Spark!: Ignite the Leader in You

Copyright © 2017 Ken Chapman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-3420-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-3418-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-3419-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017914978

iUniverse rev. date: 11/08/2017

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Preface/Introduction

Life

Simple Solutions

A Small Town Merchant

Holiday Inn

The Green Porsche

Rosalie

Beginning With the End in Mind

Kindness Returns

Pain Brings a Purpose

The Ugliest Man

Top Ten Failures

Answers

Blind Ambition

Bobby Jones

Living Example

The Envelope

A Good Place to Live

Seeds and Deeds

The Power of Empathy

Words Matter

The Tenth Ball

No Easy Degree

Hard Work

The Missing Shovel

Winning

Ask Questions

The Other Wes Moore

Valuing People

Courage

Special Orders

Finding Hope Through Humor

Always Complaining

Two Nickels and Five Pennies

A Boy Named Sparky

Compassion is in the Eyes

The Luck of Roaring Camp

Success

A Boy and His Dog

Yield

Jacqueline Gavagan

The Most Important Trip

The Efficiency Expert

The Third Peacock on the Right

The Ants and the Grasshopper

Snakes and Alligators

Leadership

The Tondelayo

The Correct Story

Moses

One More Round

The Mad Man and the Law

Righteous Among the Nations

Rickenbacker

A Disaster off the Scilly Isles

Rock Concert

Roswell McIntyre

The Elephant in the Room

Choice and Consequence

Do Something Great

Real Men

Little by Little

The Wine Barrel

The Brooklyn Bridge

An Act of Kindness

No Time to Hesitate

The Common Good

The Gift

The Respectable Fish

Modupe

The Goose and the Gold Egg

Standing Your Ground

The Way You Say It

Unpurchaseable People

Faulty Motivation

William Tell

Alexander Fleming

Marvin Pipkin

A Leader’s Heart

A Free and Grateful Nation

Growth

The Choice

The Fried Fish Shop

We Take Our Attitude with Us

A Little Help from My Friends

Habits

Starfish

Two Brothers

Lydia Williams

Hang in There

The Blacksmith

Valentine’s Day

Starting Over

Let the Past Be the Past

Eddie

Roy Riegels

A Debt to Society

The Tiger Who Thought He Was a Goat

The Fox and the Crow

The North Wind and the Sun

The Crow and the Pitcher

Faith

Eric Liddell

Judge Wearing

Van Gogh

Praying Hands

Packing Parachutes

The Greatness of America

Sarajevo

Tools for Sale

The Story of the Christmas Tree

The Legend of Saint Nicholas

Vonetta Flowers

Maybe So, Maybe Not

Glenn Cunningham

An Afternoon in the Park

The Power of Words

An Act of Congress

Not Home Yet

The Habit of Prayer

A Little Faith

One- Minute Lessons

The Code

Also by Ken Chapman

The Respectable Fish 1995

The Leader’s Code 1999, 2003, 2014

Personality: Making the Most of It 2002

Small Town Graces 2003

The Shoulders of Giants 2005 Anthony James and Ken Chapman

Dedication

For

Jeremiah . Emma . Rahel . Lorena . John

Acknowledgements

As is true of most things in life, what follows is the product of many. This book is possible because of the knowledge, skill, wisdom, and goodwill of others. I stand on the twin shoulders of candor and care. Friends, colleagues, and family have provided honest critique along with encouragement and inspiration.

My special thanks to Whitney Tate, Grace Shim, Rhonda Chapman, Jean Graham, Christy Beem, and Deb Miller. They have made this collection of stories better and more readable than they would have been.

For my teachers, professors and mentors—from grade school on, I am thankful as well. I could easily cite more names and I could say more; however, in deference to brevity, I offer the following: As this book goes to press, I am confirmed in my belief that life has always been unfair to me. I have never received what I deserved. I have always received far more.

Ken Chapman

Autumn 2017

Preface/Introduction

Storytelling is at the center of the human experience. It has been, and remains, a much-loved source of entertainment. While a well-told story is certainly great entertainment, it is much more than just entertainment. Stories are a time-honored way of transmitting experience and wisdom across cultures and time. We remember stories long after they are told. They touch our hearts and minds. And, they help children and adults alike get a handle on right and wrong, better and best. As a result, we avoid the mistakes of the past. We are enabled to grow toward a more hopeful future. It is in the reading and sharing of stories we learn to better tell our story. Our lives are a series of events—stories! In telling our story we make a contribution to the great reservoir of human experience.

It is my hope Spark! will find a welcome place in this long tradition of wisdom and entertainment. May it spark your imagination and brighten your spirit. May Spark entertain you as you make your contribution to the long history of well-told stories.

Consider a Spark! story as a platform for discussing an important issue in the workplace. Share a story to cheer up a friend. Read the stories to children and grandchildren. Tell one or more of them in your own words, even better, share your own stories.

Simple Solutions

Dr. Thomas Edison’s fame had become international. He was advised to have scientists come to his lab and help him understand scientifically why his inventions had worked. Edison consented to do so, even though he did not think much of the idea. As a result, a brilliant research scientist from Germany came to Edison’s lab to explain to him the principles behind Edison’s innovations. While the scientist was visiting the lab, Edison handed the man a globe that had been twisted into a gourd-like shape and said, Give me the cubic content of this.

Weeks passed and eventually, Edison sought out the man to ask him why he had not replied. The scientist began to give him a lengthy explanation about the difficulties of solving such a problem with higher mathematics. Edison then picked up the globe, took it to a nearby sink, and filled it with water. He poured the water into a measuring tube, and holding up the tube he said, This is the cubic content.

The solutions to most problems are probably far simpler than we think they might be. They usually stem from an understanding of basic principles, the whys of life. If we ask why, we will often find the answer, but we must be willing to take the answers that we find and use them for good. Edison may not have understood the scientific principles behind his inventions, but he used his inventions for the benefit of others. Edison knew it is not our scientific knowledge that inspires others to follow us, but rather our willingness to take the answers we find and use them for good.

A Small Town Merchant

The founder of Wal-Mart, Sam Walton, has been called many things including enemy of small-town America and destroyer of main-street merchants. Quite a few small stores have gone out of business during the time of Wal-Mart’s growth, conceded Walton. Some people have tried to turn it into this big controversy, sort of a save the small-town merchant’s deal like they were whales or whooping cranes or something. The truth is Walton was a small-town main street merchant of the type he is criticized for displacing. The only difference is he was an excellent innovator who was able to solve problems and change rather than risk going out of business.

Sam Walton was born in Kingfish, Oklahoma, and grew up in Columbia, Missouri. He demonstrated leadership in high school when he was elected student body president and led his football team to an undefeated season and state championship as its quarterback. He then performed the same feat with the basketball team as its five-foot, nine-inch floor leader. After graduating from college and working for a few years, Walton served in the Army during World War II. When he got out, he selected a career in retail, the field he loved and along with his wife, picked the small town of Bentonville, Arkansas, in which to live. That is where they opened a Walton’s Five and Dime Store. The business did well partly because of Walton’s hustle. But most of all, the store prospered because he demonstrated foresight in making his store self-service, a new concept at the time. He worked hard and continued to expand. By 1960, he had fifteen stores, but that was also about the time when competitor, Herb Gibson brought discount stores into Northwest Arkansas. They competed directly with Walton’s Variety Stores. We really had only two choices, said Walton, stay in the variety store business and be hit hard by the discounting wave or open a discount store. So I started running all over the country studying the concept. We opened Wal-Mart No. 1 on July 2, 1962, in Rogers, Arkansas, right down the road from Bentonville.

Walton soon added additional stores. His Wal-Mart chain was small compared to some others that began around the same time: K-Mart, Target, and Woolco. But Wal-Mart was going strong and that led to the next problem. Walton realized he needed to improve the stores’ planning and distribution. He and his people solved the problem by creating central distribution centers. That, along with computerization, allowed them to order in bulk, keep track of each store’s needs, and distribute to them quickly and efficiently. And when the outlay for new equipment and buildings for the new distribution center created a heavy debt load, it was merely another problem to be solved. Walton did it by taking the company public in 1970.

When Sam Walton died in 1992, the company operated more than seventeen hundred stores in forty-two states and Mexico. Sam Walton, the small-town variety store owner, had become America’s number one retailer.

Holiday Inn

It was in 1951 that a Memphis businessman named Kemmons Wilson took his family on a vacation to Washington, D.C. It was there he learned about the state of hotel lodging in the United States. Motels had sprung up all over the country since the 1920s. Some were nice family places, others rented beds by the hour. The problem was the traveler did not know which he would find. You never could tell what you were getting, Wilson recalls later. Some of the places were too squalid for words and they all charged extra for children. They made my Scottish blood boil.

Wilson, who had five children, found traveling expenses daunting. Hotels charged four to six dollars a night for a room plus two dollars extra per child. It would triple the bill. Most people would have complained and then forgotten about it. But Wilson, always the initiator, decided to take action and to do something about it. Let’s go home and start a chain of family hotels, he said to his wife. Hotels with a name you can trust. His goal was to build four hundred hotels. His wife just laughed.

When Wilson returned to Memphis, he hired a draftsman to help him design his first hotel. He wanted it to be clean, simple, and predictable. He wanted it to have all the things he and his family had missed such as a television in every room and a pool. The next year he opened his first hotel on the outskirts of Memphis. Its name flashed out from a huge fifty-three-foot tall sign. It was called The Holiday Inn.

It took Wilson longer than he expected to reach four hundred hotels. By 1959, he had one hundred, but then he decided to franchise them and that boosted the openings. By 1964, there were five hundred Holiday Inns; in 1968, there were one thousand; and by 1972, a Holiday Inn opened somewhere in the world every seventy-two hours.

The Green Porsche

Once upon a time a handyman rang a doorbell in a well-to-do neighborhood. Much to his surprise, the handyman was greeted warmly by the lady who opened the door. She stated she was glad to see him because she had been hoping to find someone to do some painting.

Do you see that bucket of green paint there beside the doorstep? she asked.

Yes, the man replied.

Well, I’ve been looking for someone to paint my porch. If you’ll just go around back and put a coat of paint on it, I would appreciate it.

The man replied, Thank you, and went to work.

A couple of hours later, he rang the doorbell again and announced the job was complete.

She thanked him and said, Well, let’s take a look.

So they went around back and the lady discovered that the man had, in fact, put a nice coat of green paint on her Porsche. When questioned, the man explained, Well, I thought you said to paint your Porsche, I didn’t realize you meant porch.

Rosalie

During the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., eleven-year-old Rosalie Elliott, a champion from South Carolina, was asked to spell the word, avowal. Her soft Southern accent made it difficult for the judges to determine if she had used an a or an e in the last syllable of the word. The judges deliberated for several minutes and listened to tape playbacks. Still they could