7 Paths Blog Family
Archive for the ‘Family’ Category
On paths and adventures
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 by richfossMy earliest memory of a path, at age five, was of one that wound up a mountain from the small Montana village we lived in to the dump above the town. There was a road that went up to the dump but there was also a faint foot path. Ever since then I have been fascinated by paths.
When my three children were young I took them on an adventure for two hours a week. It gave Sarah a chance to be home alone and gave me time to be with the children.
One of my favorite activities on adventure was to drive down obscure back roads to see where they went. One day this led to a real adventure. We were half a mile from anywhere on a road that was little more than a track when our radiator over-heated. This was before cell phones and no one knew where we were. There was a creek nearby but I couldn’t get to it because of my disability. I coached Hannah, our eldest, who was probably five at the time, to carry cups of water from the creek that I added to the radiator. Eventually, we had enough water in the radiator that I could drive us home.
A few years ago, when I began teaching about leadership and organizations, I found myself using the metaphor of paths to describe patterns in organizations that a leader can use to help the organization thrive.
Here are the musings of Dick Richards on “The Mythic Pull Of Pathways.” Thanks, Terry, for pointing me to Dick’s musings.
You lie!
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 by richfoss“Last week Republican Representative Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” to President Obama during Obama’s speech to Congress. While I support health care reform, I’m one of the few people,” I wrote in a column due out tomorrow, “who think it was fine for Wilson to confront Obama when he thought he was lying.
“I just wish,” I added, “that someone in Congress would have had the courage to stand up and say, “You lie!” to former President George W. Bush when he said that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis died because of the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Being president does not give you the license to lie and when you do, someone ought to stand up and say, “You lie.”
Sometimes your words come back to haunt you.
My wife, Sarah, copy-edits my column. For the past several days I’ve had occasional back spasms which cause me to cry out in pain. I tend to be an optimist and when people ask me how I’m doing, I’ll answer, “Great!”
Last night we were talking and Sarah said, “You know, when people ask you how you are doing and you tell them you’re great, I want to point at you and say, “You lie!” We had a good laugh.
A Tale of Two Leaders
Sunday, July 26th, 2009 by richfossIn the early 1960’s my father had 8 children and 12 milk cows. Needing more cows to support his family, he went to the local Farmers Home Administration office.
There he met a tall, well built older man by the name of Carlson. The FHA official listened to Dad describe his farm and his need for more cows. “He seemed to have a passion for people,” Dad said recently.
“Before you can get more cows you need a new barn,” Carlson said. Dad’s barn had room for twelve stanchions.
Carlson and my dad worked out a plan for an FHA loan to help Dad build a new barn. Even though Dad only had an 8th grade education, he studied the latest trends in barns and the dairy business. With the help of the FHA loan, he built a free stall barn in Minnesota, one of the most progressive types of dairy barns at the time.
When the barn was complete Dad returned to the FHA to secure a loan to purchase cows for his spacious new barn.
In the meantime, Carlson had retired and was replaced by a short, balding man with a paunch. He listened to Dad and said, “I’m not going to loan you any money for cows. You need to get another job to buid up your herd.”
Dad was shocked. He had a new barn that could easily handle sixty cows and he still had twelve cows. How was he to pay for the new barn with twelve cows?
At the time he completed the barn, he could have purchased good milking cows for $200 each. Over the next decade he built up his herd by taking second and third jobs. Eventually he was able to build the herd to the size that fit the new barn.
“I was bitter for a long time,” Dad said, “but eventually I had to forgive the man.”
When I was thinking of launching Evergreen Leaders I thought about Dad and the FHA The first FHA agent was a good leader who listened to Dad and saw a man who had the potential to be a very good dairy farmer. He helped Dad envsion the possibility of building a new barn and then supported him with a loan.
The second FHA agent was a leader too. He was a leader who lacked vision and weighed Dad down with a difficult task–building up his herd with no FHA loan.
At an early age I learned that leaders can help you thrive or they can load you down with burdens. When you are at the bottom of the totem pole as my Dad was, you thrive with the help of a leader or you become bitter with the help of a leader.
When I launched Evergreen Leaders I was determined to help leaders, especially nonprofit leaders, make sure that even those lowest on the totem pole thrive.
The passion to make sure that every one thrive fires me up every morning for another day of working with and teachig nonprofit leaders how to lead like the first FHA agent.
I1st published 9-30-08.
Surprised by grief
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 by richfoss1st published 2/18/08
On Sunday morning I was beating two eggs for waffles when suddenly I welled up with tears as I thought of my Mom beating eggs for pancakes. How many mornings had she stood at the kitchen counter, beating eggs for the countless pancakes she made for Dad and the eight boy and two girls in her clan.
Note: my Mom died on 1/26/08.
Grandeur from rude nature
Monday, September 3rd, 2007 by adminFor the past week Sarah and I have had a young woman living with us, testing the outdoor life by working on the Plow Creek farm. Mandy, a young woman who grew up in a Chicago suburb, gets up at dawn to join several other folks who grow, harvest, and market berries and vegetables.
This morning Mandy asked me where Labor Day came from. “I think it was started by unions to honor workers,” I said.
A little research revealed this gem: “Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those ‘who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.’” The first Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City.
I grew up among farmers and who carved grandeur from rude nature. Even though I became disabled in my late teens and moved from the working man world to the white collar world, I am still shaped by growing up among people who worked for a living.
As I’ve been working with a web designer to build a new Evergreen Leaders website, I’ve often thought of my father building a new barn in the early 1960s. Almost all of our neighboring farmers decided they couldn’t make a go of it and moved away from their farms to work in factories.
In today’s post on Labor Day, Seth Godin contrasts the hard physical work of manual labor with the hard work of today–taking risks. My father knew how to do both, work eighteen hour days physically and take the risk of building what at the time was the most advanced dairy barn in Minnesota. Godin describes perfectly the risk he took:
- Today, working hard is about taking apparent risk. Not a crazy risk like betting the entire company on an untested product. No, an apparent risk: something that the competition (and your coworkers) believe is unsafe but that you realize is far more conservative than sticking with the status quo.
Dad took the risk of building that barn, a risk that made it possible for him to raise ten kids on that farm and still be living on the farm 21 years after he retired. Apparent risk is also a way to create grandeur from rude nature.
The world’s only diamond willow headboard maker
Saturday, April 22nd, 2006 by adminWhen Dad, who lives in northern Minnesota, was 79, a stranger stopped and asked him if there were any diamond willows growing in the area.
Dad didn’t know. He had never heard of diamond willows. The man showed Dad some beautiful walking sticks he had made out of diamond willows.
Dad researched diamond willows on the Internet and then went looking for them. He discovered lots of diamond willows near our farm. “I’ve probably been walking by them since I was five years old and never knew they were there,” he says.
Now Dad is 82, a man with his own diamond willow business and website, Foss Diamond Willows, and someone who is having more fun working than ever before. In fact, recently he told me, “Life begins at 80.”
While I’ve been launching Evergreen Leaders, discovering how to create a nonprofit that can help other nonprofits thrive, Dad has been discovering how to create a thriving business.
When the board and I launched Evergreen Leaders we focused on developing leadership workshops for nonprofit staff. Recently we have added strategic planning and fund raising consulting services in addition to the workshops.
Dad began making diamond willow walking sticks and lamps and marketing them at craft shows. But he kept looking for bigger ticket items that he could make from diamond willows.
After he made a diamond willow bed a couple of people suggested that he make diamond willow headboards. When a customer happily paid $500 for a diamond willow headboard, that got Dad’s attention.
Now he has created diamond willow headboards for every size of bed. As he’s shown them to customers he’s dicovered that his customers see the diamond willow headboards as a perfect addition to their lake homes.
I’m proud of my Dad–the world’s first maker of diamond willow headboards.
Shall we dance?
Friday, March 31st, 2006 by adminThis afternoon I suggested Sarah pick up a video and she came home with Shall We Dance? a remake of a Japanese film that stars Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. Sarah loves dance but I had my doubts. After all, I don’t move well due to my disability…all I could think of was watching a movie that reminded me of my shortcomings as Sarah’s man.
At first the movie confirmed my fears as Richard Gere secretly pursues ballroom dancing lessons, unable to reveal that side of himself to his wife. Does Sarah secretly wish she could dance with someone who could move freely?
But then to my astonishment the movie flows into powerfully affirmation Richard Gere’s marriage. At one point Peter Gabriel’s “The Book of Love” was playing in the background and tears were welling up in my eyes:
The book of love has music in it
In fact that’s where music comes from
Some of it is just transcendental
Some of it is just really dumb
But I
I love it when you sing to me
And you
You can sing me anything
Sarah, my heart is a ballroom for you. Shall we dance?
The world according to Gordon Foss
Sunday, June 19th, 2005 by adminI first did this post for Father’s Day 2005. I keep adding quotes from my Dad:
When you get to be my age you brag it because you’re still kicking
–at age 82
Mama picked herself out an outfit for the anniversary deal.
–On a trip he and my mother had taken to Thief River Falls, MN in preparation for the 60th wedding anniversary celebration coming up June 25.
The Lord gives you wisdom so you can’t believe what you’ve done.
–On his confidence in working out the technical details as he builds a diamond willow bed frame as part of a craft business he launched at age 80.
You get a lot of compliments and that spruces you up even if you don’t make a lot of sales.
–On how he enjoys working at craft shows as part of Foss Diamond Willows.
I love you, Dad.