RALPH THOMPSON
Ralph Thompson was born on Friday, June 27, 1947, to Elmer and Isabel Thompson of Beersheba Springs, Tennessee. His dad was a logger turned construction worker, who also farmed on the side. Known for his work ethic, Elmer would travel as far north as Detroit in pursuit of construction work when the local economy faltered in the 1950s.7 Ralph’s mother, Isabel Scruggs, was a schoolteacher. Among her first teaching assignments was an elementary school that met in a one-room, log cabin schoolhouse in nearby Savage Gulf, Tennessee. In the cooler months, the students would walk to school early in the morning to gather wood and start the fire, so by the time their teacher arrived, the room was already warm. She taught throughout the 1930s in the nearby community of Tarlton, which is located just north of Beersheba.8
Among the more notable members of Ralph’s family was his great-great paternal grandfather, Thomas “Tommy” Thompson. Tommy was born in Louisiana in 1808 but relocated to the hills of Eastern Tennessee in his early 20s. Renowned for his hunting ability, the outdoorsman helped keep numerous families in the area fed. According to the stories passed down:
Tommy went to Big Bear Cave and reach inside to get a feel for the hibernating bear’s position. When he found the right spot, he stuck the bear with his knife, dragged him out and dressed him for the meat and fur. After a bountiful supply of meats were gathered, Tommy came down to a bluff near his home in Tarlton and raised the white flag yelling, “Meat aplenty, meat aplenty!” Folks from all over saddled up their mules and horses and headed for “Tommy’s Outdoor Meat Market.” Deer, turkey, rabbit, squirrel—whatever your taste buds wanted and your wallet could afford, Tommy had it.9
It was in 1833 that Mrs. Beersheba Porter Cain, the wife of a McMinnville doctor, discovered the springs that made her the town’s namesake. Located at an altitude of 2,000 feet, the town, which was incorporated in 1839, was a bit cooler in the summer months than the surrounding communities. As a result, Beersheba Springs became the preferred resting place for stagecoaches and travelers making the trek from Chattanooga to McMinnville.
To accommodate the guests, George Smartt and Dr. Alfred Paine of McMinnville built a few log cabins and a tavern. In 1854, John Armfield acquired the property. The former slave trader and financier used a blend of slaves and white construction workers to upgrade and enlarge the resort over the next two years. The popularity of the resort was short lived, however, due to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. During the war, the resort was subject to numerous raids by both the Union army and area Bushwhackers. Following the war, the resort would never regain its former prominence.10
Ralph attended Panhandle, Beersheba, and Altamont Elementary Schools. By the time he graduated from Grundy County High School in 1965, he had grown to be the tallest student in his class. Following graduation, he moved north about 65 miles to the much larger community of Cookeville, where he enrolled at Tennessee Technological University, which is referred to by most as Tennessee Tech. He graduated four years later in 1969 with a degree in Industrial Engineering.
On Saturday, September 12, 1970, Ralph married Susan Simpson of McMinnville. In time, the couple was blessed with a daughter and a son. Their firstborn, Jennifer, followed in her grandmother’s footsteps and became an educator. Their son Jeremy also chose to attend Tennessee Tech and is employed by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as a mechanical engineer.
Ralph would often express gratitude for the chance to work as the plant manager at Alcoa Aluminum (Ingot Plant—Tennessee Operations), as a project engineer for Union Carbide Nuclear at Oak Ridge, and as project manager over various areas for the TVA. He never took for granted the opportunity to have access to steady work.
Grundy County’s unofficial poet laureate was Leonard Tate, who was born in Beersheba in 1912 and was laid to rest in the same town in 1989. Considering Tate’s life overlapped Ralph’s, he provides valuable insight into what it meant to be from the area during Ralph’s most formative years. In a description of the people of Gundy County, Tate once wrote:
We are mountain people.
We are a boorish set, they tell us-
Hard-bitten, coarse of feature and speech,
Shallow and brawling as the mountain streams,
With morale friable as our sandstone.
All my life I have wanted to tell them:
That we are mountain people,
That mountain streams have pools of deep quietness,
And that beneath the sandstone of our hills
There is granite.11
COACH
My friendship with Ralph began in the summer of 1999 when he invited me to lunch. I jumped into his SUV, and we drove down the street to an aging Chinese food restaurant. At the time, I did not realize it was going to be a place where we would eat often over the next few years. Once we got comfortable in our booth, we began talking about life. It was early in the conversation that he told me that he had retired from TVA four years earlier due to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). His type of ALS was extremely rare; there are only five families in the world known to have the specific genetic mutation.12 He told me the doctors had estimated he had five years or less to live. It was his intention to make as many memories with his loved ones as possible while being positive and embracing life.
Ralph had a background in law enforcement, and one of his roles at TVA had been Manager of Personnel Security. Before asking me a challenging question, he liked to tell me that he had been trained to detect when someone was not telling the truth. Smiling, the interrogation would begin. He would start with something like, “So…Nathan…tell me about who you want to be.”
As our friendship deepened, I am not sure why, but I started calling him “Coach.” Due to my family history, I regard this title as among the highest compliments I could bestow. In fact, as an adult, he is the only person that I have ever called Coach.
TALK LIKE A REAL PERSON
At that time, I had an interest in leadership but did not know it would end up being my career. Ironically, Ralph was in the first leadership class I ever taught. The class was designed for a group of about 40 volunteer leaders. The one-hour class met once a week over the course of three months. I was either 26 or 27 years old at the time, and many in the group were decades older than me. Considering I did not have a great deal of life experience, I was nervous and insecure about teaching. To help establish credibility, I spent a lot of time preparing and researching. I wanted to make sure that I had good sources to underscore each point I would be making. As a result, every time I introduced a key concept, I would say something like, “According to the research of…” or “The following is based upon the insights of…” Following the first class, Ralph suggested we get together for lunch.
We sat down at our restaurant and Ralph asked, “So…How do you think the class is going?” I told him that I thought it was going well, but based on his facial expressions, I sensed he did not agree. He listened and then asked another question. He said, “Why do you keep referencing all of your sources?” I told him my rationale, and he said, “It is not having the effect you are wanting. We don’t care about the sources. They are in the handout.” He paused for a moment and said, “You sound like an academic. Just talk like a real person.”
Ralph was not anti-intellectual. If I had been presenting in an academic environment, he would have given me different counsel. His actual concern was that he sensed that I either lacked the self-confidence needed to have my own opinion or I was misreading the audience. He felt the approach that I was taking would work in an academic context, but it was not connecting in what he considered a “real world” environment. He had longstanding and deep relationships with several people in the people in the class, and he assured me that I was missing the mark. The conversation was a breakthrough day for me. I knew him well enough to know his motive. Ralph loved me and wanted me to succeed. He felt it was his responsibility
to tell me what I was doing was not working. For him, it was a matter of loyalty. He felt loyalty often required telling people you care about something that they would rather not hear and you would rather not tell them, but your love for them demands it. You do not let people you care about walk into oncoming traffic if you can stop them from doing so.
My relationship with Ralph was not always easy. His form of “encouragement” often included uninvited assessments of my life or work. In addition, his version of a “good discussion” could look and feel a lot like a good old-fashioned disagreement. He was not above claiming both sides of an argument and then claiming victory.
Just in case you wondered, getting into a dispute with someone from Grundy County is not a good idea. Although it may be true that many “Mountain People” have not historically had access to formal education, this does not mean they lack intelligence. These “Mountain People” are the same people who consciously chose not to retreat to the relative safety of the cities when it would have been easy to do so. They had the strength of body and mind to carve out a life for themselves and their families in the wilderness that others considered too difficult to tame.
When arguments got heated, Ralph would sometimes break into a smile, and for years, I could not understand why. With the passing of time, I think I now know. Ralph was not as concerned that we were in agreement as much as he was concerned that I was learning to think for myself. He was pushing me from a single loop to a double loop learning mindset. It is a gift that I will value for the rest of my life.
Coach passed away on Friday, February 10, 2017. It had been nearly 18 years since our first discussion, when he told me he thought he had five years left. In addition to the advances being made in healthcare and the quality of care provided to him by Susan and healthcare professionals, I believe he also lived longer because of his mindset. He told me that he was determined to hold on as long as possible because the doctors were using his case to better understand how to fight the hereditary disease. It was his hope that by working closely with the researchers, they might find a breakthrough that could benefit future generations.
As I was writing this book, I often heard Ralph’s voice in my head. I found it helpful to imagine we were going to our Chinese restaurant to meet and talk about the book. If he had read it, I think he would have said, “It was good. I liked it.” After a few seconds, he would have then said, “The only thing I thought you could do better was the conclusion. You should have summarized some of the key points. Through the book, you took the readers on several journeys, told us good things and asked insightful questions, but you never told us what we are supposed to do with all of it.” I would have countered, “That’s the point. I didn’t want to tell people what to do, I wanted them to make their own choices.” He would have then replied, “It’s not about what you want. People want to know how they are supposed to apply this to real life, and you need to give them what they want.”
I miss Coach. I loved him very much. He was one-of-a-kind, and I am grateful for my time with him. In honor of him and in recognition of the investment he made in my life, I have attempted to summarize three key concepts shared in the book with the goal of practical application. If Ralph and I were having lunch together, this list would have been written on a napkin or on the back of a receipt. My intent is not to tell you what to do but to provide a practical example or two that might help prompt you to take action.
YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN CHANGE YOUR MENTAL MODELEveryone has a unique mental model. It may be similar to others, but it is not the same. From a broad perspective, it is the lens through which we process the world and the process by which we create mental representations of it. Our mental model, or worldview, helps us identify our place in the world and provides a context through which we experience life.
Mental models are shaped by genetics, access to nutrition and health care, and our life experiences. From the first moments of life, we instinctively begin grasping for understanding. With amazing speed, our mental model and our neural network takes form. In the early years of infancy and childhood, those within our social circles influence our mental model profoundly.
Our mental model is not fixed, but as we mature, our perspectives tend to become increasingly durable. Because the brain seeks to use the least amount of energy possible, once a mental model is adopted, it tends to be the filter we use until there is a compelling reason to change course. This approach to life is usually helpful, as it allows us to function in a world in which we do not have all the information needed. Our mental model allows us to “fill in the gaps” and make decisions accordingly. It helps us decide if we should stop at the dimly lit gas station on the side of the road or keep going. It helps us choose if we should greet a stranger on an elevator or keep to ourselves. It helps us determine where we should sit in class, which jobs we should pursue, and whether or not we should speak up in a company meeting.
In my dad’s story, from an early age, he believed he was dumb. This mental model was impacted significantly by an undiagnosed learning disability (dyslexia), which was exacerbated by instability at home. Whatever the reason, he adopted a perspective that he believed was accurate and began to see the world through this lens. Every time he struggled to grasp a concept, misspelled a word, or could not recall something he had studied, he considered it to be proof that his perspective was accurate.
Like a cancer growing unchecked, his negative mental model grew throughout his childhood. It was first confronted in the sixth grade when Mr. Casto, someone he considered an authority figure, challenged it. When Mr. Casto asked my dad to teach Daniel how to read, the request did not compute. Mr. Casto believed my dad could teach Daniel to read. My dad did not. It was a collision of mental models. From my father’s perspective, the role of teacher was designated for “smart people.” Considering he was not part of that group, he concluded the request must have been a mistake. He dismissed it. To my dad, what Mr. Casto was asking was not possible, because he did not believe he was capable. Whether he was actually capable or not was not really the issue. In that moment, Mr. Casto, whether he knew it or not, had challenged my father’s mental model and identity and, in so doing, changed the course of his life.
I would like to think that my father stopped believing he was dumb, but at that moment, I do not think this was the case. His breakthrough was that he concluded he did not have to be the smartest person to make a difference. In short, he concluded that he had enough intellectual capacity to get the job done. On an intellectual level, he has come to understand that one can be bright while also being impacted by learning disabilities that make some aspects of life more challenging. Interestingly, I believe he has gained a sense of quiet confidence by recognizing that some of his achievements, like earning a college degree, are made all the more meaningful because of the added level of difficulty he had to overcome to realize his goals.
At any point in your life, your mental model can be changed. The way you think is not fixed or concrete. Changing your mind, literally changing how your brain processes information, is possible because of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is an umbrella term that describes the process by which the brain is organized, both functionally and physically. Throughout life, when we successfully learn to perform an action, a pattern emerges. This pattern becomes the brain’s preferred pathway or a habit. To help conserve energy, the brain uses the path of least resistance and will continue to use the preferred pathway unless there is a reason to do otherwise. At any point in life, it is possible to change or alter the preferred pathway, but it requires deliberate, focused, and repeated effort.
A negative person can learn to see the world from a positive perspective, but it will require purposefully and intentionally looking for the positive. An impatient person can learn to be patient, but it will require disciplined effort. The secret service agents who were assigned to Ronald Reagan’s detail are examples of people who were committed to remapping their brains. Du
ring the assassination attempt on Reagan’s life, the agents went into action as soon as the threat emerged. Considering the attack tool less than two seconds, their response was nearly instantaneous. Through their extensive training, they had learned to think and act differently than would normally be expected. When the agents who were closest to the president were interviewed about their reaction times, they stated their actions were a reflection of their training and did not require conscious thought. If an agent can learn to deny their most basic self-preservation instincts, it gives helpful insight into the flexibility of a willing mind to learn to think and act differently.
The first step toward changing your mental model is ownership. You are literally the only one who can do it. It cannot be assigned to someone else. You cannot hide behind the notion “That’s just the way I am.” Your perspective, your mental model, can be changed, but only if you are willing to make the change.
When Mo Anderson said to the group, “My 70s have been my best decade, and I cannot imagine what is going to happen in my 80s,” she was demonstrating an internal locus of control and ownership of her mental model. She was connecting her age to positive outcomes. She was choosing to be positive.
When Eric Baird decided he was “not going to waste this” when referring to his terminal diagnosis, he was demonstrating ownership of his mental model. His decision to view his cancer as a key to opening doors of opportunity was intentional. He knew exactly what he was doing, and in so doing, even at the end of his life, he was living a life of meaning. He was choosing to live a life of meaning by connecting his suffering with a deeper purpose.
When Adam placed his little hand under the bathtub faucet and found the water did not burn, he was remapping his brain. The choice to place him in scalding hot water had been made by someone else, but the choice to crawl up into my mother’s lap was his alone. His choice to surrender from a life of rage and to be held in my mother’s arms was among the earliest and most important decisions he would ever make. His choice to surrender was his path to liberation. In that moment, he was pushing back against a mental model in which “mom” was the cause of pain and was exchanging it with the idea that “mom” could be the source of comfort.
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