Going the Second Mile: A Unique Approach to Happiness and Leadership

Have you ever tried to make everyone happy? Have you ever tried to just be in a situation where your goal was I want to make everyone happy. I want to keep the peace and get everyone to get along together with each other. May I tell you something that is a sure fired way to create a disaster for you and everyone else.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Room author and world renowned public speaker as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rome. I'm Dr. Robert Rome. Today we're going to be talking about. Listen carefully. You are going to love what we're going to talk about. Today we're going to be talking about happiness. And happiness is important. I want to be happy. I want you to be happy. But if you spend your life trying to make other people happy, that is a sure formula for failure. You cannot please everyone. Now, I'm going to go two or three angles on this. Some of them you may have heard and some of them you may not. Some people say, if you want to make anybody happy, make yourself happy. May I tell you something? I don't believe that's right either. I don't believe you can spend your life making yourself happy. I don't believe you can spend your life trying to make other people happy. You say, well, wait a minute now I'm confused. If I'm not supposed to make other people happy and I'm not supposed to make myself happy, well, who am I supposed to make happy? And the answer is, no one. Say, what are you talking about? I'm confused. Listen, when you learn this, it will set you free and it will make you happy. Happiness is a byproduct of other things. Happiness is a byproduct of being an honest person. Happiness is a byproduct of being good to other people. Happiness is a byproduct of hard work. Happiness is a byproduct of keeping your commitments and doing what you say you'll do. Happiness is a byproduct of hundreds of things, but it's not the thing itself. Now this is kind of tricky because we live in a world that rotates around happiness. You got to learn to make yourself happy. You got to learn to make other people happy. Your goal is to keep everybody and yourself happy. And none of that's true. I'm going to share with you how to become a happy person. The and the reason I want to share this with you is I experience. I hope you can tell right now I am One happy person. I am a happy dude. And do you know how much time I spend on trying to be happy every day? None. I spend no time at all thinking, well, how can I make me happy? Or how can I make everybody else happy? Listen, if my wife is coming in the house and she's bringing in the groceries, man, tell you something, I'm just speaking for me. I go outside to help her with the groceries, and that makes me happy, and it makes her happy. But I wasn't trying to be happy. I was trying to help her with the groceries. I was just doing the next right thing. My dog, I have a big lab. Her name is Belle. Belle is like she. She's kind of a yellowish white lab, and she is big, and she is the happiest, most friendly dog. And the reason she's happy is she's not trying to be happy. But we feed her, we play with her, we. We pat her, we have fun with her, but we're not going to sit around and say, how can we make her happy by throwing a stick, by feeding her, by calling her name, by taking. When we let her hop in the car in the afternoon. Almost every afternoon I run a few errands. Hey, Belle, come on you to ride with me, man. She hops in that car, she loves to go for a ride. It makes her happy. I'm not trying to make her happy. I'm just doing things that happiness becomes the byproduct. This is seemingly common sense, but boy, my father used to say, and I can hear it now, common sense is not very common. You see, if you try to make everyone happy, you're going to end up losing yourself in the process that, that you're trying to do. Well, how can I make all of my friends happy? How can I make my parents happy? How can I make my children happy? How can I make my boss happy? Listen, speaking of boss, if you have a job and you get to work on time or a little early and you finish on time or stay a little late and you do more than they ask you to do, may I tell you something? Your boss is going to be real happy with you. Why? Because it's a byproduct of you going the second mile. Are you familiar with where going the second mile came from? Years ago, by law, a Roman soldier could find anyone and point to them, and that person, and usually they were children, would have to carry the Roman soldiers pack his backpack. What mile? It was a law. Are you listening? If a Roman soldier pointed at you and said, come here.

You had better come to him. It was the law. He could take off his heavy pack. They weighed up to 40 pounds, history records. And he would say to a child, usually a teenager or a young boy, come here, take my pack, I want you to carry it. And all they could say was, yes, sir, it was required by law. You have to carry the pack in any direction, one mile. Even if you weren't close to your home, you had to carry it one mile, even if you were going in the opposite direction, one mile. That was the Roman law. The story goes that one kid came home and he was complaining to his mom or dad, telling them, ah, Roman soldier made me carry us back today, and that's why I'm late. And the parents many times would understand. Yeah, I know. If you get pointed out by a Roman soldier to carry their pack for one mile, you better do it. So if you get home late and that's your excuse, I had to carry a Roman soldier's pack for a mile. Parents understood. The father, who was very wise, and by the way, these podcasts are all about becoming a wiser person. The father in this story, who is very wise, said to his son, son, the next time that soldier ask you or command you to take his pack one mile, here's what I want you to do. At the end of the 1 mile when he takes the pack back from you because you fulfill the requirements of the law, look at him and say, sir, could I please carry it one more mile? Can you imagine talking to a teenager or a young kid and saying, remember, he's going to require you by law to carry his pack one mile. At the end of the mile, when he says, okay, give me my pack back, you look at him and say, sir, could I please carry it one more mile? The young boy looked at his dad and said, why would I do that? He, he said, just do it and then we'll talk about it. See, the wise father understood the principle that I'm talking about today. He wanted to teach his son how to become a happy person, but he didn't explain that to his son, because you can't explain to people what I'm explaining to you unless you begin to have some experience with it. So a few days later, the kids out playing and Roman soldier saw him and said, hey, you, come here. The kid came running over. By law, he had to. The soldier took off his 40 pound back, gave it to the backpack, gave it to the kid, and they started walking. Not one word was said. Not one word. The soldier walked in the direction he was headed. And the kid walked right behind him, carrying his back. At the end of the mile, the soldier knew a mile had come in. The requirements of the law had been fulfilled. The soldier looked at the young kid and said, okay, give me my pack back. Go ahead. I'm ready to have it. And the kid said, sir, sir, could I please carry it one more mile? The soldier said, what? What'd you just say? Said, could, sir, could I please carry it one more mile? The soldier said, why, sure. Yes, you can. And on that second mile, the soldier started talking to the kid, and he said things like, why do you want to carry my pack another mile? He said, because I wanted to ask you about what is it like to be a soldier. What is it? Where have you traveled? Where have you been? Who have you met? What have you seen? Have you been in battles? He began to talk to him, and the soldier began to share with the young kid some of his great experiences that he had had as a soldier. At the end of the second mile, which seemed to go by so quickly, the soldier said, son, you've been carrying my pack two miles. Now let me have it back. You go on home.

The kid said, thank you. He shook his hand. He said, thank you for letting me carry the second mile. When he got home that night, he was so excited. He told his dad, he said, I did it. I did what you asked me to do. I carried it the one mile. And at the end of the one mile, the soldier said, okay, let me have my pack back.

And I said, sir, could I please carry it another mile? And he was shocked, dad. He was surprised. And the father said, well, what happened on that second mile? He said, it was amazing the second mile went by so quickly. And he told me about his travels. He told me what it was like to be a soldier. He said. His father said, what did you learn? He said, oh, this is so good. He said, dad, here's what I learned. On the first mile, I fulfilled my obligation. But on the second mile, I met a friend. And you see, folks, when you go the second mile in anything you do, you're going to meet a friend. You're going to increase your happiness factor, because it moved from have to. To want to. Have you ever done anything in your life? And I'm the same way that I didn't want to do it slows it down, it makes it miserable, it weights it down, it complicates it. But if you just say to yourself, wait a minute, I want to create a happiness factor, oh, dear. Friends, I hope you're listening. I want you to be happy, but you will never be happy if you're trying to be happy. You'll never be happy if you're trying to find happiness. And you will only find happiness when happiness finds you. And it finds you by going the second mile, not looking for happiness, looking for what's the right thing to do? What's the next right thing to do? How can I go above and beyond the call of a duty? How can I do things in a way that cause me to show other people I care about you? Whether it's your husband, your wife, your mom, your dad, your brother or sister, here's what my challenge is for you. Are you ready? Go the second mile. You can say to yourself, and it's okay, it's okay. This is part of the training. I want to be a happier person. I want to be a happier person. You'll. You know how to become a happier person by not focusing on being a happier person, by focusing on caring about others, by doing the next right thing. The Manager foundation years ago, led by Carl Meninger. You can look this stuff up. These people were brilliant, brilliant therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, the Menninger Foundation. Here's what Carl Meninger used to say. Are you depressed? Are you going through a difficult time? Do you feel like life has lost its zest? Let me tell you how to get it back. Make someone a cake and take it to them.

Get your focus off yourself. Quit trying to make everything in your life happy and make life happy for another person. And you know what you'll find? You'll find that happiness is right around the corner for you. I'm so glad I learned this principle. I hope that beginning today, I got one more thing I want to share with you. So don't leave yet. I. I've saved the best for last, like I sometimes try to do. Leadership is a great trait that I hope all of us are pursuing. But I'm going to share with you the secret to being a great leader. It's a lot like happiness. I want you to be thinking about it. If I just pause this right now, and you said, no, wait a minute. Happiness is found by not looking for happiness. Happiness is found by doing right things, by having a good attitude, by loving people, by having a servant's heart, by being a genuine person, by doing the next right thing. And happiness finds me, well, how do I become a great leader? Listen, if you aspire to leadership, and I do, if you want to be a great leader, here's What? Get ready. You're going to love it. You want to be a great leader? You want to lead other people? Are you ready? Don't think about leadership. Don't think about leading other people.

You say, wait a minute. Now I'm really confused. Then how am I supposed to become a great leader? It's very simple. If you want to become a great leader, ask yourself one question. Who am I following? Who am I following? I followed Zig Ziglar for many, many years until Zig passed away. I followed Charlie Jones for many, many years, until Charlie passed away. You see, Charlie Jones and Zig Ziglar were two of the greatest leaders this world has ever seen. Do you know how I learned leadership skills and leadership traits? Not by trying to lead anybody. Not by looking over my shoulder to see, is anybody following me? If I could grab you by the shoulders right now, I'd say, look into my eyes. Listen to me. You want to be a great leader? Who are you following?

Who are you following? I have a good friend named Billy, Florence. Billy is brilliant. Bill. I just love Billy. I. I follow Billy. You know why? Because I've seen Billy go in the right direction. I saw Zig go in the right direction. I saw Charlie go in the right direction. And ultimately my faith tells me, follow Jesus Christ. Isn't that interesting? Have you ever read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? I hope you will, in the New Testament, the first four Gospels. Isn't it interesting? Does it shock you that everywhere Jesus went, he had two words that he would say to people. Follow me. Follow me. He knew this. I am going to change the world through you. And many of you know the 12 disciples. Of course, one of them went bad, but 11 disciples changed the world. We name our kids Matthew. We name our children Peter and John and James. The ruler of the Roman Empire during that day was Nero. Nero did wrong. The disciples did. Right now, people named their boys after the disciples. They named their dogs Nero.

How'd that happen? It happened because the Roman emperor Nero.

Was evil. Killed people, burned down the Roman Empire. That's another whole story in and of itself. A very wicked person. Who followed him? No one who followed the disciples. Millions of people to this very day. So again, I want to be a leader. The way I'm a leader is I find out who do I want to follow. I, to the best of my ability, have read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And I see the kinds of things Jesus taught. I want to be a follower of him. I'm sure you do, too. And that's the way, you become a great leader. So let's review. How do you become happy? You become happy by doing things that bring about happiness. How do you become a leader? By following people that know where they're going. And you follow them. And in time, others will begin to follow you because you communicate, you know where you're going as well. There's a lot of things I don't know, but there's some things I do know. And I wake up every morning and I try to the best of my ability to be a good person, to love people, to have a good positive attitude, to only say things that are encouraging and helpful to others. If I will do that, my leadership skills will get developed and before I know it, people will want to follow me. And I haven't even thought about who's following me. These are some deep truths I told you as we started today, we were going to be going into some deep water. And I hope today has been an important turning point in your life. I wish for you two things, happiness and leadership. And the way to bring them about is do the next right thing. Have a great attitude, go out of your way to be a good person. Happiness will find you, help others, care. Show by your words, actions, deeds, with your feet and with your hands that you are a person of character and integrity and you'll get happy and find out who you want to follow. Ask yourself, do I want to be like them? Birds of a feather still flock together. The law of attraction is you will become whoever you hang around with the most. I am so grateful I have people I hang around with, my staff, my team, people that I love and admire, people that I want to be like them. And that's how you become a great leader. I've enjoyed our time together and I hope you find this helpful. I hope you'll take the time to think about those two traits of happiness and leadership and how they are byproducts of other things. Look forward to our next time together. Thank you so much. For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becomingwiserpodcast.com.