Give – without being asked…

If you’re like me, we are asked to give frequently, true?  I understand solicitation.  It’s a bad word, right?  It even warrants signs on home and office doors.  Bad, unless you’re in the sales profession.  Oh well, rejection comes with the territory: 

Many of us give without being asked.  Just look at this post; just peruse online sites.  All kinds of opinions and advice are given without being asked.  My posts included.  Oh, the challenges of free speech: 

What this country needs is more free speech worth listening to. 

Lawrence J. Peter  

According to AI, the word “gift” shares a “direct-root-and-action relationship” with “giving”.   We all engage in giving without being asked every day; several times each day; and our recipients appreciate our gifts. 

Giving a smile to a stranger we pass in the aisle at a store.  Giving a “Thank You” wave to the driver that lets us merge in front of them on the highway.  Giving a, “Have a nice day.” to a friend, neighbor, co-worker, and client.  Giving a hug to our loved ones.  Think about all of the giving we give to others – and in turn, receive in kind. 

You may think these don’t make up for the unwanted “giving” we receive on social media; the hype; the hate; the half-truths.  Perhaps we need reminding that all of the giving we give each other each day; all of the small courtesies; all of the little pleasantries; all together, en masse, makes us who we are.  It’s not one big thing.  It’s all of the little things we can easily think are at the margins: 

Execute passionately.  Marginal tactics executed passionately almost always will out perform brilliant tactics executed marginally. 

Harry Beckwith 

We witnessed passion during the World Cup on the pitch and in our cities.  World Cup visitors told stories of Americans being a nation of courtesy; friendliness; and a lot of fun!  They noticed perhaps that we say “Thank you” easily and often without being asked.  Barry J. Nalebuff gave us a list for business: 

Nine Tips on Saying, “Thank You”: 

• Say, “Thank You” in kind, not cash.

• Save the best, “Thank You” for your best customers.

• Say, “Thank You” in a way that builds your business.

• Don’t say, “Thank You” too quickly, or too slowly.

• Say you’re going to say, “Thank You.”

• Recognize that you may have to compete for loyalty.

• Allow your competitors to have loyal customers, too.

• Don’t forget to say, “Thank You” even if you have a monopoly.

• Say, “Thank You” to your suppliers as well as to your customers.” 

Giving without being asked delineates who we are and who we are not.  Americans are a diverse people united in compassion and understanding.  We are not separate tribes at war with each other.  So, “Thank You!” for allowing me to give you this post.  I know I wasn’t asked for it. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

 

Goals - warning!

In reading Steve Forbes’ book, How Capitalism Will Save Us ®, I didn’t think I would like it before I started.  I must admit though, he caught my interest.  Warning!  His style is blunt and aggressive.  Come to think of it, an undergraduate at MSU Denver I was in a working group with told me I’m blunt and aggressive.  But I digress… 

As I said, I was skeptical right from the title; right from the Preface.  You see, I have a bias about rich capitalists defending capitalism.  I mean, we don't typically hear a blue collar, “under class” person defending capitalists and capitalism.  I’m more in alignment with this warning for business schools as written in the book Drive®: 

Goals… Business school professors suggest they should come with their own warning label: Goals may cause systematic problems for organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation.  Use care when applying goals to your organization. 

Daniel H. Pink

 “… narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased taking…”  sounds like today’s corporations headed by… yep… capitalists, true?

On the other hand, when I Googled what the goal is of the free market Steve Forbes refers to, the response surprised me:

 “… to efficiently allocate resources to satisfy consumer demand while promoting economic growth and individual freedom.  By minimizing government intervention, it allows supply, demand, and competition to determine prices and production, which aims to maximize prosperity and innovation.” 

“… promoting economic growth and individual freedom…”  Hard to argue with that!

Forbes doesn’t sugar coat the reality that a free market is brutal; people lose jobs; companies go out of business.  He simply emphasizes that the subsequent employment, emerging businesses, and ultimate impact on Americans’ lives is positive.  He also emphasizes today we are not “… minimizing government intervention…” Steve claims capitalism it is totally better than government over-intervention.  I think Wicker agrees: 

Wicker's Law 

Government expands to absorb revenue, and then some. 

Unknown Sage 

That is how I feel today towards our federal government.  State, county, and local governments, too!  The “revenue” they are absorbing is our tax dollars.  I’ve never heard of a blue collar, “under class” person defending higher taxes, either.  

Do you think Joseph A. Tainter’s book, The Collapse of Complex Societies ®, is an accurate warning for today’s circumstances? 

… bad government is a normal cost of government. 

Maybe Stave Forbes has a good point about the benefits of the free market goals we should strive for, after all. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Our Union upheld…

Tomorrow is Independence Day.  It was 163 years ago today however, when a monumental event may have prevented the United States from being split into two, separate countries.  It came with a horrific toll: 

The battlefield was not a testament to heroism.  It was an ugly health hazard - a field of corpses that deeply concerned Pennsylvania's governor.

Nor was that corpse-strewn field a monument to greatness.  The North's general, Meade, had so bungled the battle, leaving Lee to regroup, that he submitted his resignation to President Lincoln.  But Meade's opponent, Lee, had done no better, marching blindly into slaughter - a blunder so great that he submitted his resignation, too.

The battlefield was Gettysburg...

     Harry Beckwith 

Of all the Americans who have died in all the wars our country has ever fought, almost half - 620,000 - died in the Civil War.  Of all the Civil War battles, the one battle with the highest number of casualties was Gettysburg – 51,000 Americans.

Today, we should remember war is not some distant video game of drones.  James McPherson helps us remember the words of Lincoln’s greatest general that still resonates: 

Like Lincoln, he believed in a hard war and a soft peace. 

War is cruelty and you cannot refine it. 

Ulysses S. Grant 

I believe every American should visit the Gettysburg National Military Park and pay tribute to those courageous Americans that preserved our union in the face of immeasurable cruelty.  

In one of history’s most succinct and famous speeches Abraham Lincoln spoke to unite all Americans: 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. 

July 4^th  and July 3^rd, are days for us to remember; to honor; and to rededicate ourselves to a united, United States of America.  

May God bless you; and may God bless America! 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.