Broad shoulders

There were a few times in my youth when Mom would take me to get a Sunday suit. We would take one to the tailor and he would chalk mark the pant leg to get the pants hemmed at the right length.
As he put the suit coat on me to check it, invariably he would turn to Mom and say, “nice broad shoulders, perfect on the coat.”
It was the only time I particularly remember anyone saying I had broad shoulders. I don’t think of myself as physically having broad shoulders. I can’t help but think it might be something a tailor might say just to make you feel better about making the purchase. Is there more than just a cute phrase there.
It seems to me that is a saying that somehow has faded away. Maybe we should regenerate it.
We seem to be more concerned about talent. We’re more concerned about flash than substance. We seem to be more concerned about what is hot right now rather than what will be important five years from now, or twenty years from now.
I’ve had the privilege in my early newspaper career to work with some pretty high powered professionals. The company I worked with regularly recruited Harvard MBAs to work with the company.
The last one I worked with paid me a high compliment. We had a particularly difficult economic environment to work with in the market, a downward spiral if you will, and with his help, we came up with and implemented a new incentive plan and changed the way our sales staff looked at selling. We turned the market around.
I clearly don’t deserve all of the credit, but I was responsible for getting most of it done. I had broad shoulders.
Today when we talk about responsibility, we seem to be more concerned about pointing fingers. “It’s not my fault!”
I’m pretty good at coming up with reasons why I can’t do this or that that is on my honeydew list, at least not right now. Or why I haven’t gotten this report or that report done for the bookkeeper. And don’t even ask me about cleaning off my desk (I’ve been meaning to talk to Lucy about that).
I wonder if we aren’t doing a better job of building excuse builders. “You just weren’t feeling good that day. It’s not your fault that there was an accident. They need to give you a second chance to do it right.”
The high-powered company that I worked for hired psychologists as consultants to help us with hiring. I would meet with them periodically. One of them, and I remember little else about him or the rest, one day told me that there are tons of people with great talent who amount to little. They want to believe that their talent will carry them to great heights in business and achievement.
As the father for two daughters, I have to say I give some thought to what I want in a son-in-law. While I would hope the girls could find a good looking manly man, someone like their humble father, seriously, I hope they find someone with broad shoulders. Someone who can and would take responsibility for providing for my daughter and helping raise a family.
What really counts are people who are willing to work hard. Those who are willing to put their shoulder to the plow day in and day out are the ones who truly achieve in this world.
Bill Gates may have been in the right place at the right time, but he got to the top with some massive dedication. Steve Jobs has had massive success at Apple and elsewhere, but he had the dedication to work through some difficult missteps along the way.
We like to say work smarter, not harder, and there are times that some analysis can help us see a better way, but there are few things in life achieved that don’t require someone to take responsibility to do some hard, dedicated work along the way. And aren’t those successes the things we relish.
Besides, it’s more fun to take responsibility for successes, even if no one else knows it, than to make excuses for failures. And even if it doesn’t turn out right, if you’ve worked hard with dedication along the way, few will fault you for failure.
Have you got broad shoulders?