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People Who Get to the Top

Manson's Hero

Spielberg Gets Ideas From Children

Great leaders don't think they have all the good ideas. Instead, they humbly solicit ideas from all levels of their organizations. Steven Spielberg is the most successful movie producer in the world. He's got plenty of creative ideas and has every right to tell the actors to sit quietly and allow him to tell them what to do. Yet, listen to actress Drew Barrymore tell how Spielberg worked with her and the other children in the movie E.T.

?Right off, I fell in love with Steven [Spielberg]. In many ways he was ? and always will be ? the dad I never had. I wanted so badly to be accepted by him, and when I was, it meant a lot to me. I was thrilled when he invited me to his Malibu house. We?d run along the beach, collect seashells, and build sand castles. It was so much fun to hang out with him.
	But working with Steven was even better. In most of the scenes he let me do whatever I wanted. All of us were free to offer input, but he especially seemed to like the silly things the kids came up with. Like in the scene where Henry, Robert, and I are hiding E.T. in the closet from our mother, Henry tells me that only kids can see E.T. There wasn?t a line to go with that, and Steven told me to just make something up. So when we did the scene again, I just shrugged and said, ?Gimme a break!?
	He?d often take me aside and say something like, ?You?re talking to me now. Do you really like this? Or do you have a different idea? Do you think it could be done a different way?? Eventually I?d add something and Steven would smile and say, ?Good, let?s combine ideas.? It made me feel so good. For once I didn?t feel like some stupid little kid trying to make people love me. I felt important and useful.? (Drew Barrymore with Todd Gold, Little Girl Lost, Pocket Books: New York, 1990, p. 58)

The point? As leaders in the home and in the world, we desperately need good ideas. Also, we need to help our children and employees to feel ownership, like they're an important part of the team. To build your children's self-esteem, ask for their input. To make your employees feel good about their work, gather and reward their ideas. (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright May 6, 2002)

Coach to Coach, Football is Irrelevant

In last week's (January, 2003) Super Bowl, Tampa Bay coach Jon Gruden led his Buccaneers to a masterfully orchestrated win over his former team, the Raiders. Since a year ago he was with the Raiders, having built them into Super Bowl material, some people called this match-up "The Gruden Bowl."

But there's more to life than football, as he was warned by a former mentor. About 13 years ago, Gruden worked as offensive assistant under Bobb McKittrick. Gruden idolized him, emulating his workaholic lifestyle and writing down everything he said. McKittrick was tough, smart and "spent all his waking hours making decent players great." McKittrick's hard work paid off. He coached the 49er's offensive line for over 20 years. Nine of his linemen went to pro bowls. His teams won five Super Bowls.

In 1999, after Gruden's first season coaching the Raiders, he received a sobering phone call. It was McKittrick. 
"Jon?" McKittrick said over the phone. "I've got cancer and I'm going to die." 
Gruden stammered a few words, but McKittrick wasn't listening. 
"I wanted to call and tell you: It's not just about football," McKittrick said. "Go be with your kids and your wife. Football is irrelevant. I don't want you to be like me."

Will Gruden heed his advice? Who knows? But the more important question is, will we heed his advice. We have such a dangerous tendency to obsess on what we're good at, or what we most enjoy, neglecting the other great priorities of life. We can even obsess with good things, like ministry, at the expense of loving our families, visiting grandmom, or meeting personally with God. If you were diagnosed today with terminal cancer, would you be able to look back at your life and say, "I lived for things that really counted." (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright January 30, 2003. Sources: Coach Chucky The Buccaneers' Jon Gruden has all the qualities of the perfect NFL coach: He's tireless, hypercritical and, occasionally, scary as hell Date: 09-09-2002; Publication: Sports Illustrated; Author: S.L. Price; also, http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0855464.html

Bill Gates' Early Role Models

Mentors, Leadership, Youth

In high school, Bill Gates and his buddies worked after school for a business called "C-Cubed." There he found his role models - the cool, smart programmers who wore t-shirts and sandals when they worked weekends. Steve Russell had trained at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Labs and created the first video game. Dick Gruen "cultivated a snotty attitude toward software that didn't do what it was supposed to, and generally promoted fearlessness."

Of those days with the high school kids at "C-Cubed," Gruen said, "The novel thing was that we were treating high school students like real people." (Written by Steve Miller, Copyright Feb., 2003. Source: Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented An Industry - And Made Himself The Richest Man in America, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994, p. 32)

Isn't that what we need more of in youth ministry - treating students with respect and "like real people." Too often, we neither ask for their critique of our ministry nor allow them to take on significant roles.

Houdini Gets Inspired

Ehrich Weiss was born in Budapest and emigrated to Appleton, Wisconsin with his family when he was four. His dad served as a Jewish Priest, but was asked to leave because they didn't like some of his old world ways (European traditions). They had to move a lot and finally ended up in the crowded New York City tenements, with both he and his father working at a garment sweatshop. There Ehrick cut neck ties day after day. But in 1899 he read a book that changed his life.

The book was a biography of the famous French Magician, Jean Eugene Robert Houdin. He'd enjoyed performing magic tricks for some time. But Houdin's biography inspired him to realize that he could make a living from his magic. Sitting next to a fellow worker in the sweat shop, he said that wanted to be just like Robert Houdin. The friend told him that if he added an "i" to the end of Houdin, that it would mean "like Houdin" in French. From then on, Ehrich adopted the name "Houdini." He set out to be "like Houdin," and became the most famous escape artist and magician in America.

During stellar career he performed such feats as escaping from straightjackets while suspended in midair or being thrown into the San Francisco Bay, handcuffed, with a 75 pound ball and chain shackled to his ankles. He also produced films, broke out of maximimum security jail cells and wrote a book during his hugely successful career. 
But you've got to wonder if he might have spent his life cutting ties in a sweatshop had he never found a mentor, inspiring him to become "like Houdin."

(Written by Steve Miller, copyright August, 2003, all rights reserved. Sources: PBS transcript at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/ houdini/filmmore/transcript/transcript1.html and Biography's video Houdini.

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