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Three Powerful Stories

Guest post by: Robert Whipple

Article Overview: Each of us have impact on other people we might not be aware of. This article contains a story in a story in a story showing how I was surprised to find myself impacting others without realizing it. The moral of all three stories is the same; You cannot fully know the impact you will have on other people.

Three Powerful Stories

Central story - shared with my online Transformational Leadership Graduate Level Class at 3 am the morning after a program on "Telling Stories" by Kelly Swanson at the National Speakers Association Convention in Orlando Florida on July 17, 2010.

Cosme was a nocturnal person. Nobody ever saw him in the light of day. This little old wrinkle-faced man with only three teeth was always dressed the same. He wore white pants and sandals. He always had one of those large white Mexican hats and a Serape that looked like it had been through many long nights keeping him warm under the frigid Mexican Sky.

Cosme was the "security guard" at our apartment complex in Guadalajara, when my bride and I were stationed there for Kodak in the late 70's. The complex was always locked at night as a precaution, so we had to honk the car horn to get in after a night on the town. He sat in a lounge chair by the pool all night long waiting to hear a horn outside the gate. He would jump up and run to the gate to open it for apartment dwellers.

We always tipped Cosme two pesos when we drove in - a practice the hotel manager frowned on because he was thinking we were spoiling the man with such a huge tip. The manager wanted us to give only one peso - which at that time was the equivalent of a nickel. Any time, on any night, raining or not, you could see Cosme sitting out by the pool half hidden under his Serape to keep him warm. When we tipped him, Cosme always muttered some words we could not understand due to his bad teeth. It sounded like Hey mios do venata - muchas gracias. We finally figured out that he was saying "Que Dios lo bendiga - muchias gracias" which means, God Bless You - Thank You in Spanish.

Many times, a buddy from Kodak and I would be out with our wives and come home late at night. At the gate, we would tip Cosme as usual, and our wives would retire for the evening. We had a habit of getting a few beers and cigars and going out by the pool to keep Cosme company. He was always glad to have a beer and smoke and someone to "talk" to. It was very hard to understand the man, but perhaps through many nights and too many beers we finally found the ability to communicate with him. It turns out Cosme had an interesting life.

He had spent his entire life sleeping during the day and working outside for others all night as some kind of watchman. As a boy he would tend goats in the hills, and later he cleaned a fresh-air cafe after the bar closed for the night. Finally, he got the job at Suites Slila as a night watchman. When we were there he was in his 70's and not in the best of health. But health is in the mind more than the body, and there was nothing wrong with Cosme's mind.

He would go on for hours about UFOs which he had seen over the years. He firmly believed in these flying visions and knew they were real. Not many people on earth have spent so much time staring at the night sky, so we figured he knew more than us on the subject. He was simply delighted to tell us these stories because everyone else in his life all through the years had kind of looked past the man. Nobody paid any attention to him. He was there, working, but people left him alone unless they needed something.

Cosme was about as poor as you can imagine. I think he only had the clothes on his back and lived in a one room shack with a dirt floor the next block over. One day I saw him in front of his "house" in the morning sweeping the dirt before he retired for the day. He would eat scraps of food left by people from various restaurants and some other simple things he could get for free.

Once our belongings were packed and shipped off to Rochester for our long awaited return trip, we had little left to do at Suites Slila but hand in the keys at the Manager's Office and put our travel bags in the Taxi for the airport. It was about 10 am, and people were going about their normal day. Just before stepping into the taxi I heard a familiar voice Un - momentito. It was Cosme shuffling up the path with a plastic bag in his hand. I hardly recognized him in the light of day. He shook my hand and looked deeply into my eyes: his had a tear. He said in broken, but understandable English, "Thank you my friend" and handed me the bag with a slight bow. In the bag were two bottles of Tequila, and it was a very good, expensive brand. That must have cost him over two month's pay. I still have part of the second bottle left after 33 years, and of course I will never finish it because my memory of Cosme can never end.

The point is that we touch the lives of people every day, and we have little idea the impact we are having on people. Don't look past the people who serve you - they are individuals with high value, and each one has a story to tell.

You cannot fully know the impact you will have on other people!

Higher level story as told in a note to the class the next day.

Well, there is a sequel to the story about Cosme. As I was typing the story to tell you, I was sitting in a hallway across from a restaurant in the hotel lobby at about 3 am. Nobody was around, only the cleaning crew. I was totally engrossed in getting my story written and did not notice the Hispanic woman who was working across the hall cleaning things. She came over to my side to dust the railings with a large feather duster. She dusted the one about 10 ft in front of me, then the one off to the side, then she went around and dusted the railing in back of me, but she did not dust the railing right next to me. She did not want to disturb me. I turned to her and said, "It's OK you can dust this one too." She stepped back and nodded "no" with a kind of shy gesture (indicating it would not be proper). I said again, "No, it's really OK, you will not be bothering me." She just could not bring herself to step in front of me to get to the railing about 3 feet to my right. I said "OK, then give me the duster and I will do it for you." She got a horrified look on her face. I stood up and said "Really, it's OK" and reached out gently and slowly to take the duster from her. She let go, and I quickly dusted the railing and turned to hand her back the duster. I will never forget the look on her face. I had done a service for her - no big deal to me, but she was just floored that a customer would respectfully do that to help her.

As we interface with people, the simple acts of kindness and respect can make a difference in their experiences.

You cannot fully know the impact you will have on other people!

But this is the real story....

At lunch the next day, I had my plate filled to the brim at the food line. I turned to see who I could sit with. My habit is to try to sit with people I do not know to make the best use of networking opportunities. There were two young ladies sitting at a table by themselves. I walked over and asked if I could join them, and they said "of course." I now know the Lord guided me to that spot at an otherwise empty table with these two young ladies.

I asked their names and they told me "Lee" and "Lynn." They immediately started pumping me about my business, and I shared that I specialize in teaching leaders how to build trust in organizations. They seemed to be much more interested than people usually are in my activities. It was the values-based approach to trust, transparency, and leadership that was of interest to them.

I asked them what they speak about in their careers. Lynn said, "Oh actually we do not speak to groups at all. We are the two daughters of Cavett Robert, the founder of NSA, and we come to the conventions to honor our deceased parents." They wanted to know what I thought of the organization as a "newbee."

I shared my first impressions of NSA as an organization of caring people who were still very much feeling the influence of their parents even though they were now physically gone. I talked about the legacy of trust and love that is so evident as I was interfacing with people in the association. It was a tribute that they were glad to hear, and they probed me for an example of something powerful that had happened during my first 24 hours at a NSA convention. It took me a nanosecond to think of an example.

I told them that I had heard a program given by Kelly Swanson the previous afternoon where we were taught some techniques of how to tell powerful stories. Then I shared the story about Cosme and the story about the maid incident early that morning.

When I was done, I looked at Lynn, and she was stunned. I looked at Lee, and she was misty. She said, "Look! I have goose bumps all over my arms. You have given us the most powerful tribute I ever heard about our parents. Those are exactly the kinds of values they always tried to build into us and into NSA. If I get nothing more than your story out of this convention it will be well worth it."

Then she looked up at the ceiling and with a deep sigh she said in a very shaky voice - "Thank you Daddy."

You cannot fully know the impact you will have on other people!

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Article Tags: caring, honor, Impact, maid, Mexico, NSA, service, Story, trust



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