I had never done a radio commercial, but I was in a recording studio about to record five. I did the first one and the recording engineer, Don Costello, signalled me to keep going and didn’t say a word until all five were recorded. Then he said, “Let’s do the first one over again, Lyman.” He played it for me and I sounded awful. I asked him why he didn’t have me redo it right away. He answered, “Had I done that we’d probably be re-doing all five of them now, not just one.”
Slim was the crankiest, most ill-tempered, fault-finding person I’ve ever encountered. Yet every morning when my colleague Frank arrived for work he always went over to Slim’s desk and chatted with him for a couple of minutes. One day I asked Frank if he was trying to cheer up Slim. Frank replied, “Hell, no! No one could ever cheer up Slim. I just like to start the day listening to him whine and complain for a bit because after that I know that my day will be more enjoyable.”
My formal schooling ended at Grade X, so I was a provisional student in the course leading to the Chartered Accountant designation, which at that time required students to have at least a high school diploma. The provision was that if I failed even one exam I was out, whereas other students could fail three times before losing their chance to become a C.A. Walking into the room to write my first exam, I was fearful of failing. Then I remembered reading about U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s comment in his first inaugural address when he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” So I reconsidered my situation. Did I know enough to pass the exam? Very likely. Was there anyone trying to prevent me from passing? Definitely not. Was I writing the same exam as everybody else? Yes. So there really was nothing to fear but fear itself. I not only passed the exams, but won a prize for the highest marks in the four Atlantic provinces.
There were six of us at an early morning meeting when Bob fell asleep. A colleague and I went down to the street and stopped about a dozen people before we found five perfect strangers who were willing to go along with our planned practical joke. They came up to the office and sat around the table with Bob while the rest of us watched from the anteroom. After a couple of minutes one of the strangers cleared his throat loud enough to wake up Bob. Another said, “O.K. Bob, we’ll do it your way, but you’ll have to deal with the consequences if it doesn’t work out.” The five strangers then got up and left. Bob sat there for about five minutes before returning to his office. He never mentioned the incident to any of us.