Letters From the Porch

A Letter From the Porch

Why this collection exists

Truth is, this all came from years of giving talks to different groups and people. Most of it is a collection of my own — shaped by the area I grew up in — mixed in with sayings I heard or read from folks a lot smarter than me. What might surprise the people who know me well is this: some of what's in here touches on serious things I've been through that I've rarely, if ever, talked about out loud.

All of it, I hope, finds you on the day you need it.

This isn't a big book with all the answers. It's a small collection of honest words — the kind that might make you chuckle a little, make you think a lot, and remind you the sun is going to come up tomorrow.

Take what you need. Leave what you don't. I just hope you got a little something out of this compilation of old sayings.

Just Saying…

— Ken Johnson

A Word About Second Chances

Why I started this

I don't talk about this much. But I'll never forget it.

Twenty-one years ago I had a stroke, and I got declared 100 percent disabled. Life happens — sometimes to good people, doing everything right, with no warnin' at all.

With tears in my eyes, I looked at my doctor and told him I was gonna make it. I didn't have a plan. I just gave him everything I had. Had to learn to walk again. Had to learn to talk again.

But I got a second chance. And because of it, I got to watch my grandkids be born and actually know them. A great opportunity came into my life that I never expected. None of it was guaranteed.

I don't take a day of it for granted. If life's handed you somethin' you didn't see comin' — I won't tell you it's easy. I'll just tell you a second chance is real. I'm livin' proof.

— Ken Johnson

The Boy Who Would Never Be Picked

On the front porch

As a freshman, nobody would have picked him, and it wasn't for lack of heart, but for everything you could see with your own two eyes — his size, his build, his height, none of it looking like what a coach draws up on a chalkboard when he pictures an athlete. By the time he was a senior, the truth is that most folks still wouldn't have picked him on paper, because nothing about his frame had changed the story everyone expected to tell.

But there was something in him you couldn't measure with a tape measure or a stopwatch. He had a smile that could light up a gymnasium, the genuine, million-dollar kind that made you want to see him succeed, and he came from a family that didn't have much, with parents doing the best they could with what they had, the way a lot of good families do. There wasn't a single thing about his circumstances that suggested he was headed somewhere special.

And everybody was wrong.

Not one person in that town was pulling against him, because everybody was pulling for him, quietly hoping the way a town does for the kid without the obvious advantages, and after meeting those expectations, he went on to exceed every one of them. He never spent his time talking about what was wrong with his situation, choosing instead to look for the good in it rather than the bad, and he kept right on exceeding what was expected of him, over and over, as though it were simply his nature. Athletics gave him a door, and he walked through it, carrying that same spirit not just through high school, but into college and into the rest of his life.

You learn something watching a young man like that, because there are some things in a person you simply cannot measure, and there are some people you learn not to bet against. Everybody in that town got to witness how a winner is truly made, not born with the right size or the right build, but shaped instead by encouragement, by a refusal to see the bad in his own story, and by climbing, year after year, toward the very pinnacle of what a life can become.

I was like everybody else in that town. I watched him, and I pulled for him, and I can tell you plainly that he didn't just meet those expectations — he exceeded every one of them.

What's funny is that numerous coaches throughout this country know a young man just like him. Maybe you could be the next one.

Congratulations, son. You never once let a single measurement decide who you'd become.

— Ken Johnson

The Day the Dummy Moved

On the front porch

There was a boy on one of my teams who wasn't built for what we were asking him to do. He was smaller than most of the others, lighter, without the natural strength you look for when you're teaching a kid to hit a tackling dummy and drive it backward. Every practice, we'd line the boys up and run that drill, and every single time, that boy would hit the dummy square, dig his feet in, push with everything he had, and the dummy wouldn't move an inch. He'd bounce right off it.

It happened so many times that some of the other boys stopped expecting anything different. A few of the coaches did too, if I'm honest. You start to assume a kid's ceiling after you've watched him hit that same wall over and over, and you quietly stop believing today will be any different than yesterday.

But that boy never once stopped lining up.

He never asked to skip the drill. He never complained that it wasn't fair, even though anybody watching could see it wasn't a fair fight between his frame and that dummy's weight. Every practice, he'd get back in line, wait his turn, and hit it again, like his body hadn't gotten the same memo the rest of us had about what he could and couldn't do.

Then one ordinary Tuesday, nothing special about the weather or the practice plan, that boy hit the dummy exactly the way he'd hit it a hundred times before, and it moved. Not far. Just a foot, maybe less. But it moved, and for a second, the whole field went quiet, like everybody needed a moment to believe what they'd just seen.

Then it wasn't quiet anymore. Every boy on that field started hollering for him, coaches included, and that kid stood there grinning like he'd just won a state championship, because in a way, he had. He'd won the only championship that ever really matters, which is the one against your own limits.

I've thought about that moment more than I probably should. It's not the kid who was always gonna do it. It's the kid who wasn't supposed to be able to — who did it anyway. That's the one you remember.

— Ken Johnson

Curve Ball

On the front porch

Let's be honest — I was what you'd call a so-called high school coach, but coaching wasn't really my job. I taught history. The school's real baseball coach had taken ill and gone on medical leave, and they asked me to fill in temporarily. Reluctantly, I said yes, though in no way was I a baseball coach.

To my surprise, these kids were good. Most had played travel ball, and looking back on my own high school days, I never would have made this team. I told some old friends about it, and the ones who came out to watch left just as impressed as I was.

Honestly, there wasn't a thing I could teach them. They had hitting coaches, pitching coaches, and club coaches year-round. Baseball was all they'd ever played, and it showed — every one of them could hit.

To build a little team culture, we had a hamburger cookout at my brother-in-law's house, out by the pool, with music going and parents bringing chips and ice cream. It was supposed to be simple.

And that night, I learned something that shook me.

These young men, sixteen to eighteen years old, could throw a ball ninety miles an hour and hit a curveball clean out of the park. But they couldn't shake a man's hand firmly, and most couldn't hold eye contact with me for more than a second. They had no real social manners. They couldn't carry a simple conversation, and yet every one of them was hitting somewhere around .300.

I could hardly sleep that night. I knew I couldn't play baseball anywhere near as good as they could, but I knew manners — please and thank you, holding a door, respecting your elders. I had a decision to make: shut my mouth and coach the game, or try to help these boys with something bigger.

I chose the second one.

I started small — a firm handshake before practice, looking a man in the eye, saying “yes sir” and “no sir” like it meant something. A few boys rolled their eyes. Some parents wondered why their son's baseball coach cared about handshakes instead of batting stances. I kept at it anyway, because baseball has an expiration date. Every single one of them would reach it eventually.

In the end, four of those boys got the scholarship everyone assumed was coming. All four played, and all four were done in four years — a great run for a young man's dream, but honestly, more of them left the game dejected than elated. None of them had the college career anybody had pictured for them back at that cookout. And the ones who took it hardest, more often than not, weren't the boys. It was the parents — the ones who'd put so much pressure on their sons for so many years that when it finally ended, some of those young men were quietly, sadly, just relieved it was over.

That's exactly why I kept teaching handshakes.

A batting average doesn't get you hired. A ninety-mile-an-hour fastball doesn't sit across from a man at a job interview and hold his gaze. But a firm handshake, a genuine “thank you,” and the simple respect of looking somebody in the eye — those work every day of a man's life, long after the game is done.

The scholarship isn't guaranteed. The pro contract isn't guaranteed. Life is loving and living — don't let it pass you by chasing something that was never meant to be the whole story.

— Ken Johnson

Special People in a Special Life

On the front porch

I've kept a list, over the years, of the truly special people who've passed through my life. Every one of them is different — men and women, from industries that have nothing to do with one another: technology, mortgage, banking, construction, finance, oil and gas, athletics, insurance, investment. Different backgrounds, different educations, different levels of success. On paper, there's hardly a thread connecting them at all.

And yet every one of them shares the exact same handful of traits, so precisely it stopped feeling like coincidence a long time ago.

They're modest when they didn't have to be. Every one of them is dripping with honesty, character, and class, and not one has ever come across as pretentious, snobby, or arrogant. Nearly all of them started with nothing but hope and desire, and went on to accomplish more than they ever thought possible. But they never went back home to gloat. If anything, many are still misunderstood in their own hometowns, where people never quite grasped how far they'd actually gone.

For all their differences, they're remarkably well centered about life. Their moral compasses all point the same direction. Their word has always meant something, and it still does.

They've given away more money than most people would guess, and they've done it privately, never publicly. I know because I've watched them quietly help people most folks never knew needed helping — not just with money, but with time, which is worth every bit as much.

I've come to believe that's the real thread. Not the industry, not the income. Just people who decided who they were mattered more than what they had, and never let success talk them out of it.

I'm a better man for having known every one of them. And everyone of you know exactly who I was talking to.

— Ken Johnson

I Need to Tell You Before I Go

A letter to Jason and Lindsey

I had a talk with myself and I started to laugh. What I wanted to say to my son Jason and my daughter Lindsey was hopefully most of the information they might need to help my wife Judy, if I pass before Judy.

The main things — the bank accounts, the investment accounts, insurance and pension, Social Security, IRA, 401(k), and other things you're supposed to do. (I am not the best at these things.)

But instead, I decided I wanted you to know what a pleasure it has been to raise two wonderful children who became more like great friends than their parents. I recently wrote a lot of sayings down over the years, and so many of them came from the inspiration and enjoyment we had together as a close-knit family. A steady wife and mother in Judy, and two wonderful children, Jason and Lindsey, that became a closeness that was hard to imagine.

Then along came two other Godsends, named Leesa, my daughter-in-law, and Jordan, that Judy and I love as our own children. I hear how other families don't get along with their in-laws — we treasure them as our best friends, but even closer.

We also had some challenging times — some we went through like everyone, when something unexpected happens…

— Ken

Bringing Generations Together

Letter One — By Ken Johnson

I want to talk about something that's been on my mind for a while now — how do we bring two very different kinds of people together in a way that actually works?

On one side, you've got the older generation — solid, sincere, experienced, the kind of people who've been tested by time and came out steady on the other side. On the other side, you've got the younger generation — creative, talented, full of energy, the kind of people who can genuinely change the world if somebody gives them the room to do it.

The question I keep coming back to is this: what could we accomplish if we stopped seeing those two groups as opposites, and started seeing them as two halves of the same whole? What would it look like if we combined the best of every generation into one focused, united force? I think it would be something remarkable.

I've seen it work once, up close, a long time ago. I'll tell you about it separately, because it deserves its own telling.

But here's what I believe after watching it happen — the answer isn't as complicated as we make it. It starts with recognizing what each generation brings to the table, instead of measuring what they're missing. The older worker isn't behind. The younger worker isn't disrespectful. They're just speaking different languages, and somebody has to be secure enough, and generous enough, to build the bridge between them.

I think we could all learn something from that, if we're willing to.

— Ken Johnson

The Owl Man

Letter Two — By Ken Johnson

Thirty-four years ago, I worked on a project with one of the biggest companies in the world. The man leading our group had come out of the company's space exploration program. He was, no exaggeration, an actual rocket scientist. I used to tell everybody he was smarter than a tree full of owls — because he was. Truth be told, that's what I called him behind his back. The Owl Man.

His job was to take everything he knew about technology and build a product that would give financial companies access to information in a way nobody had seen before. That part sounds impressive, and it was. But looking back on it now, decades later, that's not even the most impressive part of the story.

The most impressive part was watching a rocket scientist explain something as complicated as machine learning — what folks are now calling artificial intelligence — to an old boy from Louisiana and Texas. A simple guy. Me.

And somehow, I actually understood it.

I want to be clear about something — that wasn't because of anything special in me. It was because of his ability to take something enormously complicated and hand it to me in a way I could actually hold onto. It takes a very secure person to be that simple. A lesser man, a man more concerned with looking smart than being useful, would have talked over my head and left me behind. The Owl Man never did that. Not once.

What he did instead was make me feel like I had something to contribute — not because of what I knew about technology, because I didn't know much, but because I understood what customers wanted and worried about from their side of the table. He didn't just tolerate that perspective. He genuinely wanted it. He made room for it.

And here's what still amazes me all these years later — it worked. Not because of anything I brought to it, but because that man made every single person in the room comfortable enough to speak up and be part of something bigger than themselves. What I didn't fully understand at the time was that I wasn't just working alongside a brilliant engineer. I was being taught, quietly and without ever being made to feel small, by one of the finest teachers and leaders I would ever encounter. That experience shaped the rest of my working life.

I think about the Owl Man often. He never once made me feel like I didn't belong in the room, and thirty-four years later, I still carry the lesson he taught me without ever meaning to teach it at all.

“It was never about the technology. It was always about the communication and the compassion.”

— Ken Johnson