The Contented Cow Blog

Building Workplaces That Work

Yesterday, one of our favorite organizations, Prosperity Bank of St. Augustine, Florida (also our bank, and a valued client), held its fourth annual Prosperity Bank Foundation event, designed to raise funds for the bank’s charitable foundation. It was my honor to be one of the speakers at the event 2 years ago. This year, the featured speaker was Dr. Ben Carson, a noted pediatric neurosurgeon from Johns Hopkins, and author of Think Big!

As a speaker, I’m always eager to hear others speak from the platform, but, I have to admit, I often approach these things as a reviewer, ready to evaluate style, content, and the other things I pay attention to when I’m on the platform.

For the first few minutes of Dr. Carson’s presentation, I found myself in that mode. But I was quickly transformed into simply being a listener, receiving his simple, positive, straightforward message, and being inspired by what I heard.

His style was far from theatrical. No flash. The only time he strayed from simply having a conversation with the audience of 500+ was his rather amazing description of the neuromuscular processes involved in his asking us to raise our hands, and our doing it. With this exception, he didn’t say much I didn’t already know. His message wasn’t particularly prescriptive. In other words, I didn’t leave there with pages of notes of things I could go out and do differently right away that would make a difference.

And yet I left the presentation feeling like I had spent an hour or so with a really good man of admirable character, a genius, a doer, someone who shares my values but has done a better job than I of putting those values into action.

One simple piece of advice he did encourage us to enact was to simply “Be Nice”. I heeded his advice at every opportunity yesterday, and so far today. And I gotta tell you, I’ve felt better because of it.

It took a brain surgeon to remind me of that which I already knew but wasn’t practicing enough. The next time I listen to a speaker, I’m going to focus more on how I can benefit from that speaker’s message, and less on how “good” his or her performance is.

I’m really glad I heard Ben Carson, and I appreciate Prosperity Bank for giving me the opportunity.

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and his co-author and business partner Bill Catlette, are the authors of the new book Contented Cows MOOve Faster, as well as the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

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