The Power of an Encouraging Word by Ken Sutterfield

Author:Ken Sutterfield
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781614580959
Publisher: New Leaf Press
Published: 2012-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

Part III

Changed Lives

Real encouragement occurs

when words are spoken from a

heart of love.

— Dr. Larry Crabb

YMOT! A Changed Life!

As an organization matures it needs to have all kinds of individuals, each one of whom is dedicated to bringing out the best in the other individual and using their strengths. You can’t change your personality but you can change your behavior in significant ways so you can fit into a team. You shouldn’t try to change your personality because your personality is a gift.

The greatest leaders that I have known in both the corporate world and the Christian world are the people who can reach into the hearts and minds and lives of other people and bring out the very best in them and build on their strengths.

I’d like to tell you a story about a person I knew who I think was probably the best at this of anyone I’ve ever known. She was not an executive, a manager, a leader or an author, or anybody you’ve ever heard of. She was an oldfashioned school teacher. This woman was oldfashioned!

She came to school in a white blouse and a black skirt, not blue mind you, but black, and she had black shoes that laced up. She was always absent one day a semester and we all assumed that was the day she got her skirt cleaned. She had gray hair which she combed once a month whether it needed it or not. There were only a few things that Nettie Weidenmann loved. She loved children. She loved children; the most precious resource in the world, our children. Invest your life in children and it will never be a wasted life. The second thing that she loved was learning and growth and development. She loved both of those.

She had a great impact on a young man who was a friend of mine. When he went to school he discovered that he had a problem. The first thing you have to do when you go to school is learn to write your name. He picked up the pen after he’d mastered some letters and he wrote his name. In those days he was called Tommy by everybody and he wrote his name “ymot,” with the “y” turned around backwards, one “m” dropped out, and the whole thing scrambled backwards.

The teacher that he had in first — not Nettie Weidenmann — was very impatient with this behavior. In fact about the second or third week of school she came over and she said, “If you don’t quit that clowning around I’m going to start calling you ‘YMOT!’ ”

Well, it was one of those nicknames that caught on fast. The kids couldn’t wait until recess to start calling him Ymot. “Hey, Ymot! Throw a ball over here, Ymot.” Everybody started calling him Ymot. Relatives called him Ymot, teachers called him Ymot, new kids came to school and thought his name was Ymot.

In addition to that, he had a pretty short attention span and was very hyperactive.

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