👟 Bring Mister Rogers to Work Day

5 lifetime lessons for work on March 20th and Every Day

Mar 19, 2025

Sometimes when I tie my shoes a certain way, I start to sing: “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood…” just as Mister Rogers began his show. I don’t even need to be wearing a classic cardigan for this nostalgia to happen. Perhaps you can relate to this red sweater moment — Mister Rogers’ fashion statement so beloved that it’s in the permanent collection of The Smithsonian.

For over 30 years, Mister Rogers wore knitted cardigans, changed into sneakers and greeted children in his Neighborhood television show that transcended generations. Teaching important lessons, he connected with the audience in a personal way, imparting ways to embrace neighbors with kindness, cope with big feelings and explore our imaginations in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe with puppets (my personal favorite).

This week on March 20th, it would have been Mister Rogers’ 97th birthday. While he passed away in 2003, his legacy lives on through his show and teachings. In his honor, March 20th is also known as both “Won’t You Be My Neighbor Day” and “Sweater Day.” I’d like to add a third title: “Bring Mister Rogers to Work Day.” His family published The World According to Mister Rogers and this article is inspired by what I learned from the collection of reflections, quotes and songs on kindness, honesty, community and more.

Until I read the book, I didn’t know as much as I thought I did about my television hero. Rogers career began as a musician — this explains the lessons through song in his show. He was married for 50 years to his college sweet-heart, Joanne, who he proposed to via letter and she accepted “from a pay-phone booth.” This cute fact made me smile since this newsletter is inspired by telephone operators.

Rogers preferred being behind the scenes and became one of the founders of the first public television stations in the United States, WQED, in Pittsburgh. While studying children’s development at the city’s School of Medicine, he met his mentor, Dr. Margaret McFarland. She encouraged him to embrace wonder, creativity and the passion that led to “Mister Rogers.” He also became an ordained Presbyterian minister, explaining his teachings on treating your neighbor as you would thyself.

Here are 5 lessons that Mister Rogers taught which resonate with the ways we communicate and connect at work and beyond, my mission at The Switchboard.

🪄 Try: Don’t Doubt Your Abilities
🎧 Be A Good Listener
💫 Dream Big. Achieve with Discipline
💙 Help Others Be Heroes
🎵 Embrace Everyone's Talents

📷 Fred Rogers and King Friday XIII. Source: Wikimedia Commons

1. 🪄 Try: Don’t Doubt Your Abilities

How many times have you waited to get started or over-thought what a project could be? Confession: I waited 6 months after I had the idea for this newsletter to start it. 100 interviews later, I reflected on what I learned. Turns out Mister Rogers also waited and doubted himself, but ultimately learned it’s best to get started — don’t doubt yourself.

I’ve often hesitated in beginning a project because I’ve thought, It’ll never turn out to be as even remotely like the good idea I have as I start. I could just feel how good it could be. But, I’ve decided that for the present, I would create the best way I know how and accept the ambiguities.

2. 🎧 Be A Good Listener

Listening is a top skill for communicating, confirmed by leaders featured in this newsletter. An ancient Greek philosopher, Epictetus, who once said: “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” Mister Rogers encouraged listening to understand and make others feel a sense of belonging:

In easy times and in tough times, what seems to matter most is the way we show those nearest us that we’ve been listening to their needs, to their joys and to their challenges…. In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.

3. 💫 Dream Big. Achieve with Discipline.

It takes work to accomplish your ideas. My favorite honorary Chief Culture Officer, Mary Poppins changed the culture of tidying up at home with her song and dance “A Spoonful of Sugar.” The original Mary, Julie Andrews, sang the lyrics:

In every job that must be done. There is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap! The job's a game. And every task you undertake. Becomes a piece of cake…

I've wondered what she could have done for the workplace with her strong conviction and creativity. With both of these qualities, Mister Rogers believed anything was possible:

Imagining something may be the first step in making it happen, but it takes the real time and real efforts of real people to learn things, make things, turn thoughts into deeds or visions into inventions.

Mister Rogers put in years of work to refine his craft and continued to improve it.

4. 💙 Help Others Be Heroes

One of the muses for this newsletter, the Switchboard Operators of World War II, saved lives as they managed the telephone lines for generals on the battlefield. Chief Operator Grace Banker was ultimately awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for her extraordinary services — she was the only woman of 16,084 women and men selected. A very humble lady, Grace didn’t draw attention to herself or mention this honor. In a memoir, she wrote:

“Whatever glory may go with that medal, I have always felt belongs in large measure to the very small, but very loyal group of First Army girls.”

Mister Rogers felt similarly in how he elevated others around him:

Heroes…They’re the kind of people who help all of us come to realize that “biggest” doesn’t necessarily mean “best” that the most important things of life are inside things like feelings and wonder and love–and that the ultimate happiness is being able sometimes, somehow to help our neighbor become a hero too.

5. 🎵 Embrace Everyone's Talents

As a musician Mister Rogers found beauty in the collective sounds from players and their instruments in alignment. With their unique skills, they teach us to be our authentic selves and are welcomed for individual talents. But they are better together as a group. Here’s what he had to say on the topic:

As you play together in a symphony or orchestra, you can appreciate that each musician has something fine to offer. Each one is different, though, and you each have a different “song to sing.” When you sing together, you make one voice. That’s true of all endeavors, not just musical ones. Finding ways to harmonize our uniqueness with the uniqueness of others can be the most fun–and the most rewarding of all.

I hope you can bring a bit of Mister Rogers to your work day on March 20th and every day for that matter.

Let's make the most of this beautiful day
Since we're together, we might as well say
Would you be mine, could you be mine
Won't you be my neighbor?

Thanks for tuning into this edition of The Switchboard. I’m always grateful for your support growing this community of caring communicators and connectors. If you enjoyed this article, consider sharing it with a friend or posting on LinkedIn. Signing off — Julia