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Janet Pilcher: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I’m Janet Pilcher, the host of Accelerate Your Performance podcast, where we focus on hardwiring excellence in education to create great places to work, learn, and succeed.

Last week, I talked about expressing gratitude by focusing on those things we can control, even when there are external factors influencing our day-to-day environment that are tough to work through. And today, I continue with what we can focus on during this week of Thanksgiving.

In Pensacola, members of one of our local churches have placed signs in their front yards, and that sign reads: Be Kind. Be Kind.

When I see one of those signs, it brings a smile to my face, and it grounds me in that moment. This church happens to be where my parents attend. When I see the signs, it also reminds me of them. What they taught me throughout my growing years as a child and youth, kindness was such an important part of our existence as a family. They are some of the kindest people I know. They taught me and modeled how to be kind. And they expected me to align my behaviors to high standards, and yes, there were consequences when I got off track. But there was so much love that always was there at the forefront of our everyday moments. I’m grateful and fortunate to have such gracious and kind parents. I’m also lucky that they are still on earth with me and that we are living in the same town and I get to see them and enjoy them.

Binet and Passmore define kindness as a genuine and sincere way of giving your time and intention to someone else through compassion, time, generosity, and care for the betterment of helping others. People show kindness to others by giving of themselves to others or a cause, encouraging others, respecting others, or being there when someone needs us.

You know, this reminds me of a memory I have from third grade. I had a teacher, her name was Miss Butler, and I remember I was sitting in class and there happened to be an empty desk by me that day, and Miss Butler announced that we were going to have a new student. I was thinking, “Well, that’s probably going to be the desk for the new student.” So I was a little excited about what the day would bring.

And as the day moved forward, Miss Butler went to the door and brought the new student into the room. And it was someone who, a young child who was in need of a lot of assistance. He was someone who could have easily been made fun of based on what he wore, his looks, the way he interacted.

And at that moment, my first instinct as a child was, “Oh, no, no, no, no.” And yes, Miss Butler brought Henry over and sat him in the desk by me. She then gently took my hand and pulled me to her desk in the back corner of the room and told me that she had put Henry by me, sitting by me, because she knew that I could be the one who could be kind to Henry, help him in class and help him get adjusted in ways that he would need to be successful.  Of course, those are my words now. And she did it in such a great way as me as a third grader. And so I took that on as a great challenge and really began to work with Henry and introduce him to our class and to be kind to him.

Well, the next thing I knew, Henry was taking his little fingers and doing this little bug walk or crosswalk across my desk and trying to go into putting them there on my desk and keep putting his fingers through my desk. And I looked at him and I remember saying, “Okay, Henry, that’s far enough.” But my point is that she had faith and trust in me as a young child. And that was because of what my parents had modeled and taught me.

It’s all about being kind and one person’s influence on another can be a difference maker. My parents would say to me quite often with their teaching, “Mind your manners,” when we would walk into a room.

As we live this week of Thanksgiving, let’s mind our manners by living these following actions. Say “please,” say “thank you,” wait our turn, say “excuse me,” greet others when they greet you, don’t call people names, be nice to people, don’t hurt them, don’t make fun of people, hold the door for others and offer to help people when they are struggling.

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I wish you the joy of kindness during this Thanksgiving season and week. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.