They Came My Way
“We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don’t know.”
- W.H. Auden
It was 2004. Spain was rocked by an Al Qaeda terrorist attacked killing 200. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced plans for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in April and the PLO founder, Yasir Arafat, died in Paris. In its mid-September final report on Iraq’s weapons, the US confirmed it found no WMDS. Congress extended tax cuts slated to expire at the end of 2005. In November George W. Bush was reelected defeating John Kerry.
At Super Bowl XXXVIII Janet Jackson had a wardrobe malfunction with Justin Timberlake. Martha Stewart began serving her five months in prison in July. Dan Rather found himself in the middle of a firestorm regarding the authenticity of documents used in a 60 Minutes segment. Marlon Brando, Ray Charles, Julia Child, Christopher Reeve, Tony Randall and Estee Lauder died. President Ronald Reagan was laid to rest at his Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
In March NASA announced it detected signs that water had once covered a small crater on Mars while in June Michael Melvil became the first person to pilot a privately developed aircraft into space. The Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, gathered 10,625 athletes from 201 nations to compete in 301 different events. American swimmer, Michael Phelps, was the superstar of the Games, tying the Olympic record by winning eight medals, six of them gold. Larry Page, co-founder of Google, became an instant billionaire in August when the company went public.
In the late Fall, through the invitation of a mutual friend, I met Steve for the first time over breakfast. The purpose of our meeting was for me to introduce myself and the character & ethics work of Passkeys Foundation with the possibility that Steve’s publishing and media organization might explore becoming a primary voice to the business community as I prepared to expand the Ethics In America Awards program to honor a notable American annually.
Seven-plus years later, I can look back on that first meeting in the light of multiple conversations and events which have since occurred to provide me now with my personal template to understand the distinguishing characteristic of leaders and their potential influence for good. Steve has been a personal example and mentor for a singular message I have been exploring with the OC business and professional community since 1996: Be an Influence for Good.
For my reader to appreciate my Steve Lesson, I invite you to reflect on a person who has come your way professionally to constantly underscore their interest in you….what you are doing…how you are succeeding…how you are pursuing the edge of you…the best of you…to be the contribution and face of good in your personal and professional life.
Identifying The Someone who has offered this connection with you will help you unlock the significant story of how unique individuals come our way to move us forward.
Steve Churm has been such a man for me. I cannot spend time with him without experiencing his pixie dust magic that affirms and calls forth the best awaiting further expression in me. He has a perpetual, locked-in storyline that looks outward to affirm you.
When looking at the Churm Media brand, it is easy now for me to quickly notice that this organization is built on communicating the good news of people doing good things in OC. Whether it’s the Hot 25, leading edge Women in Business, emerging Entrepreneurs…Trusted Brands… you name it…Churm Media looks outward specifically to find and authentically communicate the story of Good…everywhere present.
As an individual Steve is the mind and heart of this Churm Media brand.
I fondly remember how excited Steve was to personally interview John Wooden in the summer of 2005 for a feature article that would appear in OC Metro about America’s Coach. Steve took his son with him to meet Mr. Wooden in his home. Coach Wooden had been an inspiration to Steve for years. Not only did Steve now have a reason to write about him, he also could introduce his son to an American hero who was always championing the best in others.
With a steady, articulate way…in the demanding and difficult professional world of media…Steve pursues a singular brand vision that I liken to Aesop’s Fable of the tortoise and hare. While the hare moves with spurts and stops, the tortoise moves steadily toward the finish line. Steve is the steady and curiously interested one who is in perpetual motion to get the new, compelling story that affirms the good works of another and then communicates it to a public that is eager to learn about what The Good is looking like in OC.
Imagine with me as you place ten people in a room with Steve for an hour. Become one of those ten as I have been on several occasions with him. At the end of an hour, pretend canvassing the group of ten to ask a question: With whom did you have your most meaningful conversation? I can promise you there will be a consistent majority opinion when Steve is in the room. Why? What’s the awareness he holds to make it so?
Steve carries the mind that Howard Gardner, Harvard University professor and author, wrote about when he described the highest level of human thought….the ethical mind…which Gardner describes behaviorally as a mind that constantly looks outward into the world with a question: What kind of person do I choose to be at home, at work and in the community? I see Steve exploring that question in his relationships with others to find the good that is happening. Then, he uses his professional skills to communicate the story into society’s marketplace.
The OC community is blessed to have a focused messenger-in-its-midst who sounds the note of The Good. In hindsight I know I am the beneficiary of a breakfast meeting that turned into an ongoing professional connection with this one who simply cannot spend time with you without making you walk taller…think brighter…dream larger…reminding you that you do matter!
Lighthouse beacons like Steve come our way to shine their light on the stories of Good happening in the lives of others. Such individuals understand the timeless wisdom expressed long ago by Confucius, “He who wishes to secure the good of others, has already secured his own.”
Appreciating you on the ethical edge!
Russell Williams, Founder/President
Passkeys Foundation/Ethical Edge
www.ethicaledge.org
They Came My Way
“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.”
- Victor Frankl
It was 1980. The United States broke diplomatic ties with Iran in early April. At the end of the month eight US servicemen were killed in a desert raid to rescue American hostages in Tehran and the Shah of Iran died in July. Ronald Reagan was elected President in November defeating the incumbent, Jimmy Carter. On December 8 John Lennon was murdered in New York City.
Media Mogul, Ted Turner, launched the first all news network, CNN. Voyager I reached Saturn identifying 14 moons and more than 1,000 rings. Three researchers, including two from the US, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing methods to map the structure and function of DNA. Famed Track and Field star, Jesse Owens, died as did Director, Alfred Hitchcock and Supreme Court Justice, William Douglas.
The Grammys awarded the Album Of The Year to Billy Joel’s 52nd Street. The Big Screen introduced what would become three classics...Raging Bull, Ordinary People and The Elephant Man. Wimbledon witnessed a Men’s Finals Classic when Bjorn Borg defeated John McEnroe in a five-set thriller. In the greatest US sports triumph, the Men’s Olympic Hockey Team upset the Soviets in the 4-3 Miracle on the Ice Win and went on to defeat Finland 4-3 to take the Gold Medal at the Lake Placid Winter Games.
This tale about my friend, John, is one of my personal touchstone stories of life purpose and meaning. It is the timeless prodigal story of the restoration of the damaged self. Writing these words immediately returns me to a relationship with a man who, thirty-two years ago, began showing up for Sunday morning services at my church in mid-January, 1980.
Whatever John was hearing on Sundays was apparently essential life food. Not until late February would we meet face-to-face when John made an appointment to see me. On that first visit he gave me the 30,000 ft. Fly-Over of his personal and professional life….with a poignant tagline.
John was in his mid-fifty’s married with two adult children. He had created a remarkably successful career in the insurance world, building a practice that placed him at the top of his industry. Yet, as he told me that day, his professional achievements paled to insignificance as he now looked at the landscape of his disastrous personal life. Though still together in marriage, he and his wife lived in two separate worlds that rarely found common ground. His adult kids had no significant relationship with him. Neither sought out a relationship with their father.
And the tagline? John had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
At that first meeting, I learned that John’s deteriorating health was not his biggest concern. Rather, his illness had pointed him to the context of his life choices that had done harm to his wife and his children over many years. What do you do to get it right when you have gotten it wrong for so long? John wanted an ongoing conversation with me to probe into that question. That day we began a relationship. I was the second member of John’s two-man reclamation team. In a brief and most memorable six months. I became a witness to the hopeful fact that it is never too late to fix what is broken.
John and I met every couple of weeks. Our meetings might be likened to the weigh-in moment on TV’s Biggest Loser. For John, getting on the scales required my listening to his reporting about how he was reconstructing the broken bridges with his wife and children. John’s work was to restore trust that had been shattered by years of relational neglect. He quickly learned that declaring his desire to fix what was damaged required that he hear and understand the pain he had caused his wife and children by neglect over many years.
Really listening to the damage he had created was tough work for John. He discovered that his desire to make things right did not necessarily make things right. Every person’s season for restoration is a delicate play of the psyche. John could not force another’s healing. As he pushed up against this fact, he became more contemplative. His thinking moved ever so gently from what can I do with the time I have to… what can God do in His timing?
Then came the eventful Saturday morning in early July. John and I sat in his backyard patio. He remained a man on a mission. Bridges had been partially restored with his family through his persistent belief that the damage of the past could be fixed. But, could he be free in his mission journey to be all he wanted to be to his wife and his kids in the time he had remaining. That was John’s earnest question that beautiful Saturday morning.
As he gave voice to his big question, his truthful speaking and my intense listening entered a vortex of awareness that might be likened to an energy field of all good, present and available to him and me. I described this energy to John as I said, “John, it seems like if I could touch your forehead, you would know this energy as yours.
He said, “Touch my forehead.” As awkward as that moment was for me, it was purposed for the movement of John’s mission. When I touched his forehead, the energy surged through me like a 220 electrical current traveling to him. We both bathed in this remarkable energy for a couple of minutes. When it left, John and I knew something magnificent had occurred.
John lived three more weeks. During that time, he was a 24-7 saint-in-the-making to anyone and everyone who entered his life! Everything he said and did was filled with love. He was a free and joyous man. During those three weeks his wife and children connected with their husband/father in ways that were so fulfilling that the past relational pain disappeared effortlessly…for all. In the end only one person needed help…me! John gave me the help I needed in our last conversation.
It occurred on the phone twenty-four hours before he died. He was totally alert. I said, “John, if that energy we experienced together could do what it did for you and your family, I wonder if it might physically heal you now?
John came my way in that moment with a gift. “Russ, I know how you wish that would be so for me, but it is not to be. Do not worry. Nothing is amiss. The mission has been accomplished. I love you.”
Appreciating you on the ethical edge!
Russell Williams, Founder/President
Passkeys Foundation/Ethical Edge
www.ethicaledge.org