Patio Pondering: Lessons from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood at 40,000 Feet

It is the start of a new month, and I am jumping back in the saddle after being overseas and celebrating Thanksgiving. Today began with a school closure announcement and my feed full of weather advisories. My coffee is hot, and I am NOT writing from the frigid patio this morning.

A couple of weeks ago, while traveling to Asia and cruising somewhere over the Northwest Territories at 40,000 feet, I watched A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, the biopic about Fred Rogers and a fictionalized journalist. One line from Mr. Rogers hit me square in the chest as I settled in for the long flight.

The movie centers on an investigative journalist who is assigned to interview Fred Rogers for a “Heroes” expose. The journalist had arranged an initial phone call through Mr. Rogers’ team, and during that conversation, Rogers asks him:

“Do you know what the most important thing in the world is to me right now?”

The interviewer guesses no.

Mr. Rogers replies, “Having this phone call with you, Lloyd.”

Think about that.

All the influence he had.
All the tapings.
All the people pulling at him.
All the emotional weight he carried for others.

And yet, the most important thing in the world to him was the moment right in front of him.

That line stuck with me. If I am honest, it stung a little.

I can think of too many times in my life in meetings, on sales calls, in family conversations, or even small talk in the barn when I was only half there. I was physically present but mentally somewhere else. I was thinking about the next deadline, the next customer issue, the next feeding program, or the next crisis.

I do not think I am alone in that.

But what if we took a page from Fred Rogers?
What if the person we were talking to became the most important thing in the world for those few minutes?

Imagine how that would change our sales calls.
Or our conversations with coworkers.
Or the way we talk to our kids at the end of a long day.

When I wrote the rough draft of this reflection while sitting in the Tokyo airport replaying that line in my head, I wondered how often I give people the gift of my full attention and how often I shortchange them without meaning to.

Maybe that is the challenge for all of us today.

Wherever we are and whoever is in front of us, can we make that the most important thing in the world?