Need A Lift?
The Kindness Of Strangers
I was sitting at an office a while ago waiting for a client with some colleagues. The client was an hour late so we were forced to slow down and talk. Turns out Kenin Spivak, one of the meeting attendees started talking about his business trip to Saudi Arabia. "A worker with a big truck and a bunch of cargo needed help on the side of the road," he told me. "I told my driver to stop to help the guy get his vehicle started with cables. It was a pretty sketchy Arabic outpost," Kenen said. So Kenin, an American businessman from L.A. and New York got out of the car and helped the guy move some stuff and helped him reboot the truck. "He was a guy in need so I wanted to help him out. I wasn't going to let a bunch of scare tactics that some people don't like Americans in the neighborhood stop me from helping." He has worked with Ambassadors and various diplomats carving an impressive cross cultural career but the bottom line, as Kenin said, "When the man shouted, Thank you! I love America, my job was done." Any of us can be ambassadors one person at a time by helping people out, doing the right thing person to person. Tourism and random acts of kindness are the best tools for building bridges.
