Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 10:54 — 6.9MB) | Embed
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I own a pair of binoculars like the ones used by the Observers on Fringe, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a lesson I learned from a teen heartthrob.
Friday Forum
Friday Forum is your opportunity to Share what YOU’VE learned, so that other listeners and I can learn from YOU. It can be a message as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can participate in Friday Forum by calling and leaving a message at 304-837-2278, emailing an audio file to feedback@goldenspiralmedia.com, or clicking on the Send Voicemail tab on my website, GoldenSpiralMedia.com.
What I Learned Yesterday:
Some of you that are in your 40’s or older may remember a show named 8 is Enough and a character named Tommy Bradford. If you’re a bit younger than that then you may remember a show called Charles in Charge and a character named Buddy Lembeck, the goofy best friend of Scott Baio’s character, Charles. Both of these characters were played by a guy named Willie Aames.
I never really watched 8 is Enough. I saw a few reruns when I was a kid, but it never really interested me that much. However, I did watch Charles in Charge. That was a funny show to me. When I started working at the bookstore in the mid 90’s, we started carrying a new video series named Bibleman. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Bibleman was portrayed by none other than Buddy Lembeck himself, Willie Aames. Go ahead and think about that for a minute.
Okay, now I don’t know if you’ve ever seen an episode of Bibleman or what you just imagined in your mind, but it wasn’t as bad as you may think. It was a live action super hero style show where Bibleman would try to help kids learn how to handle various life issues and solve character defining moments by looking to see what the Bible taught.
The early episodes were pretty cheesy, but as Bibleman grew in popularity and they got a bigger budget, the show got much better. The costumes were better, the special effects were better, the lighting was better, and the whole production was pretty decent. It was still a cheesy kids show, but it wasn’t any worse than anything else you’d see on PBS.
By the time I was living in Lubbock and training to be a store manager, Bibleman was at the peak of its popularity. Church kids were crazy about him.
One day we learned that the son of Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, was coming to town to do a crusade, and Bibleman would also be joining him to help with a special kids day. Bibleman would be doing a live show while he was in town. Exciting stuff.
We thought it would be really great if we could get Bibleman to do an event in our store. You know, show up in costume, entertain the kids, sign some autographs, take pictures, etc. The store manager reached out to Bibleman’s people (yes, Bibleman had people), but they denied our request. They were really nice, but said that because he was in town for the Franklin Graham event, he was on a very tight schedule and would not have time to do an in-store appearance. We were bummed, but understood.
A few weeks later we learned that one of our competing bookstores was publicizing that Bibleman would be doing an in-store event at their store when he was in town for the Franklin Graham event. Needless to say, we were quite surprised and not very happy to hear that.
I don’t know if our manager reached out to the Bibleman group or if they reached out to us. I do know that once the announcement had been made about the other store, contact was made between us and his group.
Apparently it was an honest mistake made by one of his assistants. When we called and asked to have him come to our store, we spoke with the right person and got the right answer. However, when the other store reached out to him, they spoke with a different assistant.
Normally when Willie visited different cities, he jumped at the chance to interact with the community and visit kids. So when the store called and spoke with the other assistant, she immediately agreed to do it. When she saw Willie later that day, she was excited to tell him that she’d arranged for an in-store visit. However, the assistant didn’t realize that this particular visit was on a very tight schedule and he would not have the flexibility that he normally had.
Willie now faced a dilemma, and was in a bit of a no win situation. On one hand, the other store was now advertising that he’d be there. To cancel on them would be a bad PR move and disappoint a lot of kids. On the other hand, he really was on a tight schedule and doing the in-store visit would be tough to arrange. Of course, there was also the deal where we had asked first, and now we were left with nothing.
What would you do? Bear in mind that Willie was not just an actor playing Bibleman. He WAS Bibleman. He was the creator and producer of the the shows. He had the power to make or change any decisions that others had made for him.
So I ask again. What would you do if you were in Willie’s situation?
I’ll tell you what he did. He called our store personally and spoke with the store manager. He told the manager that he needed to honor the commitment that was made to appear at the other store and apologized for the situation. He said that even though he was not the one that made the arrangement to be there and it wasn’t approved by him, it was made by people who represented him and he needed to honor his word to be there. But then he offered a consolation.
Willie offered to meet with the manager, his wife, their two kids, me, and my wife. He wanted to take us all to dinner and try to make the best of the situation. It was a generous offer, so when Willie came to town a few weeks later, we met him for dinner.
I have to admit, it was pretty cool sitting down and sharing a meal with someone that I’d known as the goofy Buddy Lembeck. Willie was gracious, polite, humble, and entertaining. He had a great memory too.
He never made us feel like we were upsetting his busy schedule or that he had anything more important to do than to eat dinner with us. He told us about how he got started in acting, his time on 8 is Enough and Charles in Charge, and how he became a Christian. He shared his vision for Bibleman and how he hoped it would grow in the future.
After dinner was over, Willie paid the check and we all walked out to the lobby of the restaurant. We said our goodbye’s and headed to our cars. Willie walked back to his hotel which was about a half mile down the road. The next day he made an appearance at the other store and put on a live show at the Franklin Graham crusade and by all accounts he did a great job at both events.
Here’s what I learned.
Integrity matters. Willie could have called the other store and explained that a mistake had been made. He could have offered an apology, the people at the other store probably would have understood, and their opinion of Willie and Bibleman would not have been decreased.
The same could be said for our store. He could have asked an assistant to call the store manager and offer an apology and we would have thought no less of him. He chose to call the manager personally, and as a result, we thought more of him. But then he went the extra mile. He took time and made the absolute best of the situation. He met with us and gave us the opportunity to get to know him a bit. He made us feel important. He also looked us in the eye and apologized for the mistake.
He promised us that the next time he was in town, he’d come to our store and make it right. By the time Willie came back to Lubbock I was managing my own store in another city, but I can tell you that he made good on his promise. I spoke with the manager after the event and he was blown away by how well the event went.
Now, I know that Willie has had some very public struggles since his Bibleman days ended. I don’t envy him at all. As a celebrity, he’s open to public scrutiny with every mistake he makes. I wouldn’t want that. I never had an image that Willie was perfect. None of us are. But I don’t want Willies mistakes to detract from the lessons I learned here.
In this story and this situation, Willie did the exact right thing. Instead of determining what could be done to save face and make sure that no one thought less of him and Bibleman, he determined what could be done to make everyone have a better impression of him and Bibleman. That’s a very important distinction and one that is very noble. Instead of doing the things that will get us by and not hurt anything, we can truly improve this world by simply tweaking our perspective, looking to see what can be done to make things best, and then doing those things.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in iTunes.
[sc:stuff]