My father once told me a story that illustrates how important it is to have a support team lined up for those moments when you really need their skills. It involves an incident that occurred just outside of Vũng Tàu. He had successfully dropped off troops, picked up supplies from a waiting ship, and was taking off again to head back to base. It was a flight pattern he was familiar with, having flown it before. He had been conditioned by earlier experiences to check out the edges of the woods for enemy soldiers hiding there before he ascended high enough to be visible.
Sure enough, my dad spotted VC snipers. This time, however, he was able to call up nearby artillery. A US Army soldier, who sounded a lot like a young kid, responded and my father quickly told him where he was located.
“You see those guys sitting out on those hills?” he asked. “I’m flying awfully low and I’ve got to get out before I get caught in their crosshairs.” He had to trust that this artilleryman, as young as he sounded, knew what he was doing. And thankfully he did.
The boyish voice on the other end of the radio commanded firmly, “Do not climb.”
As my dad explained to me, “The first shot was fired by our guys. I was told to maintain altitude at full throttle. Basically, the artillery unit had to mark the target with a small gun—something ranging between a 105 and 155 howitzer. After they scored that first shot, they had to hit the other side too.”
That’s when the young artilleryman repeated again, “Do not climb.”
They were firing over my dad’s plane now. The next shot was definitely from a 155 because in my father’s words, “It came with a helluva dust.”
With those two hits, my dad’s new best friend in artillery located the enemy unit and the next words he heard from him were, “Meet your power.” My dad was about to jam the plane when the kid shouted several more times, “Do not climb! Do not climb!” Miraculously, he was able to stay in position at that low level for three and a half minutes. Three and a half minutes! Even I know that’s a long time in a little bird-dog airplane that only flies one hundred miles per hour. That speed is nowhere near fast enough to hightail it out of a hot spot like that when you are right at treetop level, unless of course you’ve got the kind of targeted artillery support behind you that he did.
After what seemed like forever to even my incredibly patient father, the artilleryman gave the okay for him to climb and then put him on another heading to get him back to base safely. I suspect that my dad doesn’t like to tell this story because it took five guns and the explosions of their fuel carriers to take out that enemy unit. He could see a hellacious cloud of smoke in the sky behind him and he knew that a lot of enemy lives were lost that day to save his.
One thing every serviceman and -woman knows is that you can’t go it alone in war. You are reliant on other people doing their jobs and they are reliant on you doing yours. In that way, everyone is someone else’s reinforcement. Nations also understand this, which is why they seek to develop allies. And militaries plan for this, which is why they train troops to have each other’s backs—or as they say, “have each other’s six.” It’s also why they develop elite teams of soldiers with exemplary skills to preempt challenges or to come to the rescue when times get really tough. These elite teams, of course, are called Special Forces.
Many people think that it’s these warriors’ physical abilities that make them so exceptional, but they must be mentally agile and tough and in some cases academically accomplished too. Green Berets, for instance, are able to speak foreign languages like a native, and are fluent in all kinds of advanced technologies. Depending upon their occupational specialty, they’ve aced weapons, communications, medical and engineering training, and they’ve been schooled in operations and a wide variety of different survival, escape, resistance, and evasion techniques. But most important, they have to have a rock-solid moral character. Special Forces, in general, must reflect the best attributes and values of the military wherever they are sent. They are often a fleeting presence, emerging only at the times or in the situations when their uncommon skills and fortitude are needed. It takes enormous commitment, courage, and personal responsibility to knowingly rush into a crisis to save others.
Although that artilleryman who effectively saved my father’s life was not part of an actual special operations unit, he was my dad’s “special force” on that day, stepping in with speed and skill just when it was needed. My father never saw him again, but you can bet he never forgot him.
WHO’S GOT YOU COVERED?
When I was very young, my dad shared something with me that he used to tell the battalions he led. As I watched him shave in the early morning one day he said, “The people in your life have an expiration date. You will lose some through death, attrition, their own desires to do greater things, and a host of other reasons. Your ability to let go of them is as important as whom you choose to hang on to. You only have so much space and energy. You have a finite amount of time because you are human. You have limited resources because time is among the materials you must work with. So make sure you have the right people around you to get the things done that you need to get done. And remember that most of us are only with each other one mission at a time. Gain the most from them and be the most with them for as long as is appropriate and successful.”
It was an important message about staying focused and having a squad around you that can help you reach excellence. The power of his words has stayed with me ever since. I still have the journal I wrote them in.
The simple truth is that we all need support to achieve our goals and if we don’t consider and line up people in our lives who possess the wisdom, skills, moral fiber, and intention to be there for us when we need them most, we may not thrive and survive the way we hope to. Knowing who your allies and special forces are, and by contrast, knowing your enemies and detractors too—the people who intentionally or unintentionally can harm you or impede your progress—is vitally important.
BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN ARMS
Even before I learned how to invite special forces into my life, two such support people appeared on their own. It was during a time when my father was deployed with a company under provisional command. As an officer within the Aviation division of the Army, he was tasked with a wide variety of special missions, including delivering crucial battle plans to eager officers who were awaiting them, transporting wounded soldiers to safety and enemy combatants to detention, extracting long-range reconnaissance patrol units from behind enemy lines, and flying other troops and munitions to and from wherever they were needed most. His technical expertise was in high demand as well. He was known for being able to repair and replace the armaments, avionics, and engines of virtually every kind of aircraft that came back to base damaged, even if he had to improvise. We never knew the nature of his missions when they were occurring, but we knew he would be engaged in this one for a while. Meanwhile my mother and I were living in a nice house in Dallas, Texas, that he had found for us before he shipped off.
On one quiet evening while he was away, someone set off an explosive charge on the exterior wall of our home. The blast it created rocked the entire place, causing the TV to fly across the living room and the photos mounted on that wall to fall and shatter. The shock and damage it caused would have frightened anyone, but it was an especially scary experience for a five-year-old child. While neither of us was physically harmed, we were both terrified to remain there.
My mother wrote to tell my father about what happened but she knew it might take weeks to hear back from him. Fortunately for us, my uncles Ronnie and Tim—Dad’s younger brothers—swooped in to help. They mobilized other members of the family to relocate us immediately. My dad’s uncle Syria Hulin drove down from Malakoff, Texas, to help move us and our belongings to a safer home in Singing Hills, near Oak Cliff, Texas. They chose the new home because it was closer to where my uncles and my father’s mother and stepfather lived. They knew they could keep a closer eye on us there.
When my dad finally received my mom’s letter, he drove all the way to headquarters in Saigon to request a leave. The Red Cross agreed to look into the matter but denied his request a few days later. The colonel my father reported to wasn’t present at the time or he surely would have granted it. Others were permitted leaves for far less serious matters. Whether his request was denied because he was needed where he was, or because we had moved already by then, is hard to say. But you can only imagine the stress and anxiety he felt under the circumstances. He arranged to use one of the high-frequency radios to contact my mother late one night. Sitting on the back of a truck, he patiently waited for his call to be patched through to a station out in the Pacific then relayed to us in Texas. This delay only seemed to reinforce the nine-thousand-mile distance between them. My mother was still disturbed by the event when they finally spoke, but she assured him that his family had taken care of us and that we had moved to new accommodations already. She didn’t want him to worry. She kept up a brave front for him well after that initial call, writing to him daily and including prayers in her letters.
Although my mother filed a police report, no one was ever charged with the crime. Apparently, the officers had no leads. Who did this or why they did it remains a mystery, but my family always suspected that it was racially motivated. Discontent with Dallas’s school zones was brewing. A black man named Sam Tasby and twenty other plaintiffs were getting ready to file a landmark class action lawsuit in federal court. They objected to bussing their children to all black Dallas Independent School District schools when they lived so close to white schools. Some residents were highly critical of the suit, claiming that Dallas had already implemented enough zoning changes years before, due to the Supreme Court ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case. But in fact, Dallas schools were still largely segregated. After hearing the Tasby case, the presiding judge decided in favor of the plaintiffs saying that they had indeed been victims of racial prejudice. He ordered immediate statewide desegregation. Many white families moved out of Dallas shortly after that order. Given the general tensions in the community, my family’s suspicions that this explosion might have been an act of racial bias were understandable.
I had no recollection of the incident at my home, but when I heard about it later, the story resonated with me so much that I somehow knew I was an eyewitness to the event, even if I didn’t retain the memory of it because of my young age. What I do recall after that time is always feeling as if my uncles were my prized special forces—that for as long as they possibly could, they would be there for my family and me.
Later in my life, I was lucky enough to have another fine person come to my aid during a difficult time. Montel Williams, the famous radio and TV talk show host, happened to be the special force in this case. As some of you know, an ex-boyfriend of mine had violently stalked me for several years beginning in the spring of 1993. This ex broke into my home and forcibly assaulted me. He menaced my neighbors, colleagues, office -and apartment-building workers, and he actively staked out my male friends and companions. Despite my having a restraining order against him, his obsession escalated. He repeatedly entered my home when I wasn’t there to steal personal items and leave reminders that he had access to me no matter how often I changed my locks. He not only harassed me in two states, he followed me to an out-of-town convention in Illinois where he thought my order of protection didn’t apply. After doing a little jail time, he persisted and even got past police, security guards, and a private detective I hired as a bodyguard. I was naturally terrified of him. To help myself rebound and to guide other women going through the same horrific experience, I wrote a book about it and appeared on numerous talk shows. I was still very nervous about being so exposed, but I knew I had to push past those fears if my life was ever going to return to normal.
On the day I appeared on The Montel Williams Show, Montel did something I hadn’t anticipated. He looked squarely at the camera and spoke directly to my assailant and stalker. He said, “I know who you are.” Then he called him out, right there on live TV. He told him in no uncertain terms that if he tried to pull anything again—if he did me any harm whatsoever—that he would personally wreak havoc on him. What you need to know is that Montel is a former naval officer. In that moment, he spoke with all the moral authority and might that someone with that training and experience has. It had to scare any offender, not just mine, into thinking twice about what they were doing.
I cannot tell you how much trust in others was restored for me in that moment. That someone I did not know very well would put himself out there like that for me was both inspiring and comforting. In your moment of need people will pleasantly surprise you. People who have no obligation to help you will step up and do the right thing. They will invite themselves to be a member of your squad, and believe me, you will gratefully accept their help.
# SQUADGOALS
As fortunate as I was in the instances I just described, none of us should rely on luck. To craft the life we want, accomplish the missions we have in mind, and assure our well-being, we need to pick the right team to be at our side. I often call this team of personal special forces my inner circle or my squad. There are others whom I will invite to help me out on a project-by-project basis, but members of this elite corps are people I trust to be dedicated to me, not just dedicated to our shared objective.
All the football players on a team competing to win the Super Bowl, for example, have a common goal: To become champions. But not everyone on the team will be excited to see you emerge as the MVP. There will be some who recognize that your consistent game and team leadership have earned you that honor and will push for you, but there will also be others who won’t want to see you get that reward instead of them. The kinds of people I want at my side are those who see and want the same things for me that I want for myself.
When I think about the people who fought alongside my father, I see people who were committed to him as much as to the mission. The fellow airmen he had around him in the sky weren’t just dedicated to the goal of winning the war; they were dedicated to bringing each other back alive. You want people like that around you—people who you can trust with your life.
When I first selected the members of my inner circle, I asked myself the following questions. I want you to do it too. It will help you figure out who is really in your camp. Read the following aloud:
Remember, the only way someone qualifies is if they meet all of the criteria. No exceptions.
It is such a selective process that you will likely discover, as I did, that there are only a few people who make the list. But the length of that list doesn’t matter as long as the people on it happen to be those like your favorite aunt—someone who doesn’t necessarily excel at math but knows you well enough to see you’re a rocket scientist and wants to help you fulfill your dream of actually becoming one. Someone who will drop off a home-cooked meal at your place so you can maintain your strength while you’re studying for exams. Someone who will drive you to and from important interviews, and who will wait for you in the car until you’re done. I’m talking about someone who will hang with you and pray when you’re having a moment and need some greater guidance. I’m talking about that special someone who will get out and push the limo, and not just expect a ride in it.
Don’t be concerned that there are only a few people with that kind of character, heart, and commitment around. The number of Navy SEALs who exist in the world are far fewer than the rest of us. As an example of how quality trumps quantity, it took just about a couple dozen SEAL Team Six members to cleanse the earth of the bloodthirsty terrorist Osama bin Laden. When you have really dedicated people on the job, you don’t need that many.
The military calls our Special Forces the “tip of the spear” for a reason. How much of anything do you think you can fit on the tip of something so sharp? Not much, right? But look at the back end of that spear—at the spear’s handle. There’s a lot more room there for people to hang on—and the more people that are hanging on, the greater the chance that some will be prone to error and distraction. As you move down toward the tip—the part that is pointed directly at its target—there’s only room for the best. That’s how Special Forces work in the military and that’s how I want them to work in my inner circle. There should be no room for error. No room for anybody who doesn’t belong.
By the way, the motivational speaker Jim Rohn had an interesting theory. He suggested that our personalities are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Essentially, the influence of those nearest and dearest to us shapes our values, choices, and behaviors to the point where we develop a shared set of ideals. In other words, our thinking rubs off on each other. If this is true, we have even more reason to choose our company wisely. We must surround ourselves with only the best of the best.
Satisfied that I had identified the members of my squad, the next step for me was to formally enlist those people—to invite them into my inner circle. The military’s success is largely based on everyone knowing their role. My squad needed to know that I have expectations of them and what those expectations are. It’s easier to do than you might think as you are basically extending the ultimate compliment. Just be specific about what you need, offer your equal support in return, and really mean it when you tell that person you will be there for him or her.
This conscious effort to attract supportive people into my life has increased my sense of security, multiplied my joy, magnified my faith in others, fueled my endeavors, and enabled me to do more with that “finite amount of time” my father spoke of. It has also given me great satisfaction to support others in return.
BY INVITATION ONLY
Now that you’ve asked all the right questions and made a list of those you can count on, it’s time for you to extend the invitations. You may want to follow the script below when making your ask, or you can write your own. Mine is offered here to give you some guidance:
I’ve recently had an epiphany in my life. I have some things I need to do to make sure I’m living out God’s purpose for me here on earth and that means I can’t waste my time or His. Since I tend to pray for direction, I want to follow that Divine direction with everything I’ve got. It’s about taking my life’s mission to the next level. I’m going to need some extraordinary people around me to rise. I need your positivity, support, and push when I begin to doubt myself. Please know that I extend the same kind of support to you in return.
Yes, you read that last line correctly. If you are asking someone to be in your inner circle you should be prepared for the arrangement to be reciprocal. Given all they will do for you, I am sure you will find pleasure in returning the favors.
Now, if all of a sudden you’re panicked because you’ve started thinking about the many people in your life who could possibly ask this kind of commitment from you, take a deep breath. It’s likely that you won’t be called in every time help is needed. Many times, people’s special forces change with each assignment. They will call up resources for different projects from pretty much anywhere in their life depending upon the task and the kind of support skills needed. In other words, you may have a very short deployment. The best way for me to explain this is to say that I’m blessed to have friends whom I’ve known for a very long time. Friends I don’t see very often, but who would happily be there for me if I picked up the phone tomorrow and asked them to be. They are friends for whom I would do the same thing. They’re solid in my life and I’m solid in theirs. If you’ve been clutch for someone you care about in a pinch like that, then you’ve already done special-forces duty. Trust that you’ve got this.
Not Everyone Makes the Cut
What you will likely find is that this whole process of selecting members of your inner circle is wonderful at helping you separate the wheat from the chaff. You will recognize pretty quickly that some people may be fun to hang around with, but they can eat up a lot of your time and keep you from fulfilling your goals.
You may also discover people who don’t belong in your life at all, let alone in your inner circle. Having been stalked before, I genuinely hope you never encounter enemies of your own. Sometimes it is difficult to tell who will turn into one until it is too late, but taking inventory like this may trigger some early warning signs. The most dangerous opponents will make it their business to know everything about the party they wish to harm. If you don’t know enough about them, you could be caught off guard. This was true in my case and it is true in war.
In Vietnam, the United States made the tactical error of thinking that our airpower was stronger than the Vietcong’s willpower. We believed that they were all fighting for Communism when a great many of them had a far deeper incentive: They were fighting against us. Not only did we fail to learn more about their motivation, drive, and resourcefulness, we also grossly miscalculated what they knew about us. As former prisoners of war from that era would tell you, they used extreme torture on the American soldiers they captured without any regard for them as individuals. Our enemy was focused on getting whatever information they could to help them think more like we did. They understood that that’s how one wins—by getting deep inside their opponents’ heads.
The United States is fighting a similar kind of foe today as we battle the Islamic State savages. For example, our well-armed forces took the city of Mosul once, only to lose it. And as of the writing of this book, we are taking it back again. What we didn’t know at first about this enemy is how they are constantly learning on the battlefield. They employ soldiers—and I mean actually pay them—to do nothing else but study their mistakes. Think about that for a second. We are not just fighting them; we are fighting their constantly evolving expert judgment. They are a psychologically metastasizing enemy. This is what makes them such a serious threat and such a difficult force to defeat.
Knowing your enemies—seeing them for who they are first—can actually help you protect yourself and avoid future conflict and danger.
Fortunately, though, the worst offenders in most people’s daily lives are the friends who just want to sit around and feast on gossip no matter what the circumstances. You know the kind. They love to consume all your energy talking about things they have no business discussing. It’s hard sometimes because to the flesh, that feels good, but to the cause, it’s deadly. All of us get together occasionally with our friends to chat and we may even talk about someone who’s not present, but hopefully we do so with a will toward helping them find a solution to their challenges. Engaging in negative gossip for gossip’s sake though—well, that kind of behavior is a problem.
Believe me, I’ve allowed people into my life at different points who were like a walking tabloid. And what I found is that their chatter rots the brain. Gossip makes people intellectually lazy. The person who is always analyzing someone else’s life instead of his own is not a friend.
I can guarantee you that those who regularly take inventory of what you and others have will not be on your special forces short list. You cannot give your dreams to people who want what you have. And you certainly don’t want what they have: Mind-numbingly frivolous ideas about what to do with their time.
If you are reading this book, you’ve got no desire to live life coveting others’ good fortune or imagining their downfall. Instead, you desire to live life enjoying your own good fortune and sharing it with others.
Your obvious next step is to cut loose the people who pose threats to the fulfillment of your dreams. The military assures its strength by culling the weak links from its forces early on. Those with an outsized ego or those who refuse to give or take help from another recruit can fail training camp. Having troops who are out of step with everyone else in the unit jeopardizes operations and lives. You must learn to think about your squad and missions in similar terms. You can begin by answering the following question with total honesty: Are you spending more than a few minutes a day or a few hours a week with someone who doesn’t check off enough boxes on your list?
If your answer is yes, you have some important life renovations to make. You must resolve to create the most perfect environment for success possible because as you begin to fill up your mind and your spirit with the prospects of positive change, those people who are not 100 percent with you will be resistance points for you later on. They will consciously or unconsciously set out on a course that is the total opposite of the one you are trying to navigate. And because you have allowed them in your midst and you’ve proven that you trust them, you might just listen to them. While you may not have embraced an outright saboteur, you will certainly have invited diversions into your camp.
If you’re not spending enough time with the few people in your newly formed inner circle, you can safely assume that you’re spending too much time with the people who don’t belong. The minute you cut these negative influences out, the more time you’ll have to spend with the people whose company you should be in. It’s natural law. If I’m no longer hanging out with Sarah, Robin, and Lulu because it turns out they are not my best allies, then I am free to see more of the people who are.
Listen, we all spend time with the people who make themselves available to us, but quality people don’t generally have time to be available for everyone. If they don’t feel like they’re appreciated or they are adding something of value to the world, they pick up their energies and gifts and place them elsewhere. My mother was like that. She’d spend an hour or two with you, but if you weren’t a serious person, she’d find a way to spend less and less time with you. She’d love you, but she wasn’t going to lavish another precious minute on frivolous activities. Whenever you would call, she’d tell you that she was busy, and she was. Once you trim your list to include only those quality people who are fulfilling your needs, I’m telling you the length of that list will guarantee that you now have all the time in the world to spend with them. Concerned that sounds too selfish? Well it’s not. It’s actually self-saving. You’re preserving yourself for the squad that can help you raise your game to the next level. #squadgoals!
If you want to see a liberating example of how removing distractors from your life can make room for more noble special forces, think about the criminals locked up in jail. For the life of them, they couldn’t find God outside the walls of prison because they were surrounded 24–7 by people just like themselves. But as soon as they have to sit alone in a cell for sixteen hours a day, they suddenly find the Lord. Without all those other influences, they finally have time for the one quality Being in their life.
In the end, the hardest part of this exercise for you will not be about finding the time to be with good people. The hardest part of this exercise will actually involve telling those other people that you don’t want to spend time with them anymore because they’re negative forces in your life. But it’s something you have to do because if you don’t, it won’t matter what your goals are. It won’t matter how you dress or how fit you are. It won’t matter how much integrity you intend to unleash on the world. And if you have any issues you have not dealt with yet, I can promise you the wrong people will exploit those weaknesses because they just can’t help themselves. When you have people around you who give off negativity, you’ll spend more time fending off strife than pursuing success and enjoying life.
So how do you actively unfriend the people in your life who don’t make the list?
Once again, I defer to the common sense of the military. There is no room for error when conveying a message in wartime. Be direct and be brief. The conversation could start something like this:
I’ve recently had an epiphany in my life. Some changes are necessary if I’m going to live out God’s purpose for me here on this earth, and that means I can’t waste my time or His. Since I tend to pray for direction, I want to follow that Divine guidance with everything I’ve got. You are really busy with all the things that you are doing right now and supporting me in the way I need to be supported is going to be an imposition in your life. So why don’t we get to the point where we spend some real quality time together every now and then, but be less everyday people with each other. I need something different and as I pursue it, I don’t want to be a burden in your life.
If you think you can’t deliver this message, think again. All of us have had a crush on somebody in our past who has found the words to break up with us, right? Well then, we all have the language at our disposal to do the same thing. This is not your first rodeo. Remember, that is essentially what you’re doing—you’re respectfully breaking up with somebody. I promise you, you can put some distance between yourself and this other person and not be a jerk about it. But you cannot walk away from that conversation without selling the determination you have to start anew. This step is critical to achieving success. Surrounding yourself with the wrong people is a form of self-abuse.
Which brings me to another important point: Part of making a special-forces arrangement work entails knowing how dedicated you are too. If you have allowed someone into your inner circle because they have inordinate faith in your abilities, that’s great. But if you let that same person convince you to go out with her instead of putting finishing touches on a presentation that’s due the next day because, as she says, “you’re good enough to wing it,” then you have to examine your own level of determination. The more leeway you give to the people who are closest to you—the more rule breaking you permit them to do in your presence—the more you have to question your own seriousness. If your dedication is that easily broken, that’s not really on them; it’s on you. If there are temptations of your own that are deterring you from fulfilling your goals, you will have to stop and address those temptations right now. But if you find, after some soul-searching, that you are still serious, then you must fire any distractor in your midst immediately. They will not be there for you in the long haul.
Something I once heard Mark Cuban—the hugely successful entrepreneur, philanthropist, investor, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, and costar of television’s Shark Tank—say was that the one regret he’s had over the years is that he did not fire people the moment it popped into his head that he should. And he’s right. People who suck all the resources from you are like those bad employees. To keep them from destroying what you are building, you have to let them go.
Another important reason for letting distractors go is that sometimes they may be keeping other truly committed people from joining your team. Remember, no one of quality will follow you into the heavens if you are flying in a flock of vultures.
MAYBE ANOTHER TIME
One further thought regarding people who were part of your home team, but who may have fallen away because at one time or another your goals and theirs differed: Always leave yourself open to happy surprises. Somewhere down the line, after they or you have grown, you may reenter each other’s lives again. I have a dear friend whom I was out of touch with for many years. She made some choices at one point in her life that I wouldn’t have made for myself. Because of these differences, she chose to part ways. It hurt because I love her, but I am happy to say that more recently she has come around again and has invited me back into her inner circle. When I asked her what changed she said, “I looked up one day and the friends that I had were not quality like you. I knew that that could only be a reflection on me. And besides, I missed you.” I missed her too and am happy to have her back.
But that’s not always the case with these things. When you live in the public eye, as I do, it can often seem as if you’ve hit the lottery when it comes to friends. Any amount of recognition acts like a magnet, attracting all sorts of people to you. Because enjoying the company of so many newfound friends can be a distraction, I’ve had to practice the art of the breakup on a number of occasions.
One kind of breakup I find particularly disheartening is with people who try to gain something from their association with me at my expense. An instance like this occurred on a recent evening when I was enjoying a leisurely dinner with some extended family and friends. One of our dinner guests decided to loudly indicate to a restaurant packed full of patrons that I was present. She name-dropped in such a way that suddenly a relaxing night off for me and everyone else at the table turned into one where we were all talking about work. A few well-meaning diners and Fox News fans approached us to say hello, which was lovely. But when the dinner ended, my husband—who is my number one special force—knew that the attention-seeker at our table did not belong in our inner circle, at least not for the rest of that evening. He suggested that we continue on to another location for drinks after dinner. We did so by ourselves.
Distancing yourself from members of your work family is sometimes called for as well. Handling these distractors requires even more nuanced and practiced skills. The best advice I can give you is not to engage outside of the office with potential attention grabbers if you can help it. You may also be paired with someone on a project who is a notorious time waster. Under those circumstances you must do your best to be a team player, but when the day is done, take off your Louis Vuittons, put on a pair of Skechers, and keep moving. You can kiss that person on each cheek because you are grateful for the work they did, but don’t stop walking. They are paid to cooperate with you and to do their part for the company to succeed, but they do not necessarily have the same incentive to be your friend outside of work.
In some businesses, especially television news, the kind of gossip I alluded to earlier runs rampant. That may be true in your business too. Even if you’re not privy to all the buzz because you tend to shy away from it, you can tell by your colleagues’ body language whether or not they’re quality people. I call those who engage in that kind of unproductive office talk “the huddles.” They cluster together and speak in low tones until you get closer and then the tone suddenly shifts. Instantly, there’s boisterous laughter as if they’re covering for what was just said. You have to wonder what the rumblings in the huddle are all about. If these people are not assembling to talk about ratings, sales figures, or some new feature of the company’s business plan, then their babble probably isn’t something I need to be bothered with. Engaging in that behavior would not just be harmful to me, it would be harmful to the work too. You should really try to let go of these kinds of people outside of your workday. Lace your integrity right through this particular channel of your life, recognizing that some people are with us for just one mission. If you release them in a dignified manner, they may even learn something valuable from the experience.
Of course, recruiting special forces on the job can be just as complicated as avoiding troublesome distractors. People may assure you in any number of ways that they don’t want the career path or success that you have, but beware. They may know somebody else who wants it and their allegiance to that somebody else may be stronger than it is to you. They may very well be part of this other person’s inner circle. So my best advice to you is to seek special forces who have established their worth long ago. They can give generously of their knowledge to you because they are so rich in experience they don’t feel threatened, nor do they need to be opportunistic in your company.
One of the greatest gifts my father gave to me was an introduction to Barbara Rodgers. For those of you who may not know her, she was one of the most recognizable newscasters on CBS 5 Eyewitness News in San Francisco for nearly thirty years. She is an award-winning anchor, reporter, and show host who has interviewed many, many newsmakers, community leaders, and celebrities. Her work earned her countless honors, including seven Emmy Awards, five Excellence in Journalism Awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, as well as awards for reporting from the Associated Press, United Press International, The Peninsula Press Club, and The Society of Professional Journalists. We had a fabulous conversation, and while our paths only crossed that one time, she continued to inspire me over the years through her great work and my memory of her grace and positivity. She is the caliber of people whose company we should be seeking.
A MATTER OF CHARACTER
One of the earliest and most memorable lessons I learned about the people I should and shouldn’t invite into my circle occurred when I was in junior high school. I arrived home one day with several new friends. My mother hadn’t met them before, but I thought they were all cool. One in particular had a really bold sense of style. I loved fashion. We bonded over that, and while I noticed that she could be mean to some of the other girls at times, she was never that way with me.
We hadn’t been home for very long when my mother pulled me aside and said, “If you don’t get those women out of this house right now, I’m going to do something that will really embarrass you,” I was stunned. First, because she called these girls “women” when we were only fourteen years old and second, because she had never said anything like that to me before in my entire life. I had friends over for playdates all the time, and she was always so gracious to them. But for some reason, she really didn’t want these girls anywhere near me.
I remember protesting, “But Mom, they’re here now. I can’t just send them home.”
“Fine,” she said between pursed lips. “But when this is over we’re going to talk about who you allow next to you and who you keep away. People will judge you based on the other kids you’re hanging out with. Opportunities are given and taken away because of the company you keep. More importantly, these girls can affect how you make decisions.”
Just when I thought she was finished, she added, “I’m trying to teach you one set of values and you’re hanging out with a girl who I’m pretty sure is already sexually active.”
I was flabbergasted. “Whoa. Who? How do you know?” I stammered. “I really don’t think so, Mom. I mean, we’re really young.”
Later that evening we talked more. She reminded me that I didn’t have a curfew because she trusted me. “But I don’t trust them,” she said. “So if you are with those girls outside of this house, I am telling you, you will be home early and you will have more rules and more parameters than usual.”
As time went on I couldn’t really hang out with these friends anymore because while I was not grounded in the traditional sense, I started having more and more chores piled on me. Every time I told my mother that I was meeting the girls at the mall on a Saturday afternoon, she would say, “Well before you go and do that, I really need you to iron that pile of pillowcases. Don’t leave until they’re finished.” Iron the pillowcases! How crazy is that?
In retrospect of course, I recognize those insane tasks as the love of a good mother. Her mission was to instill good judgment in me. She wanted me to be around others whose parents were guiding them in the same way that she and my dad were trying to guide me. “How engaged are their parents?” she asked. “It’s nine o’clock in the evening and I haven’t received a phone call from them wondering where their child is. If you were over at somebody else’s house at nine P.M., you can be sure I’d be checking up on you.” Of course, we didn’t have cell phones at that time, so parents were always calling each other to check on the safety of their kids. A lack of a call from a friend’s mom was a pretty conspicuous thing.
My mother trusted me right up until I came home with those girls. When she saw my misplaced friendship, it gave her pause for concern, so she set out to make sure that nothing would sidetrack me from doing all the things I needed to do in order to become the person that I am today—someone who has enjoyed so many blessings and wonderful experiences because my parents helped me remain focused on the end goal.
My mother was also acting very much like a military spouse. She was reminding me that I was a brat. No pun intended. The company I was keeping didn’t reflect well on me. But even more important, it didn’t reflect well on my dad or on her. When you are the child of a military officer you are one of his special forces. That means you live by the same values he does. My mother lived by those core values too. She was highly respected on base. She chaired committees, hosted welcome parties for new families, ran support groups for those whose loved ones were deployed, and organized fund-raisers for a variety of charities, particularly those that helped children in need. Most other brats will tell you that at some point in their young lives they also had to take stock of their friendships. Having anyone other than quality people around you meant that you didn’t have enough time to support your own goals or the incredibly serious goals of your parents.
Occasionally, I’ll look at a pillowcase and smile. My mother sure knew how to make a point.