We had our positive living group tonight. It was a special one. I told everyone that it was the last one for a couple of weeks, because Im headed to the U.S. So my dear friend Mrs. India came by just to say goodbye. She was going home to India, so I won’t see her for nor her kids for about 6 weeks. She has invited me to come visit their family in India. I would love that, but im not sure if I can swing it. Mrs. India really means a lot to me. She is always so supportive and encouraging. I love her kids and her husband too. They don’t make too many families like this one. I went to her son’s birthday party the other day, which I blogged about. She told me that the little Donald Duck that I bought him has been with him non-stop since that time. That really made me feel good. You never know what a small little gesture will mean to someone. This was the topic of our group tonight. We watched a video where Joel was extolling the virtues of being an encouragement to someone. Just by saying something nice goes a long way to building up someone’s self esteem. After the video, I chimed in, and that’s why I love being a General Manager. Because I have a position of great authority, I can really speak blessings into my employee’s lives. I love giving them compliments, its an honor really. Then I told the group that I used to play this game with my kids, “That’s what I love about you…” Where we would all take turns and compliment each person what they loved about them. It was so special. Then Khalid spoke up, and said lets play that now. What a great idea, I was ashamed I didn’t think of it in the first place. This is after all a positive living group. So we all took turns telling what we liked/admired about each person in the room. Now, I have a healthy self-esteem to begin with, but hearing those positive things really made me feel great. Why wasn’t I doing this from the beginning? What an incredible tool to help people feel better about themselves. John Lowery, my former boss, did it at Design at Work and it worked brilliantly. Everyone likes to hear good things said about themselves. I don’t want to get into detail about what was said about me, but it revolved around the size of my heart. That made me feel great. If there is one thing I want to be known for is that I love others. I have very few enemies in this world and even that is something I’d like to fix someday if possible. But I love to love, and that is what I think God created us to do. Like I spoke the other day, two rules in life, Love God, Love your neighbor as yourself. That says both about loving someone else as much as it says have a good self-esteem. Its hard to love others when you don’t love yourself. That’s a key that I had to learn.
Im so anxious for the next positive living group in three weeks so I can play that game again.
We went to what would be considered a Muslim wake today for Khalifa’s father. It was a large hall with a bunch of men sitting against the wall in a large row. The women met in a separate location. As you entered you went down the procession shaking everyone’s hand. It was Khalifa’s job to stay there for the 2-3 days to receive all the guests. Khalifa is a popular man on the island. There were many many visitors and more were supposed to be coming later. They really honor family in Islamic cultures. Its really quite a beautiful thing. There are many thing which they can learn from the West, conversely there are many things that the West can learn from Islamic cultures as well. There should be a happy medium. Hopefully by the time I’m done here, I will have helped facilitate that happy medium.
One of the customs, which is very frustrating as a GM, is that no official work can get done in time of mourning. So for three days at KSDi we have to lock the doors, not answer the phones nor make phone calls, and not answer any email. Everything stops. Its hard to maintain a business that way, but I really love Khalifa and want to make sure that we honor his father in the right way. Im very very fortunate. I spoke with Omar at length at the wake, or Im not really sure what its called in Arabic. But I just really like all the kids. I feel as if Im a part of their family. Being separated from my own, that is even more important.
That said, I can’t wait to see my kids in a week. Its been far too long. I miss them like crazy.
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