On August 20, 2013, as the eight hundred students of Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy, an elementary school near Atlanta, Georgia, settled into their morning classes, a young man named Michael Hill walked into the school’s lobby with an AK-47 and five hundred rounds of ammunition. Another mass shooting was in the making at an American school.

Thirty minutes later, Michael was in police custody. There were no casualties at the school that day because Michael had been overpowered and disarmed — not by a phalanx of security guards, but by Antoinette Tuff, the school’s bookkeeper, who had been substituting at the front desk.

Antoinette used no commands, threats, or weapons on Michael. At every step of her ordeal, she offered Michael respect, kinship, kindness and compassion. When he revealed his name, she forged a bond with him by discovering a coincidental connection: “Guess what, my name is Hill too, my mom was a Hill.” She even asked for his permission before instructing the 911 emergency operator: “You… want me to tell them to come on in now?” 

Once Michael was persuaded to give up his plan for a mass shooting, he started turning his weapon on himself. Having saved the students’ lives and her own, Antoinette now focused on saving Michael’s. “No, you don’t want that… You’re going to be OK. I thought of the same thing. I thought of committing suicide last year when my husband left me, but look at me now, I am still working and everything is OK.” 

She reassured him when he was finally ready to allow the police to come inside and arrest him. “It’s going to be OK, Sweetheart. I want you to know that I love you, OK . . . and I am proud of you. That’s a good thing you’ve done that you have given up. And don’t worry about it. We all go through something in life, you know. You don’t want that. You’re going to be OK.”

Taking full responsibility

You and I, we fret from time to time. “Why doesn’t this person listen to me?” “I’m not at all happy with how so-and-so is acting toward me.” “My relationship with ___ sucks!” We feel helpless to change things because, after all, it’s the other person who’s not behaving right — it’s their fault. We throw up our hands.

Well, having to deal with a man who showed up with an AK-47 was certainly not Antoinette’s fault. But she took it as her responsibility. She used all the persuasion power she could muster to take Michael Hill closer to his soul, his core. And this power came from simple, everyday actions that activated the energy of Love…

(a) unconditionally respecting Michael (asking for his permission during her conversation with the 911 agent)
(b) affiliating with him (“My name is Hill too”)
(c) expressing her love directly (“I want you to know that I love you, OK”), and 
(d) appreciating his behavior (“I am proud of you”)

…and the energy of Wisdom:

(e) helping him challenge his suicidal thoughts by sharing how she was able to bounce back from a crisis herself.

How did Antoinette act with such masterly love and wisdom in what must have been the most terrifying moment of her life? 

After the event, she said,

Well, to be honest with you, I didn’t [know what the right things were to say to him]. While I was there and [the 911 operator] was talking to me and he was saying things to me, I was just praying… in the inside of myself and saying “God, what do I say now, what do I do now?”

…I owe that all to my pastor. He has actually trained us. We’ve had classes and he sits down and teaches us, you know, how to deal with people and how to deal in, you know, desperate situations and how to pray. And we practice that at church. So really, in all reality, all I was doing was carrying out what I’m taught every Sunday and Wednesday.

Practice Makes Perfect

Suddenly, Antoinette’s heroic capacity to offer love and wisdom seems so much more within our reach. All it takes is to practice small actions that can make a big difference in our lives, and to do so in a “church” of our choosing (a space, a community) every “Sunday and Wednesday.”

We all recognize it’s a smart thing to go to the gym to keep our bodies healthy and strong. Well, maybe it’s a good idea as well to go to a leadership gym every week, to keep our relationships healthy and strong. Take a moment to reflect. What would it take for you to create a weekly ritual of practice on specific actions you’re seeking to master?

Practice will make you perfect. But there is also a quicker way to start boosting your performance in some of your key events during the week. In my next newsletter, I will show how you may just be ten minutes away from tapping the heroic qualities you possess at your core.

Note: Parts of this newsletter are excerpted from my book, Inner Mastery, Outer Impact: How Your 5 Core Energies Hold the Key to Success.

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