Last week in a meeting with the employees Elder Bowen told a story I had
heard before that I want to share with you because everyone has someone who
provides what they need day in and day out to fulfill their work and in the
case at the office is all the employees who are doing the work for us to look
good.
Elder Bowen said: "I felt this story would be good to share with all
of our people in our office who are doing a tremendous amount of work.”
I looked up the story in the internet and this is what I found.
Charles Plumb was a US Navy
jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a
surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was
captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the
ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.
The story about Charles
Plumb, "Who Packs Your Parachute," is a strong and interesting
true story that has been shared with many people over the years during lectures
and leadership courses.
Interesting enough, when I
shared this story with our people during an internal staff meeting, two of our
staff members within Industrial Resources, who had served in a branch of the
Military, had this story presented to them before.
"...I was a fighter pilot, and he
was just a sailor.”
One day, when Plumb and his
wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re
Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.
You were shot down!”
“How in the world did you
know that?” asked Plumb.
“I packed your
parachute,” the man replied.
Plumb gasped in surprise
and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it
worked!” Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t
worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Plumb couldn’t sleep that
night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he
might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back and
bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not
even said 'Good morning, how are you?’ or anything, because, you see, I was a
fighter pilot, and he was just a sailor.”
Plumb thought of the man
hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship,
carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in
his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.
Who's Packing Your Parachute?
Now, Plumb asks his
audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?”
Everyone has someone who
provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of
parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory. He needed
his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute and his
spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching
safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life
gives us, we miss what is really important.
We may fail to say
"hello," "please," or "thank you," congratulate someone
on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment or just do
something nice for no reason.
As you go through this
week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachute.
This story presents to your
people how important they are and that their position is a part of our system
that makes everything come together. Regardless of the rank of hierarchy,
your people are within any organization, their position is a vital link to the
overall success.”
Con amor,
Vero
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