How to change someone's life

READ THIS SLOWLY

Kindness in life – Kindness in business

I love this true story broadcast by BBC Northern Ireland, where Sheila Quigley, a 70-year old lady from rural Ireland was reminiscing on a moment in time and an act of kindness that inspired her as a nine-year-old child:

“We always were sent to Confession on Saturday. I was on my own that day and I went into Confession and when I came out again the sky was very overcast and I just got down past the beautiful thatched house called Farthings, when the skies opened and the rain came dashin’ down. And you couldn’t shelter, so I began to run down the road.

And I was coming past Greenfields Estate and the door of the gate lodge was opened and a lady was standing at the door. And she said to me, “Come on in, wee McCallion”, she said, “you will be drooped to the skin, you can wait here until the rain goes over”. And she brought me in and she said to me, “Sit down there by the fire until you get yourself dried”.

She took my shoes and socks off and she dried my feet and she hung my socks up over the rack of the stove, and she took the bow off my hair and she dried my hair with a towel and then she combed it, and by the time she did that the ribbon was dry. She put it back in my hair and she tied it. Oh … she was just … the loveliest woman you could ever imagine!

She said to me, “Would you like a wee drop of milk?”, and I said, “Yes, please”. And then she gave me, not one, but two jam tarts. Now this was the war and one jam tart was a luxury but two jam tarts were riches beyond treasure.

But I sat, and I ... I was in heaven. And they were the most delicious jam tarts. A real treat to me. Whenever the rain went over, she put four jam tarts in a blue sugar bag and she gave them to me to take home to the rest.

And I went down the road and I thought I was in heaven. And I said to myself, “When I grow up, I am going to be kind and good and lovely like Mrs. King”.

SEQUEL

I used this story verbatim in a speech I made last year to Londonderry Chamber of Commerce. After the event, a young woman came up to me and said “ Mr McKee, Sheila Quigley is my aunt and I can tell you that she is the kindest, best and lovliest person anyone could ever meet”

What a tribute to Mrs King! What a lesson for how we can help the people we work with in our businesses and live with in our families.