"Honesty and Courage's Offspring"

Last week I made you suffer through a weekly Pep Talk almost double the normal length. To compensate for my exuberant behavior, this encouraging short story will be brief.

I’m riding home with son, good buddy, the good buddy’s wife and daughter from a weekend in the mountains. I’m crammed between son and friend’s daughter in the sports sedan’s backseat. During a lull in the lively conversation, I’m reading more of David McCullough’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, Truman.

The author is talking about a letter our nation’s 33rd president, Harry S. Truman, while still an impressionable young man, received in 1894 from his mother. The words are not hers, but those of her idol, General Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the Confederate Army during our country’s Civil War: “You must be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right. Never do anything wrong to make a friend or keep one. A person requiring you to do so is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly, but firmly with all your classmates; you will find it the policy that wears best. Above all, do not appear to others what you are not.”

Harry S. Truman’s mother was a smart woman to share this with her son. We could all learn from the advice given to our country’s future president, then 10-years-old. Let’s embrace these 87 words as our guiding light, this week and forever. Share them with others. More important than sharing the value of frankness – the child of honesty and courage – is living it.

Again, say what you mean, act with honor, never comprise goodness to keep or attract a friend, deal kindly but firmly with others and above anything else, be authentic.

Many things change in life; fads come and go but, frankly, embracing those five character traits should never go out of style in our quest to play like a champion – home, work and elsewhere.