Positive Thinking

"We cannot direct wind but we can adjust the sails" -- Author Unknown.

When I first started at BUNN 13 years ago, I decided to enroll in a Dale Carnegie course that was being held locally. I thought that it might help improve my self-confidence and presentation abilities.

Dale Carnegie

The Dale Carnegie course was extremely peppy. We began our weekly presentations by running to the front of the classroom, accompanied by the cheers of our fellow classmates.  It was kind of fun, and I thought it was beneficial, until toward the end, the course was marred by an ugly incident: the instructor's wife made a presentation that concluded with an inadvertent racial slur. As a result, the sole black member of the class walked out.  The black woman and I met for dinner and talked about what happened. I wasn't sure what to do, so for my next presentation, I gave a illustration from my own life where I had inadvertently offended a disabled person. My point was that even if the offense was inadvertent, an apology needs to be made to person and some sort of 'make good' as well; however, I think this was mostly lost on the class as well as the person who had made the offensive presentation. The woman, who had paid for the class out of her own pocket, never did come back.

I had pretty much forgotten about the course and this year I submitted an essay for one of the Chicken Soup books series, entitled Think Positive. The essay was accepted, the book was published last month, and last week Deborah Norville pitched it on Good Morning America. I got some free books out of the deal, a small payment and in the satisfaction of being published by a "legitimate" publisher. The essay was entitled "Unexpected Rewards" and, although it doesn't address racial problems, I guess I did learn something at that long ago Dale Carnegie course. The book is available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.