Mr. Rogers and Meaningful Work
Television Personality and Author uses Meaningful Work to be successful
By: Jayda Martell | Elementary Education Major
One mile slowly passes by as Fred Rogers glides through the water at a steady pace. He climbs out of the Pittsburgh Athletic Club pool, rushes to the scale and takes a gentle step onto the scale that will make or break his goal. The needle of the scale shoots to 143 pounds. A warm joyful grin appears on his face. His goal was to be 143 pounds for every day of his life because to Rogers 143 isn’t just a number. To him, it means ‘I love you’. The ‘I’ equals one because it is one letter. ‘Love’ equals four because it is four letters and ‘You’ equals three because it is three letters. “In Fred’s private numerology, ‘I love you’ is ‘1–4–3’. So, when the needle jumps to 143, there’s, like this confirming quality.” said Tom Junod (Won’t You Be My Neighbor Documentary 42:20–44:11).
Fred Rogers was a man who needed to make sure people knew they were loved. He told every person he interacted with that he loved them, even if that was the first time they had met. So, Rogers, being 143 pounds, was a constant reminder of love. From the late 1950s to 2003, Fred Rogers had weighed 143 pounds every day of his life. He met his goal.
Mr. Rogers is now one of the most known characters from children’s television. He is the man with the all the different colored sweaters who has a deep heart and passion for kids around the world. Mr. Rogers, Daniel Tiger, King Friday, Miss Elena and many other characters in ‘Won’t You Be My Neighbor’ have shaped the way children’s minds think. He covered topics from Reagan’s assassination, racism, family troubles, and even depression. Mr. Rogers changed the world one puppet at a time. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: Story of Success he writes about how people become successful. “Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard for twenty-two minutes to make sense of something that most people would give up on after thirty seconds.” (Gladwell 254). All of his success comes from the ideas of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers: Story of Success, using meaningful work, cultural disadvantage, and grit. These Gladwellian ideas helped him become one of the most known child educators of all time.
When Rogers was little he had meaningful work even if he didn’t realize it. To a kid, meaningful work is playing, and that is what Rogers did. A little boy at the age of seven sits in a reclined hospital bed with white walls surrounding him. Daydreaming about climbing mountains, exploring the wilderness, and playing with his friends, but he was always stuck in a hospital. He had every childhood sickness imaginable so he had been admitted into quarantine numerous times before this. “I would put up my knees, and they would be mountains covered with the sheets. I’d have all these little figures moving around and I would make them talk. I had to make up a lot of my own fun,” Fred Rogers explained. Rogers’ sons talked about how they believe that their dad never lost his childhood. That he was still seeking to be a child for as long as possible (Won’t You Be My Neighbor Documentary 6:57–7:40).
In Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: Story of Success, he writes about how meaningful work is a reason why people are successful. The story he writes is about a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Borgenicht, who move from England to New York for a better life. They began selling children’s aprons that they made by hand. The couple worked long, exhausting hours but were able to make enough money to one day buy a factory and start their own company. It was a lot of hard work to keep a company going while trying to support a family but Mr. Borgenicht was his own boss and was being rewarded by his efforts by being able to have a house and food. His work was meaningful to him because he and his wife could work together to better their lives(139–151). Rogers had a meaningful work that still supported his family, but was more meaningful to him because of how he saw his love helped others. People would come up to him on the streets and tell them about how he helped them grow so much when they were younger (Won’t You Be My Neighbor Documentary 1:27:40–1:29:04).
Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was Rogers creation. He created it to make sure that kids weren’t watching the shows of people throwing pies in their faces, being violent, or being rude to their parents or siblings. “The space between the television screen and whoever happens to be receiving it, I consider that very holy ground. A lot happens there,” said Rogers. (Won’t You Be My Neighbor Documentary 55:24–55:30). He had the opportunity to change kids mindsets, and he did. “If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires” (Gladwell 151). When he saw kids noticing who he was in public and asking him to sing a song with him, he realized how much of an impact he was having on these children.
For Rogers, it wasn’t just another T.V. show about people smashing pies in their faces and being aggressive. Daniel Tiger wasn’t some made up a puppet that was just for the show. Daniel Tiger was Fred Rogers. During Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Rogers said the most meaningful statements and questions as Daniel Tiger. After a couple aires of the show, everyone on the set could tell that Rogers expressed his thoughts and emotions through Daniel Tiger. “All you had to do was see Fred inhabit Daniel to really kind of figure it out. I mean they were symbiotic,” said Tom Junod (Won’t You Be My Neighbor Documentary 33:20–33:34). For Rogers it was challenging for him to express himself, so Daniel helped him do that by being able to ask questions he wasn’t allowed to when he was younger.
Rogers’ meaningful work was helping children and being able to teach them how to be loving and caring people. His meaningful work was being a trustworthy person. His meaningful work was loving people. “It’s not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It’s whether or not our work fulfills us. Being a teacher is meaningful.” (Outliers 96)
Within the first year of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood being on air, there were a lot of crises in America. One of the topics that Rogers talked about very often, but subtly, was racism. Around America, white people did not want African-Americans swimming in their pools. At any hotel, if the manager saw an African-Americans person swimming in the pool they would take cleaning chemicals and dump it into the water for them to jump out of the pool. Rogers hated the idea of this and thought it was ridiculous, so what was his idea? Have an episode where officer Clemmons stops by Rogers house while he is cleaning off his feet in a kiddy pool. Rogers invites Clemmons to join him and Clemmons is hesitant at first but joins him anyways. This was Rogers taking a stance against America’s cultural disadvantages and using them to get publicity. It may not have been good publicity, but it got his name out on the news (Won’t You Be My Neighbor Documentary 41:11–42:09).
In Outliers, Gladwell talked about Korean Airlines and their cultural disadvantages. In 1988–1998 the Korean Airlines had 4.79 plane accidents per million departures. This means that Korea lost a plane in an accident once in every four million flights. This is more than 17 times higher than the US (Gladwell 180). The problem was that in Korea your superior is never wrong, so when the copilot noticed something wrong he or she wasn’t allowed to say anything because their superior is never wrong. In order for the Korean Airlines to fix the accident-prone flights they decided to retrain all of their pilots and flight attendants how to be respectful to their superiors, question them and give advice to them. They re-learned everything, including learning English so they are able to communicate with the other airlines (Gladwell 205).
Along with the airlines, the racism in America killed many people. Korea finally figured out that there needed to be a change, and so did Rogers. He sees that there needs to be a change in how people are acting. He does it by starting with the kids. He knows that he isn’t going to be able to change how adults see racism, but he knows that if he is able to start with the kids and make them see that you don’t need to be like your parents that they will be the generation that begins stopping racism. This generation is his hope of there being more peace and love filling this world.
Jessica Henderson is a woman who loves thinking. She has dug deep into the ideas of technology and how she can use it in ways of good and how it can be used in ways of bad. Sadly this generation is stuck with the title, “the generation that is addicted to technology,” but that is where Henderson is trying to make a difference. She is taking the culturally disadvantaged parents who “hate” the technology and through her art shows a series of beautiful thoughts through scribbles that you make on your phone. She also takes the culturally disadvantaged teenagers who are “addicted” to technology and puts non-technology pieces into the same art that is wound up on the wall. Jessica makes people think of what it is like to be able to intermix both technologies is bad, but it also is good. “Being able to put something weird on a wall allows people to think in a different way,” said Henderson. That is exactly what she is doing. Taking two different culturally disadvantaged groups and being able to mix them together to become culturally advantaged.
Like Henderson, Rogers noticed that technology can be good and bad. After watching all of those violent T.V. shows he realized that he wanted to make a difference. He knew that kids were watching a lot of television and he wanted to influence what they are watching. His goal was to balance out the good and the bad of T.V. Rogers was able to convince people that T.V. isn’t just violence and that kids can actually learn from it. Mr. Rogers Neighborhood told kids real things that happen within the world. His television show made kids see empathy and real emotions, unlike every other T.V. show.
In 1969, President Nixon had a problem with his budget and he needed to fund money for the Vietnam War. Nixon wanted to cut the fundings for television, but Rogers’ was not going to let that happen. “In the midst of all of this, Fred Rogers gets to go before Congress, arguing for $20 million of funding to solidify P.B.S,” David Bianculli said. John Pastore was the senator at the time who made Congress by attacking television. There were two hearings before Rogers spoke before the Congress, and it looked as though that PBS would be shut down. Rogers’ voice flowed with nerves as he fought for the $20 million funding for PBS. He declared how much he cared for children and how much of an impact his show has on the kids watching the show. “And I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service,” Rogers voiced. After that, Rogers sang a song about what kids should do when they get mad and how kids get confused on how to react with their anger. “Looks like you just earned the $20 million,” Pastore said as soon as the song ended. Jean Greaves, a journalist for Talentsmart wrote about how Rogers was self-aware of the situation:
Self-awareness made Rogers influential because he clearly understood the value he brought to the table. During his pitch, Rogers quickly and repeatedly noted his fifteen years of television experience, and the six years he spent studying the inner needs of children.” (How Emotional Intelligence Landed Mr. Rogers $20 Million)
Rogers took all of his passion, love, devotion, and grit for kids and risked it all in a courtroom (Won’t You Be My Neighbor Documentary 23:37–28:03).
In the movie Moneyball, Billy Beane was the General Manager for the Oakland Athletics MLB. “There are rich teams and there are poor teams. Then, there’s 50 feet of crap. And then there’s us.” said Beane (Moneyball 11:00–11:08). They had a losing streak that made them the worst team, but they also had the lowest budget in the whole MLB. Beane decided to round up some of the “worst” players in the MLB and use all of their strengths and put them together. Since they were the “worst” players, they weren’t worth much either which is what really helped their situation. “Any other team wins the world series, good for them. They’re drinking champagne, they’ll get a ring. But if we win, on our budget with this team, we’ll change the game. And that’s what I want, I want it to mean something,” Said Beane (Moneyball 1:54:56–1:55:21). They ended up going on a 20 game winning streak and lost the second last game of the season. Although Beane had to go through a lot of trouble to get the players he wanted on the team without the coaches questioning him and telling him no, he was still able to have one of the most successful and memorable seasons of all time and that was all accomplished with grit. Along with Beane having a lot of grit to fight for his team and change their lives, Rogers also fought for his show in order to change the lives of others.
Rogers had the courage to stand up and tell the courtroom what he thought and what drove him to have his show. If he said anyone word wrong it would have been the end of his show, but with grit and meaningful work he was able to convince the senator and the rest of the courtroom that television affects kids and they need an influence like him to shape their personalities.
Rogers used meaningful work, cultural disadvantages, and grit to become a successful child educator, but he also used his deep passion and determination to begin changing the minds of children around the country. Not only did he do this when he was alive, but now his legacy continues from the love of his friends and family. Amy Kauffman, a journalist for the Los Angeles Times, writes, “Joanne Rogers has helped preserve his legacy, serving in leadership positions within his nonprofit organization, the Fred Rogers Company.” (Fred Rogers Family Keeps the Legacy of ‘Mister Rogers Neighborhood’ Alive with a Candid New Documentary). Gladwell writes, “It is those who are successful, in other words, who are most likely to be given the kinds of special opportunities that lead to further success”(Gladwell 30), but Rogers was successful not only from that but who he is and what kind of person he is. He is just like any other person, but he has a different mindset. He loves, cares is passionate and has a desire to make people feel loved and special. That is something that Gladwell does not talk about. He doesn’t talk about the type of people who become successful, it is always about what they do in order to become successful, but character plays a huge role in why people are successful. Rogers had the love and compassion that no one could explain. He would do anything in order to make every single person feel special. In Will You Be My Neighbor Rogers says:
Now think about somebody who’s helped you along the way for one minute. I’m going to time you. Let’s just take some time to think of those extra special people. Some of them may be right here. Some may be far away. Some may even be in heaven. No matter where they are, deep down, you know they’ve always wanted what was best for you. They’ve always cared about you beyond measure and have encouraged you to be true to the best within you. (Won’t You Be My Neighbor Documentary 1:30:42–1:32:28)
Rogers said this at a graduation ceremony at Dartmouth College in 2002 because he believed that this is what those graduating students needed to hear in order to become successful. At the end of the speech, every person was teary-eyed because of how blessed they felt by hearing those words from Mr. Rogers. This was one more example of how Rogers impacted everyone around him.
Works Cited
Gladwell, Malcolm. “Outliers: The Story of Success.” New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Print.
Greaves, Jean. “How Emotional Intelligence Landed Mr. Rogers %20 Million.” Talentsmart, 5 Jan. 2015, http://www.talentsmart.com/articles/How-Emotional-Intelligence-Landed-Mr.-Rogers-$20-Million-1572302074-p-1.html
Henderson, Jessica. Personal Interview. 9 Nov. 2018.
Kaufman, Amy. “Fred Rogers family keeps the legacy of ‘Mister Rogers Neighborhood’ alive with a candid new documentary.” The Los Angeles Times, 12 Jun. 2018, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-mister-rogers-family-neighborhod-documentary-20180612-story.html
King, Maxwell. “Get an Exclusive Look Inside the First Full-Length Mister Rogers Biography.” Time, 1 Jun. 2018, http://time.com/5290424/excerpt-mister-rogers-biography/. 2 Nov. 2018.
Leonhardt, David. “Chance and Circumstance.” Review of Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell. The New York Times, 28 Nov. 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/books/review/Leonhardt-t.html
Mertes, Micah. “Gladwell: How personal success, community work together.” Review of Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell. The Journal Star, 3 Mar. 2009, https://journalstar.com/lifestyles/gladwell-how-personal-success-community-work-togeter/article_7c9fa202-d652–5024–9ef4-e32e1329ebc1.html
Moneyball. Directed by Bennett Miller, Columbia Pictures, 2011.
Robinson, Ryan. “Meaningful Work For Everyone: The 3 Conditions That Lead To Your Best.” Work. Buffer. https://open.buffer.com/meaningful-work/ 23, Aug. 2017, pp 2–19.
Won’t You Be My Neighbor. Directed by Morgan Neville, Tremolo Productions, 2018.
About the author: JAYDA MARTELL
Jayda Martell, a freshman elementary education major from Plymouth, Wisconsin, hopes to become the most loving teacher to all of her students. Martell loves traveling, adventuring with friends and family, and mint oreo blizzards from Dairy Queen.
What I’ve Learned:
Be brave enough to share stories about yourself that you never imagined telling people. It will give you confidence and people will relate to you.
Give so much detail that the reader can physically feel and see what you are writing. No one wants to read a story that they can’t relate to.
Read books by Malcolm Gladwell. He writes books that draw you in so far that it makes you want to finish the book in one day.
Learn more about your brain! Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink! talks about all the things that happen in order for us to make snap judgments and decisions. After reading, I realize how insane our brains are. They pick up on so much and we don’t even notice it is happening.
Being successful is much more than lucky breaks and 10,000 hours. It is about doing what you love and being able to love the hard, joyful and emotionally tolling parts of your job.
Talk to someone about what your goals are. Put them into perspective and go beyond what you initially thought were your goals.
Don’t be afraid to say what you think because everyone has their opinions and beliefs. Your thoughts are what make you different.
Express yourself and who you are. Don’t care what people around you are thinking because I bet that they are wishing that they could be as joyful as you are.
Study a lot and often, but don’t study to the point where you can’t get an episode of your favorite show in. You need time to yourself with your favorite show.
Love like Mr. Rogers. Be someone’s person and let them express how they feel. Tell them that you love them and that you are rooting for them always. Everyone needs a person like Mr. Rogers in their life.
On my way back to Bethel from fall break, I had a five-hour drive. I had to read two chapters of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink! for Monday, and it was Sunday. So I downloaded Blink! on my phone and listened to Malcolm Gladwell talk for three straight hours. It became one of the most interesting car rides I have ever been on.
