"Part 12: Read the Transcript of Willie Crawford's In Search of Heroes Interview" by Ralph Zuranski
Ralph Zuranski: Well also along with love comes humor. If you maintain a sense of humor in the face of serious problems because I know in situations that are difficult sometimes it’s either laugh or cry.
Willie Crawford: Yes humor is incredibly important to me. I mean I don’t allow myself to watch negative movies for example anymore. I mean I have gone through a number of courses that taught me about energy management, and about how your environment affects you, and so if I can’t laugh or smile about a situation, if I can’t be lead to laugh or smile about a movie its not for me.
When I turn on the news and its all negative I turn it off and its not because I don’t want to hear it, it’s because if I can’t change it I don’t need to fret over it.
If it’s something I can change and I should and I’m the right person to change it I’ll go out and try to change it. But I’m not going to spend you know, all my energy all my time worrying about something that I have absolutely no control over, no influence over.
And so humor, humor comedies are the greatest gift I can give to myself. That’s another thing when you look at what you allow into your life you have to be good to yourself first.
If you’re not firmly grounded physiologically and mentally you can’t help others, so you have got to be happy with yourself first. And for me that’s not watching negative TV shows, not listening to negative music, not listening to… not watching negative movies.
It’s watching things that propel me towards that energize me and push me toward my goal. It not allowing negativity into my life at all you know. If you’re a negative person, and you’re a friend you can still be my friend but I’m not going to hang out with you. There’s no doubt about that in my mind right now.
My mentors have taught me that negative people just drain you of your energy. You know if all you can do is complain you can complain to me but I will say to you what are you doing about it. And I’ll push you toward to doing something about it. But if you don’t do anything about it we’ll part ways.
Ralph Zuranski: Boy that’s so true. Well who are the heroes in your life Willie other than your Grandma?
Willie Crawford: You know I thought about that earlier. I don’t really have any heroes. My heroes were people I discovered in books. Because I didn’t have the role models that… you know that did things that I wanted to do in my community when I was growing up.
I will say that teachers who took on one of the toughest jobs in the world you know, shaping young minds were heroes, and soldiers and policeman and fireman they’re heroes, but there is a lot of other people in our society are heroes to me too.
Volunteers, people I went through some medical procedure recently and as I’m sitting in the waiting room, this young lady who is a Red Cross volunteer, who herself was dying with cancer and knew it, she worked as a volunteer you know just to cheer people up while they are in the waiting room waiting for a family member to pull through surgery.
I thought that is so giving you know. She said I’m not going to set at home you know thinking about my misfortune, I’m going to reach out and touch someone else.
And she was you know honestly dying she knew she had maybe four months to live. Yet she spent her time as a volunteer in a waiting room you know just cheering up other family members. That was so profound. So my heroes are volunteers, people who just give of their spare time or their spare assets to help others.
Ralph Zuranski: You know it’s funny to when people are depressed or cast down that the fastest way to raise their spirits is by doing something for somebody else without expecting anything in return.
Willie Crawford: Absolutely. There is a saying; I felt bad because I had no shoes until I saw a man that had no feet.
And no matter how bad your situation, if you look long enough and hard enough you are going to find someone who has it worse than you do.