By Joseph Walker

There’s a new guy in the office.

I don’t know his name, but he seems nice enough. He’s pleasant, but kind of quiet. He seems bright. He smiles a lot.

A few days after he started here he asked me to provide some information for a project he’s working on, and he asked nicely. It took me a few days to get the information, and he was nicely patient. And when I delivered it to him, he thanked me. Nicely.

So clearly he’s… you know… nice.

When we walk by each other in the hallway we smile and say hi. Actually, he says, “Hi, Joe.” I just say “hi” because… well… I don’t know his name, and I’m embarrassed to ask. I mean, he’s been here for a couple of weeks. I SHOULD know his name. But I don’t. So I just say “hi” when I see him. And I smile.

Last week I overheard one of his colleagues talking to him. I listened for a minute to see if his name was mentioned. The new guy mentioned the other person’s name a couple of times, but the other person never called the new guy by name. It occurred to me that maybe the other person didn’t know the new guy’s name either. Maybe nobody in the office knows his name. He’s just… the new guy, and he’s doomed to be the new guy even when he’s not new anymore because nobody knows what else to call him.

I passed him in the hall again yesterday.

As usual, he said “Hi, Joe.” And as usual, I just said, “Hi!” Well, actually, I said “Hey, how’s it going?” If someone says “Hi, Joe” and you just say “Hi” back, it sounds like you don’t know his name — which is a bad thing, especially if you really DON’T know his name. So you have to say something else, something that sounds warm and familiar — like you DO know his name — without… actually KNOWING his name.

So anyway, I pass the new guy, he says “Hi, Joe” and I say, “Hey, how’s it going?” And I move on down the hall feeling pretty good about how well I’m coping with not knowing his name, when I hear a familiar voice behind me.

“I don’t know you!”

It was Sylvia, one of the kindest, most genuine people I know. Sylvia is friendly, gregarious and warm, a welcoming mother figure to everyone in the office. She had been walking a few paces behind me, and evidently she didn’t know the new guy either.

But rather than just smile and say “hi,” Sylvia did what Sylvia does. Not only did she announce that she didn’t know him, she asked him his name, told him her name and engaged him in conversation — clearly an interpersonal tactic aimed at getting personal information out of him. Before long they were chatting like old friends about some things they had in common.

And suddenly for Sylvia, the new guy wasn’t the new guy anymore.

He was Mitch, a colleague with children, hobbies, interests and a little shared history.

I was stunned — and a little embarrassed — by the ease with which Sylvia negotiated that transition. Turns out it doesn’t take much to turn an unfamiliar face in the hall into a friend. You just have to get over yourself and reach out a little. Ask a question. Learn a name.

And just like that — no more new guy.

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

Our friend Laura Humphreys with Sylvan Learning Center called this week and said she has over 100 positions that need to be filled ASAP, and she knew that we have a lot of hard-working friends who may be looking for a job.  Here’s the skinny:

Sylvan is looking for people to tutor students at area schools (in High Point, Asheboro, and Thomasville) after school in reading and math.  Most of the schools are M/W or W/Th.  Each school time is slightly different, but would be within the 2 – 5pm time frame.

Applicants must be able to pass a background check, drug test and have reliable transportation.  Strong candidates will have a degree in education, or have a work experience with children.  A STRONG love of children and learning is a MUST!!! Training will be provided.

This is a part-time, temporary contract position.  The program will run from mid November until about April.

Applications should be in NO LATER THAN October 31st.

Resumes may be submitted at  sylvanses at sylvansuccess.net or you may drop it off at Sylvan Learning Center, 1840 Eastchester Drive (across from Oak Hollow Festival Park) in High Point.

Call (336) 841-5522 for more information.

By Dr. Fred Craddock of Emory University

A number of years ago a seminary professor was vacationing with his wife in Gatlinburg, Tennessee where they were eating breakfast at a little restaurant, hoping to enjoy a quiet family meal.

While they were waiting for their food, they noticed a distinguished looking, white-haired man moving from table to table visiting with the guests.  The professor leaned over and whispered to his wife:

“I hope he doesn’t come over here.”  But sure enough, the man did come over to their table.

“Where are you folks from?” he asked in a friendly voice.

“Oklahoma,” they answered.

“Great to have you here in Tennessee,” the stranger said. “What do you do for a living?”

“I teach at a seminary,” he replied.

“Oh, you teach preachers how to preach?  Well, I’ve got a really great story for you.”  And with that, the gentleman pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with the couple.

“See that mountain over there?” (pointing out the restaurant window).  Not far from the base of that mountain, there was a boy born to an unwed mother.  He had a hard time growing up, because every place he went, he was always asked the same question:

‘Hey boy, Who’s your daddy?’

Whether he was at school, in the grocery store or drug store, people would ask the same question, “Who’s your daddy?” He would hide at recess and lunchtime from other students. He would avoid going into stores because that question hurt him so bad.

When he was about 12 years old, a new preacher came to his church.  He would always go in late and slip out early to avoid hearing the question, “Who’s your daddy?”  But one day, the new preacher said the benediction so fast he got caught and had to walk out with the crowd.

Just about the time he got to the back door, the new preacher not knowing anything about him, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him,

“Son, who’s your daddy?”

The whole church got deathly quiet.  He could feel every eye in the church looking at him.  By now, everyone knew the answer to the question, ‘Who’s your daddy?’

This new preacher, though, sensed the situation around him and using discernment that only the Holy Spirit could give, said the following to that scared little boy…

‘Wait a minute!’ he said, ‘I know who you are.  I see the family resemblance now.  You are a child of God.’

With that he patted the boy on his shoulder and said:

‘Boy, you’ve got a great inheritance.  Go and claim it.’

With that, the boy smiled for the first time in a long time and walked out the door a changed person.  He was never the same again.  Whenever anybody asked him, ‘Who’s your Daddy?’ he’d just tell them,

‘I’m a Child of God.’

The distinguished gentleman got up from the table and said, “Isn’t that a great story?”

The professor responded that it really was a great story! As the man turned to leave, he said,

“You know, if that new preacher hadn’t told me that I was one of God’s children, I probably never would have amounted to anything!”  And he walked away.

The seminary professor and his wife were stunned. He called the waitress over and asked her,

“Do you know who that man was who just left who was sitting at our table?”  The waitress grinned and said,

“Of course.  Everybody here knows him.  That’s Ben Hooper. He’s the former governor of Tennessee!”

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

By John C. Maxwell

You can make a decision to have a good attitude, but if you don’t make plans to manage that decision every day, then you are likely to end up right back where you started. But here’s the good news: maintaining the right attitude is easier than regaining the right attitude.

How do you do that? A Chinese proverb I came across gives insight: “Assume a cheerfulness you do not feel, and shortly you feel the cheerfulness you assumed.” Or as editor and publisher Elbert Hubbard says, “Be pleasant until 10 a.m. and the rest of the day will take care of itself.” When you get up in the morning, you need to remind yourself of the decision you’ve made to have a positive attitude. You need to manage your thinking and direct your actions so that they are consistent with your decision.

If you take responsibility for your attitude – recognizing that it can change how you live, managing it every day, and cultivating and developing positive thoughts and habits – then you can make your attitude your greatest asset. It can become the difference maker in your life, opening doors and helping you overcoming great obstacles.

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

Author unknown

Hot sun. Salty air. Rhythmic waves.

A little boy is on his knees scooping and packing the sand with plastic shovels into a bright blue bucket. Then he upends the bucket on the surface and lifts it. And, to the delight of the little architect, a castle tower is created.

All afternoon he will work. Spooning out the moat. Packing the walls. Bottle tops will be sentries. Popsicle sticks will be bridges. A sandcastle will be built.

Big city. Busy streets. Rumbling traffic.

A man is in his office. At his desk he shuffles papers into stacks and delegates assignments. He cradles the phone on his shoulder and punches the keyboard with his fingers. Numbers are juggled and contracts are signed and much to the delight of the man, a profit is made.

All his life he will work. Formulating the plans. Forecasting the future. Annuities will be sentries. Capital gains will be bridges. An empire will be built.

Two builders of two castles. They have much in common. They shape granules into grandeurs. They see nothing and make something. They are diligent and determined. And for both the tide will rise and the end will come.

Yet that is where the similarities cease. For the boy sees the end while the man ignores it. Watch the boy as the dusk approaches.

As the waves near, the wise child jumps to his feet and begins to clap. There is no sorrow. No fear. No regret. He knew this would happen. He is not surprised. And when the great breaker crashes into his castle and his masterpiece is sucked into the sea, he smiles. He smiles, picks up his tools, takes his father’s hand, and goes home.

The grownup, however, is not so wise. As the wave of years collapses on his castle he is terrified. He hovers over the sandy monument to protect it. He blocks the waves from the walls he has made. Salt-water soaked and shivering he snarls at the incoming tide.

“It’s my castle,” he defies.

The ocean need not respond. Both know to whom the sand belongs…

I don’t know much about sandcastles. But children do. Watch them and learn. Go ahead and build, but build with a child’s heart. When the sun sets and the tides take – applaud. Salute the process of life and go home.

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

By Pastor Nathaniel Bronner

Dr. Marilyn spoke at our staff meeting. She took us through exercises as she worked to get our minds and spirits adjusted to a more positive direction.

“Close your eyes and think back to when you were small. What did you want to be? What were your dreams? What did you want to do? Close your eyes and think back.” she instructed.

I closed my eyes and thought back. I remembered what I wanted to be.

Dr. Marilyn then told of her early beginnings as a writer. She told of the articles and the publishing successes that she experienced but so many of them were punctuated by, “I didn’t get paid for that.”

Her words struck me.

I worked in a corner drug store when I was very small. I was below the age limit to work, but the store made an exception. My father owned the store, thus the exception.

I worked long and hard. I treasured my lunch breaks. Not so much for the food or the rest, it was what I did during my lunch breaks that I treasured. I read comic books. I read the action books, not the romance or the comedies, action, pure action.

When I closed my eyes and thought back, I knew instantly what I had aspired to be.

A Super Hero!

Superman, Batman, Spiderman and Ironman were some of my heroes.

In all of the action comics that I read, there were two distinct patterns. Those two patterns were in every action comic book that I can recall.

First, there was always a battle between good and evil. The battle was always tough. The battle was always a close call. No matter how strong or how many powers the Super Hero had, evil pushed him to the very limit and most times almost defeated him.

Second, the Super Hero was never paid for his contribution to society; he always earned his living in his alter ego.

Superman made money as Clark Kent, a newspaper reporter.
Batman made money as Bruce Wayne, a rich industrialist.
Spiderman made money as Peter Parker, a photographer.
Ironman made money as Tony Stark, owner of Stark Industries.

None of them were paid for being a Super Hero and the contributions they made as Super Heroes.

As I listened to Dr. Marilyn state how she had never been paid for many things, a light popped on in my mind.

“The real Super Heroes don’t get paid for the Super Hero stuff!”

I pastor a church and have never accepted a salary or taken up love offerings for myself. It’s correct to be fairly compensated but I, like Paul, simply choose not to.

I am the editor of MountainWings and the AirJesus.com websites, and I don’t get any money for that either.

I realized as my eyes were closed that it is Super Hero stuff and my dream has been realized.

You’ve got Super Hero stuff too.

Parenting
Volunteering
Helping a stranger or friend in need
Doing anything beneficial that takes time, effort, energy or resources and where you expect no monetary return is Super Hero stuff.

Use your powers well.

A very special thank you to Pastor Nathaniel Bronner of MountainWings.com for allowing us to share this story.

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

In a now-classic commencement address at Stanford University in 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs dispensed the following advice about life and death.  It perhaps takes on even more meaning since we lost Steve on October 5th:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

For a fifth year, American Red Cross and Pitney Bowes are partnering to ensure all Americans have an opportunity to send a touch of home this holiday season to members of our U.S. military, veterans and their families, many of whom will be far away from home this holiday season.

The process is very simple and takes no time at all – All you need is a pen and piece of paper to share your appreciation for the sacrifices members of the U.S. Armed Forces make to protect our freedoms The Holiday Mail for Heroes mail box is open and ready to receive for your cards. Please send all mail to:

Holiday Mail For Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

Sending a “touch of home” to American men and women who serve our country is the perfect way to express your appreciation and support during the holiday season.  But don’t wait– all mail must be postmarked NO LATER THAN DECEMBER 10th, 2011!

For more details and to watch a video of what one group did, click here.

By Alex W. Miller

For most people, graduation is an exciting day – the culmination of years of hard work. My graduation day… was not.

I remember that weekend two years ago. Family and friends had flown in from across the country to watch our class walk across that stage. But like everyone else in my graduating class, I had watched the economy turn from bad to worse my senior year. We graduates had degrees, but very limited prospects. Numerous applications had not panned out and I knew that the next day, when my lease ended, I would no longer have a place to call home.

The weeks ahead weren’t easy. I gathered up everything I couldn’t carry and put it into storage. Then, because I knew my small university town couldn’t offer me any opportunities, I packed up my car and drove to Southern California to find work. But what I thought would take a week dragged into two, and then four, and 100 job applications later, I found myself in the exact same spot as I was before. And the due date to begin paying back my student loans was creeping ever closer.

You know that feeling when you wake up and you are just consumed with dread? Dread about something you can’t control – that sense of impending failure that lingers over you as you hope that everything that happened to you thus far was just a bad dream? That feeling became a constant in my life.

Days felt like weeks, weeks like months, and those many months felt like an unending eternity of destitution. And the most frustrating part was no matter how much I tried, I just couldn’t seem to make any progress.

So what did I do to maintain my sanity? I wrote. Something about putting words on a page made everything seem a little clearer – a little brighter. Something about writing gave me hope. And if you want something badly enough… sometimes a little hope is all you need!

I channeled my frustration into a children’s book. Beyond the River was the story of an unlikely hero featuring a little fish who simply refused to give up on his dream.

And then one day, without any sort of writing degree or contacts in the writing world – just a lot of hard work and perseverance – I was offered a publishing contract for my first book! After that, things slowly began to fall into place. I was offered a second book deal. Then, a few months later, I got an interview with The Walt Disney Company and was hired shortly after.

The moral of this story is… don’t give up. Even if things look bleak now, don’t give up. Two years ago I was huddled in my car drinking cold soup right out of the can. Things change.

If you work hard, give it time, and don’t give up, things will always get better. Oftentimes our dreams lie in wait just a little further upstream… all we need is the courage to push beyond the river.

Alex is the author of a new children’s story called “Beyond The River” about a little fish who is looking for answers. Copyright ©2011.

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!

Author unknown

I had not really planned on taking a trip this time of year, and yet I found myself packing rather hurriedly. This trip was going to be unpleasant and I knew in advance that no real good would come of it. This is my annual “Guilt Trip.”

I got tickets to fly there on “WISH-I-HAD” airlines. It was an extremely short flight. I got my “baggage,” which I could not check. I chose to carry it myself all the way. It was loaded down with a thousand memories of “what might have been.”

No one greeted me as I entered the terminal to the Regret City International Airport. I say international because people from all over the world come to this dismal town. As I checked into the “Last Resort” Hotel, I noticed that they would be hosting the year’s most important event — the annual “Pity Party.”

I wasn’t going to miss that great social occasion. Many of the town’s leading citizens would be there. First, there would be the “Done” family: you know, “Should Have,” “Would Have” and “Could Have.” Then came the “I Had” family. You probably know old “Wish” and his clan. Of course, the “Opportunities” family; “Missed and Lost,” would be present. The biggest family there would be the “Yesterday’s.”

There are far too many of them to count, but each one would have a very sad story to share. Of course, “Shattered Dreams” would surely make an appearance. “It’s Their Fault” family would regale us with stories (excuses) about how things had failed in their life. Each story would be loudly applauded by the “Don’t Blame Me” and “I Couldn’t Help It” committee.

To make a long story short, I went to this depressing party, knowing full well there would be no real benefit in doing so. And, as usual, I became very depressed. But as I thought about all of the stories of failures brought back from the past, it occurred to me that this trip and subsequent “pity parties” COULD be canceled by ME!

I started to realize that I did not have to be there. And I didn’t have to be depressed. One thing kept going through my mind, I CAN’T CHANGE YESTERDAY, BUT I DO HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE TODAY A WONDERFUL DAY. I can be happy, joyous, fulfilled, encouraged, as well as being encouraging.

Knowing this, I left Regret City immediately, and didn’t leave a forwarding address. Am I sorry for mistakes I’ve made in the past? YES! But there is no way to undo them. So, if you’re planning a trip back to Regret City, please cancel all those reservations now. Instead, take a trip to a nice place called: “Starting Again.”

I like it so much that I made it my permanent residence. My neighbors, “Been Forgiven” and the “We’re Saved” are so very helpful. By the way, you don’t have to carry around the heavy baggage anymore either. That load is lifted from your shoulders upon arrival. Just thank God for salvation.

If you need directions, just look into your heart, and enter by “Grace Way.” No taxes or other cost. God’s Son paid the price, in full, for all sins and transgressions, a long time ago. Look me up if you’re ready for a total change in your life. I now live on “His Will Way.”

Sincerely, “Born Again.”

© Wake Up With the Wolf Show – 93.1 the Wolf – WPAW.  Please share this with your friends!