"Nope." vs "I'll give it a try!"

My late friend Ron Mears, a funny guy and a Great Grampa used to talk about the difference between employees by their attitude; if they leaned forward or leaned backward. It was a football metaphor. Two girls named Beth will illustrate.

Our terrific parents next door somehow taught their oldest daughter Beth, at this writing in 2nd grade, to answer new challenges with the words, "Well, I'll do my best". That's leaning forward. It's just the attitude you'd wish for in a girl, a date, a wife and mother.

It's typical of the little mouse who goes after the cheese in Dr. Steven Johnson's management parable "Who Moved My Cheese?" The management of gramkids is like mice management. It's all about change for the better. if you guide the way and they are willing.

Another Beth I know leans backward. She's ready to marry. One evening while visiting her boyfriend, his mother invited her to peel some garlic for their spaghetti dinner. Beth stepped back with the words, "Oh, I can't. It will make my fingers stink!" The older woman sighed and taught the older Beth that lemon juice will erase the smell from her hands She even demonstrated for her. Beth was amazed at how well it worked, but she still didn't peel the garlic. Classic leaning back. Sad, yes?

Grampa's at any level should learn to lean forward themselves and pass on this important attitude to their family. An insightful college president once told me that often a job candidate's attitude is even more important than his skill level.

Here's how it works : My mother told me this story years ago and we passed it on to both our kids as they approached dating and marriage:

Once upon a time in the frontier west of the 1850s, a popular young man named John from a solid pioneer family heeded Brigham Young's warning to young men in the Utah Territory. The great leader had announced that any young man who was single past the age of 18, was a menace to society!

John knew it was time and he wanted to make a good choice, so he went to his widowed mother. She was hale and hardy. Her kitchen shone like their whole, tight log cabin. She was always up and doing. His mother knew this was one of the two or three most important decisions John would ever make. She asked him if he had narrowed his choice.

"Yes," John replied. "It's down to Amanda and Jane." His mother gave him one suggestion: "Make arrangements to watch each one bake a loaf of bread."

Amanda greeted John with a breezy kiss, fluttering her eyelashes and chirping with all the gossip she'd heard around the general store. She wore her best dress and didn't bother to cover it with an apron. The bread making was slap dash at best. She didn't measure any of the ingredients and spilled more than a little flour on the floor, kicking it under the kitchen table with a toss of her head and a musical little laugh. The bread came out of the oven, underdone and flat. She'd forgotten the yeast. John didn't even wait around for the loaf to cool. He shook her hand and left.

Jane was glad to see John. She asked him about his day and listened as she gathered the ingredients for the loaf of sturdy whole wheat bread. From the minute she tied on her denim apron she concentrated on measuring and mixing. John felt comfortable just watching her. It was the same loaf she made by the dozen for her father and their ranch hands, but she was careful to follow the yellowing recipe she inherited from her late mother, and her grandmother before her. The loaf was perfect, steaming in the well-used pan, aromatic almost, sweet. He waited for it to cool and only then did the conversation begin.

John's mother asked him later that night if he had made up his mind. What do you suppose he said? JRH