A SCOUT IS TRUSTWORTHY …

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“I wasn’t a very good scout when I was a kid,” his letter started. “In fact, I was a very bad one. Even though I enjoyed the meetings, activities and camps, I also stole money from the dues box – ten cents per week per kid, candy from the quartermaster’s canteen, and cheated to get the few merit badges I wore. No one ever caught me and I never confessed, until now.”

I wondered where this was going.

He continued. “Time passed and I grew into adulthood. I got married and had four children. Three sons and one daughter. As they reached scout age, I realized that the Scouts had taught me more than I deserved.” Here he enumerated many of the things he had learned and put into practice as an adult, husband and father.

“I encouraged my children to become active in Scouting,” his letter said. “And they all did very well and while I am still ashamed to say I am not proud of my years as a Scout, I am very proud of my children’s years as Scouts.” Here he enumerated the scores of merit badges his kids had earned, the right way, along with the many life lessons they were putting into practice.

His letter ended: “Enclosed please find a check for $1,000. I am sorry for having stolen and cheated during my early years but I am very, very thankful for the life lessons learned and practiced, even if it took me years after leaving the Scouts to learn them.”

I wanted to share this story with my readers because it illustrates a simple moral. Sometimes the seeds we plant in one season will produce fruits that others will eat in another season.

The Scouting Law: “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent”

HOW MANY FAT PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHT BULB

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“Can’t the government do something about how obese I’ve become? I mean, it’s obvious I can’t do anything about it myself. I’ve tried diet after diet and I just keep getting fatter and fatter and fatter.”

“So what do you want them to do?”

“I don’t know. Something. I just don’t want to get any fatter even though I know I will. Could you pass me the butter, please?”

I watched as he buttered his second freshly-baked sticky bun with pecans, drizzled with a thick buttercream frosting. He washed each bite down with a huge gulp of Diet Coke^®. He was on his third free refill.

The waitress came by and asked him if he was “going to have another?” I assumed she was asking about more soda since he was about halfway through his glass already. He told her, yes.

My assumption was wrong. It was another sticky bun.

“Thanks,” he said. “And could you bring me another Diet Coke^®, please? Oh, and some more butter. Thanks.”

Okay. I’ve seen people eat huge amounts of food before, and not all of them were obese. In fact, in my teen years, I could consume massive quantities of food in one sitting, and I was fit and trim. But this spectacle was bordering on the ridiculous.

He started his breakfast with a bacon-wrapped sausage and waffle appetizer. Followed by the meatapalooza four-egg omelet, topped with cheddar and hot pepper cheeses and a hollandaise sauce. (The meatapalooza omelet included real bacon bits, three kinds of sausage, diced ham, diced Spam^®, pepperoni, taco-seasoned ground beef, butter-sautéed onions and mushrooms, and gyros. Yes, and gyros). It also came with a huge helping of home-style, pan-fried potatoes drenched in “the best pork gravy east of the Mississippi.” On a separate plate, he ordered his chocolate chip pancakes with a couple pats of butter on each pancake, and he ordered the five-stack. He skipped the maple syrup. However, he dipped each forkful in a side bowl of warm strawberry compote.

I think we can all agree that this young man was eating way too much food, especially for a man of his size (I’m guessing near 350 pounds). And it was the wrong kind of foods, especially for someone who was complaining about getting fatter and fatter.

But the two things that surprised me most were not his size or the 49 pounds of food, fat and fizz he was consuming in “one” meal.

First, was his opening salvo, “Can’t the government do something…?”

Really? The government?

I’m certain we don’t need another bloated bureaucracy, tucked deep within the fatty folds of a Department of Corpulent Re-Education and Downsizing, to tell us (or force us to do) what we already know.

Second, was his lament that he didn’t want to get any fatter, “even though I know I will.”

And that is probably the primary reason he has, in effect, given up. He has undoubtedly endured more than enough failures at losing weight that he now mentally expects that he will just continue to get “fatter and fatter and fatter.” It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. He lives down to his expectation.

So for those struggling with extreme weight loss goals, here are three tips from my upcoming book on dropping 50 pounds or more.

Be Still. Take a deep breath and quiet your mind. The negative self-chatter that so often clutters our thoughts can damage our health as much as the negative eating can. Never “just eat.” Take a moment before each meal, and if necessary before each bite, to quiet your mind and be thankful for what you’re about to eat.

Be UnStill. While being still deals with your mind and emotions, being unstill deals with your body. You already know this, but I’ll say it anyway. Stretching to reach the TV remote is not exercise. Lifting your leg to find that M&M^® you just dropped is not exercise. Bending down to get that bag of chips on the bottom shelf, is not exercise. And walking out to the car to drive out to the mailbox at the end of your driveway to get your mail, is not exercise. Check with your health-care provider and begin moving. And move a little more each day.

Be Aware. Do you know exactly how many calories you eat per day? Per week? Per meal? And I do mean, exactly. One of my favorite night snacks used to be a bottle of Wild Cherry Pepsi® with ten Ritz® Crackers topped with some aged Wisconsin cheddar cheese. I never bothered to actually count the calories, but I “figured” there were probably about 200 to 300 calories. And then one night, I really figured it out. My nightly snack, which I counted as “not being very much” was actually 795 calories. And if I had a second Pepsi® it was over 1,000 calories. Just for a “little” nightly snack.

This is by no stretch of the imagination, any sort of comprehensive weight loss system. It’s just a few tips to get started. These were the three tips that I began my pursuit to get from nearly 500 pounds down to my target weight of 210 pounds. You can do it.

Get started today.

DON’T BE SLOW AND STEADY WHEN YOU NEED TO BE FAST AND READY

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It was a fairly easy commute this morning. The three lanes of freeway traffic were flowing along at about 65 mph. There was, of course, the natural ebb and flow of cars merging, changing lanes, exiting, speeding up a bit, slowing down a bit, but for the most part it was an easy commute.

That is, until Methuselah decided to merge from the entry ramp to the freeway.

Within the time and space of about ten seconds, the millennigenarian managed to find an opening in the traffic and drive in.

Unfortunately, when he actually was in the freeway lane, he was not driving at 65 mph, or even 45 mph, or even 30 mph. No, he was the head-stuck-in-his-shell tortoise lumbering into the fast lane of hares, but this was not about “slow and steady wins the race.” This was about fast and ready keeps the pace.

SCREEEEEEEEECH !!

Followed by a chain reaction of similar screeches as driver after driver after driver slammed on their brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of them that had already slammed on their brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of them.

Methuselah, oblivious to the sights and sounds of accidents being averted by the scared and angry drivers behind him who somehow managed to avoid a horrendous pile-up of accidents, continued to slowly accelerate until he managed to reach about 50 mph, still under the speed limit for that stretch of freeway.

As I thought about what happened, I realized that what bothered me the most about the incident was the apparently complete lack of awareness by Methuselah as to the conditions of the traffic he was driving into. Or maybe he had a complete lack of caring. In either case, it was dangerous. That he was oblivious to the flow of life around him, made me more aware of the flow of life around me.

Traffic, conversations, moods, productivity, relaxation, tides … almost everything has a flow to it. And I believe that the more we are aware of the flow of life, the more easily we will be able to adapt and swim with it, or become strong to swim against it.

What matters is that we are aware.

WHY IS THERE A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE OUTSIDE PICKING UP SOMEBODY ELSE’S TRASH?

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I backed into the parking space at the library, as is my usual habit. (I find it much easier and safer to back into a parking space than to back out). As I gathered my things to bring in, I noticed a rather unusual sight.

Dressed in a suit was a thirty-something young man, picking up trash outside the front entrance. It’s not that he was picking up a few pieces, he was picking up a lot. Eventually he picked up what looked to be the source of most of the flying trash: one of those plastic grocery store bags that had apparently been dropped near the entrance and then had emptied half its contents as the wind whipped it around.

In the couple of minutes that he spent gathering up the trash, there were about a half dozen people who passed him on their way into the library. No one helped. In fact, only one seemed to really notice him and what he was doing, but offered no help.

He finished his task, dropped the bag in the trash can, and walked into the library.

I saw him again, inside the library, and recognized who he was. He was a vice president of a locally-headquartered international company with scores of millions in annual sales. He was, as he always was, impeccably dressed. Tailor-made suit, starched white shirt, silk tie, highly-polished shoes. He was GQ-style from head to toe.

Yet he was outside a public library picking up trash a few minutes earlier.

I walked up to him, told him what I saw and asked him why he did it.

His answer was simply, “Because it had to be done.”

And I realized that one of the reasons why he was a highly successful individual was because he practiced, as just about every other highly successful individual does, one of the keys to enjoying a high quality of life. He does the things that have to be done. It didn’t matter to him that other people did not do it, or that the library had a maintenance person whose job included such a task, he was there at the time it needed to be done, was able to do it, and so he did.

As you go through this week, think about the opportunities to contribute to your, and others, quality of life. When the opportunity presents itself, and it will, take advantage of it.

Simply, because it has to be done.

NOT EVERYTHING WE THINK WE HEARD IS WHAT WAS ACTUALLY SAID

“Mommeeee. Jeffrey’s using big words again.”

She couldn’t have been more than three or four years old, but she definitely did not like her older brother, probably around twelve years old, using words she didn’t understand. Jeffrey, on the other hand, seemed to revel in poking his little sister with verbal jabs.

“Oh Lucy,” Jeffrey said. “Don’t be such a pillock.”

“Momeee,” Lucy implored of her mom.

“Now Jeffrey,” his mom said. “You know that bothers your sister. Please don’t do it.”

“But mom,” he said. “I’m just trying to help Lucy mature.”

Lucy shot back, “Mommy, I don’t want to manure.”

“Mature, honey, not manure. You don’t want to mature. And you don’t have to for a long time yet. Jeffrey, you need to apologize to your sister for upsetting her.”

“Okay,” Jeffrey said. He looked at his sister and offered this apology. “Lucy, I’m sorry you’re such a pillock and you don’t have to be manure until you’re older.”

“Mommeeee!” Lucy screamed.

“Jeffrey! Stop it! Now!” his mom said with finality. “Now apologize the right way.”

He looked at Lucy and said simply, “I’m sorry.” Then he turned aside and half-whispered to himself, “I’m sorry you’re such a pillock.”

Thankfully, his sister didn’t hear him.

I thought a lot about that scene today. I knew it was more than a cute story. It says as much about relationships and conflict as it does about messages given and messages received.

It illustrates a number of age-old axioms and anti-axioms. For example, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. What I said is not necessarily what you heard. If momma ain’t happy, nobody’s happy. Nothing cuts as deep as a sharp tongue. When in doubt, call your mom. Blood is not always thicker than water.

I was telling my wife the story and asked her what she thought the moral was.

“That’s easy,” she said, almost immediately. “If you want to confound your adversary, use words he or she does not understand.”

Wow, I thought. That’s profound. I like it. I like it a lot. It is insightful and, at least for me, it really provokes thought. And sometimes, the best advice is that which indeed provokes us to think.

See you Monday.

(And for those who are as unfamiliar as I was with the word pillock, it is British slang for a stupid or annoying person.)

WHEN YOU'RE TIRED OF ALL YOUR “GROWN-UP-NESS” TRY THIS ...

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“Hi,” I said, introducing myself to the gentleman sitting next to me. “I'm Ed.”

“Hi Ed, I'm Nate.”

“What brings you to this workshop?” I asked.

“New job,” Nate said. “My manager thought it would be good for me to help develop and expand our customer base. I think he was more impressed by all the big words in the brochure. Most of this stuff I already know but a few days at a nice hotel instead of being stuck in a stuffy office is welcome. So what brings you here?”

“Me? I guess a combination of keeping the old skillset current and a little bit of story-mining.”

“Story-mining?” Nate asked.

“Yeah. I'm a writer so I'm always looking for story ideas and as it turns out workshops are always good for at least a handful or so that I can take back with me.”

We were sitting toward the back of the conference room attending a seminar on “Understanding Personal and Professional Interdynamics for the Management and Customization of Business-to-Customer Relationships.”

Say what?

Right. The seminar marketing department should have taken a workshop in “How to Name your Seminars”.

Anyway, we were trying valiantly to stay awake since the presenter was about as interesting as the title of the seminar. There didn't seem to be a lot of new information for either of us but then we weren't exactly paying close attention. We'd make a comment or two, here and there, as we tried to at least be professionally polite to young woman leading the seminar. But it felt like it was going to be a long morning.

Thankfully, there were a couple of ten minute breaks built into the schedule.

After the first break, I returned to my seat. Nate was just opening his briefcase. For some reason it reminded me of that scene in the 1994 movie “Pulp Fiction” when the Travolta character opens the briefcase. Perhaps it was the way the streak of sunlight reflected off the five boxes of Crayola® crayons he had inside.

That's right. Five boxes of crayons inside his briefcase. Of course he had the usual executive stuff as well, but he had … five boxes of crayons inside his briefcase.

Like the Travolta character, I couldn't help but stare inside the case.

“I know,” Nate said. “Not the kind of stuff you expect to see in a briefcase.”

“I gotta admit,” I said. “You're right. Not the kind of stuff I tend to see in briefcases. So, what's the story behind it? Gifts from your kids?”

“Actually no,” he said. “I don't have any kids. These I bought myself and always carry with me.”

Okay, I thought to myself. Either this is a story about to reveal itself or this guy's a little off-center.

Gratefully, he was not off-center. He told me it started when he was a kid. When he began elementary school, his mother always told him to bring some crayons along wherever he went so he would always have something to play with, and if necessary, to share with others. Shortly after his mom gave him that advice, she died. It was his way of always carrying a piece of her with him, even as he grew up and otherwise outgrew the usual season for crayons.

But a funny thing happened as he went to college and eventually into the professional job market. He actually found that coloring was a very relaxing and often creative outlet. And more surprising than one might think, he quite often found himself sharing his crayons with fellow students and eventually with business colleagues.

I didn't let him down. As the seminar droned on, he shared his crayons with me as we sat in the back of the room, coloring. And he was right, I found it relaxing and creative. In fact, I would say I probably gained more out of the time spent coloring than I did from the seminar.

And I carry on the tradition. Whenever I travel, I usually do so with about five boxes of Crayola® crayons. And yes, I continue to be surprised by how many adults are willing to surrender some of their “all-grown-up-ness” for the warm satisfaction found in coloring.

So, is it time for you to surrender?

I think so. Make it a point this week to buy I box of crayons. My personal preference is for the Crayola® brand in the 24-pack.

Enjoy.

IF EYES ARE THE WINDOWS TO THE SOUL …

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Living in Chicago, I’ve seen hundreds of “homeless” decorating the streets, doorways and sidewalks of this Second City and many of the suburbs as well. In some areas they are so common as to seem almost invisible, blending into the background like so many camouflaged pieces of humanity. They are usually dirty and unkempt. Most have eyes that are as vacant as the lots and buildings they often use for shelter.

But for the past week, I’ve driven past a very different homeless man. He was middle-aged, clean-shaven, cleanly dressed with a very pleasant demeanor. His cardboard sign, which he held chest-high, said, “Homeless. Need Work. Have Resume.”

Have Resume.

I was impressed. Not only did he make sure he was as presentable as he could be, given his dire circumstances, but he had a resume to pass out to anyone who would accept it. Of the hundreds of homeless I’d seen throughout the past five years, he was the first one who took some of the money he panhandled and put together a resume.

He lasted four days.

Either someone hired him and he no longer needed to seek help on the edge of the highway, or he was elsewhere looking for help. I prefer to think that he found a job and will soon be in a new home.

Life’s quick little lesson on this one?

Always put your best face forward.