Do you want to create your own podcast? If you haven't heard about anchor it's the easiest way to make a podcast. Let me explain. First of all, it's free. It also has creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. Anchor will then distribute or podcast for you. So it can be heard on Spotify app the podcast and many more platforms. It's everything you need to make a podcast in one place. So what you waiting for?Download the free anchor app or go to Anchor the FM to get started. Welcome to episode 2 of sharing life lessons. I am your host meter and I want to bring you stories stories Inspire story Stitch and stories heal. I am very happy to introduce today's guests. He had served as a teacher coach Don supervisor college counselor and admission director between 1985 and 1996 at the Petit school and Elite New Jersey school. He was then appointed the 16th head of school in 2013 immediately prior to his return to Petty. He was the Headmaster of Wakefield School in Virginia for 17 years. Let's welcome Peter Quinn. Peter thank you very much for being on the show. I am honored we've known each other for a couple of years and one thing amongst many that I admire you for is for the way you're able to connect with your audience when you address them and I'm sure our listeners will agree with me after they've heard your story. But before that your father and your grandfather will both headmaster's in fact your grandfather became a Headmaster in 1929. That's a very long night. Two year three generational tradition in your family. When did you actually know that you wanted to follow your father and grandfather's footsteps and also become a Headmaster of a school. I think the moment at which I wanted to be decided. I want to be head of a school was when it seemed to me that I had an interest in a propensity for solving practical problems outside of the classroom. That would nevertheless help people in the classroom do their job better and you have successfully been a Headmaster. For over two decades. So Peter tell us your story and the life lessons that you have learned from it the life lesson. I want to share comes out of my summer employment experience during college my father thought like the lot of like the fathers of a lot of my classmates that their sons had probably grown up in sheltered circumstances and needed to understand that the real world was different from the one in which they grown up. So my father decided that I would work for the Kansas City Southern Railroad. This is once we had moved from Philadelphia and he found me a job as a track laborer during the Summers that I was in college and I think what he wanted for this was to understand the different perspective of people who earn their living with their backs, I would understand the value of truly difficult labor and not sure the third lesson was on his mind, but that will become clear as I tell the story. The railroad was the Kansas City Southern Railroad, which at that point. This is in the mid-70s operated between the coal fields in Montana and New Orleans and had the railroad had just earned a lucrative contact with coal mining companies to bring the coal from the coal fields of Montana down to New Orleans and that brought it through Kansas City and Missouri the southern parts of Missouri. I was assigned to attract labor unit. Which operated Between Kansas City and Pittsburg Kansas out in the middle of farm country and our job during the Summers was to replace the ties that were holding the rails together on the road bed. And so we would go through a process in which we removed the old ties took up the old anchors took out the tie perdon in the new tie and then spiked it down anchored it and align the rails and this is the summer, it's Ken. This and Missouri it's extremely hot. And so we were there were six of us on that crew 6 college guys along with 15 native New Orlean guys who were bigger than houses and we were pretty sure could have been the railroad rails by themselves. So we were intimidated from the beginning these guys knew what hard work was their English was broken. Their education was weak, but their ability to work and their focus And their genuine commitment to doing their job hard, but also living a fairly hard life was probably the most Illuminating part of working with them for four Summers. The overarching lesson of my experience in those Summers was the value of education, but that was made up of interim lessons. And the first of that was the value of hard work. I thought I knew what hard was I worked on my homework. I mowed the lawn. I raked leaves but replacing Railroad. Ties and dealing with the difficulties of railroad engineering during the months of June July and August in four successive Summers gave to me a whole new glimpse of what hard physical labor was. There was no forgiveness. There was no coaching up to it. You were expected to do the job the first time the right way and we were aware that when we didn't do the job right hundreds of millions of dollars of railroad income was hurtling down. The rail towards us at Breakneck. Speed and the last thing we wanted to do was delay it or even worse caused the derailment and at that time Kansas City Southern was dealing with a series of bad derailments and they were trying to spend much more money on their track maintenance which was why we were there in the first place. So the value of hard work not just as something that was important you could persevere through and complete which was the lesson I'd already learned. I've been taught that I had to finish things that were hard, but the importance Of manual labor to a bigger picture was probably new to me the idea that whether or not we connected these ties correctly whether or not we finish the ballast and the roadbed correctly whether or not we're ready to get up at 2:30 in the morning and deal with a washout Where the River had taken road but away these were fundamental things involving the well-being of the entire railroad all the people whose incomes dependent on it. The delivery of goods that were very time-critical all of these things gave hard work. A new importance in my mind that it hadn't had before previous to this hard work for me was hard academic work hard intellectual work mastering an idea those things I understood and application to my college preparation and probably to the profession that I would choose but the idea that something which didn't take much of an education would be so fundamentally important in the delivery of something. like the goods that were coming down the railroad was something that ennobled in some ways the virtue of hard work done very reliably under pressure by people who The regular World probably didn't do much about. Peter I heard you say that your father compelled you to take up a job at the railroad because he thought you were living a sheltered life and he really wanted you to see what else is out there besides your friend and shelter neighborhood and as much as that is not a lesson that you have learned from your story. It still touches the topic of parenting and I want to urge all listeners who are parents to contemplate our our children leading sheltered lives. Do we allow our kids to freedom to learn reality to fight and fail and find their own way through life. I will leave it at that for this episode and we will have a separate episode on the topic of parenting returning to your first lesson of hard work Peter. How are you applying this lesson today in your role as Headmaster of a school? Nowadays in this position and when I remember advising students the lessons of hard work comes back, of course in a different format. No one around this school is laying railroad tracks and changing ties, but every student at some point and usually a couple of times during the year ends up in a class or in an activity or committed to something that is not the highest pleasure for them. They are in this class. which they have to take its requirement, but they'd rather be spending more time thinking of history or they're in science Ed rather be spending more time thinking of literature or they're playing a certain Sport and they really would like play different sport but there's not that opportunity and I think the importance of my life lesson is that I can talk to them and remind them that what they're learning by committing hard work and first-rate effort to something which they don't see it as a long-term future which wasn't their first choice but to which they have nevertheless given their name and this event is that they need to be as good as they can be at whatever task they're taking on even if the result will not be the winning goal in the game or the best test in the class or a change of heart. They might want to major in this thing. I suggest an incursion to work as hard as they could it's they can and be as absorbent to the learning in class in subjects, which they're quite convinced. They'll never study again as they are in classes, which they're quite convinced. They're going to be real. Their lives because the discipline and the commitment and ability to prove that you can do things that it first you thought you might not be able to do or that things many things are worth doing that at first you thought might not be worth doing so I didn't go into the railroad job thinking it was really important that I be able to spike a rail down very quickly, but over the course of the summer if I was going to contribute to doing what this team needed done. Well, it became pretty clear to me. I'm needed. To get better at speaking rails. Do I spiked rails now know it's been 40 years since I spiked to real. I hope never to do it again and everyday in the railroad. I wished I were on a beach doing something else, but that wasn't what I was set up to do those Summers and I think the lesson of hard work applies in every situation and it it made me I think a better servant of my own development and a better servant to the students. I was going to teach Each that no one let me back away from being good at those things, which I really didn't see the need to be very good at in those Summers. Another lesson, I learned those Summers was the rich. Diversity of people who live who were born in this country and just in live in different sections. So as I said earlier, we had about 15 or 16 full-time employees. These are real railroad folks who live generally down in New Orleans and in the summer they came up and they lived on trailers that the railroad hauled up from New Orleans. And these were guys who were no women. They were all as I said, I was about the smallest person there. They were all incredibly Hardened by labor. They lived a hard life. So the most common Pursuit every two Fridays. We are paid every other Friday was that they would gamble their weekly salary or way or at least such part of it as their families allowed them to keep because I know that a bunch of them were sending part of their salaries home, but every Monday morning we'd hear about the poker games are going on Friday night. We'd hear about the misbehavior. We just we occasionally hear about fights that broke out. Out and these guys had to get along on Monday morning. So to work with people who treated each other as roughly as these guys treated each other and you could come back and focus and get along was a friction was an opportunity to observe friction. I had never seen before I had seen as a teenager you it's a hard life to go through because you have to learn how to disagree without with people and yet not become their enemies. So to see these men Very neatly disagree with each other who went to blows over a card game at one point. We heard about shot pistols being pulled on each other over allegations of cheating one guy was out for three or four days with a broken jaw and came back with a jaw wired to say hi to us, but was then gone for a couple of weeks. This was difference in perspectives. I had not experienced before but it wasn't the violence. I remembered it was their ability to leave those things. Things and come back and treat each other fairly. Well during the week. This is such an important lesson fast forward to 2020. There is no doubt that as the world rapidly globalizes diversity is becoming increasingly present across all aspects of our lives and just as the railroad men did what they needed to do as in their times. I that is they forgot all of their differences and came together on a Monday morning and work. Together as a team for the rest of the week to avoid any railroad catastrophes we need to do what is required of us in our time at this time Society is Rich with diversity. It's rich with diversity of ideas diversity of perspectives diversity of opinions, and we need to rain this diversity in and give each of these differences a seat at the table just as Telly Whitney. So rightfully said diversity drives innovation. When we limit who can contribute we intern limit what problems we can solve. Peter your story is getting more interesting by the lesson. Let's hear your lesson number three. The third lesson is of the importance of education for anybody who wants it and that's the last lesson I learned from my summers in the railroad and I learned it on the last day of my employment on the railroad. It was a custom on the last day of your summer, too. To that you'd be the one who'd buy the beer on the last Friday and we go back to the garage where all this equipment was kept and there was a 7-Eleven down the street. This was an Independence Missouri and you'd have to go down to the 7-Eleven and get the beer and bring it back and you weren't expecting to buy a lot of beer but enough for everybody to have one or two and this was not only my last day of the summer but it was my last summer on the job and everybody knew that by now and they also I knew that I was going to be a teacher because over lunch we talked about things and I was the only person there who was going to be a teacher of the other five summer help. They were all more one was going to medical school. The other four were going to be Financial Services. I think so we they came it was a not too hot today, but hot enough for beer and I had Gone down and gotten stuff from several and we came back and we're sitting around and the assistant Foreman one of the few white guys on the crew other than the summer help was about six foot four and about 320 pounds and a formidable guy and he had a couple beers and we were saying goodbye and he said so you're and I won't imitate his accent. It was a Southern accent. He said so you're going to be a teacher and said yeah I said, What grades are you going to teach? And I said well, my job is going to be fifth grade. I'm going to teach English to fifth graders at teaching English. Does that mean reading and writing I said, yes. He said spelling said yes, he said and he said well, let me tell you the most important thing you need to know and I smiled and he had a dry sense of humor, but It became pretty clear in a couple of seconds that this was really important to him. This wasn't going to be a joke. First name is Lonnie and I said, well you tell me what the most important thing is. Lonnie said Pete. I'm not joshing said, okay, and I'm listening. He said when I was in fifth grade. And I get teary thing about when I was in fifth grade. I want to learn how to spell. And I wished that someone would teach me how to spell But the teacher didn't think my folk were worth teaching. So I never learned how to spell and believe me. I wanted nothing more than to learn how to spell when I was in fifth grade. And it's why I never went on past fifth grade. So when you go to your school in Virginia and you teach those kids you make sure them you teach them that wants to beat each test is that I know I didn't say that right and maybe I would have if I learned how to spell on the fifth grade. But he took me by the shoulder and he said you just got to make sure. That no one who wants to beat each test in your class doesn't get taught. Now I've told parts of this story in other settings and for five years ago. I used the story of Lenny giving me my inspirational orders at commencement because I wanted to ground the students to graduate the petty school who are a fairly rarefied bunch and looking back on my career. I had not been inspired as deeply by my professors in college or my professors and graduate school to that kind of work as I was that afternoon. In on the railroad, I'd been inspired to love literature. I'd been inspired to work hard to understand what we were studying. I've been inspired in many ways by these fabulous professors, but I had never been inspired in exactly the same way as I was that afternoon by Lenny and so the lesson I wanted to offer to the graduates of soon to be graduates of petty was that they had them not to look for opportunities to make a difference. In their communities by working with the people who? Certainly are qualified and educated. I'm not saying you should choose one or the other. It's always a pleasure to work with someone who's as committed to your field as you are, but you can't Overlook the people who may not have had the same opportunities who may not have made the same choices, but are nevertheless have the same goodness of heart and the same willingness to help and can benefit from being a partner with you because they're going to bring strengths and skills to the experience that you don't have and they're going to benefit. From strengths and experiences that you do have and the opportunity for high school kids at least the ones I was talking to and lots of others is to go out in the world and be that kind of entrepreneurial citizen who looks for opportunities to make things better who judges his or her success from how much they can contribute to each community and it looks for partners in those contributions that may have very different backgrounds than their own. Thank you very much Peter for that touching story straight from the heart. And the reason why we know it straight from the heart is because even after so many years when you're talking about it, if you get teared up, it must have had a very big impact on your life. And as you said that Lenny was able to teach you what no professor in your four years in college could have taught you and the reason why I bring that up is because I am grateful grateful to you. Even more now because you've strengthened my case for sharing life lessons what we are learning here from each other maybe beyond what any formal education could teach us? I sincerely hope that we as a group and with that, I mean you was listeners in me as host together take to action what we've actually heard from Peter today. We may come across those who may not have had the same opportunities that we did. But have the desire and the determination to be with us to learn from us to teach us to work with us and also to study with us in schools and colleges and I hope we reach out to them and be altogether teach them that wants to beat each test. If you have enjoyed this episode, then please rate review And subscribe and follow and if you have any comments, then please write to me at sharing life lessons 101 at gmail.com all For those who want to share their own life lessons and stories, please write to me at the same email address. I will bring you another episode of sharing life lessons next Wednesday till then be happy and be well.
This is the second episode of 'Sharing Life Lessons'. A podcast that brings you stories from around the world because stories inspire, stories teach and stories heal! I want to thank those who took time to send me comments with words of love, encouragement and feedback. I am thankful for having you on my team. Today's guest is a person to whom story telling comes naturally, He was appointed the 16th head of Peddie School in 2013. His appointment was a homecoming to Peddie, an elite private school in NJ, where he had served as a teacher, coach, dorm supervisor, college counselor, and admission director between 1985 and 1996. Let's listen to Peter Quinn share his life lessons. Peter takes us nearly 40 years back to his college summers when his father required that he work at the rail roads to 'tough it out' and face reality and life in a less sheltered manner. His interactions with the men working there, many with no education, makes for an interesting topic to discuss. Peter learnt the importance of education, hard work, diversity and the toughest lesson that no college professor could teach him in the four years of college: "Teach them that wants to be teached" The railroad foreman who said these words to Peter said 'I know I am not saying it right, but if my 5th grade teacher had taught me to spell, read and write - I would have said it right". For those who have enjoyed listening to this episode, send comments, rate, and subscribe. Also, if you wish to pay it forward by sharing your life lessons with others on this show then please write to me at sharinglifelessons101@gmail.com To get to know the host and to understand why and how 'Sharing Life lessons' was envisioned and created, please listen to Episode 000. I will return with more stories and life lessons every Wednesday. In the meantime 'Be happy and be well'. ---   This episode is sponsored by  · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. 