketing concepts that have become integral to our culture. Tell them to make philanthropy—and our great philanthropists—part of our national DNA.

Banish the words charity and gift from the nonprofit lexicon. The new American Dream can’t be about passive, condescending check-writing. It must be about leadership, inspiration, and problem-solving.

Change the tax code to further encourage philanthropy, especially among the rich. For example, increase the income-tax rate on incomes above, say, $200,000 a year, while also increasing the tax-reducing power of charitable donations. Currently, charitable donors can only deduct 50 percent of their adjusted gross income in any given year (and in some cases, only 30 percent). This discourages the 2.5 million Americans who make more than $200,000 to give the bulk of it away, let alone the 10,000 who make $10 million or more.

Re-brand the “estate tax” as the “un-American activities tax,” the “Scrooge tax,” or the “keeping America great by motivating your lazy kids tax.”

Expand the Slate 60 to the Slate 400. Go back to the image magicians and make inclusion on this list more prestigious and impressive than inclusion on the Forbes 400. Competition inspired the Slate 60 to begin with; up the competitive ante.

Supplement the public-adulation carrot with the peer-pressure stick. Cross reference the Slate 400 with the Forbes 400 to create a new list: America’s 100 Stingiest (those who are worth more than $1 billion who contribute the smallest percentage of their net worth each year). Update this list in real time, online, and post it everywhere that the billionaires’ friends, colleagues, and neighbors will see it every day. Include pictures, of course.

When will we know we’ve arrived? When we hear about the latest rags-to-riches high-tech or hedge-fund billionaire and think, “Wow, he or she is halfway to achieving the American Dream.”

Put the web address below in your brower and read about 60 largest American charitable contributions of the last year. www.slate.com/id/2159774/nav/tap1/

Setbacks

This morning, I again saw the clip of Jason McElwain (J-Mac to his friends) the 18 year old who scored twenty-one points in the last few minutes of a basketball game last year. Until that moment, J-Mac had been the team manager. Now he’s a hero and he’s won the hearts of many all over the country.

I’ve read about him in Guidepost magazine; I have seen him on ESPN; he was in a story in Reader’s Digest. He’s met President Bush, been on Oprah, and Magic Johnson wants to make an inspirational movie about him (J-Mac would like Mathew McConaughey to play him in the movie).

He’s the unlikely hero - a 5′6″ kid with autism who showed the world that a disability is not a deterrent. While this story touched me the first time I saw, I was even more moved this morning when I saw a young couple interviewed who had a three year old autistic child. They see hope in their boys future that he can do things that “normal” kids do. The parents have shown that video to the little boy as inspiration. He’s already got “game” and seemingly inherited skills from both parents who were players. Think about how differently that boy’s future can be because someone else has paved the way and demonstrated that autism need not limit him from achieving. Think about how different J-Mac’s life could have been had his parents not encouraged him to stretch his limits. Think about the difference you or I can make in the lives of someone else simply by repeating and demonstrating that barriers are only temporary delays as we travel down the road of life.

My friend Willie Jolley (www.williejolley.com), an inspirational and motivational speaker from Washington, DC says, “A setback is only a setup for a come back”. What’s the greatest setback you have ever heard about or overcome yourself? What lessons did you draw from it?

While many of the posting here are about people making the lives of others more rich because of the work they do, never discount the difference “play” can make. Whatever you do, others are watching (particularly our little people). They are watching and learning how we deal with setbacks and how we stretch ourselves in the moments of challenge.

Hoops anyone?

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Watch J-Mac’s story on www.utube.com or by going to:
www.sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2352763
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11526448/

HELP! Some of this material from this blog MAY appear in a book I am writing. While a grammar or spelling error MIGHT pass here, it certainly won’t in the book. PLEASE email me and let me know what you think of these post and offer a correction if needed. Please contact me at www.TimRichardson.com

True Love

Today of course is St. Valentine’s Day. The day of love. True love can’t exist without forgiveness. Which is the topic of my post today. Recently, I spoke with The Reverend Lyndon F. Harris who was the priest in charge of the relief ministries at Ground Zero after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. His story is an incredible example of love in action.

Harris joined the staff of Trinity Church/ Saint Paul’s Chapel in April 2001 in order to develop an alternative urban worship program at Saint Paul’s. However, from September 15, 2001 to June 2, 2002, Saint Paul’s Chapel was converted into a multi-faith relief center for the rescue and relief workers, and victim’s family members, at the World Trade Center site. Saint Paul’s offered food, massage therapy, grief counseling, and chiropractic and podiatric care around the clock. By the end of the operation, over one half million meals were served.

In 2004, Harris founded the Sacred City Project, a non profit that seeks to bring together the faith communities so active in the months following 9/11 in order to work for peace. The premiere initiative of this non profit is to create Gardens of Forgiveness at Ground Zero and around the world, as places for reflection, healing, and conflict transformation, as well as venues for educational programs on forgiveness as a strategy for peacemaking.

As a chaplain at Ground Zero in New York, one of the most important responsibilities Harris had was to say prayers over the remains of the dead as they were uncovered. Every day as he walked through this devastating place devastation, the question that came to his mind again and again was, “How in God’s name—literally—how in God’s name do we end this cycle of violence and revenge?” He had no immediate answer. It was not until he learned of the work of Alexandra Asseily and the courageous people of Lebanon who have embraced the idea of a Garden of Forgiveness in central Beirut that an answer came to him. Forgiveness.

Based on his experience at Ground Zero, Harris founded the Sacred City Project (Sacred City, Inc.), an educational non profit that seeks to bring together the world’s religions to work for peace at the epicenter of the violence perpetrated on 9/11 by religious extremists. The premiere effort of the Sacred City Project is the development of a Garden of Forgiveness at Ground Zero, and a Global Gardens of Forgiveness Network in which every community in the world is encouraged to create a Garden of Forgiveness, a place where we can reflect on all the horrors that can happen to us as individuals, and then decide to make the world a better place by choosing not to reciprocate violence for violence. As Gandhi said, “an eye for an eye leaves both eyes blind,” and there’s too much violence in the world. Gardens of Forgiveness seek to replace “an eye for an eye” with “an eye for a heart.”

According to Harris, “forgiveness does not mean that we condone evil acts, or that we let evildoers off the hook for doing evil things. It does not mean we cannot defend ourselves. Forgiveness is not weakness. Forgiveness means that we give up all hope for a better past and then, with courage, create a new future: a future beyond violence, retribution, and revenge”. The Sacred City Project and the Global Gardens of Forgiveness Network seeks to heal the past and create the future—one Garden of Forgiveness at a time. Check out www.gofnyc.org

Say I love you this week by asking someone to forgive you. It’s powerful stuff…

The Ultimate Team - A father and his son

Saturday I was in my sons room. He was asked me to come look at his Lego creation. He absolutely loves playing with lego and builds some incredible things. For some reason, I’m not a Lego guy. I’ll ride bikes with my son, play soccer, play in the tree fort, play hide ‘n seek, heck, I’ll eat a dirt pie before playing Lego. For some reason, this question popped out of my mouth “when are we going to build something out of Lego?” To which he responded, “You are always busy.” Ouch. The truth hurts.

Sometimes, it’s necessary to take an interest in things one may or may not enjoy doing to build a relationship. Sometimes it’s important to do something that your son (or daughter) enjoys even if you aren’t good at it, don’t like it, or don’t know how to do it. My new mentor is a guy named Dick Hoyt who started running because his son, born as a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, wanted to participate in a five-mile benefit run for a local lacrosse player who had been paralyzed in an accident. Since then, the have competed in marathons, triathlons, climbed mountains and trekked 3,735 miles across America.

Rick said this about his father: “Dad is one of my role models. Once he sets out to do something, Dad sticks to it whatever it is, until it is done. For example once we decided to really get into triathlons, dad worked out, up to five hours a day, five times a week, even when he was working.”

Read more about Dick and Rick Hoyt at www.TeamHoyt.com here and watch an incredibly inspiring video about them (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D52rJd9GX10). Lego anyone?

Another Super Hero

My friend Carol Schillios works in the cooperative credit union movement helping the poor gain access to micro-credit loans to improve the quality of their lives and she’s fifthly stinking rich! What makes her rich? Her volunteer work in working in developing countries’ with the credit union movements made her realized how far little amounts would go. With a mortgage on her home, she formed The Fabric of Life Foundation to fund small projects to help get people out of poverty. It started small with $40 to treat a gangrene wound that would have killed a young beggar, $500 to a woman caring for 13 AIDs orphans in Zimbabwe, $1,000 to start a micro-credit lending program in HoChiMin. Then she started a training center Carol with her Malian friend, Kaaba. Both women have full time jobs and in their “spare” time run a center to help the poorest of the poor — young begging girls — learn sewing, fabric weaving, dyeing and beading skills to generate income and break the cycle of poverty. Two years later — still as volunteers — she and Kaaba graduated the first class of 10 begging girls from the streets of Bamako, who went from begging to businesswoman in 18 months. The First Lady of Mali, handed out the diplomas at graduation ceremonies in the capital city of Bamko in front of a crowd of 300 officials who thought it could not be done.

Carol grew up in a traditional neighborhood in Seattle with both parents working at the Boeing Company to make ends meet. When her father was offered a junior executive position in Switzerland, Boeing moved their family to Geneva. At the age of 12 Carol was surrounded by multiple cultures in an international school environment that would change the course of Carol’s life. While friends back home were preparing for proms and football games, Carol was learning about political conflict at student sessions of the United Nations; debating issues with citizens from war-torn countries; learning about poverty and collaboration and cooperation.

For three decades Carol has worked on 5 continents, helping the poor improve the quality of their lives. One day, while at a stop light in Bamako, Mali, West Africa, Carol and her colleague, Kaaba, in their car, were –as usual– surrounded by begging children with their hands out. It was a moment of truth for both who had had many conversations about how ordinary people could make a difference in the world if they would only take one action. Their conversation turned to how they could help the poorest of the poor –begging girls– off the streets before the girls had to turn to prostitution. The idea of a school for begging girls was born. Three young beggars to whom Carol and Kaaba had been donating over the years, became the first recruits. Atou, 25, and a paraplegic had been sitting on the ground in front of a bank every day for 15 years. Kadia, 16, and lame since birth, begged on the street near where Kaaba worked. Awa, 16, was not allowed in school because of her hearing loss. Now these three girls and 7 more from the first class are producing beautiful fabrics and jewerly being sold directly from their Hèrè Jè Cooperative Training Center in Bamako, Mali West Africa. Now the second class of 20 is being recruited. Their dream is that hundreds will be able to attend school to break the cycle of begging. That’s Living Rich…

You can check out their products on their EBoutique that is run by the girls themselves: http://www.schillios.com/schillios/section.cfm?wSectionID=1384

Favorites…

Adele and I watched “When Harry Met Sally” last night. It stars Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan who are really good together. I bought Adele that movie and several other as part of a “chick flicks” packet on ebay. Most of the movies we’ve seen before but all are romantic comedies (including Father of the Bride I and II). There are scenes in those movies that we feel put Adele into labor with one of our children because she laughed so hard. We’ve watched it before but it’s always fun to laugh together (particularly after a long week of activity, family visiting from out of town, and many projects).

One of the things I value most about my wife is her laughter. It’s contagious. It stirs my soul (read QueenofTheHill’s post on this recently). I absolutely love hearing her laugh. It’s one of the favorite things I love about her.

My friend Tia Graham wrote yesterday about the winter doldrums. It’s only natural that cold and brown bring that feeling out. A good belly laugh is one of the best cures for any blue feeling. Let me know your favorites and maybe I will do a post on the top ten belly laugh movies. I am also interested in inspirational movies. What are the top inspirational movies of all time? While we’re at it…books. What are you readiing that is making you think?