SYEP in the 209

When I started my new position at Kaiser Permanente as Senior Unit-Based Team consultant a year ago, I stood (both literally and figuratively) before a large group of labor and management team leaders and promised them that my performance in my new role would be a tribute to my father, James A. Gamble, Jr., for all that he taught me and so that his legacy would live on through the lives I touched...

Yesterday, as we ended an 8-week student intern project known as the Summer Youth Employment Program, I found myself experiencing the proudest moment of my professional career:  20 extraordinary young people that I had the privilege of mentoring completed their UBT project work and presented it for KP leadership... and during the program, they had also completed many of the incidents and issues from their past, ending -- for many -- years of drama and regret that could have kept a stranglehold on the possibilities of their futures...

I watched as some of Dad's "Jim-isms" became "Jeff-isms," like:  "Don't carry a lazy man's load;" "How do you eat a mountain?  (One bite at a time);" and "If you ever need anything, just look stupid.  Someone will come help you." 

Along the way, I added a few of my own:

• A good idea will die of loneliness if you don't share it.
• Give up asking, "What's wrong?"  It makes it too easy to blame someone else.  Instead, ask "What's missing?"
• "Hope" is not a business strategy.  Kill hope.
• If there's no action, it's just a wish.
• Always give 100%... unless you're giving blood.
• Sometimes you have to burn a bridge so that the crazy people don't follow you.

and

• Don't sweat the petty things.  Pet the sweaty things.  :)

I watched as 20 new young professionals began to make their mark on the world, so full of promise and possibility, and I contemplated all the lives they would influence in the days and years ahead.  And like that old shampoo commercial ("... and they told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on...") -- or most recently, that cell phone add ("... infinity TIMES infinity..."), mind blown.

I never really understood the church-taught concept that God was everywhere, not until Dad died.  But now I get it, and I see both Him and his argumentative angel known as James Arthur Gamble, Jr., everywhere I look.

Thank you, Taylor, Tayla, Alfredo, Michaela, Juliza, Sarah L., Ian, Giovanna, Cambria, Cassie, Johanna, Lizzy Sarah, Shanan, Gurprince, Roman, Sara, Marissa, Esteban, Nate, and Sothary -- the SYEP of 2013.  Your blessings have only just begun, and I am humbled to have played a small part in your new, incredible futures. 

BE extraordinary.  And know that I love you.