Equaling Success

Tonight I wrote a letter I've been meaning to write for almost a decade.

J was the vice-president for instruction at the community college in New Mexico where I worked. I had recently left behind newspaper reporting for a career in public relations and was cutting my teeth in my new position, which involved reaching out to the local media and managing the college's employee newsletter. J, on the other hand, was applying decades of experience and far more education than mine to his job of overseeing the curricula of the college's various programs.

I was struck by the level of respect you showed me, how you treated me like an equal. Trust me when I say ... this is not always the case ... That you, from the very first time we met to discuss something that would be published in the newsletter, treated me as if my knowledge, experience and opinions counted for something, was quite validating indeed. I have always wanted to thank you for that--it made an impression and I have never, ever forgotten. This letter-writing project gave me the chance to express my overdue gratitude.

As I wrote to J, I was reminded of S, another boss whose confidence in me inspired hard work. (I wrote to S very early in THE LETTER JAR project and received a lovely reply from her.) To recognize again the privilege I have had in working with some exceptional leaders makes me grateful and motivates me to treat my employees with the same level of trust and respect that I was granted. "Give people a fine reputation to live up to," Dale Carnegie wrote in his famous How to Win Friends and Influence People." I can't think of a better way to put it.

During the year or so I held the position at the community college (I soon departed for a more challenging position at a hospital) I didn't work one on one all that frequently with J--he clearly was much further up the institutional ladder than I. But, as I have realized in letters not only to former bosses but also former employees, whether someone will be your mentor has little to do with where they are on the organizational chart. Being a genuine leader day in and day out--as J was and is--creates infinite opportunities to influence someone the very same way J influenced me.

I'm glad I seized the opportunity to tell you how you affected me; this letter-writing journey is helping me to more deeply understand so many truths I though I already "knew" but needed to "know" even more convincingly. That in order to have hard working employees you must make clear your trust and respect is one of those truths. Thanks again.

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Risk, Reward and Recognition

Today I received in the mail a letter from T, a friend to whom I wrote a few weeks ago. I had told T how she inspired me by rising above her divorce--an ugly split precipitated by her husband's cheating--with such dignity and grace. T has moved on with a new husband and two beautiful boys who, as I told her, are so lucky to have her as their mama:

... One thing I've realized as I've written these letters ... is that there are so many lessons I've learned from my friends ... And one of those lessons ... is that life doesn't always turn out like you planned, and might just be the very best thing. I hope to share with my son the idea that sometimes you just have to hang in and trust you're on your way to somewhere good, even if the road seems to be rolling straight through hell ...

T responded with a lovely note of her own, relating how she has shared with others my story of leaving my first marriage in order to find someone who wanted children, and how that decision has worked out in the best way possible:

... I really admired you for taking a risk for something you knew was important to you. Not everyone would be willing to do that and would instead be unhappy on some level and most likely wonder "what if" ... there's another cliche I've come to believe in life-- nothing worthwhile comes easily ...

Her words at the end of a frustrating week during which I struggled, away from my infant son for hours a day at a job I don't really enjoy, and reinvigorated my pursuit of new dreams for myself and my family. I also got a sense of what I might be giving other people with my words. T and other recipients have acknowledged my letters, saying they came "at the best time" and "made me cry--a good cry!"

It's true: we want to be validated for what we've accomplished. And in writing my letters of praise--to a 14-year-old girl trying out for the football team, a recovering alcoholic in his 20th-plus year of sobriety, my brother accelerating in his career--I am myself informed, impelled and inspired.

A Buddhist proverb says that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. If we believe that we are actually surrounded by our teachers, then we as students have become ready--the lessons are all that remain to be discovered. What, and from whom, are you learning today?