Lessons Learned

In 1936, Albert Einstein delivered a speech at a celebration of higher education in America, saying, “Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school” (1954/1982, p. 56). My late husband, Tim Nettles, would surely agree.

In high school, Tim was voted Most Likely to Succeed by his high school peers, and was winner of the highly coveted Principal’s Award. He was also a straight A student --- and valedictorian of his graduating class. Clearly, he was a leader and a scholar.

But in college, he was happy to make Cs in most classes. Why?

Because he was working full time and going to college part time, at night. He was focused on starting his career, earning enough money to pay his bills, and saving for a future. He was planning on being a leader. There was little time for studying.

At the University of South Florida, his favorite instructor was Professor Knocky Parker. Knocky was a jazz pianist who also had a doctorate in English. He showed silent movies in class, and provided musical accompaniment on the piano. Tim recognized this as a true educational opportunity and attended every class. Tim thought Knocky’s approach was far better than learning a bunch of stuff you’d never use again.

So, education was important to Tim Nettles--- in and out of the classroom.

After he died, several of his employees shared with me the things they had learned from Tim. They remembered things he said, such as:

o   “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

o   “Never touch a piece of paper twice.”

o   “Ok, so you screwed up. What did you learn from this?”

And the thing he was fond of saying more than anything else was: “It’s always the right thing to do the right thing.”

I think it’s somewhat appropriate that the most popular movie in 1956, the year Tim was born, was “The Ten Commandments.” In the Tim Nettles style of getting right to the point, he could’ve whittled all those other commandments down to four little words --- “Do the right thing.”

One of the most popular books at that time was Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. It was originally published in 1952 and had sold about 2.5 million copies by the time Tim was born. The book was translated to more than 40 languages and is considered one of the most influential self-help books ever written. In a later edition of his book, Peale is quoted as saying, “Any fact facing us, however difficult … is not so important as our attitude toward that fact” (2003, p. 22). Peale is known for telling us that changing our thoughts would change the way we view the world.

Indeed, attitude is everything. Maybe if everyone would change their thoughts to “Do the right thing,” there would be a whole lot less trouble in this world.

References

Einstein, A. (1982). Ideas and opinions (based on Mein Weltbild, edited by C. Seelig). New York, NY: Three Rivers Press. (Original work published 1954).

Peale, N. V. (2003). The power of positive thinking. New York, NY: Touchstone.