Behind the Mike

I first met John Wooden when we shared a platform in southern California while speaking to an auto club conference. If there was a more humble and honorable man on this earth, I have not yet met him. Those were the two words that jumped out at me when we chatted.

“Talent is God given,” Wooden would say. “Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”

John Wooden epitomized the word “Coach.” He was known to say that “A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment.” It was so remarkable how much he was able to get out of his athletes. He defined ability as “Poor man’s wealth.”

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out,” he told the crowd in Los Angeles that day we met. “There are many things that are essential to arriving at true peace of mind, and one of the most important is faith, which cannot be acquired without prayer.”

John Wooden died on June 4, 2010. He would have been 100 on October 14, 2010. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a coach and a player, the first to be enshrined in both categories.

A humble man from tiny Hall, Indiana, Wooden was a farm boy at heart and his values reflected as much. “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are,” he counseled. “Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.”

Coach Wooden once told me in an interview that the most he was ever paid as a head basketball coach was a modest $35,000 per year, a pittance by today’s standards. He turned down ten times that much to coach the LA Lakers. But then, he was never in coaching for the money. His speaking fees and book royalties in his retirement far exceeded what he made on the hardwood.

John Wooden’s “Pyramid of Success” included a premise that success in life starts with faith and patience. Other key “building blocks” in his pyramid included “Competitive Greatness, Poise, Confidence, Condition, Skill, Team Spirit, Self-Control, Alertness, Initiative, Intentness, Industriousness, Friendship, Loyalty, Cooperation and Enthusiasm.” Remarkably simple… and yet simply remarkable!

“Be prepared and be honest,” Wooden has said over and over again. “What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player.

Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”

Wooden and I shared holiday cards over the years. I often quote him in my speeches not only because he’s so quotable but he lived the example. He was deeply in love with his wife, Nell, who died in 1985, leaving a terrible void in his life. He often spoke of it from the platform. “You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” He learned that from Nell.

Wooden remained devoted to Nellie, even decades after her death, until his own death. Since her death, he kept to a monthly ritual (health permitting)—on the 21st, he visited her grave, and then wrote a love letter to her. After completing the letter, he placed it in an envelope and added it to a stack of similar letters that accumulated over the years on the pillow she slept on during their life together.

John Wooden believed that you have to be self-aware. “You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one,” he would say. “Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.”

“Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished,” he told the group of salesmen that day in southern California, “But by what you should have accomplished with your ability. Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”

While Wooden was a “change merchant” in his beliefs and often spoke on that topic. However, he was also quite a traditionalist. “The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones,” he quipped. “It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen. It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

Wooden was blessed with a lot of great talent during his tenure at UCLA. Not only did he lead Purdue in the 1932 National Championship game, he also coached in ten others for the Bruins.

He believed in basics. During one 46-game stretch during his tenure as a professional player, he made 134 consecutive free throws. You win with the basics. And win he did. During 27 seasons, he led the Bruins to 10 NCAA Titles in his final 12 seasons, including seven in a row while winning 620 games.

I first met Art Linkletter on the speaker’s circuit. We shared a platform on many occasions and were together in Orlando, Florida before a national association of real estate professionals.

Right before I went on stage, Art told me “break a leg.” I proceeded to give the entire speech and walked off a darkened end of the platform and, wouldn’t you know it? I broke a leg.

Such is life in the world of public speaking. You meet the nicest people in the world like Art Linkletter. He recently died. An icon is gone. Art almost reached his goal in life to make it to age 100. Like my dear friend Charlie Barcio, who is a modest 106 years old, Art Linkletter was a hero to many. And like Barcio, Linkletter was orphaned as a child. He was placed up for adoption at the age of seven.

The ancient Chinese proverb suggests that “The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.”

Make no mistake; Linkletter had plenty of “trials” in his 97 years here on earth. A son, Robert, died in a car accident in 1980. Another son, Jack, died of lymphoma in 2007. The greatest challenge all was the loss of his 20 year old daughter, Diane, who jumped to her death from a sixth-floor Hollywood apartment. Art blamed drugs and took up a crusade against them. That defined the second half of his life on the speaking circuit.

Art Linkletter was a friend to many fellow professional speakers. He held the prestigious CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame honor bestowed by the National Speakers Association. I first met him when we were speaking together at the 1986 Toastmasters International Convention where he received the Golden Gavel Award, their highest honor.

Art was best known for his television shows “People Are Funny” and “House Party” and “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” a line that’s repeated daily all over the world.

Among all the things Art Linkletter was in life, I saw him first and foremost as a very successful businessman. He once told me that he owned 74 different businesses around the world. At one time, he was the second largest landowner in Australia, right behind the government.

Art once told me of the smartest and dumbest decision he ever made in business. Walt Disney had come to him to ask him to do the kickoff for Disneyland back in 1955, but he had no money and couldn’t pay him anything. Linkletter not only agreed, but he got his buddy, Ronald Regan, to help out as well, successfully kicking off the Disney dynasty.

Having no money to pay his friend, Disney offered Linkletter any concession that the park they had not yet sold. Linkletter chose the photo concession, which he sold for millions a year later. “That was the smartest decision I ever made,” he told me.

Years later, Disney called Linkletter again and asked him if he would join him on a flight to Florida. Disney always felt that the biggest mistake he made at Disneyland was not purchasing enough property. He had nowhere to expand. The pair took a chartered aircraft and flew over a central Florida swamp. “That’s where I’m going to put Disney World,” Disney declared. “Do you want in on the ground floor?”

“I told him he was nuts,” Linkletter joked later. “Boy was that the dumbest business decision I ever made!”

Linkletter was kind enough to do the forward for my fourth book, “The Toastmasters International Guide to Successful Speaking” (Dearborn Publishing/1996) and had agreed to contribute to my sixth book “It’s the Customer, Stupid!” (John Wiley & Sons/March 2011). We never got that done, but his kindness and generosity will always be remembered by me and others.

Indeed, the proverb is true. “The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.” Art Linkletter, a native Canadian, was not only an icon and an institution. He was an inspiration to many for the way he handled the trials and tribulations of his long and illustrious life. We will miss him so!

He is a modest man that has accomplished something that few others ever have. He turns 106 years old on March 22, 2010. Happy birthday Charlie Barcio!

There is a Chinese proverb that says, “The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.” That might be a good way to describe the challenges that this centenarian has faced.

Three years after his birth in 1904 in Erie, PA., Charles Barcio’s father died. His widowed mother faced the hardship of supporting a family, and the only work she could find was as a cook. She had no choice; she put Charlie in an orphanage. At least there he could be fed and clothed.

Charlie’s grandparents protested and after a year they took young Charlie in to live with them, making him the tenth child under one roof. Charlie’s mom married again and after three years they moved with him to Rochester, NY where they lived for the next five years.

Charlie and his mom moved back to Erie, PA, the place of his birth, where they resided on a farm while he attended school. Though only a child, he worked part time as a gardener and a handyman, saving 100% of his wages during a summer vacation. The $75 he earned over those three months bought him his first set of wheels, a brand new bicycle.

After graduating from high school, Charlie worked for Burke Electric Company. The company saw his potential and urged him to pursue electrical engineering. He later worked for Edison Electric.

Charlie’s first wife, Winnie, was his best friend’s sister. They had a daughter and two sons, one of whom was killed in 1944 in World War II. His father-in-law sold him his first parcel of land and he built his own home, all of this during the Great Depression.

Charlie was always well liked and had many friends, as is the case today. Every Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. Mass, dozens of well wishers drop by to shake his hand and wish him the best at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in St. Cloud, Florida.

It was friends like those that brought him their cars for him to fix back during the Great Depression. This motivated him to enter the auto repair and mechanic field. He furthered his education by taking courses in St. Louis, MO. What started as an avocation became a full time business for him and it blossomed into a very successful business.

He decided to build his own garage but money was scarce. It was not uncommon for folks to barter in those days for goods and services. For instance, he negotiated an agreement with Scriber Lumber Company for building materials in exchange for gasoline that he sold out of his new garage and gas station, all done by a gentlemen’s agreement… just a handshake. “In those days, your word was good enough,” said the jovial Barcio.

In no time at all, it was clear that the gas station proved to be too small and he needed more garage space. As business increased, he hired 13 employees.

In small towns across America, all fire departments were volunteer. Charlie was one of the founders of West Lake Fire Department and later became Assistant Fire Chief and later Chief. He was also State Fire Instructor for Pennsylvania and a First Aid Instructor for the Red Cross.

A devout Catholic all of his life, Charlie was one of five men to start and build St. Julia’s Catholic Church in Erie, PA. He might have been a mechanic by profession but he could just have easily been a broadcaster. He articulately narrated Mass on radio station WLEU for 32 years.

While operating his garage business, one of his contacts, who had a Kaiser-Frazer franchise, asked him to take the West Erie district dealership. Kaiser-Frazer later closed its doors and Charlie became a Ford Dealership.

Charlie was an entrepreneur before that was even a word. He furthered his business by installing and maintaining coin-operated dry cleaning machines that service the majority of Pennsylvania.

Never one to shy away from challenges, he also took on the Presidency of Millcreek Chamber of Commerce and Commodore of the Presque Isle Yacht Club.

Charlie moved to Florida in 1972 and quickly became the go-to maintenance guy for Father William Corry at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Sharpes, Florida near Cocoa. He actually installed the ornate wall that is the background behind the altar.

In 1990, Charlie moved to St. Cloud, Florida with his second wife, Dorie, who was also widowed. Her late husband, Don Fry, was one of Charlie’s closest friends. They were wed in 1990. The day they arrived, Father Fabian Gimeno called on him to help with the maintenance duties of St. Thomas Aquinas, a job he held for 14 years. At the age of nearly 100, the insurance company that provided coverage for the church said “no more.” He was forced to retire in 2004.

Now six years later, Charlie remains active in the church and maintains a daily exercise regimen that includes 6-8 miles on a bicycle, weather permitting. An active Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus, Charlie still stands outside of stores handing out Tootsie Rolls to raise money for exceptional children.

Before he died, the legendary high school football coach James Wyman “Whiney” Ingram was kind enough to throw me a bone and nominate me for the Lexington High School Athletic Hall of Fame.

My old high school honors a new class of athletes every fall during a Wildcat football game in my hometown of Lexington, SC. I am under no illusions here. There are dozens of real athletes that deserve this honor far more than I do, so it is not like I am holding my breath in anticipation of a phone call.

Still, I recently had the pleasure of making my first visit to the relatively new Lexington High School athletic facility while I was in South Carolina for Family Reunion and a Memorial Mass for my late mother, Alice Aun.

I had the privilege of watching my nephew, John Michael Aun, play in a pre-season jamboree game against Airport High School. John Michael did well, making several tackles from his nose guard position, bringing back pleasant memories from yesteryear with a big Wildcat victory.

I was actually one of the Founders of the Lexington High School Athletic Hall of Fame back in the eighties along with a teammate, George Stoudemire. I recall calling George to tell him that I had been appointed chairman of the Hallof Fame Committee. He asked me who appointed me. I had to confess it was me. But both George and I felt that deserving athletes needed to be honored and remembered. I am so happy they are keeping the tradition alive.

Reunions and retreats are a terrific way to not only honor and remember family, friends and loved ones, but it allows us to mend old wounds and reacquaint ourselves with special people in our lives. We simply do not do enough of it.

I was privileged to receive an honor at another retreat at the Allenberrry Resort and Playhouse in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania on August 29 called the Legends of the Speaking Profession Award, which is given out to a handful of folks each year by the Veteran Speakers Retreat.

You have to be 60 years old to be considered for the award. I barely qualified. I actually just turned sixty on August 15th, the date of my mother’s death. The reunion in South Carolina was to acknowledge the 25th anniversary of her passing, so it’s a bitter-sweet day in my life.

Among the other Legends of the Speaking Profession recipients this year was my old friend motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. I have known Zig since I was a child. He sold my mom and dad their first set of pots and pans. We called him Ziggy back in those days. He was a student at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He had to work his way through school to earn enough money to get his first-born out of the hospital.

Zig used the “puppy dog close” on my parents. He came to our home, bought food, cooked a meal and then left the pots and pans behind (the puppy dog close). I once kidded him about it saying it took my parents three years to pay off those pots and pans. To which he replied, “By the time he got through feeding the Aun family (11 kids) I didn’t make anything anyway.”

The other recipients at this year’s Veteran Speakers Retreat were author and speaker Tony Alessandra and former Prisoner of War Charlie Plumb. Also being honored posthumously were motivational speakers Mort Utley and Joe Charbonneau.

I have had several honors bestowed on me over the years. In 1978, I won the World Championship of Public Speaking for Toastmasters International which earned me a spot in the Toastmasters International Speaker Hall of Fame. In 2000, the National Speakers Association inducted me into their CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame. In 2002, I was awarded the George Morrisey Lifetime Achievement Award by the Central Florida Speakers Association.

Despite all these tributes, I am humbled by arguably most modest nomination of them all- the one I deserve the least, the Lexington High School Athletic Hall of Fame.