When You Live From Your Heart, No One Forgets What You Leave Behind

How one very cool guy changed my life forever

“Erection.”

“Louder, please.”

“Erection!”

That was my 10th grade English teacher, Joel Kabatznick doing his “Words of the Week Club” routine. Every Friday, he’d spend about ten minutes teaching us words we didn’t know, like “idiosyncrasy” or “meretricious.” And, every so often, he’d slip in his brand of sex education, which would make every teenager squirm and blush when they had to say things they thought about but would never say in public, much less in a room full of kids they didn’t really know.

Mr. Kabatznick was by far the most memorable, inspiring, and hippest teacher I’ve ever had. With his bushy hair and thick-rimmed glasses, white shirt, crazy tie, and crumpled dark suit hanging loosely on his muscled, five-foot-eight-inch frame, he was an eclectic-looking and behaving man.

While talking about the symbolism of Captain Ahab riding Moby Dick, for example, he’d grab a piece of chalk and start writing on the chalkboard, his jacket brushing up against it, gathering white dust, and then continue writing to the end of the chalkboard onto the wall, and the door, like he lost track of time and space. Then he’d whirl around, facing the class, his clothes covered in dust and grin, as if he’d just come back into his body. We’d watch him in amazement. No one else was putting on this kind of show. We were all in.

He knew how to entertain and how to engage resistant, bored, apathetic students. To a fifteen-year-old, he appeared to be parent-like because he was a teacher, an authority figure, but he didn’t behave like that. He was only twenty-six and had the unique ability to connect with us as if he were an older brother.

He deadpanned his way to creating an atmosphere where I learned to love modern literature, reading and discussing The Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace, To Kill a Mockingbird, and many other great American novels. He was funny, passionate, and ran a tight ship too. Nobody mouthed off and got away with it, and no one was humiliated either. It was apparent he loved what he did. Somehow that stuck with me as a kid, seeing an adult who loved his work and lived from his heart.

I walked away from his class, wanting to find something I loved to do too.

When I found my way into corporate sales training, I remember asking myself, How can I be like Kabatznick? How can I engage people as he did? How can my sessions be interesting, engaging, and impactful? While I did the best I could, I was ultimately no Joel Kabatznick.

It wasn’t until later in my career that I understood his secret— He understood what many others fail to recognize: His job was not to teach; it was to help people learn.

I think he was so successful because he understood the difference.

I thought about him recently and did a quick Google search. Teaching almost to his last breath, he died at the age of fifty-four in 1995 in Alaska from multiple sclerosis complications. The postings I read from students he taught across the world reflected as I remembered him: a kind, brilliant man who connected to and helped anyone lucky enough to know him.

His sister wrote this remembrance:

His students remember him for his eccentric behavior, bizarre taste in clothes, genuine interest in them, and unique teaching style. Joel knew the importance of laughter and utilized it in his classes, often at his own expense.

He always advocated on his student’s behalf and related to them as his friends. One of Joel’s greatest gifts to them was his belief in praise rather than criticism. Three of his favorite words were, “You are good.”

I thought about the power of those words, “You are good.” So simple, really. How many of us who have doubted ourselves, had failures in life or business, longed to hear those words when we’ve been down, “You are good.”

We often live our lives comparing ourselves to others, judging our success by what others are doing, worrying we are missing out because we haven’t found ourselves, our calling, or the perfect job, or the ideal lover. We make ourselves nuts when we see something done brilliantly by a colleague and, while acknowledging it as such publicly, privately skewer ourselves for not having done it or thought about it first.

How many times during the day do we stop and stay to ourselves, “You are good.” Likely not enough.

Joel struggled with multiple sclerosis throughout his adult life, walking with a cane from the time he was twenty-eight. He shrugged his health issues off as best he could as “old football injuries.” Still, it didn’t stop him from living life on his terms and being a man who brought joy to people around him, celebrated the importance of laughter, entertained as taught, supported without criticism, related to his students as friends, and counseled those who got into trouble.

What a beautiful man. I like to imagine he’s still around, in his crumpled dark suit, with a piece of chalk in his hand, smiling and saying, “Remember, you are good.”

When you live from your heart no one forgets.

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