“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”  ~Mother Teresa

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
Economic worries weigh heavy on so many people today – and the paths to prosperity seem so elusive.  For millions of jobless Americans, the world feels dark, bleak, frightening.

We know our unemployed cousin Leroy needs a hand or our Aunt Millie is facing foreclosure. And we know we could reach out to our neighbor or friend, who lost her job a year ago. Whether family or friend, former colleague or ex-teammate, jobless Americans need our help. They need encouragement, support – and a job. But what can we do that the Obama administration and Congress couldn’t? Plenty.

My blog post on Glassdoor.com gives five ways you can help. Here’s seven more in case you have a lot of jobless friends – or want to provide a variety of kindnesses:

1. Become their “goal buddy.” Help them set goals, work on them and achieve them. Hold their hand and hold them accountable for some action and outreach. They could do the same for you – and keep you advancing, whether you’re working to lose weight or launch a blog or business.

2. Free them to have fun. Watch local calendars for free events, lectures and other activities. Mix up the kinds of things you see together – to give them some fresh ideas and perspectives on the world. Before you head to the lecture or event,  remind them that the person sitting next to them could be their next boss or cubicle mate.

3. Help  change their perspective, attitude, outlook. Buy them a book “Life Is So Good” by George Dawson and Richard Glaubman  or AdaptAbility by M.J. Ryan, What Color Is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles or something else that uplifts and encourages. Suggest a mantra that reinforces their talents. Send an uplifting quote by email every day for a week. Buy a pack of Goddess Cards or Power Thought Cards (yes, I’ve used both and they are useful for difficult times).

4. Drop off a care package. The food may differ from what you’d send a college student. But the idea’s the same – the care and feeding of someone starts with some good food. Make homemade soup and buy a loaf of bread. Pick up a pound of roasted almonds, a few energy bars and a gift card for their favorite restaurant. Or buy them a couple bags of groceries – including a small luxury item they’ll savor – and drop it by their place.

5. Listen. Just be there.  In the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People.  Rabbi Harold Kushner says when you go through the toughest times, through tragedies and loss, friends can help just by being there. Sit and listen to them, assure them they are loved. No need to give advice or answers.

6.  Volunteer for success. Encourage them to sign  up for some volunteer work that will work for them. Help the chamber of commerce at its quarterly mixer by registering guests.Assist the local hospital with a fundraiser or a business incubator’s open house or other project. Give time to nonprofits where successful business people are engaged and involved and be clear that you want to work for a socially responsible enterprise and boss like them. More from my Washington Post article on volunteering for career success or my blog post from March.

7. Write them a love letter. Platonic love of the whole person can lift them up and help combat depression and despair. Remind them of the hard times they’ve gotten through before. Tell them how much you appreciate their innate skills and nature. Appreciate their lifetime of accomplishments. Appreciate their friendship and the things they’ve already done for you and others. Write the letter long-hand or print it out from your computer and mail it to them. That way they will have it to pull out and look at when they need to recall how good they are, and how much they are appreciated.

There must be a dozen other ways to help those in need, many  small and many easy. What are you doing to lend a hand? How are you helping?

The Quote Garden creator Terri Guillemets says: “If I had to sum up friendship in one word, it would be comfort.”   This week and every week, be a friend to someone who’s out of work.

Huge thanks to my friend Anita LeBlanc and my sweetheart, Mark. Both help many people and both shared ideas for this post.  And thanks to to QuoteGarden and ThinkExist, which supply me with amazing and uplifting quotes here and on Twitter (@ WorkingKind) .

Shutta Crum grew up in the mountains of Kentucky,  “listening to tall tales long into the night” and storytelling took root in her life. She spent 25 years as a librarian,  most of it at the Ann Arbor District Library, organizing story times and choosing new books for children.  She’s taught high school English and developed articles on writing and teaching for professional journals.
Now she writes children’s and teen books from her farm outside Ann Arbor, with almost a dozen in print. Shutta’s books include Fox and Fluff, Who Took My Hairy Toe? and her new one Thomas and the Dragon Queen. She also writes poetry for adults.
So it’s not surprising that her advice and insights were stellar, varied and well grounded when we sat together on a panel called I’ve Been Published at the ArtsAlliance’s convention this week in Ypsilanti.
Start by heading to the library, she suggested, to see what other books or articles already have been published on your subject. Do your homework.   As a teacher and librarian and author, she’s started it for you – with abundance of advice and ideas for writers on her website.

From our panel and a discussion afterward, here are Shutta Crum’s five  tips for would-be authors and writers:
1. Everyone gets rejected.

Even amazing authors like Jan Yolen get rejection letters, she said. So get used to it. And keep going. Some though are  “champagne rejection,” in which the editor keeps open the door for future projects.

2. Submit to agents and publishers simultaneously.
“I sold my first seven books myself,” she said, then an agent took over and sold the next half dozen.  Remember that anyone can call themselves an agent so review her four page Comprehensive Checklist, available on her website, or look up the Science Fiction Writers of America’s editors and predators piece (LINK coming later).

3. Don’t tell anyone you’re writing a book.

And especially don’t tell them you’ve submitted it to publishers. They will keep asking you about it – and that can be discouraging. It can take a year or longer for a book to be published. Once it is, throw a huge party and invite all your friends. They’ll be amazed and thrilled and you won’t have had to answer the how is the book coming? question 179 times. This, she said, is her biggest tip.

4. Locate book subjects that aren’t already blanketed.

Find a niche that is not overflowing already. “If you fill a vacancy, you’ve got one foot in the door,” she said. Some topics are harder to find — like a great April Fool’s Day book for children that doesn’t hurt feelings. (For more of these, check out the Chase’s Calendar of Events at where else – your local library – she suggests.)

5. Never assume your writing is sacred.

If the publisher needs a boy hero, change the girl’s gender in your book. Make revisions; take suggestions.  An editor is “worth their weight in diamonds,” she said.

Shutta also talked honestly about the payoff of being a children’s author. She charges $850 for a day-long visit to a school, which includes four assemblies or classes. Her book advance, which started at $2,000 a decade ago,  has grown to more than $10,000. (The advance is against books sales; for an illustrated book, the author may receive barely $1 for each copy sold, she noted.)

Though her paydays may not reflect it, Shutta certainly seems like a diamond necklace of  insights for writers, and her ideas and encouragement shone bright.

You’re ready for a showdown. The new guy is driving you crazy with his iPod blasting ’80s pop songs and his fingers pounding and popping on the keyboard almost as loud.  He’s obnoxiously oblivious to how disruptive he is.
Or maybe your bosses’ attitude and approach lately really must be addressed. You feel stressed out by the expectations and demands and the hurry up or else mindset that seems to be the guiding star, rather than the old quality and creativity approaches.
You are ready to scream or cry, so you decide to talk to the offending co-worker.  Here’s five ways to tackle the emotions that can cloud or sidetrack these difficult conversations:
Know your objective.
You don’t want an pound of their flesh, no matter how miserable they make your workplace. You want them to change their behaviors or improve their work ethic.  So write down what you hope to accomplish with the conversation. And then write down two or three reasons why your aim will benefit the person with the nasty vocabulary.
You’re likely to work with the person for a long time after the conversation so as much as you can move it toward a compromise, a win-win solution or an approach that both can live with.
Keep in mind that your goal is to improve the workplace atmosphere and the individual’s behavior, not take a wrecking ball to them.
Work through emotions and attitudes ahead of time.
Give yourself permission to feel angry, hurt, disappointed, dismayed. But also recognize that sometimes you are telling a story about the other person that may be feeding negative emotions, said Kerry Patterson, co-author of Crucial Confrontations and Crucial Conversations.  “They’re just doing it because they want me to suffer,”
“Change the story we tell ourselves and we change our emotions” and outlook, he said.
Suspend negativity and fear.
Even if you can’t let go of all the sad, bad feelings, you can put them aside for a few hours before and during this conversation. Be an actor. Remind yourself of the good attributes of this employee or boss.
If you’re afraid, take time to deal with that.  “We scare ourselves because we don’t tell the story all the way through,” said  M.J. Ryan, author of AdaptAbility / How to Survive Change You Didn’t Ask For. She suggests asking yourself: “And then what happened?” and picture your response if your boss gets really upset or suspends you for a week.
Steer clear of negatives when you talk.  “Do not talk about character. Do not talk about intent,” said Patterson. Avoid absolutes – you always or you never or the worst. Avoid innuendo and accusations. Stick with the facts.
Expect there to be awkward moments.
Difficult conversations almost always have them.Minimize them by creating a script for yourself for the start of the conversation.  See Patterson’s advice on my Glassdoor.com blog on the six steps to make scary conversations go well.
If you come to a difficult moment, take a deep breath and then another. You may want to acknowledge it with “This can be so difficult” or “Let me think about that for a few minutes..” If you can inject a little humor without seeming callous or cavalier, do so. But do this with sensitivity. Sometimes it’s better to say something like “Long after we’ve worked out this issue, I expect us to be collaborating on projects” or “I’m sorry if this is at all hurtful or difficult – it is for me too.”
Start again if anger or hurt rears up.
“If the other person is angry, it’s best to buy time. It’s chemical, a visceral reaction,” said Patterson. When things heat up, it’s time to adjourn the discussion for a few hours or a day. Patterson suggests saying: “This is an important topic. Let’s set it aside and talk later today” or tomorrow.
And give yourself credit for having the conversation, even if you cannot agree to any immediate improvements. Your chat could plant the seeds of change that may sprout just when you’ve rediscovered an appreciation for your coworkers’ Madonna and Duran Duran songs.

Today, the United Nations and some numbers groups have declared World Statistics Day. And today, the world is full of numbers that measure how we are faring, what we are producing and the losses we experience.

As a numbers whiz in high school and a business editor for years, I’m up to the challenge. So I’m offering five telling  statistics that cry out and ask each of us to give another person a hand, a job, some encouragement.

• 6.1 million Americans are considered long term unemployed – out of work for a half year or longer.
• Some 9.5 million U.S. workers were stuck with part-time jobs when they really want more hours – and their number is growing.
• The jobless rate for veterans who have served since 2001 was 10.2 percent last year, higher than the civilian rate.
• Around 43.6 million Americans – including 15.5 million children – lived in poverty last year. One in five children is considered poor.
• Women are CEOs of 12 Fortune 500 companies and hold the top job at 26 of the Fortune 1000 companies. And women’s wages, while catching up, still lag men’s – even when they’re in comparable jobs for the same tenure.

Certainly there are other important statistics that measure our economy – from the S&P 500 index to the prime interest rate to how much profit your employer earned in the latest quarter.

Yet I believe the best measure of our times may be how much kindness we bring to each other and to the people injured by the sharp statistics of difficult times.

Source materials:  The Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Census Bureau (poverty) and Catalyst, a women’s research and advocacy organization.

When the first miners in Chile started their ascent from the earth, workers all over the world watched in anticipation. They wanted to see the miracle of their return to families and sunshine, the triumph over adversity and the odds.

The 33 miners had waited together for almost 70 days, sharing strength and doling out food and medicine. They huddled together in darkness a half mile beneath the surface, praying and working to stay alive and stay hopeful.

“We had to be strong,” foreman Luis Urzua said in a Washington Post article.

As rare and amazing as their time together and rescue are, the Chilean miners impart lessons golden to any worker facing tough times and huge challenges. We may never fear for our lives, but we worry about our  livelihoods and our future prospects. We may never have a thousand journalists chronicle our travails and rescue, but we may find wisdom and strength in telling our stories of comebacks and courage.

So as the economy continues to threaten us, let us look to the brave miners  inspiration and insights:

Believe in the goal. Have faith in your mission and your plans and your chances of success are so much greater. I used to carry around a card that said “I have faith in a future I cannot see.” That sentiment made some dark days easier to get through.
A few miners may have wavered in the long days and nights, but they were pulled back from that brink by their colleagues. Most of the miners kept believing in their rescue, that they would again kiss their wives, their mothers, best friends and breathe fresh mountain air.  “We never lost faith,” Mario Sepulveda said after he came out of the ground.

Everyone contributes. In difficult circumstances, it’s easy to cower and shirk responsibility. Yet that’s when your organization needs everyone working as hard as they can and contributing all that they have. Teamwork is never so important than during a crisis.
“All the workers in the mine fulfilled their roles,” foreman Luis Urzua said in the Washington Post.  One became the spokesman to the outside world; another provided comic relief to colleagues; one served as the medical officer and others showed courage to less experienced colleagues.

Combine adaptability and inventiveness. The rescue plans evolved and changed as experts from NASA and elsewhere gathered more information. The miners contributed ideas and detailed maps and Urzua talked to rescuers calmly about different options. Underground, the miners changed locations and went from rationing food the first 17 days – mostly tuna fish and milk – to eating full meals sent down the tube that reached them from the outside world.
Rescuers bored three holes simultaneously through the volcanic rock and a drilling form brought in from a Pennsylvania company made the Plan B hole fastest, according to a New York Times report.     The miners showed their own creativity and inventiveness. One of them, Victor Zamora, wrote poetry to his partner, who is pregnant with a daughter they plan to name Paz Victoria. Others employed music to amuse themselves or perhaps to lift their spirits.

Crisis creates camaraderie. Some of my best workplace friendships were forged during the Detroit newspaper strike of 1995-97 and in Newsday’s newsroom in the dark days after the Sept. 11 attacks. We pulled together and supported each other with a depth and emotion not available during most breaking news stories.

The miners likely have developed connections that could last a lifetime. “The camaraderie and the bonding that the miners have developed through this ordeal will always keep them together,” Dr. Michael Duncan, NASA’s chief medical officer, told WashingtonPost.com. Despite the harsh conditions undergroud, the men look extremely healthy and fit considering how long they have been underground, Duncan said.

Certainly other lessons of friendship, teamwork and courage will emerge as the miners share their stories with families, the media and the world. And perhaps some missteps and misery will show up too – after all, the men, ages 19 to 63, were stuck in extreme conditions without family or comforts since Aug. 5.
Yet whatever else we discover from this workplace wonder that has captured our attention, the biggest lesson may be this one, posted on the Washington Post’s coverage of the miners rescue: “Miracles happen when everyone works together.”

Copyright Vickie Elmer, 2010 -  please contact me for permission to republish this on your site.

LINKS:

Read the Washington Post’s excellent coverage of the miners’ returns here.

The Washington Post’s On Leadership blog has more on Luis Urzua’s role underground for almost 70 days.

New York Times coverage of the miners rescue has many details and color, including some details of how they drilled the rescue hole.