I’ve heard Herm Edwards (Head coach of NY Jets for many years, now of the Kansas City Chiefs) tell this story live on ESPN. He yells at all his players to "sweep the corners" in practice. Herm told the story of the time his Dad found some leaves in the corner of the yard after Herm had finishing raking the yard. When confronted about the leaves, Herm said "But Dad, no one can see those leaves in the corner!" His Dad replied, "Maybe no one else will know, but YOU know you didn’t finish the job … so go back and sweep the corners!"
Herman tells the details of the story this way:
When I was six or seven my job at our house was to sweep up the leaves. Late one November when the leaves had pretty much covered our backyard, I eagerly went about my job to sweep up the leaves. (Remember I said “sweep up” not “rake” since our thirty-by-thirty-feet backyard was cement not grass.)
Anyway, I thought I had done a good job and was proud of that day’s task, so I left the leaves all piled up in the center of our yard and rushed into the house to tell my dad. I said, “Dad, Dad, I’ve got all the leaves swept up in a pile. I want you to see!” My chest was puffed up with pride. My dad, master sergeant that he was and with no extra effort to mount any further military assertiveness, walked down the steps of our back porch and “paraded” about the yard.
“Herman,” he said. “Look, you left some leaves here in this corner.”
I stammered, “But-but-Dad-”
He kept on talking, “And this corner a few more leaves.”
I finally got a chance to speak and said, “But, Dad, there are just a couple-several was more like it-of leaves in those corners.” And then in my young but convincing voice said, “Nobody will notice those leaves way over in that corner.”
Dad never hesitated, and with stern but encouraging words said, “Herman, you gotta get the corners!” He continued with that strong and military commanding voice, “Son, he paused, don’t be afraid of the broom!”
Herman got the message without another word from Dad. The message was that in doing your job, do every detail (the corners) successfully. He learned that “the broom” is just a metaphor for diligence and correctness in achieving peak performance.
Every task he undertook thereafter, from household chores to organizing a pick-up team on the playground to his days as an athlete-everything he did and does to this day- he always thinks of “the broom” to show the way to doing his best.
I ran across this quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. preaching about sweeping!
Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of Heaven and earth will have to pause and say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.
And it all took me back to a formative event in my own life that involved sweeping!
I think Dad did instill that same concept in us. I remember one summer at the army base where Dad worked, when I was 15 and too young to officially hold a base job, Dad paid me out of his pocket $1/day to work full time as a maintenance helper. The other older high schooler on our maintenance team got $1.60/hour or whatever the minimum wage was back then.
On the last day of the summer, my summer boss came up to me and said, "I knew all summer that one of you was getting $1/day, but I didn’t know which one as I didn’t handle the paychecks. From the way you outworked the other guy all summer, I was sure the other guy was the one getting $1/day." And yes, we did lots of sweeping of warehouses … but as MLK said, it’s worth doing well.
I think the Scriptures also back this up.
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24 (New International Version)
