Do You LOVE

What You Do

For A Living?

     If you do, you are a rarity!  [Maybe you could sell yourself on E-Bay?]  And if in fact you DO love what you do for a living, then you’re likely to also be exceptionally good at doing what you do.

     But (and be truthful with yourself here) if you really don’t love what you do (and endless studies indicate that this constitutes the vast majority), then the odds are overwhelmingly that you’re not particularly good at doing what you do.  Similarly endless studies also say that we perform best when we enjoy what we’re doing! 

     So, if that’s the case, and you’re just muddling your way through your job or career, and not making waves, in order to keep food on the table and tunes on your ipod, you need to do two things: 1) Keep your day job, and 2) Get off your butt and pursue work that you’ll enjoy doing. 

     FYI, 1) and 2) above are based on the fact widely known but little followed fact of life that it’s easier to find a job when you’re already employed than it is when you’re not.  

     Now, if you are one of those oddball types that is extraordinarily good at job performance for a job or career that you hate, you need to make sure you’re sitting before you read the rest of this. 

     In a chair?  Okay, here’s the scoop: There may be dozens (hundreds, even) of reasons that you are performing well at what you hate, but none of them changes the fact that you need to work yourself out from under. 

     Why?  Because every minute of every day, you (your mind, your emotions and your physical body) are experiencing negative stress decay.

     Negative stress takes its toll.  Eventually it finds it’s way into your overall mental, physical and emotional health and well-being.  You may altready be well on the way there.  But, don’t let that depress you.  Not doing anything about it is what’s depressing!

     Like having your lungs miraculously return to healthy pink just a short time after you stop smoking, your mind, emotions and physical health can likewise begin to recover and surge and thrive as soon as you start to change your over-stressed lifestyle! 

     Remember that this kind of lifestyle/behavioral change is your choice.  And you can choose to make it hard or easy.  If you make it easy, you can take it easy.  Happiness breeds productivity and self-worth.  Take a couple of deep breaths and do it, or pass this post along to someone you care about!

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Shop ‘n drive in peace ‘n quiet!

     What a wonderful thing, the Superbowl, for those who don’t care about it.  You can commandeer the extra TV, take it to the attic or basement and watch anything your little heart desires without interruption.  It’s a great day to go shopping or take a drive because everyone else is not doing either.

     You can go to the ocean and walk on the beach or boardwalk and know that every person you see there thinks the same way you do about this brainless, gorilla sport that attracts more heavy drinkers than athletes, and that can’t hold a candle to baseball or tennis or volleyball for genuine athleticism and mental challenge. 

     No, I’m not calling all football players wimps, or all football fans drunkards.  I’m just saying that football is not a sport that’s notorious for producing literary, scientific and artistic genius’s (geni?), and that –to me– it’s more amazing to watch what companies will spend more than  T H R E E   M I L L I O N   D O L L A R S  on (for less than 60 seconds of sponsorship), than to see the event itself. 

     The commercials are, admittedly, always super themselves.  But that makes me think we should just have a Super Commercial Bowl and skip the football stuff all together. 

     We could root for one beer or car company over the other, buy all their promotional gear, put giant promotional junk in our yards, hold tailgate picnics outside of neighborhood bars and car showrooms, make cute little cookies and cupcakes in the shape of the manufacturer we’re rooting for, and call central phone numbers at a $1.99 a pop to vote on our favorite commercial. 

     The winning company would have TV crews in their locker room after the contest and spray champagne on each other.  Kids could go to school the next day and dis the losers. 

     We could all txt msg our teenagerswith something more substantial to discuss for a change (besides, “Hey, how’s it goin’?” and “Fine” or “Whadya do at school today?” and “Nuttin” or “Where are you going?” and “Out.”). 

     Tomorrow, we could gather round America’s watercoolers and coffee shops and talk about which parts of which commercials we liked best and thought were stupidest . . . Whooooooh!  Wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute!  I forgot.  We already do most of that already anyway, right? 

     So what do we need football for? 

     P.S. Just heard the news that the most “chicken wings” consumed in the history of the world are consumed on Superbowl Sunday!!! That makes for an awful lot of chickens out walking the streets . . . so be careful!

     I must be missing something.  [;<} But then, what do I know?

I’m just a baseball fan (as if you hadn’t guessed).

Oh well, have a GREAT SUPERBOWL SUNDAY FAMILY DAY!

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Lost Your Marbles Lately? 

Probably the world’s greatest expert on the subject of death and dying was Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, whose definitive book, “ON DEATH AND DYING” has now become a true classic in the worlds of psychology, psychotherapy, social work, and caregiver counseling. 

     So what?  What does that have to do with your job, or the job of someone close to you going down the tubes?  A lot! 

     The dynamics that Kübler-Ross devoted her life to studying are the same for virtually ANY loss.

     So, the “5 Stages” of death and dying that she defined apply to loss of life, loss of limb or function, loss of possessions, loss of health, loss of friendship, loss of a spouse or parent or child, loss of a home, loss of money, loss of a pet, loss of business, and –yes– loss of a job.

The 5 Stages are, in order of occurrence:

1. Denial and isolation

2. Anger

3. Bargaining

4. Depression

5. Acceptance

The ultimate goal for any of us when we experience loss, has to be to move through the first four Stages as quickly as possible, and get ourselves to that 5th Stage point of Acceptance.

     Some succeed at this.  Some get stuck at Stages 1, 2, 3, or 4 along the way.  [Thes would probably be the majority.]  Some never make it to Stage 5 Acceptance, ever, and live the rest of their lives, for example, angry or depressed.  Those who don’t achieve a sense of Acceptance (as well as those who do but who require a particularly long time to get there) set themselves up to be in an emotionally unhealthy place in life.

     What is it that makes these failures and long delays emotionally unhealthy?  Denial, isolation, anger, bargaining, and depression all live in fantasyland.  The only reality there is on Earth is the one that is happening right this very split second as you are reading these words and thinking about them.  It’s a state of balance and harmony.  It means being focused on the present moment as much as possible.

     Often a “rescuer” or professional “coach” is needed to assist the sufferer of a loss in accelerating and smoothing the way to transition, to Acceptance.  If you want to help someone through a loss event or loss period of time, you must be prepared to be extraordinarily patient, empathetic (putting yourself in her or his shoes) and encouraging. 

     You need to help the individual or group or family pass through each stage and let go of each stage before moving to the next level, and to help him/her/them from slipping backwards.  Keeping those with loss issues and upsets focused on the immediate present moment that’s in front of their faces as much of the time as possible can be frustrating and emotionally draining for the helper(s). 

     It is not always an easy task and –while I heartedly recommend that responsibility for this function is best left to professionals who are trained to provide proper guidance— you can always lend a support system to encourage pursuit of professional assistance, and you can help prompt a sharper “here and now” awareness level simply by keeping your SELF focused on the present, and calling attention to it.     halalpiar

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“Screw it!  I’m gonna do

what I’ve always wanted

to do, and make it work!”

     You know what?  I am a businessperson first and foremost.  From my first lemonade-and-comic-books-for-sale stand when I was six years-old, through years of Madison Avenue advertising agency creative and management work for Fortune 500 clients, I’ve been a businessperson. 

     Through a dozen years of fulltime and adjunct business marketing, management and psychology professorships on three different campuses, and through three overlap years of hosting a daily feature radio show, I’ve been a businesperson.

     Through conducting 20,000 students’ worth of management training programs, and coaching nearly 500 new business startups, plus consulting with hundreds more, I’ve been a businessperson.

     Yet, the blanket under it all, the thread that weaves it all together, the place where my heart is while my mind and hands have been busy being a businessperson, is writing.  If first and foremost, I am a businessperson, then always and forever after, I am a writer.

     Knowing this has made me a better businessperson . . . and a better writer!

     What are YOU really all about?  What do you DO for work every day?  What do you DREAM of doing for work every day?  HOW can you combine those.  [I am now primarily a business writer and writing consultant, for example — traditional advertising, Internet websites and blogs, public relations and feature stories.]  

     Am I kidding?  No.  Am I being unrealistic?  No.  What you do for work every day is your choice!  Whether you do for work every day what you dream of or not, is your choice!  If that doesn’t seem possible because it’s simply too hard for you to do what you want and to make a living at it, THAT is a choice.  Choose for it to be easy!

     Too many of us cruise control through life doing jobs we tolerate, rather than those we know we could have more fun with.  With so many people on the transition bubble right now, it may be the perfect time to simply step back, and make yourself happier and healthier and less stressed.  How?

You walk up to the mirror, throw back your shoulders, smile and say “Screw it!  I’m going to do what I’ve always wanted to do.  And I’m going to make it work because it’s my choice, and because I don’t want to dry up and shrivel up by investing myself and my energy and my heart in maintaining the status quo!  I can enlist my family’s support.  I will at least explore this thinking.” 

     Give yourself the opportunity to be a better businessperson AND a better cowboy or dress designer or sailor or artist or restaurant owner or dog trainer or landscaper or W H A T E V E R by applying your business expertise to what makes for FUN in your life.  Consolidate.  Combine.  You can try it.  You can make it work.  You need only to make the choice.  Explore!  Exhale!  Enjoy!  

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

 “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

If you have no customers

to start with, don’t start! 

Q. What single factor drives most business ventures under? 

A. Poor management. 

     You were thinking finances perhaps, or unproductive employees, or inability to compete effectively?  These negatives can certainly kill off great ideas and intentions quickly, but they all come from poor management.

     A key indicator of poor management (funding, employee and competitive status are not always evident, nor are they always indicative) is the sense of desperation (or ignorance) that accompanies strategic marketing pursuits focused on gaining new customers.

     The best source of business is existing and past business.  Period. 

     When you can present your sales message to those who have already been your customers, the task is always easier and the expense involved is always less because you are dealing with people or entities to whom you (your business) are (is) a known factor.  You have a history with them. 

     At some point, past customers have already paid you for your products or services.  They already know what you’re about and accept you for what they know.  You needn’t start from scratch to get their attention.  You need only to remind them of the positives of their experiences with you, and bring them up to date with your business.  This can be done for minimal expense. 

     The same can be said for existing customers– in spades!  You already have the ears of the people you are currently dealing with.  They wouldn’t be existing customers if they weren’t pleased with your business.  You don’t need to shout or drumroll your message.  You don’t need to underscore the benefits of your products and services. 

     You need only to maintain active communications, introduce new ideas and developments and give them what I call “Stand-On-Your-Head-And-Spit-Wooden-Nickles” service.  This can be done for zero expense!  

     When marketing gets expensive and drives businesses to the wall, is when over-zealous bursts of advertising, promotion, PR and Internet (more the former than the latter) are unleashed in attempts to get new customers. 

     NEW customers are VERY expensive to solicit and sell because you must start with the assumption that they don’t know you and perhaps never heard of you.  This means you have to get their attention, grab their hands, convince them to stay attentive and walk them through the benefits attached to your sales message, then motivate them to open their wallets.  Desired results are seldom produced. 

     Except for one in a billion odds, this is a long, drawn-out process that takes huge amounts of time, energy, and money.  Building a business slowly on the strengths of each past and present customer relationship will create new customers for you without all that draining output.

     The problems for brand new business ventures are even greater!  Where do you get past and present customers when you’ve just opened your doors? 

     If you have no customers to start with, don’t start! 

     If you have a small handful of customers to start with, you need to be prepared to commit your every waking minute to nurturing and cultivating that small handful until it’s an armful, and then a truckful . . . 

     Failure to do exactly that is one reason 9 out of 11 new businesses fail in the first 3 years and that it takes 5 years on average just to break even financially.  This notion goes full circle back to the top of this post: poor management! 

     If you’re an entrepreneur and this hasn’t scared you off, be prepared to pursue your ideas to the exclusion of all other pursuits, and recognize that this level of sacrifice often breaks up personal relationships and entire families.  Still there?  Then stop reading this and get moving!  halalpiar

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“My assistant’s love life? 

…more than I wanna know.” 

(And I’m actually afraid of her finding out about mine, so I keep a distance!) 

“And what’s so bad about that?  After all, I’m not running a social service organization here; this here’s a business.  There’s no room for touchy-feely, warm/fuzzy, cuddly-wuddly (“cuddly-wuddly”?) stuff — least of all between me and the people who work for me.  If we don’t keep a respectful distance, the work will never get done, and my granddaddy always said: “Don’t fish off company docks!”

WOW!  Some good arguments there, Mr. Hardass, and I’m sure that strategy has worked well for you because you’re still in business while others around you keep tumbling.  But, you know what?  Odds are for sure that you’re not getting the productivity levels you deserve out of those you employ.  Here’s why:

KEEPING THE BEST PEOPLE means treating them like they are the best, all the time, no exceptions, even when they screw up and you choose to feel angry about it. 

You might try, instead of anger, to choose (yes, anger is your choice!) the path of a constructive guide by:

1) Taking some deep breaths to calm down your neurological system, relax your muscles and stimulate more oxygen to your brain to become more alert.  You may have to quietly walk away or gently close your door to force yourself to concentrate on your breathing for a minute or two, then

2) Chalking it off to a learning experience for the employee (AND for your self for not having forewarned or kept on top of the issues involved) and taking some solice that the employee probably feels badly enough without being chastized.  Try instead asking for (in writing by the end of the day!) three ways to specifically prevent that kind of screw-up in the future, which puts a positive focus on problem prevention (vs. negative nonproductive scolding).

3) Remembering that Maslow’s Heirarchy still rules HR’s motivational universe of successful companies.  Small frequent rewards that specifically address the personal needs of each individual always motivate best, and can usually be more economical.  A recognition seeker will prefer a plaque to cash.  The parent of a crooked-toothed teenager will prefer one-time orthodontist bill payments over a permanent salary raise. 

The point here is that you will never be able to know what makes your people “tick” –and each marches to a different drummer– UNLESS you make more of an effort toward intimacy!  How will you ever know about the teenager’s teeth, for example, unless you’ve had some kind of informal small talk discussion with the parent over lunch or coffee?  Would you even know that person has a teenage child?

And it doesn’t stop with that.  We often change our wants and needs literally overnight.  A local TV interview, for instance, with the regognition-seeker may satisfy that need to the point where a plaque has no meaning. 

The teenager’s grandmother may have just come up with the cash for the braces, prompting the parent to be more interested in ressurecting pursuit of new tires for the family car.  (Again, a much cheaper and more appreciated one-time-expense reward for good work motivates more than a permanent ongoing salary raise!)  The trade-off to taking the time and trouble to know your employees better is that it will –in the end– cost you less and increase your business productivity levels.  

So, bedroom habits?  No.  Getting a fix and keeping tabs on each individual employee’s changing wants and needs?  Yes.  Listening carefully?  Yes.  Caring enough to provide the kinds of support –within reason of course– that those who work for you really need?  Yes.  Take the time; it pays!   

halalpiar

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The Problems Start Tuesday!  

If you own or manage a business, you’d better sit up and take notice at the plans being made for the week ahead.  [And what I am about to say here is not out of bitterness or sour grapes.  It is out of common sense.  It is out of respect for those Americans whose vigilence and acts of bravery have given us the freedom to be able to speak out and challenge abusive leadership no matter its source.]

     So, Is it just my imagination (isn’t that a song?) or doesn’t it seem inappropriate (like taking poverty-stricken people to a casino) and inauspicious (not conducive to success) AT THIS PARTICULAR STRESSED-OUT TIME IN AMERICAN HISTORY to be spending so frivilously and lavishly for Presidential Inaugural celebrations? 

     Okay, maybe it’s just me.

     Am I dreaming that Joe-the-plumber Americans have been rocked back on their heels with worries about how to take a more fiscally responsible personal and business spending path right now?  Am I alone seeing that most Americans appear to be clutching their pocketbooks like never before?  Or am I just fantasizing all this?

Why would ANYone with a conscience (hmmm) who is about to take control of the planet’s most powerful country, including all the ingredients that determine our nation’s economic well-being –or state of dissipation as the case may be– think for even two (2) seconds that over-spending for such self-aggrandizement and self-serving ends is an okay thing to do? 

     Do you think it’s okay?  I certainly don’t.  I don’t believe your’re “entitled” to a honeymoon when your family is starving just because you ran a successful political campaign.  And I believe we are obliged to question the man’s judgement. 

     What would ever make the new president think he is endearing himself to those he’s been chosen to represent by pissing away (pardon the term; it’s the most accurate I could muster) their hard-earned taxpayer dollars? 

What makes it okay to lend mere lip-service and tacit approval-by-avoidance to skyrocketing forclosure and bankruptcy levels then turn around to hold an extravagant party to celebrate oneself with cash wrenched from our wallets and our children’s piggybanks and our aging parent’s fixed incomes? 

     You don’t believe it?  Here’s a perfect example (and you won’t hear much about this from the idolizing, fawning, he-can-do-no-wrong mainstream media): Teetering on the precipice of financial collapse, the State of Maryland is reported to be coughing up ELEVEN MILLION DOLLARS for inaugural expenses. 

     The list of how many millions of dollars are about to be wasted is exceeded in shamefulness only by the list of dire financial circumstances surrounding the States that are being arm-bent into donating. 

Here’s a question:  Given the sorry state of America’s economy, if it was YOUR inauguration, do you think YOU might forego some of the megamillions of dollars worthy of pomp and circumstance and direct some (or heaven forbid, all) of the funds earmarked for partying into some high need areas? 

     Small business incentives, for example, could serve to create jobs.  Many self-sacrificing, battered, struggling military families could use their own “bailouts” — cash for food, transportantion and heating fuel (with apologies to Internet inventor Al Gore whose global warming theories . . . well, you can finish the rest of that sentence) would take America a great deal further than a week-long bash!

     On top of the points I made in a recent post here. . . that we are now faced with the two top leaders of our country possessing zero (0) business experience between them and, correspondingly, no appreciation for entrepreneurs being the ultimate catalysts of change . . . we are also forced to stand by helplessly watching Tuesday’s shameless splurge of outrageous expenses that could be better used to save lives and buysinesses.

     You own or manage a business?  Beware!  Stay alert!  Don’t get hurt!  We are on our own more than ever before.  Let’s keep our shoulders together and move forward as a unit of influence.  We are, after all, here to leave our marks on the world, aren’t we?  We have to make opportunities from the problems we face, the REAL problems , , , the ones that start on Tuesday.   halalpiar

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“Panic At The Disco” ROCKS!

(ROFLMBO)

Well, I can tell you from two days of firsthand, frontline experience, that there’s very little in the world that can compare with what’s left of your brain after it’s been overhauled by a thirteen year-old girl.

You know those anti-drug commercials showing fried eggs with some line like, “This is your brain on drugs!”?  Well, a thirteen year-old girl (my spectacularly brilliant and charming granddaughter, to be specific) has the ability to fry your eggs and make you think you’re eating watermelon!

Grandma Kathy and I got indoctrinated to Fallout Boy, Panic at the Disco, and All Time Low among other top new recording sensations. 

(And yes, we do understand that Lady Gaga has “a message”!)

Of course we had our cell phone ringtones programmed to remind us of our our own, out-of-touch, oldtime favorites. 

And, no, it didn’t stop there.  Our granddaughter also connected my ipod to a new docking station Christmas present from her parents.  and promised to help me set up a podcast.  (“A piece of cake, Grandpa!”)  Double-cool! 

It might be awhile before I run out to buy any Panic at the Disco tunes to play, but I certainly enjoyed hearing The Eagles; Joni Mitchell; and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young sounding –if such a thing is possible– better than the original recordings!

Like having a bee in your bonnet, this child (and I do use that term advisedly) keeps a schedule that would embarrass the workplace pace of any CEO.  Oh, right, and the economy is not, like, worth worrying about anymore than whether the awesome sparrows will, like, indeed return this year to Capistrano.

Here’s the point, Dear Bosses of Businesses: It’s an extraordinarily healthy experience for your enterprise –stodgy corporate or edgy entrepreneurial makes no difference– to shake up your awareness levels and get your tired boring self off the treadmill for a day.  Take the chance you can get your mind fast-forward catapulted into reality.

When you gain a fresh perspective,

your business gains fresh customers!

When you can look at things differently, you are prompting others to do the same.  Internal AND external customers will evaluate and re-evaluate your offerings with increased receptivity.

Now I know you can get some of the same values by getting down on the floor and playing with a baby or a puppy, but you’ll never learn about the hot new music groups or how “txt msgs” literally dominate the communication existences of those between the ages of 10 and 25! 

     Have you any idea, for example what some of these texting acronyms mean?  (Ask any 13 year-old!):

KWIM~~~~SHID~~~~YYSSW~~~~ROFLMBO~~~~?

Ah, just one other point of significant consequence, BTW: neither the baby nor the puppy can get you dynamically ring-toned! 

But don’t get me wrong.  Babies and puppies are good.  And they are better than nothing.  Playing with either and/or both will definitely divert your brain from your daily routines enough to force you to step up to your phone, desk, computer, meeting. or work site with some degree of renewed vigor –at least until the diaper needs changing or the puppy needs to be out the door.

So ANYthing you experience that’ s different 

can produce some ripples,

maybe even a tide change!

But if you’re going for some big-time rattle-your-business-cage kind of stuff, put aside (not literally of course) the baby and puppy in favor of a thirteen year-old girl, an experience that can help you create new ideas for exciting change.  The resultant energy can help you realign your attitude and reconstitute your commitment to move your business forward.

If you’re not already getting a daily dosage, spend a day with your kids or grandkids or a baby or puppy, and open your mind enough to allow them to step (or crawl, or jump!) inside! 

Then see how that experience changes the ways you think about what you’re doing every day to create and build sales, to attract and keep customers, to cultivate best employees and top suppliers.  If your life is all about getting ongoing adrenalin shots from kids already, look deep inside your business with their eyes! 

Go ahead.  What have you got to lose?  A stuck-in-the-mud reputation?  Another stress-filled day?  Opportunities to do more of the same thing you’ve been doing for weeks?  Months?  Years?  Go enjoy yourself!  Give yourself permission to play for a day!  (Or to see what you’ve been overlooking!)  

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www.TheWriterWorks.com or 302.933.0116 or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]

Make today a GREAT day for someone

BEAT THE BUSHES (NAW,

NOT GEORGE AND JEB)!

     If this economy is strangling your wallet, step back and take an honest look at what you’re doing to make a living.  A major dinnerware store closed this week.  Duh!  The most expensive special events photography business in the poorest town around just folded.  You gotta be kidding; there must not be many special events!  The local tuxedo store is on its last legs.  REEEAlly?  (When was your last tuxedo?)    

Well, there’s always the cliche path: If the bullet you’re biting is starting to hurt your teeth, it may be time for you to climb down off your high horse (yeah, the one on drugs!), beat the bushes (Naw, not George and Jeb!), and think about pounding the pavement (Ouch! The vibrations!))))) for some new way (with apologies to Porky Pig) to bring home the bacon!

     Serious that the time may have come when it would be smart to take a hard look at whether what you’re doing right now can survive tough (or tougher) times. 

     If you’ve just, for example, finished years of writing your first book that you expect should bring you millions (or even thousands!) and you’re thinking about giving up the day job to find a literary agent to help you sell it to a big-time publishing house (Shazam!  That sounds so easy, doesn’t it?), I hate to be the one to tell you to stay with the crummy day job, but the agent/publisher pursuit could take years also… stay with the crummy day job!     

     If you’re selling the latest in fashionable men’s dress clothes, pay attention to the dwindling supply of fashionably-dressed men.  You might as well be selling CB radios and 8-track cassette players (whatever those are). 

     Consider moving your career path (or business direction if you run your own business), toward a market or industry that is more recession-proof. 

     Now I realize that not all of you will want to leap into the air shouting, “Aha! That’s the suggestion I’ve needed.  Now I can go apply for a job with the funeral home; THEY’LL never run out of customers!”

     No-sir-ee-bob!  This is definitely true.

     But, aaah, I DO know that there are a few folks out there clinging to their liferafts and the seas are getting more turbulent.  It may mean having to adjust your marketing messages to fit a better, more productive, more stabilized niche.  Or it may mean having to scramble and take a second crummy job as a quick-fix solution.  

     Sometimes, it may be simply a matter of switching gears, like the old lemon/lemonade advice.  Or maybe somebody else in the household needs to start tossing a few bucks in the kitty!  Whatever you need to do, do it!  Don’t stand around thinking and talking about it for weeks on end.  Those few weeks of opportunity losses could be enough to sink the liferaft. 

     Oh, and just in case you are that writer I alluded to, you might have to give up your great American novel dreams for now and do some other kind of work, but guess what?  You’ll be gathering experience for your next book!  

     It may not, when all is said and done, actually be the exact right time to find a need and fill it as the headline suggests, but it certainly is time to consider the alternatives.          halalpiar

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Have we boxed ourselves

into an Internet corner?

News stories posted yesterday and today recount the equivalent of a meteorologist “Storm Watch” from an FBI Assistant Director who has issued warning statements that there is strong reason to believe the United States may be moving closer to the next 9/11, in the form of a massive terrorist attack on government, business and personal computer systems.  

     Alarmist tendancies aside (and doubtless, we all cringe at the thought), it is probably needless to say that the impact of such an event could be total devastation, and horribly crippling at the least, to life as we know it.  Or would it? 

     Would a “Cybergeddon” destroy our nation?  Hardly.  If anything, such an event would instead steel our commitment to root out and punish these evil impersonators of human beings.

     Surely, Americans are–and have always been–first and foremost, fighters and survivors.  It is in our blood to serve as defenders of freedom, and protectors of the free world. 

     This will not change no matter how sick and ruthless our nation’s enemies become.  This will not change no matter what President and Congress are captaining our ship.  This will not change no matter what loss of power nor amount of suffering borne.

     We need look no further than the freedom we enjoy from the vigilence of our brave young men and women of our armed forces to know the spirit of our country and all of what’s right about our citizens. 

     If indeed an attempt at Cybergeddon is imminent, so is the resistence of Americans everywhere, so is the spunk and gumption and resilience and resolve that runs through our veins, so is our faith in God and country and in friends and neighbors, faith that will –in the end as in the past– win out.

     We are a people of determination as fierce as our compassion. 

     Our ingenuity is as pervasive as our vast entrepreneurial resources.  

     Let those who would seek to undermine and murder and be mindless, also be served the same fair warning that was once before unfurled as the rally cry for The American Revolution:

Don’t Tread On Me!            

halalpiar

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