Acknowledge the Influence

I have been reflecting on the path that I have taken to the point where I am now, and as I reminisced on my academic days, I was reminded about how we chose some of our classes. We would talk to seniors about which subjects to choose and which professors. The general questions would be, “how did you find this professor? Was it an interesting class or not?” Some students would be quite open in their statements about the kind of professor they had, but others would very gently say, “He/she is a good man/woman” and in that statement would be a clear indication that while this person was a good individual, he/she was not a great professor and it was not a good class to be in. so without really demeaning the person, they would let you know that you didn’t want to be in that class as you wouldn’t learn too much.

When my son was doing his 12th in a boarding school, a couple who had positions at the CFO level with a multinational company, decided that they would leave the corporate world for 3 years and invest their lives into students. So they taught my son economics. Till that time, he had no interest in economics whatsoever. But being taught by these professors changed him. He was so challenged that he went on to have a deep love for economics, got into an undergrad program in Economics and did very well. Actually topped his class in economics and had his paper published in the school magazine. All this because of one year that he had with quality professors who chose to input into their students with passion.

Trevor Butterworth said, “The history of influence is the history of imagination, passion, hard work and belief.” And that’s what it took – the imagination of this couple to say, “Let’s take a 3 year time-out from the corporate world” and they came into the class with passion. They put in hard work. They would challenge the students, take queries and give real life examples from the corporate world. They believed in every one of the students. I don’t know how many in that class went on to have this as their main field, but influence is something that is so good and so inspirational.

I was reading a speech that was given by a person at a graduation ceremony. In it he said, “I can remember one particular teacher who taught me in Gr. 5 at the age of 10. His name was Shri Sivasubramaniya Iyer and he was one of the great teachers in our school. All of us loved to attend his classes. Once he was teaching about bird’s flight. He drew a diagram of a bird on the blackboard depicting the wings, tail and the body structure with the head. He explained how birds create the lift and fly and also how they change direction while flying. For nearly 25 minutes he gave us information about lift, drag, how birds fly in a formation or 10, 20 or 30, etc. At the end of the class he asked whether we understood how birds fly. I said I did not. This great teacher did not get upset at this response. Instead he said that he would take all of us to the sea shore.

That evening the whole class was at the sea shore in Rameswaram where the birds were flying around chirping. He showed the sea birds flying in formation in numbers of 10 to 20. We saw the marvelous formation of birds with a purpose and we were all amazed. He asked us to see what it looked like when the birds fly. We looked at flapping wings with the twisting tail and how birds flew in the direction they wanted. Then he asked us a question: “Where is the engine and how is it powered?” The bird is powered by its own life and the motivation of what it wants. All of this was explained to us within 15 minutes. We all understood the whole bird dynamics from this practical example.”

One teacher who took the trouble to input into the students. The student went on to say, “It transformed my life. I went on to an engineering college, became a rocket engineer, an aerospace engineer and technologist.” He went on not only to have accolades as a scientist but went on to become the 12th President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. One teacher inspired him at the age of 10.

Influence, isn’t it? If there are people who are able to come alongside of us, and inspire us to do amazing things. I wonder whether you have somebody in your life who has been key in influencing you. Have you acknowledged that person? Let them know that you are on that path because they put you on that path many years ago.

I was reading about Rosalind Franklin – a name that is not well known. However we have all heard of James Watson and Francis Crick who received a Nobel Prize in 1962 for their discovery of the structure of DNA. But Rosalind Franklin was really the first person who discovered it. She was described by her peers as a genius and she exposed herself to maximum amounts of radiation to try to get the best possible X-ray photograph of a strand of DNA. She died of cancer at the age of 37. But her image of the double helix provided the crucial evidence that Watson and Crick needed to complete their model. But neither of the scientists acknowledged her work when they received the Nobel Prize. How sad, isn’t it? The person who was responsible for their glory was not acknowledged by them in their moment of glory.

What about you my friends on this call? Are there things in your life that you want to do, something that you want to be, something that’s a dream that God has placed on your heart?

I was reading about the shipping container. Most of you on this call have probably heard of Malcolm McLean, the person who invented the standardized shipping container in 1956. He was a truck driver. He had one truck and he used to transport things from one place to another. He said, “I had to wait most of the day to deliver the bales, sitting there in my truck, watching stevedores load other cargo. It struck me that I was looking at a lot of wasted time and money. I watched them take each crate off the truck and slip it into a sling, which would then lift the crate into the hold of the ship. It would be 19 years before McLean converted his thought into a business proposition, but it transformed the shipping industry. He gave the necessary impetus to an industry that was dying at that time; transformed it because of one man and the dream that he had and was willing to put everything he had into that dream. Today it is said that the containerized shipping is still growing at 11% a year and this is something that McLean, who started this business in North Carolina in 1934 using a single truck that he had bought for $120, would surely marvel at if he was alive today.

Did that inspire you my friends? Do you think about it and say, “Wow, I wonder if I can be somebody who can make a difference in my life, in my generation, for the world.”

Maybe there is somebody in your life who has inspired you. May be you’ve come from very humble beginnings and yet it was one person who said, “I believe in you. I am willing to invest in you. I will allow you to go into school or pay your tuition or something like that.” Maybe today is the day that you pick up the phone or write a letter to say, “I want to let you know that you changed my life.” Or maybe that embryonic seed is still lying dormant in your life. Somebody birthed it many years ago and you’ve been wondering whether you should or should not. It’s an idea; it’s something that can change; something that can help. And maybe this is the time for you to begin to take steps to see those things fulfilled.

Often we think that we need to have all our ducks in a row before we can get out. In the Bible, many times God says to us: “You take the first step” because it’s a step of faith. That’s the step that’s saying I am willing to go out on a limb. And when we go out on that limb, God is always there to help us because He is the dream-giver. He uses people to inspire us but he is the dream-giver.

Or maybe today you have the opportunity to inspire somebody. Maybe it’s your own children; maybe it is the people around you. You see somebody who’s got tremendous potential but they are nuggets of gold wrapped up in all kinds of mud and soil. It needs to be mined. Maybe today is an opportunity for you to say, “I am going to help this person get out of the mold and become somebody.”

When all is said and done, let’s not look back at life and say, “We went through life without a whimper. We didn’t leave any marks. We just did the things that we did and moved on.”

But let’s pray together that when all is said and done, that generations to come will look back and be thankful for our generation, for each one of us on this call because we left our footprints on the sands of time.

God Bless You All.