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Issue 594 - "Turn Confrontation Into Cooperation" (Sojourner Truth)


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 12	Issue 594
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"TURN CONFRONTATION INTO COOPERATION" (SOJOURNER TRUTH) John Wooden Video Clip (3 min. 45 sec.): Coach Wooden is asked by Terry Donahue: "Could you share your definition of true success?" There is a lifetime of wisdom in this video. Great to share and discuss. Sojourner Truth is an inspiration. Sojourner was an American abolitionist and women's rights activist who was born into slavery in 1797 and escaped it in 1826. She rose from these beginnings to become one of the most famous orators and activists in American history. A memorial bust of Truth was unveiled in 2009 in Emancipation Hall in the Visitor Center in the U.S. Capitol. She is the first African American woman to have a statue in the Capitol building. At the Woman’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851, men continued to demand superior rights and privileges, on the grounds of males being the stronger gender, having a "superior intellect" and the "manhood of Christ". Sojourner Truth quietly walked to the podium and took over. She proceeded to deliver one of the most famous speeches in American History: "Ain’t I A Woman". "I am a woman’s rights. That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, lifted over ditches and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And Ain’t I a woman? I have as much muscle as any man and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed. And Ain’t I a woman? As for intellect, all I can say is, if women have a pint and man a quart - why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, for we can’t take more than our pint will hold. Give us our rights and you will feel better. Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, because Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Men had nothing to do with Him. If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again! Man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard." The continuous applause was deafening. History was made. Sojourner had taken on the conflict and created cooperation. Can you? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 594. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 594. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE Life’s Single Standard There are a thousand ways to cheat and a thousand ways to sin; There are ways uncounted to lose the game, but there's only one way to win; And whether you live by the sweat of your brow or in luxury's garb you're dressed, You shall stand at last, when your race is run, to be judged by the single test. Some people lie by the things they make; some lie in the deeds they do; And some play false for a woman's love, and some for a cheer or two; Some rise to fame by the force of skill, grow great by the might of power, Then wreck the temple they toiled to build, in a single, shameful hour. The follies outnumber the virtues good; sin lures in a thousand ways; But slow is the growth of person’s character and patience must mark their days; For only those victories shall count, when the work of life is done, Which bear the stamp of an honest person, and by courage and faith were won. There are a thousand ways to fail, but only one way to win! Sham cannot cover the wrong you do nor wash out a single sin, And never shall victory come to you, whatever of skill you do, Save you've done your best in the work of life and unto your best were true. Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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