Susan Pahl speaks with Howard Prager about the ideas from his book "Make Someone's Day". They talk about how small gestures can lead to significant shifts in personal and professional environments. Whether you're looking to enhance your leadership skills, improve your coaching techniques, or simply bring more positivity into your life, this episode will be of interest.
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ABOUT THE GUEST
Howard Prager is an executive coach, leadership expert, speaker and author of "Make Someone's Day: Becoming a Memorable Leader in Work and Life" published September, 2021 from Koehler Books.
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Because when you make someone's day and they say those four powerful words, you made my day, you get a blubbering effect from your mirror neurons reflecting back how they feel. And so you get a win-win in so many ways. You make someone's day and in turn they uplifted yours. Welcome to Culture Shift hosted by Susan Paul, CEO of Shift Coaching.
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Join Susan as she explores big ideas in leadership and coaching with business leaders, HR leaders, and thought leaders. Discover the transformative power of coaching and its impact on individuals and organizations. Let's shift the culture together.
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I'm Sue Paul, the CEO of Shift Coaching. Joining me today is my good friend, Howard Prager. Howard is the founder of Advanced Learning Group. He is an author, he is a speaker, he is an executive coach and also does leadership development consulting. And if you can see behind him, he's also a tuba player. So welcome, Howard.
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Howard most recently wrote a book called Make Someone's Day. And that's what we're gonna be talking about today. So I'll turn it over to you, Howard, just to tell us a little bit about yourself. Thanks, I'm so glad to be here, Sue. And hello to everyone. Yeah, I have had a career, really that's been really interesting, a combination of spending a number of years in corporate and learning and development, working in executive education.
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for about 14 years and then having my own business a few different times. And coaching has always been a part of that business as has been leadership development and leadership consulting. So, and through all of that, and before I've been a tuba player and loved playing tuba. So Sue, you're so right on all counts. Well, I'm just happy to have you here with us today, Howard. Howard and I know had met each other through the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches.
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And it's just been an absolute pleasure being in a group with him and being a member of that group with him. So Howard, we wanna talk a little bit about the book, Make Someone's Day. And I just wanna know, where did you get this idea for writing this book, where did it come from? Great, well, let me show and share with you first what the inspiration was behind it, but let me also say that this is who I have been.
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And when I discovered this, you know, we're all trying to discover who we are, right? In life, we go through life, like, who are we? Where do we sit? Where do we belong? And when I, when this incident happened that just was a huge aha for me, and I started thinking and writing down about the book, I realized I had hundreds of examples throughout my life where I love to do this. I love to connect, mentor, and support others.
03:12
That's really been a hallmark of who I am. So here's how this happens so unexpectedly. I was at the commuter train station going downtown early one morning and someone, young woman, came up to me with a clipboard and said, would you mind signing this petition? I said, sure. And I said, what's it for? She said, oh, we're getting someone on the ballot. We need to get X number of signatures so that they could be.
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Run the upcoming election. I said great. And so as I'm saying I said, by the way, who is this for? So you can tell already I'm a trusting soul, right? I'll just I'm for anybody but I'm thinking Women's making this much effort. They probably deserve to get on the ballot and it turns out with someone I knew I said, oh great Terrific. I've heard of them. I don't know what party they're in but but I know they've been in office before so Obviously, they've got some skills and ability so I did it
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gave it back to her and she looked at me when she got the petition back with the biggest of eyes and said, oh my gosh, you've made my day. Sue, this was at like 630 in the morning. I happened to be the first person to sign that petition. Was I the first person she's ever asked had she gotten turned down before? I don't know. But if all it took was signing the petition for
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to make your day, I said, there is something here. And it made me feel, in return, it made me feel great. And that whole train ride down, I could think of nothing else. Why do I feel so good that she said this? What did I do that was so out of the ordinary for her that made her say that? And I started scoping out what might be some of the chapters in a book about this.
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I started thinking about what's a model that people can use to learn it. And then I said, what happened to me? And so what happened to me is what I call the boomerang effect.
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Because when you make someone's day and they say those four powerful words, you made my day, you get a blubbering effect from your mirror neurons reflecting back how they feel. And so you get a win-win in so many ways, you make someone's day and in turn they uplifted yours. Well, so I wonder if that concept kind of started to grow in your mind.
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And then how did it go from growing in your mind to actually putting it down on paper and writing a book? Like it must've been awfully powerful to drive you to write another book about something like this. Yes, thank you. It certainly was. As I started thinking about where and how am I like, have I done this, what people have said? And I told you, I like to mentor, I like to coach, like to connect with people. So I realized that I've done a lot of this throughout my life and this is who I am.
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And then I started thinking about, so what does this mean? I researched the neuroscience. So what's physically happening to us that causes us to say this and experience this? And then I started looking at it from the business side, from crisis, what do we do in a crisis? Looked at family and just look different ways of how simple can it be to make someone's day to how complex can it be?
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led me to create a model that I call the VIP model. Right. And I named it that because who doesn't wanna feel like a VIP, right? Absolutely. Who wouldn't feel that? So that's where it came from. And the research and the continue of thinking of examples and hearing stories, not just mine, but my clients, my friends, colleagues, so many others shared examples and stories that said,
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This is not just an isolated incident, but this is something that's really purposeful and powerful. And then the final piece I did was say, well, wait a second, I'm an extrovert. I love connecting with people. Of course, it's gotta be simple for me. What about for those who aren't extroverts? And so I've got a whole chapter for introverts. How can you make someone stay without overly putting yourself out there? And it's certainly possible.
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So that's what led to, and of course, you know soon from writing a book that it's just, it's a labor, it's a labor of love, but it's certainly a labor. Yes, absolutely. And I know because you also are a writer, you're a sports columnist, so you do enjoy writing. But I'm really glad that you put this together and actually giving us the gift of learning a little bit more about make someone's day because what you had said to me at one point is, this is a concept.
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you really think should catch on hopefully in the corporate world as well as really catching on to this concept of making someone stay and maybe even having kinder organizations, places where people work and they feel great, where people make an effort to make someone stay. Mike Yes, that's so needed and to create a culture like that and I've talked to senior HR leaders about creating a corporate culture.
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where kindness and making someone's day is part of the picture. And we're all dealing with, all leaders are dealing with the stress that everyone else is dealing, right? We've got the great resignation going on where people are leaving jobs without even having another job to go to. We've got the COVID and the pandemic coming and going and coming and going, and truckers and people going nuts at the international bridge.
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You know, there's so much going on that we just don't know how to deal with all of it. And so what are some ways to be able to help cut through this, to create a culture, to create an environment where people feel treasured, appreciated, and become much more positive and productive? And you know what? If you create that, make someone's day culture in your organization.
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And what I call the subtitle is becoming a memorable leader in work and life. Because in so what those memorable moments, when you bring that to your organization, you're going to have people wanting to come, not wanting to lead. They're going to want to join you and say, what can I do to be a part of this? Plus we all love feeling part of something positive and good. Right. That's that belonging is a real.
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deep human need that we all have and being seen and just knowing that other people actually see you. Many people, I think with this pandemic, sometimes feel a bit invisible. And I think now this concept of making someone's day shows that somebody actually noticed something about you. And then you, like you said, the boomerang effect, they get something back, which is fantastic. So Howard, you were talking a little bit about the model called VIP, which I think is a brilliant name.
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Can you tell us a little bit about the model? Just educate us a bit here on the, how this actually works, the make someone stay model. Sure, I'd love to, thanks Sue. And what, how observant you are as well. So V stands for view and observe. And again, this works online and in person. But what do you notice? What's going on or what's not going on? See what you can ascertain. This works terrifically for managers.
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who know their people, for leaders who know their managers, for executives who know their team, because you know when something's not right, you get that gut sense, that feel, that insight. Coaches do all the time, right, as coaches. You know, we really specialize in trying to understand where our clients or our coaches are coming from. So we all notice those things. So what can we do about them? Well,
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Make someone's day works when it's something done at the right time in the right way. It's not one size fits all. So the V is view and observe what's going on, what's happening, what's different, what might be challenging. And then I stands for identify and consider. So once you viewed and observed what's happening, then you can identify and consider what might you do, what might be appropriate in this situation.
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what might be helpful, what might make a difference. So that's the I. And then P is for planning and acting. And I put that purposely, I could have jumped right to act. But you know what, even if it's an emergency situation, taking a moment, I mean, it might be something that you're gonna act immediately, but just take a second to think and plan before you act is...
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So critical. You know, how many times do we write emails that we regret afterwards? I mean, so many times it's like draft it, let it sit there, and then if I feel that way an hour or two or 24 hours later, then I'll hit send. But so many times we need that pause, and that's plan and then act is all about. So giving yourself that appropriate pause. And then there's a final part. So VIP is the model how to do it.
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And then I added an R for after you've done it, you want to review and reflect on what you've done, what's worked, why it's worked, how might you do it next time, is there something that you thought was really good? Well, there's some things I've found that work every time or nearly every time. So, you know, you want to have some of those in your back pocket. Should you need them to use?
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but you also want to be very much situationally relevant when the person. Okay. Well, can you give us an example, maybe using that model, can you give us an example of one of your ways that you made someone's day or that someone made your day? Yeah, yeah. That's, oh gosh, there's- Sure, there's lots. There's lots. So I'll tell you what, I'm gonna use it, I'm gonna use someone else instead of me.
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I want you to come back to talk about me too, because this is something I've done my whole life. But I'm going to talk about Doug Colman. Doug Colman came in as CEO of Campbell's Soup. At the time that he came, there was more red in Campbell's than just the tomatoes in their soup. They were really a company in trouble. They were headquartered in Camden, New Jersey.
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prison is. And I'll tell you, when you drove into that headquarters of Campbell's, it was hard to differentiate it from the state prison. That's how bad things were. And Doug came in and he's written about this in his book called touch points. And he's actually, he's an introvert too. And so what he did is he said, what can I do to change the culture? I'm going to recognize people who do the right thing.
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So he viewed and observed, and in his case, probably heard from others about people, and he identified that what they need is a note from him. And so every week he would act and write two to 300 thank you notes to people at Chambles who did something memorable and important. And he...
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wanted them to know that he appreciated it. Imagine how you would feel if you did something and you got a note from the Sanrio. That would be amazing. Absolutely, yeah. Those are not common moments. So he did certainly other things too, but to me that was the most remarkable thing he did to turn Campbell's around. Wow, and he must've felt great too when he saw and heard the reactions of other people.
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Oh my gosh, he had to know what was happening and the difference this was making. And as I say, it's, it turned the culture around. It turned the company around. It turned the revenues around. So so much positive impact from just doing something as simple as writing a thank you note. And the reason I love this as an example and story Sue is I need to show this can be done and it doesn't have to be hard.
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Right. Right. And it is the simple things that can make all the difference to how we feel. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you can plan and I've got stories where you can get much more complex in planning, whether it's for work or outside of work. I went with my sister and daughter down to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and we helped rebuild some bulbs. Right. That wasn't just
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Well, let's just go down there tomorrow and do this. I took a lot of planning and work, trying to find out where to go and. Right. I mean, how's it working and such? But we did it and we upgraded and we got some added bonus perks as well for doing that. So, you know, when you do the right thing, it's, there's never a wrong time to do the right thing. Agreed.
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agreed you should get some t-shirts made that say that with makes of all the way on the back. Right, absolutely. Oh, Betcha didn't think, hadn't even thought about that before. It was all true. I'm sure we'd all like, we'd all like one of those. Well, I wanted to ask you, when you mentioned Hurricane Katrina, I know that you've done a lot of research for your book. I'm just wondering, in times of crisis, it seems that people are more willing to step up and help
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their fellow man. Do you see that? And do you have like, how does that fit in with the make someone's day? Like it does seem that during the pandemic and during different times, we've seen people kind of maybe even act out of character and just come together and really help other people. Yes. Yes. The best story I have, and I've got lots of stories throughout the book. So
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It really is packed with ideas and stories on things that people can do. But there's a group of college kids actually start off by one who came back home to Orling Park, which is a Chicago suburb. He was studying at the University of Alabama and he was hearing about the need of elderly and people who were immunocompromised for getting their drugs and needing some basic.
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food needs or whatever. And he decided that I'm not gonna be a couch potato. I don't wanna just sit on the couch. I wanna go out and help. Is he organized some of his friends and created Leave It To Us. They wouldn't take any money. They wouldn't make anything. All they wanted to do is find out, you know, you let us know when you need something and I'll make sure someone is around to go and get it for you and bring it to your doorstep. Wow.
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There are now 36 chapters of Leave It to Us around the country. And it was just started by this one person who said, I'm not gonna sit around and be bored, I'm gonna do something. What a tremendous pandemic is, and what crises do is it gives the opening for people to do something simple and dramatic. And that's what it does, it provides those opportunities
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who may not have thought of themselves as dramatic or as rescuers or whatever it is, but who rise to vacation. Well, it must hop into sort of that inner good and empathy and compassion that I think most of us have access to, but maybe on a day-to-day basis, when you're going through your everyday, unless you kind of bring it to the front and paying attention to it.
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You know, you just may not act on it. You might even take it, but then maybe not act on it. And I think that's why this concept of make someone's day is so incredibly powerful because it gives people almost just a reminder that that works and there's usually good big rewards both ways for doing it. So I wanted to tell you something that I did that I think maybe you know already a little bit about. I coach an executive team.
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and got your books for each of the team members there. And they're actually trying to figure out how they will bring this concept of make someone stay into their organization. They have a coaching culture, but they've looked at this concept as really the glue, the way to stick together all those different things they have that kind of that underneath part that holds things together and creates a culture where people...
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really want to bring their best brains to work every day. Do you have other examples, organizations have used this? Yes, yes. So let me give you a couple, but let me first compliment you. So I know your business is called Shift Coaching, and Shift is exactly what you're helping your clients do. And that's something that's so important to be able to bring to our clients
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either coaches or senior HR executives, we have the opportunity to impact the people in our organizations or the clients that we have in such powerful ways and simple ways. And that's, you know, I've always found that simplicity is always elegant. And I think that's what makes someone stay is it's really an elegant solution.
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to what can we do to recognize people in the right way, in the right time. Let me share a couple stories with you because I think the stories that make it so powerful. Fiona was doing a speech at a hotel and as she was leaving, she said, she heard a couple in despair.
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they had a baby and evidently the baby had thrown up so many times that they were out of clothes for the baby and you know, they're going to go buy some stuff and didn't know what to do or where to go. And she went over to them and communicated sufficiently that she said, leave, let me take your clothes. I don't live far. I'll wash them and I'll get them back to you tonight. I'm going to go, yeah, you're kidding. Yeah, this is that.
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happening. She said, no, trust me. Here's my name. Here's my number. Here's my address. You want to check things out. And Fiona went home and later that day brought back the laundry done. And they said, how can we repay you? And she said, when someone visits your home in Italy, please do something nice for them that they need at the time. What a great
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What a great way and a great opportunity for her, Jane. I have that impact that what's called molecules of kindness. I love that phrase, molecules of kindness. Molecules of kindness. Yeah, that's what it takes. So, and to create more kindness in the world, it really will focus on things that matter. Oh, so many times we think that having more is the answer. And
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Everything shows that having more is not the answer. Kindness and ability to connect, sharing joy, those are the things that matter and make the difference. And we, willingness to be seen as imperfect. You know, so many times we come out there and we feel like, no, I've gotta be perfect. I'm doing this or I'm meeting with this important client. So let me tell you, share you with another story. This is Lisa.
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was pulling on a new process. She was part of a marketing consulting term and she had gotten to their office and rode the elevator. And as she's getting off the elevator, she thought she heard some like muffled cries. And she kind of like, you know, held the elevator open and she said, hello, hello, is somebody there? And she heard somebody yell, oh my gosh, you hear me.
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I've been stuck in this elevator for some reason, the warning button is not working. Can you get some help? Oh my. I know. So Lisa's here felt like, um, she had two choices to make. She can get to her meeting, be on time, which means be a little bit early and be ready, or she can figure out what she could do to go get help. And Lisa said, I'm sorry.
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My head said, ignore it. My heart said, I've gotta help out. Right. Someone stuck. So she went, she tried to find and went around, was able to find someone from the building management, let them know this person was stuck. Then she went to her meeting. And she was just a couple minutes late and the reception said, oh no, no worries. Unfortunately, your person that you're supposed to meet with isn't here yet.
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So let me take you to the conference room, tell him, you know, what do you want? Water or coffee or whatever. So Lisa said, and she'll be here shortly. So Lisa sat there and thought, well, thank goodness that she was a little bit delayed because then I know that doing the right thing was absolutely the right thing to do. Yeah. So she sat there and maybe about 15 minutes later, in comes her appointment, harried and running and said, you would not believe what happened to me today.
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I got stuck in the elevator and someone helped me out and got help so that I could finally get out of it and come here. And she said, that was you? She looked at Lisa and said, Oh my gosh. She said, what do you want? I'll sign the contract today. Wow. Just showed who she was as a person. Absolutely.
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So think of that. Think of, can you imagine sales people thinking, make someone say, and I'm going to get a sale? Don't trap them in the elevator though. Thank you. Yeah. It's such a great story. At least the positive so humbly, you know, people that someone's day I'm doing it to try to brag, they're trying to help help someone. You know, one way that we
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use this thank you to you for coming up with this concept is when we do team coaching, we have at the beginning, people call it an icebreaker. And it's a way to create positive emotions in the room before you start. And so we did use the, how did you make someone's day or how does someone make your day as that, you know, 15 minutes at the beginning of the meeting to talk about it. And the stories that we heard really, I think, set the tone.
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for how people were gonna behave together after, like we had that conversation. So I think it's just can be really effective as that opening to any kind of a meeting or a team session that you do. Have you used it other ways as well, like in group settings or when you're actually doing work with your, as a leadership consultant and teaching and that type of thing? Yes, I brought it in as an example of ways.
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that we can do something at the right time and the right way for people. Yeah. Well, someone who also is part of this MG100, Bob Nelson, has written several books. And one of them is, I think his first one probably is now up to 2,000 ways, maybe, to recognize employees, and recognize a lot of employees. And what Bob realized is that one size does not fit all.
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And it's not very hard. It's not very expensive. It's not very difficult or challenging to do something for somebody in the way that they want and that's what she about. Make someone's day. It's not doing something that you think you want. It's doing something that they want and need. We're all individuals. We all need to want things at different times and in different ways. And so make someone's day really helps people.
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acknowledge that. So I've been, I talk to organizations all the time about what they can do and how it could help their customers, how it could help their employees, how it could help teams be able to be more impactful with one another. When they practice this and think about this, it really is something that can be culture changing and organizational impacting. Okay. And when you think about the part
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of the VIP with the R on the end process, the model, for the P with the plant. So rather than making an individual person stay, have you done it where you can make a group so they could plan something that could really impact people rather than as individuals as a larger group? Have you done anything like that with different companies and clients?
30:25
Yes, yes. And it's something that really is so important for us to be able to do and bring, that when you create this culture, when you bring it to a large organization, I volunteer, I think as you know, I volunteer a lot. And so I brought some of these types of concepts to my work in Scouting. And in fact, I created something called a virtual walk of faith,
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I started to learn about other faiths and it amazes me at how they discover that the universal themes exist between all different faiths and all different people. And so that's an example of people realizing, you know, the golden rule is not just a golden rule for Episcopalians or Methodists or Lutherans or Jews or Muslims. It's the golden rule for all of us.
31:23
Right. And so as we think and learn about these things and concepts, it really turns into, I can make someone say, I can live the right way and feel good and help others to feel good too. So it is something that can be used. And when companies do this, and I've had more experience with smaller companies wanting to do this so far, I'm talking to a few larger companies,
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bringing it in, but I've given talks about this to major, like,
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Drunk chains and stores and in other places, and they all seem to resonate and say, this is what we need. This is what we need now. So it's funny, I wish I would have thought, I wish I would have been smart enough to realize, well, I've got to write a book that comes out in 2022 because that's when everyone's gonna need it. Right. Yep. I just wrote the book and it seems to fit the right time in the right way.
32:30
it certainly does seem to be doing that. I also wonder, could it, making someone's day and that model that you use almost be a design element for any program that you build, you know, for developing people, because it sounds like that's sort of how you used it with, as you've, you know, grown your business and worked with people. And like you said, it's just part of your own DNA and how you do things, but really seeing people, noticing what's going on.
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and then actually acting and doing something, you know, it sounds like it's almost that fundamental design of how we deliver work to people, training to people, development. Yes, so let me share how I use this in training and leadership development. So I created service learning because it's one thing to learn something in a classroom, it's another thing to be able to practice and use it and get more comfortable and turn into a habit.
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That's hard to do when you're in your job, having all the demands that we have thrown at us and thinking about, well, I don't have time to practice because when we practice something, it usually takes more time. We don't get expert just the first time we do it. It takes some time for us to learn it and feel comfortable. And certainly exposing ourselves on the job to learning something is really hard. So I said, you know what?
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There are so many organizations that need help around some of the same leadership characteristics and components that we teach in class, whether it's communication, marketing, delegation, sales, message development, strategic thinking, all these are skills that people who are going through leadership classes or executive programs need to be able to practice.
34:25
So through service learning, I put people in teams or they got themselves in teams and they found organizations and places that need what they have. And what I found so remarkable Sue is that the president of the companies that I've done this with have encouraged people to use this outside of work. People have done this within work all the time.
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because they feel like, well, I've got to do something to work. So let me show you an example of both. One person was a quality manager in a manufacturing plant. And Nick said, I've got to work better on my one-on-one mentoring. What can I do to help mentor and counsel and help people? So he decided he was going to learn this by working with at-risk high school youth. At-risk high school seniors were at risk of graduating.
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And he worked with six kids for the better part of the year because the program was nine months. So he really had a lot of time to be able to practice an Olympus. And Rick is telling the story and he said, and five of those six kids graduated untied. He said, and then he says, but I failed cause I didn't get six out of six. We're all thinking, Rick, you're nuts. You are completely successful. You see it.
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five out of six kids, you help them graduate and lead to greater opportunities for them. He said, well, let me tell you about the sixth person was a girl whose parents didn't see the value of all high school degree, high school diploma. So she went and after the graduation, she finished her degree through GED program. And in fact, she graduated too. I said, Rick, you're 100%.
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Yeah, absolutely. Can you imagine how good he must be coaching and mentoring people now after going through that experience? Yeah. So that's an example of really applying it on the job and making a difference. And then I did a group project. So here's an example of a project that was done. This was actually done at a medical school that did not have necessarily great relationships with the community.
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where let's put it this way, part of the strategic goal was to strengthen those relationships. So they decided we're gonna do an art fair for kids in the community. And the art fair is the future of medicine. And we're gonna let kids create any type of artistic look at what the future of medicine is. And it is so, was so delightful. So they had, I don't know, 40 kids participate. And they had
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A black tie opening night. Wow. People came in and got to talk to the kids about their project and what they saw as a future for health care and medicine. And the food that night was prusles peanut butter and jelly and raw Romanian cheese. Full of squerry? In friendly. Right. What they ended up doing is they auctioned off
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Each of those works of art, they had gotten permission from the kids and the parents and the money raised went to the local Ronald McDonald's house. Talk about so many wins. Kids felt great, their families felt great. The Ronald McDonald house felt helped. The people that put this together, understands how to organize and be better project managers and communicators. There's so many wins from this.
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that the school continued to do this for several years. Meets the community and can imagine how they felt. And Sue, I got another dozen stories of how people work together and really did make someone's day for others in a true and really a meaningful way. Yeah, well, this certainly sounds like make someone's day in action. You know, when you're thinking about it. So it's not just making, it's just not reciprocal one person and the other person.
38:50
It's a community effort. And I just absolutely love that. And I love the humanistic aspect of Rick. So learning and applying his skills in work is one thing. Taking him into a different environment ensures it does become a habit. And what a brilliant way of really doing that. And probably that, as you said, made his day, made the students' day, and probably became a very good mentor of the team, a group of people that he has. So.
39:18
I love hearing that story because we can all think of a concept and we might just think of it in a limiting way. And now we can really see it, how it could work in larger groups and bridge corporate and community. You know, we all work in corporate, if you work in corporate environments, there was in a community. So how do we sort of soften the lines maybe a little bit and bring kindness, you know, into the corporate but also into the community? It's never wrong to do the right thing. That's it.
39:48
That's absolutely it. So I just want to have a couple more questions. I want to know what kind of feedback are you getting now that the book is out and people are really starting to talk about this? The feedback has been phenomenal, truly, Sue. Yeah, I didn't know what to expect. This is my first book. I've written lots of articles and contributed to books, but this is the first book I've written on my own. And I was focused on, you know, everyone said you got to get it to launch and publish and everything.
40:17
I didn't realize all the things that would happen afterwards. So I've had really had, it's been a privilege of mine to be a guest on yours and other podcasts. I've had radio interviews coast to coast. I've had requests for articles and speaking. So this has taken off in a far greater way. And I'm telling you, I'll let the people who are listening know I'm looking for partners,
40:46
create and make someone's day of words. We can really recognize people who go above and beyond. It's so needed. So, do I have time for another story? This is outside of work. Yes, we do. Oh, good. So, well-known make-a-wish foundation that when a child is seriously ill and they grant them a wish of something that they really, that would really make their day, right?
41:16
And it's usually they're asking for, well, I want to go via Toronto Raptor or Chicago bowl or something and, and meet the team or I, you know, the big one is of course, go to Disney, right? I want to go to Disney. And so they have all these things or I want to play station or it's always something for, for them, which is great. That's why Make-A-Wish was founded. Right. The Mississippi chapter faced a different situation just this past year.
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They had a 13 year old boy who was granted to make a wish because he had a disease, a blood disease that came up when he was 13, that only a bone marrow transplant would cure. And sure enough, he did get that bone marrow transplant and the transfusions and such that he needed. His name was Abraham. And little Abraham in Mississippi
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came up with a wish that really surprised them. He said, you know what I wish for? I wish to feed the people that are hungry. They had never had someone say as their wish that they wanted to do something for others. But his parents said, this is who Abraham is. He cares so much about others in the community. So make a wish, made a deal, and he said, tell you what, we will find and
42:45
and be able to feed 80 people a month for a year. You can organize it whatever way you want, but after the year, we're gonna stop because we've got other people and kids we need to serve. So he did that and then he set up a foundation called Abraham's Table, 13 years old. He set up a foundation so that after Make-A-Wish was done, we should continue to feed.
43:13
people who needed it in this town of Jackson, Mississippi. How impressive. What a heartfelt moment. How the kid was facing life threatening conditions, caring more about others in the community. And they were so appreciative and so sent so many notes and comments to Abraham and to his parents. So Abraham's table, it's just a beautiful, beautiful.
43:43
is a beautiful story and it's so reassuring as we've just been going through what we've been going through in our world lately to know that there are people like that. And I think your concept of make someone's day beyond the book itself, how do you get that emotional contagion for it to happen within organizations, but just generally in the population, imagine how different this world could be if we had more people like yourself and like Abraham.
44:12
Thank you, so kind of you. And you know, it is what we need. It is what we need in these times. We can look at the top as you know, it's half empty or half full. And if I look at the top, it's just a great opportunity to refresh my thirst and feel better. And so why can't we do this? Why can't we all do this and find ways?
44:38
because there's so much other negative and stressors that we feel and we're facing every single day more than we've ever had at one time in our lives. So what do we need? We need to rise above. We need to get away from that and push that to the side and do something that's gonna uplift us, that's gonna inspire us, and at the same time help others and bring our communities closer together, not further divided. Absolutely, look for what's right in the world.
45:08
and spend some time focusing on that positive. And I completely agree with you, Howard, and I'm really hopeful that organizations right now are looking at, you know, how do we plan the future of work and what processes and things are we gonna do and how do we lead remotely and all of these things. Like I challenge most all of those people, all of you guys out there to think about how do you actually make someone's day? You know, that maybe all those other things are important, but I think this is like a really great stepping stone is how we're just set, you know.
45:37
How do we do that? How do we make someone stay? And so as you said, you know, we're working remotely. You know, people are either, some of them are back full time, but a lot of people are either working remotely full time or working some sort of a hybrid. So how can we connect with those people? How can we ensure that they're connected with us? It's through doing things and trying to make someone stay with them, trying to be able to help them feel a part.
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of you and your organization and commit so much more to wanting to succeed. Well, thank you so much, Howard. This has been just so uplifting and a wonderful, I think, example of what's possible for all of us. And not only you brought the concept, you showed us how we can actually implement it and do it right now. You know, right after this, go and make someone's day and see how that feels. Absolutely.
46:31
It's as simple as that. And it's as simple as just finding someone to thank who has made your day or made your life. I talked about that in the book too. So soon I have made my day by being able to have me on to share the stories and to ask such great questions as to how this has impacted my life. And I just hope that you and I can continue to impact others and really help them see how they can make a difference to be more.
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successful, more happier, more productive, and able to contribute in a way that we can all feel good about. Great. Well, thank you so much, Howard. You made my day by being on here. So right back at you. Thank you.
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That's it for this episode of Culture Shift with Susan Paul. If you enjoyed it, subscribe, rate and review it wherever you get your podcasts. If you have feedback or have a topic that you think would be good for the show, we'd love to hear from you. To reach out, visit the contact page at shiftcoaching.ca. Thanks for listening and see you again soon.