A New Year's Resolution for the Rich 12-10/Sam Harris

A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION FOR THE RICH

 

By Sam Harris

While the United States has suffered the worst recession in living memory, I find that I have very few financial concerns. Many of my friends are in the same position: Most of us attended private schools and good universities, and we will be able to provide these same opportunities to our own children. No one in my immediate circle has a family member serving in Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001, the only sacrifice we were asked to make for our beloved country was to go shopping. Nearly a decade has passed, with our nation’s influence and infrastructure crumbling by the hour, and yet those of us who have been so fortunate as to actually live the American dream—rather than merely dream it—have been spared every inconvenience. Now we are told that we will soon receive a large tax cut for all our troubles. What is the word for the feeling this provokes in me? Imagine being safely seated in lifeboat, while countless others drown, only to learn that another lifeboat has been secured to take your luggage to shore…

Most Americans believe that a person should enjoy the full fruits of his or her labors, however abundant. In this light, taxation tends to be seen as an intrinsic evil. It is worth noting, however, that throughout the 1950’s—a decade for which American conservatives pretend to feel a harrowing sense of nostalgia—the marginal tax rate for the wealthy was over 90 percent. In fact, prior to the 1980’s it never dipped below 70 percent. Since 1982, however, it has come down by half. In the meantime, the average net worth of the richest 1 percent of Americanshas doubled (to $18.5 million), while that of the poorest 40 percent has fallen by 63 percent (to $2,200). Thirty years ago, top U.S. executives made about 50 times the salary of their average employees. In 2007, the average worker would have had to toil for 1,100 years to earn what his CEO brought home between Christmas in Aspen and Christmas on St. Barthes.

We now live in a country in which the bottom 40 percent (120 million people) owns just 0.3 percent of the wealth. Data of this kind make one feel that one is participating in a vast psychological experiment: Just how much inequality can free people endure? Have you seenRalph Lauren’s car collection? Yes, it is beautiful. It also cost hundreds of millions of dollars. “So what?” many people will say. “It’s his money. He earned it. He should be able to do whatever he wants with it.” In conservative circles, expressing any doubt on this point has long been synonymous with Marxism.

And yet over one million American children are now homeless. People on Medicare are beingdenied life-saving organ transplants that were routinely covered before the recession. Over one quarter of our nation’s bridges are structurally deficient. When might be a convenient time to ask the richest Americans to help solve problems of this kind? How about now?

It is easy to understand why even the most generous person might be averse to paying taxes: Our legislative process has been hostage to short-term political interests and other perverse incentives for as long as anyone can remember. Consequently, our government wastes an extraordinary amount of money.  It also seems uncontroversial to say that whatever can be best accomplished in the private sector should be. Our tax code must also be reformed—and it might even be true that the income tax should be lowered on everyone, provided we find a better source of revenue to pay our bills. But I can’t imagine that anyone seriously believes that the current level of wealth inequality in the United States is good and worth maintaining, or that our government’s first priority should be to spare a privileged person like myself the slightest hardship as this once great nation falls into ruin.

And the ruination of the United States really does seem possible. It has been widely reported, for instance, that students in Shanghai far surpass our own in science, reading, and math. In fact, when compared to other countries, American students are now disconcertingly average(slightly below in math), where the average includes utopias like Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Albania, Kazakhstan, and Indonesia. President Obama was right to recognize this as a “Sputnik moment.” But it is worse than that. This story was immediately followed by a report about giddy Creationists in the state of Kentucky being offered $40 million in tax subsidies to produce a full-scale model of Noah’s ark. More horrible still, this ludicrous use of public money is probably a wise investment, given that such a monument to scientific ignorance will be guaranteed to attract an ovine influx of Christian tourists from neighboring states. Seeing facts of this kind, juxtaposed without irony or remedy at this dire moment in history, it is hard not to feel that one is witnessing America’s irreversible decline. Needless to say, most Americans have no choice but to send their children to terrible schools—where they will learn the lesser part of nothing and emerge already beggared by a national debt now on course to reach $20 trillion.  And yet Republicans in every state can successfully campaign on a promise to spend less on luxuries like education, while delivering tax cuts to people who, if asked to guess their own net worth, could not come within $10 million of the correct figure if their lives depended on it.

American opposition to the “redistribution of wealth” has achieved the luster of a religious creed. And, as with all religions, one finds the faithful witlessly espousing doctrines that harm almost everyone, including their own children. For instance, while most Americans have no chance of earning or inheriting significant wealth, 68 percent want the estate tax eliminated (and 31 percent consider it to be the “worst” and “least fair” [PDF] tax levied by the federal government). Most believe that limiting this tax, which affects only 0.2 percent of the population, should be the top priority of the current Congress.

The truth, however, is that everyone must favor the “redistribution of wealth” at some point. This relates directly to the issue of education: as the necessity of doing boring and dangerous work disappears—whether because we have built better machines and infrastructure, or shipped our least desirable jobs overseas—people need to be better educated so that they can apply themselves to more interesting work. Who will pay for this? There is only one group of people who can pay for anything at this point: the wealthy.

To make matters more difficult, Americans have made a religious fetish of something called “self-reliance.” Most seem to think that while a person may not be responsible for the opportunities he gets in life, each is entirely responsible for what he makes of these opportunities. This is, without question, a false view of the human condition. Consider the biography of any “self-made” American, from Benjamin Franklin on down, and you will find that his success was entirely dependent on background conditions that he did not make, and of which he was a mere beneficiary. There is not a person on earth who chose his genome, or the country of his birth, or the political and economic conditions that prevailed at moments crucial to his progress. Consequently, no one is responsible for his intelligence, range of talents, or ability to do productive work. If you have struggled to make the most of what Nature gave you, you must still admit that Nature also gave you the ability and inclination to struggle. How much credit do I deserve for not having Down syndrome or any other disorder that would make my current work impossible? None whatsoever. And yet devotees of self-reliance rail against those who would receive entitlements of various sorts—health care, education, etc.—while feeling unselfconsciously entitled to their relative good fortune. Yes, we must encourage people to work to the best of their abilities and discourage free riders wherever we can—but it seems only decent at this moment to admit how much luck is required to succeed at anything in this life. Those who have been especially lucky—the smart, well-connected, and rich—should count their blessings, and then share some of these blessings with the rest of society.

The wealthiest Americans often live as though they and their children had nothing to gain from investments in education, infrastructure, clean-energy, and scientific research. For instance, the billionaire Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, recently helped kill a proposition that would have created an income tax for the richest 1 percent in Washington (one of seven states that has no personal income tax). All of these funds would have gone to improve his state’s failing schools.  What kind of society does Ballmer want to live in—one that is teeming with poor, uneducated people? Who does he expect to buy his products? Where will he find his next batch of software engineers? Perhaps Ballmer is simply worried that the government will spend his money badly—after all, we currently spend more than almost every other country on education, with abysmal results. Well, then he should say so—and rather than devote hundreds of thousands of dollars to stoking anti-tax paranoia in his state, he should direct some of his vast wealth toward improving education, like his colleague Bill Gates has begun to do.

There are, in fact, some signs that a new age of heroic philanthropy might be dawning. For instance, the two wealthiest men in America, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, recently invitedtheir fellow billionaires to pledge the majority of their wealth to the public good. This is a wonderfully sane and long overdue initiative about which it is unforgivable to be even slightly cynical. But it is not sufficient. Most of this money will stay parked in trusts and endowments for decades, and much of it will go toward projects that are less than crucial to the future of our society. It seems to me, however, that Gates and Buffett could easily expand and target this effort: asking those who have pledged, along with the rest of the wealthiest Americans, to immediately donate a percentage of their net worth to a larger fund. This group of benefactors would include not only the super-rich, but people of far more modest means. I do not have 1/1000 the wealth of Steve Ballmer, but I certainly count myself among the people who should be asked to sacrifice for the future of this country. The combined wealth of the men and women on the Forbes 400 list is $1.37 trillion. By some estimates, there are at least another 1,500 billionaires in the United States. Something tells me that anyone with a billion dollars could safely part with 25 percent of his or her wealth—without being forced to sell any boats, planes, vacation homes, or art. As of 2009, there were 980,000 families with a net worth exceeding $5 million (not including their primary residence). Would a one-time donation of 5 percent really be too much to ask to rescue our society from the maw of history?

Some readers will point out that I am free to donate to the treasury even now. But such solitary sacrifice would be utterly ineffectual, and I am no more eager than anyone else is to fill the pork barrels of corrupt politicians. However, if Gates and Buffett created a mechanism that bypassed the current dysfunction of government, earmarking the money for unambiguously worthy projects, I suspect that there are millions of people like myself who would not hesitate to invest in the future of America.

Imagine that Gates and Buffett raised a trillion dollars this way: what should we spend it on? The first thing to acknowledge is that almost any use of this money would be better than just letting it sit. Mindlessly repairing every bridge, tunnel, runway, harbor, reservoir, and recreation area in the United States would be an improvement over what are currently doing. However, here are the two areas of investment that strike me as most promising:

Education: It is difficult to think of anything more important than providing the best education possible for our children. They will develop the next technologies, medical cures, and global industries, while mitigating their unintended effects, or they will fail to do these things and consign us all to oblivion. The future of this country will be entirely shaped by boys and girls who are just now learning to think. What are we teaching them? Are we equipping them to create a world worth living in? It doesn’t seem so. Our public school system is an international disgrace. Even the most advantaged children in the United States do not learn as much as children in other countries do. Yes, the inefficiencies in our current system could be remedied, and must be, and these savings can then be put to good use—but there is no question that a true breakthrough in education will require an immense investment of further resources. Here’s an expensive place to start: make college free for anyone who can’t afford it.

Clean Energy: As Thomas Friedman and many others have pointed out, our dependence on nonrenewable sources of energy is not only bad for our economy and the environment, it obliges us to subsidize both sides of the clash of civilizations. Much of the money we spend on oil is used to export the lunatic ideology of conservative Islam—building mosques and madrassas by the tens of thousands, recruiting jihadists, and funding terrorist atrocities. We should have devoted ourselves to a clean-energy Manhattan Project thirty years ago. Success on this front would still yield enormous wealth in this country, while simultaneously bankrupting the Middle Eastern states that only pretend to be our allies. Our failure to rise to this challenge already counts as one of the greatest instances of masochistic stupidity in human history. Why prolong it?

I am aware that a proposal of this kind is bound to seem quixotic. But what’s to stop the wealthiest Americans from sponsoring a 21st Century Renaissance? What politician would object to our immediately spending a trillion dollars on improvements in education and energy security? Perhaps there are even better targets for this money. Let Gates and Buffett convene a team of brilliant people to lay out the priorities. But again, we should remember that they could scarcely fail to improve our situation. Simply repaving our roads, the dilapidation of which causes $54 billion in damage to our cars every year, would be better than doing nothing.

December 29, 2010

In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL www.LuisLobo.Biz

Change...

In my book, "It IS Your Attitude", I declared myself a "A Change Agent".  I am now  getting ready to go through another significant change process in my new role with my organization.  Many years ago I set my career goal of becoming bank president.  Every action was accomplished to lay the groundwork towards this outcome.  Assignment after assignment, a total of 10 moves, over 19 years, and achieving my goal of Regional President in 2002 in the Washington, DC area, all helped me gain awareness, experience and help teams accomplish their goals.  The impact has always been on a localized basis.  Now there is the potential to impact our entire footprint.

It has taken some weeks to begin detachment from my current role as Regional President.  Not to mention that fact that we have lived in this same house for almost 10 years, raised our children here and call this home.  The most significant negative feeling is leaving many individuals I have come to trust and rely upon.  These are people who have been loyal to our purpose and never wavered.  They were unselfish and relentless in carrying out the mission of the organization.  THANK YOU!  We accomplished many goals, but will claim as our single most enduring achievement establishing a standard of client service superior to ANY financial institution in the Greater Washington DC area. BELIEVE ME, in the fall of 2005 we had accepted a low expectation as being on par with a market like D.C.  We decided to change reality and within 24 months we achieved world-class scores.

On 11-7, I will assume the responsibility over our Multicultural strategy.  I have been involved within this effort since 2001 when we began to understand the needs of the growing Latino community as well as the significant diversity of our markets.  In 2005 I brought a professional to the organization that has put in place the infrastructure and functionality we now enjoy in serving and growing these segments within our foot print. Now it is time to take it to the NEXT LEVEL  and I will be taking responsibility for the internal and external efforts at serving these economically significant groups from DC/Maryland/Virginia south to Key West, Florida and west to Dallas, Texas.  I intuitively  "know" what to do as I have been a student of the evolution by immigrant communities since the early 1960's when my father first came to the US from Costa Rica.  Some years ago I introduced and taught a course at the ABA's Stonier Graduate School of Banking named "Marketing to the Hispanic Population" which became "Banking the Unbanked". The class attracted maximum attendance given the breath of the speakers from The Pew Hispanic Center, Migration Policy Institute and Urban Bank to name a few.  I will never consider myself a subject matter expert on anything; the learning is continuous and challenging and must be so we can begin to understand the given reality.

What I do understand is that humans, the world over, react positively to respect.  A process of culturally conversant engagement provides the respect I am describing.  In my world, helping individuals and firms gain greater awareness and knowledge, and therefore becoming more knowledgeable clients, can cause significant and positive change for these individuals, families, firms and communities.  I am reminded of the untimely passing of my father at age 52.  He assumed he would live to 103 like his grandfather and at least to 82 like his own father.  He died with 2x salary as his sole insurance benefit.   I guess it was his responsibility to have had better coverage; or maybe it was a failure of his financial advisors to assess his situation. I think it was the latter.  In my organization we take responsibility for making our clients and new friends aware of solutions which are critical in order to accomplish their most significant life goals.  I am proud of my organization for this and many other reasons.

Change happens and it must be anticipated and seized.  We are fortunate to have prepared our children, now in college, to live full and impactful lives. That period of our life is now behind us.  Now comes this cycle, and even though it has been much anticipated, it comes full of expectations, enthusiasm, some fear, and lots of hope of what will be accomplished.  I live in a world of pure economics, where supply and demand are in constant flux - there has always been plenty of supply and our job is to engage the demand on a higher quality continuum arrangement, which is rarely price driven.  Thus my new opportunity is about economics first, but equally so and over time of greater impact, is the morality of our purpose in serving these communities proactively.  I recall the positive impact my father had as founder of the Latino community in western NC. The NC based Latino Diamante Awards recognized him posthumously in 2003 for his leadership.  Recently I was taking a tour of the Spanish Center of the Arch Diocese of Washington.  Fr. Mario was our host and at the end of the tour I asked him for a few minutes to share my new area of responsibility.  He told me that "things happen when they are ready to happen and to walk through that door; your organization will benefit, but so will many others".

There is considerable ego contained in the positions we attain, not because of the status it reflects, but because of our own awareness of what it took to get there. I find myself at an interesting time.



In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL www.LuisLobo.Bizwww.LuisLobo.Biz

Various thoughts

"Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that Heaven has bestowed upon men; no treasures that the earth holds buried or the sea conceals can compare with it; for freedom, as for honor, life may and should be ventured". Cervantes, Don Quixote


"La Libertad, Sancho, es uno de los mas preciosos dones que a los hombres dieron los cielos; con ella no pueden igualarse los tesoros que encierra la tierra ni el mar encubre: por la Libertad, asi como por la honra, se puede y debe aventurar la vida..." gracias JCH


From my grandfather Andres re: Heaven.  "It must be so wonderful that no one ever returns"


De mi abuelo Andres sobre La Gloria:  "Debe ser tan bonito pues nadie se devuelve"


From my father Gerardo:  "There is no such things as a self-made man or woman; others observed them striving to succeed and gave a "hand-up" which is very different than a "hand-out".


De mi padre Gerardo: " No hay tal cosa como un hombre  o mujer hecho por sus propios modos; otros observaron sus esfuerzos y dieron una "mano de empujo" cual es diferente a una limosna.

In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL www.LuisLobo.Biz

Reflections

Well, this time last week I was worried that my health had taken a sharp turn DOWN.  Simple answers, like - you need to take in more fluids, given the power walking regimen, are embarrassing when "I knew that" is confirmed.  Looks like a clean bill of health.  Thank you doctors, nursing staff, family - notably my wife for being more than my voice when I lacked it.

So, what if the news had not turned out to be as positive?  Well, that is speculative as we really do not know how we would react otherwise.  However, are any of us prepared for the "news".  Are we prepared for our self-judgement as a person, as a father, as a brother, a husband, a team mate, in so many of the roles that we play every day?  Is your house in order in these many relationships?  I know I have several that need to be repaired, or at least clarified. 

What is the legacy of your financial condition?  I learned with the passing of my father, at 52 - I am 50, that insurance is for the living, not the deceased.  Have you involved a professional in reviewing your financial affairs with your significant other?

Given a "new lease" what will I do different, stop doing, begin doing; believe me - one does not need to go to the brink to gain clarity of awareness!  I have learned, again, since 12-23-10, that I could hold myself accountable to a daily power-walking regimen.  I learned that I can eat more healthy-like.  Both of these have required a change in behavior that ultimately led to a change in belief - proven by the results.

On many  fronts, I am able to change the given reality.  My grandfather Andres, upon me asking him to do this and that with me, now and then would say:  "Luis, I lack the will-power".  My friend Pete, a great coach, says: "You either have the WILL or you have the SKILL" - when you have both, few goals are insurmountable.

Now it is time to reflect on these matters.  Only I can have the WILL!

In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL www.LuisLobo.Biz

Well - one day you are high on the horse, enjoying a Steeley Dan concert , next you are in the hospital with severe abdominal cramps. Do not yet know what the obstruction in the intestine is - right now I am blaming it on Od'g on tasty peanuts at the concert. They will know once the probe goes to work tomorrow. Regardless, here I am at a moment of uncertainty as to my health. They say "live each day like it's your last". I have done so mostly, but am aware that many times the efforts were expanded for the approval of others and not for my own and took my attention away from my loved ones. I do not believe I am going to experience some life altering awareness due to fear of dying due to the fact that I do not fear death. I am not going to experience some mystical clarity because I do not fear the judgement or approval of a higher power. I believe in goodness and freedom, in my desire to help others be successful and in my own motivation to change the given reality within my sphere of influence. Lastly I do know of the unconditional love of my children, my wife and family.

The people in my life know that I love them, I have told them so. The opportunities of life, in most respects, I have taken and made something of them and many have benefited by it. I have an awareness of the world in my time and am very hopeful of the increasing freedom and quality of life my children will enjoy.

Finally, for now, I am most clear in my belief of mankind. We have created a world of progress driven by freedom. This trajectory will not change. Of this I am most certain this afternoon sitting here at Frederick Memorial Hospital. I am at peace.








In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL www.LuisLobo.Biz

How Values are Practical

The Value of Reality is one of the most challenging to embrace.  This is because we want Reality to be what we want it to be as opposed to what it is.  You can only understand the given Reality by being objective and that requires us to understand our bias and prejudices, it is only then that we are able to "see" Reality for what it is.  Once we have clarity as to the Reality that we are facing, we use the Value of Reasoning to understand how we relate to the given Reality.  If I am behaving inconsistent with the given Reality, then my results are not going to be what they could be and this judgement is only possible by Reasoning  , thus understanding the precepts and concepts of the Reality I am facing.  Once I understand this context, then the Value of Independent Thinking is triggered.  I can not understand the context and not take action.  Yet, Independent Thinking requires me to evaluate all the possible outcomes of the action I desire to take so as to act consistent with Reality.  Therefore, the baseline of understanding and acting lie with first Reality, then Reasoning and Independent Thinking.

The continuing understanding and acting create the existence of the Values of Honesty and Integrity.  We are acting in unison with the given Reality and therefore we are being Honest with ourselves and with others.  Integrity is the Value that is attributed as holistic character due to our consistent  and Honest behaviors.  The result of this continous loop is the Value of Productivity.  Some result will occur from the behavior we exhibit.  If the behavior is grounded in this loop, then the outcome, Productivity, will emerge. Then the Value of Justice is evident.  If I produce more, then I deserve more; if I contribute more then I will have a greater impact. We judge ourselves and we are judged by others relative to our contributions to one another into a broader societal ripple.  When this judgement is positive, due to the contribution made by our consistent behaviors, then we earn the Values of Pride and Self Esteem.  No one and no thing can give us Pride and Self Esteem, these we must earn on a daily basis in every aspect of our life.  When we earn Pride and Self Esteem, we find happiness and are more likely to continue to exhibit the behaviors that ultimately reward us psychologically.  It is then, and only then that the Value of Teamwork is created.  Likeminded individuals creating Pride and Self Esteem for themselves, now begin to collaborate and the outcome of this collaboration will create outcomes more significant than those of an individual.  The leverage created by groups and organizations acting in this manner create more "Just" societies in communities and organizations.  Here is where we find progress for humanity.

In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL www.LuisLobo.Biz

Jerry Lobo could have never imagined....

It is interesting for me to imagine what was traveling through my father's mind when he decided to come to the U.S.  Only the politically, ethnically and economically oppressed ever leave their home, and then only a small number of them.  He experienced none of these growing up in a middle-class mercantilist family.  Some years after the passing of my father, at the age of 52 in 1994, I was visiting with his father at his beach rancho in Mata Limon, Costa Rica.  I asked him to explain to me why.  I told him my father always told us he came to the U.S. to give his children an American education and to raise them in the greatest nation in the world.  My grandfather did not disagree with my statement. He said:  your father was a very bright young man and a driven individual, but he did not want to work with me. (Back story:  in many places around the globe, the U.S. included, the oldest male child normally took over the family business from his father and became head of the family as time and circumstance changed).

In time I have understood that both stories are true.  My father in his early youth viewed American films ( a huge fan of Audi Murphy) and interpreted the freedom to be what one chose to be as something he would accomplish.  He and my mother married at 17 in 1959 and he worked for his father for several years in their store and then when they opened "Monterey" restaurant in the airport complex Juan Santamaria.  He took his leave in December of 1963 after a cousin, Horacio Lobo,  and William Montero had moved to Amsterdam, N.Y. to seek their fortune, they unmarried and my Dad with me and my mother expecting Carlos.

What was coursing through his mind when he boarded that plane, kissed me and my mother good-by, knowing that he would never return, because to return would be to admit defeat.  Therefore my father decided that defeat was not an option.  Within 6 months he was employed in the textile industry and 18 months after his arrival was 3rd shift supervisor when we reunited in Amsterdam.  He had his own car, his own apartment and now his family with him.  My father was all of 23 when we joined him. His organization expanded to Lincoln County NC in the late 1960's (Mohican Mills a sub of Fab Industries) and there he raised his children.

 In time there were one thousand Costa Rican's in Amsterdam, N.Y., several families followed my Dad to Linconton, and today the second largest expatriate Costa Rican community in the U.S. calls Linconton (LinconTico) home.  Nearly 20% of the population of N.C. is today Hispanic.  The Diamante Awards Foundation awarded my father posthumously the "Lifetime Achievement Award" for his work on behalf of the Hispanic community in western N.C. during his years in that area.  He was the first and he was their leader.

Coming off that plane at Idlewild Airport (Kennedy) in the winter of 1963, at the age of 21, he could never have dreamed that he would help usher in the most significant demographic shift in the U.S. with the rise of the Hispanic population, now 25% of the population.  That his children would carry on his philosophy that a "Hand Up is different from a Hand Out".  That his grandchildren would be educated in the best universities is the world.

What my father knew was that his life and his happiness were his own.  He took that responsibility and drove it against reality every day.  My father changed his given reality.  He would not allow circumstances to drive his future, he changed what would be into what became a new reality.

There are countless examples of individuals like my father; most unknown but to their contemporaries and families.  However, what he chose to do, and the fact that he chose not to be defeated, and believe me he tasted the bitter taste of defeat many times,  caused this outcome.

He was right, the U.S. is the greatest nation conceived by the mind of man, where an individual can cast his effort forth and has the opportunity to reach his dreams.  He was right that an American education is viewed around the globe as a competitive advantage, that is why so many international students come to this country to accomplish their undergraduate and graduate degrees.  He was also right not to suffer the dominance of his own family and customs.

When I boil it down,what  my father exhibited was courage to confront conformity and tradition.  To take himself through the change process (people really like change - tongue in cheek). To cast aside what did not matter and to take up what did.  To place himself unsafe from failure, from criticism, and from racism.  In doing so, he achieved the American dream.  Many years ago, my mother's father noted: what Gerardo has done is worthy of admiration. Yet, anyone else's judgement matters little even as one appreciates hearing praise when it is earned.

It was his own judgement of what he had accomplished that mattered and gave him the values of pride and self-esteem.  We earn pride and self-esteem through our words, behaviors and results; or we do not.

Congratulations Papi.

In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL www.LuisLobo.Biz

EDUCATION

REGARDLESS OF SOCIAL OR ECONOMIC ORIGIN, EDUCATION WILL DISTINGUISH AND ELEVATE YOUR LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING AND AWARENESS.  IT IS ONLY THEN THAT YOU CAN THINK FOR YOURSELF AND ADD VALUE TO YOUR SOCIETY.

ADD PERSISTENCE TO THE EDUCATED SELF AND YOU WILL THEN FIND SUCCESS.


In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL www.LuisLobo.Biz

JIM CRAMER AND BB&T

In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL www.LuisLobo.Biz

RESOLUTIONS vs. CONSISTENCY

RESOLUTIONS vs. CONSISTENCY

I have deliberated about sending this message to you, given that “resolutions”, made in the New Year, barely last into February.  Throwing caution to the wind, and the fact that I am sharing this with you, now forces a commitment on my part.

Upon receipt, I will have accomplished 30 consecutive days of my preferred exercise:  power-walking.  This is not new.  I have been doing this, either on a treadmill or on the street since 1990.  The issue has been the lack of consistency on my part.  But now I have 30 consistent days behind me and I feel a sense of accomplishment.

Each of us has something that we wish to improve in our lives (daily power-walking just happens to be on my list of several).  Maybe you wish to have a more involved family life or maybe a better relationship with one particular member of your family.  You may have been putting off taking that course that will in time lead to the academic achievement you desire.  Maybe you want to become more involved in the different aspects of your community.  Maybe you desire to perform on a more consistent basis in your role at BB&T.  

Only you can decide “HOW” you will address your specific desires.  It is YOUR desire, not someone else’s, and by the way, no one can force you to accomplish it.  It is perfectly SMART to ask a friend, your coach at work, or your family member for suggestions on how to begin, or improve what you wish to accomplish. 

We are each responsible for ourselves.  Yet, we ALL get enthusiastic about what another is doing in their quest for PRIDE and SELF-ESTEEM.  This is how a culture of EPA – Enthusiastic Positive Attitude – is created and nourished.  Kelly King has always noted “IF it is to BE, it is up to ME”.   How true.  You can take that first step, or you can simply evade.

I believe we only get to take the JOURNEY of life once – so enjoy every aspect of it.  I know that there are many who are well on their way towards these worthwhile goals – CHEERING FOR YOU!   As part of my commitment, I will send you a periodic update; i.e. “Made 90 days”.  I suggest you do so with a friend, a work colleague, or me. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR of ACCOMPLISHMENT, PRIDE and SELF-ESTEEM!

Luis Lobo 1-23-11

oh dear.......

In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL www.LuisLobo.Biz