Moments of Clarity: 10-minute Lessons in Character

Today’s post is by Paul Smith, thoughtLEADERS instructor and bestselling author of Lead With a Story.

Character is at the heart of good leadership, and therefore ultimately of success at work and in life.

I recently interviewed 100 people from 20 countries around the world and from all walks of life. I asked them to reflect on their most profound and unexpected moments of clarity about who they are and how they should treat others.

The stories they shared contain lessons on 23 of the most sought-after character traits we all aspire to – things like ambition, curiosity, integrity, self-reliance, courage, hard work, self-confidence, persistence, fairness, humility, creativity, and kindness.

Each episode below shares one person’s story and the lesson they learned from the experience. Apply them to your life to strengthen and build new character at home and at work.

These episodes will help you find the courage to pursue your dreams, learn the secret to successful compromise, strengthen your compassion for other people, learn how to stand up to bigotry when you find it, recognize the one question that can turn you from a thinker into a doer, and one story can literally save your life. Enough preamble… here are the stories:

Episode 1: Finding the Courage to Pursue Your Dreams

This story of an 80-year-old man and his 75-year-old dream will help you finally muster the courage to pursue your dreams. It did for me.

Episode 2: One question that delivers a lifetime of self-reliance

Meet a 9-year-old boy from small town Missouri who learned a life-changing lesson about self-reliance when his teacher asked him one simple question. If we all asked ourselves this question more often, there would be no limit to what we could accomplish.

Episode 3: Talking behind her back in France

Meet a French soldier outside Paris who stuck his foot in his mouth, and learned a painfully awkward lesson about how not to speak of someone behind their back. It’s a mistake he’ll never make again. Nor will you after you hear his story.

Episode 4: The fight every newlywed couple should have

Meet a newlywed couple in Venezuela whose first argument turned into a family tradition that’s now bringing the power of compromise to a third generation.

Episode 5: One man’s stand against bigotry that we can all learn from

Meet a Colorado man who stood up to bigotry in a way that will make you laugh and cheer at the same time. What would you do if this happened to you?

Episode 6: Four questions that brought an entire high school class to its knees

A man walked into a high school cafeteria and asked one girl 4 questions that will forever change the way you think about treating other people. Her answers will leave you speechless.

Episode 7: The story that can literally save your life, IF you tell it to the right person

Normal human pride and stubbornness kills hundreds of thousands of people a year. This commitment card can prevent many of them, but only when combined with this story. And only when you tell it to the right people.

So there you go… seven great character lessons in a few minutes apiece.  If you want more stories like these, you can subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher, or click here to sign up for a weekly newsletter delivery to your inbox.  If you’re interested in becoming a better storyteller yourself, check out our Influencing through Storytelling course where we can come into your organization and help you build this powerful, critical skill.

– Paul Smith is a former director and 20-year veteran of the Procter & Gamble Company, and author of Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince, and Inspire and his most recent book Parenting With a Story (CLICK HERE to get your copy). Paul is also the primary architect of a thoughtLEADERS course on Influencing through Storytelling and loves teaching every minute of it.

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