Leadership Thought: What I Learned in Weight Watchers Was Not What I Expected.

Dear Friends,

Everyone has heard of Weight Watchers, but not everyone had heard of the late Jean Nidetch. She was the woman who said, “If I can do it, anyone can do it,” and so begins the rest of the story. Jean Nidetch was the woman who voiced those words, and she was the one who founded the ever popular and successful Weight Watchers program that has changed thousands of lives.

Even I was a beneficiary of the program. I remember one summer, at least a decade ago, when I joined Weight Watchers, the result of Jean’s coaxing and desire to have someone accompany her in the program. As I recall, I was one of three other men in a class of over 60 women. I don’t remember if I lost much weight, but I sure made a lot of friends. What else is there to do but talk and make friends while you're sitting around waiting to be weighed in?

Jean died in 2015, and during her 91 years on earth, I am sure she changed a lot of lives, not only through the Weight Watchers program, but also through her motivational messages. In her messages, she challenged her hearers to take control of their lives. 

She tells one story of how she did it.  When she was a teenager, she used to cross a park where she saw mothers gossiping while their toddlers sat on their swings with no one to push them. “I’d give them a push,” she said, “and you know what happens when you push a kid on a swing? Pretty soon he’s pumping, doing it himself. That’s what my role in life is-I am there to give people a push.”

Sometimes a positive push is all one needs to turn his or her life around, and there is nothing like encouragement to provide that positive push.

Late in life the prolific writer and preacher F.B. Meyer was asked if he wished he had done anything different in his life. He replied, “Yes, I think I would have preached more on encouragement.” He explained, "So many people have heavy loads to carry, and they very much need Godly encouragement to see them through.”

The pastor Herbert Welch,  was once asked if he had ever heard Phillips Brooks preach? Brooks was a pastor best known for writing “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”  Welch replied that he had. He said, “I don’t remember much of what he said, but I remember when he finished, I was ready to go out and lick the world.”

That’s what encouragement can do. It can provide a positive push. It can encourage, energize and empower someone to go out and “lick the world.”

The Apostle Paul knew the power of encouragement and that's why he wrote to the Thessalonian believers, exhorting them “to encourage one another and build each other up, just as you are already doing” (1 Thess. 5:11.).

Let’s take this exhortation seriously and be on the lookout for someone to “push.” They may not be on a swing, but wherever you find them your push might be the most important thing they need to start them pumping for themselves.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom