Hero Moments?

A burned cake. "Oh I think it's burned," she said, tasting  a piece of the cake, "I guess I was in a rush. What do I do now?" She went to a colleague and discussed the situation. She had a made a cake for her leaving work party. Finally the party took place. She had decorated the cake in the colors and logo of the company. Everyone remarked how creative and well designed the cake was. "Nobody said anything about the taste," she said. She made strength out of weakness.

I got a flat tire on the main highway. I heard the wheel bumping over the asphalt, and knew the tire was completely flat. Pulling over to the shoulder, I got out of the car and confirmed that the tire was flat and needed to be replaced. I hauled out the tire-changing tools and got to work, but the shoulder was so narrow that every time I bent down to turn the lug wrench a car came speeding at me. I was risking my life to change a tire. I put away the tools and turned on the engine and drove as fast as I could. A few minutes up the road was the entry to a large factory. The driveway was large, wide and set far enough away from the road for me to change a tire. I pulled in, with smoke rising from my burning flat tire. As I applied the tools, a security guard from the factory took interest. He saw me strain as I tried to loosen the bolts, getting up on the lug wrench push my full weight down. The bolts didn't move. He stepped forward, abandoning the gate he stood, and quickly

We learn a lot about people from the stories told about them after they are gone. An old man that lived in the building next door died a little over a year ago. My wife told our son. "Oh him," my son said, "you know once when I was angry, I slammed the door and ran out of our apartment. I was hiding downstairs near the cars, and he saw me. I think he was waiting for someone to pick him up and drive him somewhere. He looked at me and yelled 'Get back in your house, listen to your mother and father.' And because of him, I ran back inside." She went to comfort the family that was mourning their father. She told this story about the old man next door, and everyone cried. He was a man that cared.

Three years ago, we arrived at the hospital when my wife was already in labor. The security guard let us drive right in to be as close to the entrance as possible. I parked the car and went around to help her out. "No, its too much, I'll have the baby here," she said. I needed to help her out, get her up to the delivery ward, and move the car back out to the parking lot. I tried to reassure her that she could make it, but she wasn't ready to step out of the car. I looked around and saw an old man getting into another car behind us. They had a wheelchair. I asked if they still needed the wheelchair, and they let me take it. I tried to help my wife into the wheelchair. Then an older woman appeared. She helped my wife into the wheelchair. "Where does she need to go?" "Upstairs, second floor, to the delivery room." I moved the car back out to the parking lot. I came upstairs and found my wife in the delivery room. A few minutes later we had a

Life will go on as long as there is someone to sing, to dance, to tell stories and to listen.  This is a quote from Chief Oren Lyons ,  a Native American Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. He is an everyday hero. And we’re told, as long as there is one to speak and one to listen, one to sing and one to dance, the fight is on. So that is hope. To not give up. To try, and to use reason. Peace Maker said, “I’m going to throw your weapons of war into this hole.” He uprooted that great tree and instructed all the men to bring their weapons of war and to cast them into this hole. That was the first disarmament. And he said, “I’m not going to leave you unprotected and helpless.” And he gave us the great tobacco plant. And he said, “This will be your medium to speak to me when you need to.” And he gave us a very special plant, which we still use, still speak to him with. We believe. And I think as long as we’re doing that, there is a chance

Looking to sell your home? They say when you add a swimming pool to your house, it doesn't add to the property value but it helps the house sell faster. So also it goes for experience and age. It doesn't necessary make you smarter, but you see the problems faster. And that's the value of experience and age.

I heard a nice insight today. The same hot water that can boil an egg and can also make a potato soft. It's not the hot water that makes the difference, it's the same hot water. But the material that the these items are made from that makes the difference. That's the same thing about life. It's not the outside influences that make us who we are, but are own inner constitution - what we're made of - that's what will determine how those outside influences shape us.

I finished a job interview and called my wife. She said she was nearby in the mall. I quickly found her and looked at my watch. We still had 45 minutes before we had to pick up our little boy from pre-school. "Let's go to the new pancakes restaurant!"  She agreed with no discussion. We ordered the most sweet thing on the menu: a triple chocolate stack of pancakes. Sometimes you just have seize the moment, even for pancakes.

My parking place in our apartment building is empty throughout the day. A woman that comes to visit her elderly mother in the building next door uses our spot (with permission) to park, so as to not get ticketed on the street. One day I came home early, and I pulled into my spot. Then as I was parking the woman pulled in and looked for a place to park. "You can park here in this spot," I said, "I'll park down the street." She blushed and didn't know what to say. The next day I found a note on our car thanking me for letting her park and how touched she was by the consideration.

Hero moments are nice, but might not be the right connecting point. Things that go wrong, could potentially be the basis for a stronger connection. How mistakes get made, form the foundation for building strong interconnections. A quality that most great storytellers have in common is their willingness to tell on themselves, reveal and to share the stories about the time that they just screwed up. Most people listening to our stories don't want to hear about us being a hero and saving the day. It's our frailties that connect us. Our missteps make us interesting. Perhaps out of failure I have been searching to soothe my inner soul through recollections of hero moments, when in fact the entire premise for this blog has in fact been....a misstep.

There was once a time I was walking through a quiet neighborhood late at night. No cars were driving. I could hear the chirp of the crickets in the grass. In the midst of this, I heard a yelp. It wasn't a simple yelp, like an animal making a noise to get attention. It was a yelp of despair. I looked around to where it was coming from. I didn't see anything moving. The yelping continued and grew more desperate. I moved toward a field where the yelping seemed to be the strongest. There was an old rusty barrel. I bent down and looked inside. The yelping echoed loudly inside the barrel. A little puppy was in the barrel. I tried coax him to come out, but he stayed at the very back of the barrel. It was dirty and rusty, I contemplated going in to pick up the puppy. He yelped more. Then I saw that his leg was stuck in the crack in the barrel. Through the crack, the puppy's foot was stuck underneath the barrel. Gently, I rolled the barrel a bit, exposing the larger part of the

Walking up the street, I heard a scraping across the pavement. I looked up and saw a truck dragging a a leafy branch under its chassis. The car lurched forward and the branch remained firmly lodged underneath. The driver seemed unaware of the large branch he was dragging, eagerly trying to get through the stop sign. I looked around and nobody seemed to notice. I stepped forward and got the driver's attention. Waving to him to wait a moment, I bent down to grab the branch. He looked at me like 'what does this guy want'. I pulled at the branch but it was stuck real good under the truck. I hoped he wouldn't get impatient and put his foot on the gas. Wiggling the branch back and forth, it felt like it was going to rip the metal or scratch the truck. Gently I got the branch to the right angle and pulled it up from under the truck. The driver saw me carrying the branch away and honked twice, waving to me with a thumbs up sign. I dragged the tree branch over to the side

The people that came to pray at the synagogue were constantly moving chairs and screeching (and driving everyone nuts with the noise!!). The chairs in synagogue made so much noise on the floor that as soon as one person moves, no one could hear anything over it! The legs of the chairs would make the most horrid scraping sound on the tile floor of the synagogue, and it was really loud! Nobody dealt with the issue and nobody had any ingenious ideas on how to quiet the chairs. I've heard about tennis balls for chair legs, but for an entire synagogue that seemed like an expensive fix. One day I noticed all the chairs in the synagogue had little 'socks' on their legs. Suddenly as everyone got up to pray there was no more scraping or screeching. Quiet had returned to the synagogue. No one took credit. A little idea which changed the atmosphere of an entire synagogue.

I was in line at the drug store to get some skin cream for a rash. In front of me, a guy discussed with the clerk what medications to buy. She told him how much everything would cost. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cash and counted it out. He was still a couple dollars short. He didn't have his wallet with him and didn't have a credit card. He looked up at the clerk hoping she would cut him a break. I put down the missing amount on the counter. He looked back at me. "Hey that's like one of those stories they share on Facebook where a stranger steps in to help ," he said, "hey I got my wallet back in my car, I can get this back to you." I'd read those stories too. They really inspired me. Those are true hero opportunities that are within reach of all of us. I looked over at him and I said, "That's OK, just pay it forward." Yeah. Keep it moving. Pay it forward.

5:00 AM Twilight. Balance between darkness and sunrise. I started on my warm up walk for my run. Adjusting my bluetooth headphones, and looked backed and forth to cross the street. 'Wait a second,' I thought, 'was that a woman walking up the street wearing an off the shoulder blouse like she just came back from a club?' I didn't want to look back and get distracted, and walked forward. I heard someone screaming. She was screaming for help! "Help me! Help!" I removed my headphones and turned around to see the teenage girl with the off the shoulder blouse running after me. "He's following me!" she said. I looked back and saw a man further down the road. "Help me," she said, "please." Suddenly in that moment, all my comic book dreams came to life. I was the dark knight stepping out of the shadows to help someone alone in distress. The only difference was I always imagined myself ready to protect myself, like carr

It was a narrow road. I wanted to avoid the main road with traffic lights. Parked cars lined both sides of the narrow road. I sped up to try and reach the end of the road. Then I saw another car turn onto the road, heading straight towards me. This felt like it would be a battle of wills, who would triumph and who would give in. The car came closer to me. I saw a space between the parked cars on the left side of the road and pulled in, letting the other car pass by. The driver waved and drove on. I continued on my journey down the narrow road. Image Source

Over the phone the interview sounded promising. The biz dev manager seemed to be enthusiastic to me and shared how he was impressed with my resume. He even confided and practically apologized for the poor state of the company's website, saying that the company needed a lot of help in the marketing area. This felt a  good place to land for a new job, not fighting to fit in at an established, polished company, but to come into a small place that struggling to make sense of marketing. I arrived on time for the interview and rang the bell at the front door. No secretary was at the front desk, and the halls inside seemed dark. After a few minutes, someone came and opened the door, looking at me like I was lost. I mentioned the person I was scheduled to meet. A few minutes later the biz dev manager showed up and brought me into the conference room."Just one more and I'll be right back." He went out and then escorted an older man in, introducing him as the CEO of 34 year