Many, many – – – many – years ago, I had a little friend, three actually. When I met the three nephews/nieces of my best buddy, they were three/four/five years old. Harald, the middle one, came out to the garden where my buddy and I were drinking beer to check out that new dude. One of the first tests he conducted was “how does he react to pinching?” My reaction – “pinching back” – must have been the correct one because we became really good friends and grew up together until I finally had to leave the country (but that is a whole different story).

One of the stories with Harald I remember was that he came up with the idea of washing my car. It was another beer-drinking session in the garden, a few grown-ups doing all the work, and several kids playing in the garden as well, not drinking beer!

This is when Harald had the idea, “Can I wash your car?” Generous as I was – and knowing that the car could really use that treatment – I said “Sure!” There was quite some commotion about finding a hose, sponges, and other things I did not know you needed to wash a car. An hour later, my car was clean(er), and Harald was very proud of his job well done.

Several of the beer-drinking, session-attending adults now suggested that I should pay Harald something for his work. But even at that young age, I was too smart for my own good and realized that this would not be a good thing. So, I politely declined to follow those recommendations and instead demonstrated to Harald how much I appreciated his deed by becoming an even better friend.

Sometimes it takes the universe a long time to acknowledge the correctness of one’s actions, and for this event, I finally found the acknowledgment after so many years in the form of a TED talk that I just have to share here.

Here we go – enjoy!