He Charged Me 50 Cents. He Modeled Something Much More Valuable.
How does your luggage end up in Chicago when you're flying from Kenya to Ethiopia? Apparently, mine found a better itinerary than I did.
My luggage went missing on a recent mission trip, leaving me with a few clothes and the shoes I was wearing for the next 5 days.
My shoes had seen some things. Dusty roads. Long days. And, unfortunately, a pretty smelly pig sty. Needless to say, they were no longer exactly “meeting-ready”.
Our flight was delayed because of bad weather, so there wasn't time to go shopping for a replacement pair. And, sadly, Amazon hadn't quite figured out how to deliver in this part of the world.
I did my best to clean them. Let's just say my best wasn't very good.
The next morning, one of our hosts mentioned a street vendor who cleaned shoes just outside our hotel. I was skeptical. But what did I have to lose?
We walked down a little alley and found him sitting beside a few buckets, a wooden block and the tools of his trade. Nothing fancy.
He motioned for me to put my foot on the block. Then he got to work.
He carefully removed the laces and soaked them. He scrubbed every part of the shoe with a small brush and soapy water. He worked his way around every stain and speck of dirt. Then he switched feet.
When he was finished, he dried the laces, and carefully put them back in. I couldn't believe it. The shoes almost looked new.
The cost? About 50 cents. Needless to say, he got a much bigger tip.
But what stuck with me wasn't the price. It was the pride he took in his work.
He didn't look at those shoes and think, “It's just a 50-cent job.” He treated them like they mattered.
It reminded me of something Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said about doing whatever work you are called to do with excellence. “If your job is to be a street sweeper, you should sweep streets like Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music, doing it so well that heaven and earth must pause and say a great street sweeper lived there.”
Leadership isn't always about having a big title, leading a big team, or making big decisions.
Sometimes leadership looks like taking whatever is in front of you and doing it exceptionally well. It looks like caring when nobody is watching. It looks like taking pride in your contribution—even when the contribution seems small.
And maybe most importantly, it reminds us that there is dignity in every honest job when we choose to do it with excellence.
I walked away with clean shoes. But I got something much more valuable that morning. A reminder that you don't have to have a big platform to make a big impression.
Sometimes, you just need a bucket, a brush, and a commitment to do your work well.
Rusty Fulling