Lessons from my Grandfather: A Guest Post

I’m out of town this week so please enjoy this guest post from one of our Event Producers, Emily Sharp.

Recently I had the chance to dine at Safta, a Mediterranean family-style concept here in Denver that has a twin in New Orleans called Saba. The names mean “grandma” and “grandpa,” and the fact that chef-owner Alon Shaya aligns his professional success with his family traditions got me thinking—what if we all acted in a way that would make our elders proud? We’re already a family-run company—how can we take those personal life lessons and apply them professionally? 

So, a little backstory: my grandfather was a small-town history teacher and basketball coach in rural Kentucky in the 1950s and 60s. Like Anthony, he loved Teddy Roosevelt and would lecture us on the late president as well as other famous historical figures ad nauseam. He also loved Rudyard Kipling and would quote the poem “If” to his three boys and four grandkids (including me!) any time he got the opportunity…usually when we were misbehaving. I can still hear him reciting the verses about honor and goodness, and so I thought I’d pass them along to you as well:

 If you can keep your head when all about you   

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,  

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.

I can’t say I live all these values all the time, but I’m setting the intention that this week, I’m taking Kipling (and my grandfather)’s advice into all my interactions. I hope you can do the same.