When a person says something you disagree with, start with “does that make sense to me?” as your first reaction. If it doesn’t make sense, move your thinking to “why are they saying this? And does this tell me something new about this issue or their experience with it?”
A default reaction of “they’re just dumb” doesn’t open up your mind to other possibilities. It diminishes the humanity of the other person. It leaves no room for forward movement.
The heavy wooden door creaks as I swing it open. As I start climbing the stairs to his office, I hear him call my name.
“Chase, is that you coming up those steps?”
I call out, “Yes sir.” I’m only halfway up the stairs but I went ahead and asked, “How’s this day treating you so far?”
He replies with the same answer he always gives me.
“Every day’s a good day because I get to do good things.”
Ben Franklin had two questions he asked himself each day. He began the morning with “What Good shall I do this day?” and ended each evening with “What Good did I do today?”. By focusing on those two questions, Franklin set a simple goal for the day — to do good.
Compared to Franklin’s era, I’ve got more tools to do good than he could ever dream. With my computer in hand, I can start Kickstarter campaigns, raise money for water wells overseas, or volunteer for political candidates that promise change. With a tweet I’m raising awareness for a disease and with a like I show my support for a certain group.
That’s all doing good each day, right?
I’d ask myself that and instantly come back to that one phrase — “Every day’s a good day because I get to do good things.”. This one reply from a gentleman who’s never heard of Twitter or Kickstarter. He’s got a few computers in his office but I’m pretty sure the number of typewriters outnumber them at least two to one.
I remember seeing him once, hearing his normal reply, and asking, “If you don’t mind me asking, what good things have you done today?”
His answer wasn’t full of tweets or likes. It wasn’t raising awareness for this or campaigning for that. Just like that simple daily goal, it focused on one thing — kindness.
It’s the small acts of kindness that have big impacts.
From the Art of Manliness:
“It’s great to have big, idealistic plans to build wells in Africa or change the whole political process. But oftentimes we only associate doing good with doing something big, and since we don’t know how to get started on a huge project, we end up doing….nothing at all.”
During my grandfather’s final days, I saw this firsthand with his nursing staff in the ICU. They made sure my grandmother had enough blankets to keep warm during the night. They placed a cart outside the door with drinks and food for our family. They showed us kindness in every way imaginable.
That’s what I strive for each day now. Nothing big or flashy but something more than a simple tweet or like.
One act of kindness, of goodness, for the day.
Recently I’ve been reading Chariots for Apollo from Charles Pellegrino and Joshua Stoff. I’m a huge geek when it comes to the Apollo space program and this is one of my favorite books on the race to the moon.
One chapter tells the story of Tommy Attridge, a Grumman test pilot assigned to the lunar module (LM) program. The Grumman Corporation received the contract to build the craft that would carry astronauts down to the lunar surface. However, the LM team kept second guessing themselves with their designs and decisions. Their line of thinking was, “This craft would put a man on the moon so it had to be perfect!”
When he arrived at the Grumman plant in 1967, Attridge focused on one question – “Must we build it better?” He learned very quickly that better is the enemy of best.
Enter LM-3 (lunar module-3).
An engineer finished installing the landing radar on LM-3 only to tell Attridge, “We have the best radar in the world today. But tomorrow, I can make it better because just yesterday they invented this new transistor. And if I can put the new transistor in here and add this integrated circuit. You know, now that we have integrated circuits, we can build it better.”
Attridge answered, “Sure. Why not? We can keep putting a better one in every day. Let’s see if we can’t stretch this thing out till 1990.”
Every new day brings new gadgets and gizmos. New options and ideas. Whatever project or product you’re working on, there’s probably something that will make it just a tad bit better tomorrow. And a little bit better the day after that. And a smidge better the following day. But for every thing that makes it better, it means one more day of not getting it into the hands of your customers.
Launch the new project. Start selling that new product. Stop letting slightly better control your plans instead of making things happen.
That engineer ended up going over Attridge’s head to get the landing radar replaced. With the “better” choice came new problems as the radar kept locking up on itself, which made the new tech worthless. That choice ended up delaying LM-3 so that Apollo 8 just launched without it. That “better” choice left the Apollo teams even further behind in their race to the moon.