Issue 755 - "Whether you think you can or think you can’t - you’re right. – Henry Ford" Leon Fuller proves Ford is correct.


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13	Issue 755
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"WHETHER YOU THINK YOU CAN OR THINK YOU CAN’T - YOU’RE RIGHT. – HENRY FORD" LEON FULLER PROVES FORD IS CORRECT. John Wooden Video Clip (30 sec.): Coach Wooden defines Confidence. Tony Fuller, my dear friend, mentor, Author and Coach, and Wooden’s Wisdom contributing author. told me this wonderful story. I asked him to write it up as a new issue for Wooden’s Wisdom. Here is Coach Fuller’s great work: Highly respected economist and public intellectual Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University says: "A persons’ mindset is the strongest influence on their actions, their persistence, and their outcomes." Henry Ford, (founder of the Ford Motor Company) is credited with saying: "Whether you think you can or think you can’t - you’re right." In 1960, my father, Leon Fuller, was a 27-year-old janitor/custodian that mopped floors and cleaned offices at the Michigan Consolidated Gas Company in Detroit, MI. He worked the graveyard shift, alongside another young man that he carpooled to work with named Nathaniel "Smitty" Smith. Leon was a high school graduate, married, working a minimum wage job, and he and his wife (my mother) were about to have their 5th child in 8 years! One night while he and "Smitty" were mopping away (in the small multi-purpose/banquet hall) at the gas company, he noticed a flier attached to the bulletin board. The flier read: "Training and Hiring Service Men!! - To meet the growing demand for Service men in the City of Detroit: Michigan Consolidated Gas Company is accepting applications and providing training for these coveted positions!" That flier was like a godsend to my Dad. He called "Smitty" over and said, "Look at this flier! They’re hiring service men, that's exactly what I need. I'm gonna fill out one of these applications right now and you should too!" Smitty put down his mop, read the flier, and replied: "Man you crazy! They ain’t gone hire no black man for no job like that. That’s a white man’s job. You think the Gas Company gone send you to fix furnaces, connect stoves, and read meters out in Grosse Pointe? HELL NO! You a fool if you think they are! I ain’t gone waste my time with that BS!" Unwavered, by Smitty’s strong and negative words, my father replied: "Well you might be right, but I’m gonna apply for it ANYWAY! And, if I don’t get it, I’ll just come back here and keep mopping these floors with you!" My father was accepted into the training program, completed it, and was hired as a Service man! He worked that job and in 1967 advanced to the level of an "A1 service man," and in 1985 he was promoted once again and became Michigan Consolidated Gas Company’s first minority "General Technician" on the Eastside of Detroit. In June of 1995, he retired from the Gas Company after working there 35 years. Myself and a number of family, friends, and co-workers (including "Smitty") attended his small retirement reception. It was held in the exact same multi-purpose/banquet hall that he had noticed the flier and application in 35 years before in 1960. After an enjoyable but long evening of drinks, card games, laughs, storytelling, and certificates of appreciation had been passed out, it was time to leave. It was late and I was one of the last people to leave, as I got into my rent-a-car to head to the airport for my return to California, I decided to return to the building and use the restroom. After using the restroom I walked past the same banquet hall, it was completely empty, except for one person, "SMITTY!" He had changed his clothes and was now wearing his navy-blue custodian work uniform. It was quiet, and there he was, all alone, cleaning and mopping the floor! "Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options. You control your Life with the thoughts you place in your head" — Thomas Sowell Blessings, Coach Fuller Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 755. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 755. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE Othello: Act 3, Scene 3 — Iago speaking to Othello “O! beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey’d monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger; But, O! what damned minutes tells he o’er Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet soundly loves! Poor and content is rich, and rich enough, But riches fineless is as poor as winter To him that ever fears he shall be poor. Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend From jealousy!” William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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