Leadership Essays
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Jay EllwangerManaging Partner, DiNovo Price Ellwanger LLPLeadership Austin Affiliation: 2008 Essential Class Member |
"This I Believe"
I believe that no matter where they live, who they worship, how they look, where they studied, what they make, where they work, what they wear, how they vote, who they know or who they don’t know, people are generally good.
I believe that what goes around comes around.
I believe that honesty, loyalty, faith, trust, and friendship get thrown around an awful lot as qualities people say they have, but sometimes have a hard time showing. But those who do possess those qualities more often than not have a smile on their face.
When I was 18 years old I let a homeless guy crash in my dorm room. It’s safe to say that my parents and roommate where unhappy. I had met him in the lunch line while volunteering at Caritas, and for whatever reason we hit it off. He was a musician, new in town, struggling to take the next step. He was quiet, reflective, intelligent, and genuine. He told me his name was Paul Emmanuel, and was very insistent when I called him “Paul” that his name was, in fact, Paul Emmanuel.
I gave him some clothes, and brought him some food. He would play music and we would discuss our beliefs. I helped him look for job openings and drove him to interviews. I let him use my phone to call home, which he said was Baltimore. And then on the third day of his visit, he was gone.
He bought one of those preservative-laden turkey sandwiches you can find at Texaco and put it in my fridge. He left a note to say thank you, and in it he said he wished he could do more.
I called the numbers in Baltimore that appeared on my phone bill the next month, but they were disconnected. I went by the restaurant which he said had hired him, but they supposedly never interviewed anyone fitting his description (he was a six-foot-two African-American man with dreadlocks down to his waist). When I mentioned his name, they said they had never heard of anyone by the name of Paul Emmanuel.
It was only after relaying this story to my parents that I learned for the first time that “Emmanuel” meant “God with us.” And things just made more sense after that, in a lot of ways. But that which made the most sense, and that which I believe, is that we should measure success by how we treat the least fortunate among us—not the most fortunate. Those memories last a lot longer.