Different but the Same, Tx. Kevin!

Luis

Maybe it is ironic that I was on a flight to Costa Rica that, when opening my pile of analyst reports, CFO magazines and other assorted items in my “reading” file that I decided I would read your book. I first want to thank you for having the courage to share your life experiences, for me I found an amazing sameness to our lives. In college I never would have thought of us as similar, I liked to party and school was secondary. We were in different fraternities, and if we hadn’t gone to a school where everyone knows everyone else, it is unlikely our paths would have crossed. However, the underlying commonality of our upbringing, I was raised by a handicapped father, who never let his handicap be a handicap, and a mother who was told by her father at the age of 18 that a woman should get married and raise a family, and there was no place for her on a college campus. She died with two Masters degrees and thousands of productive adults that had been influenced by her as a teacher. The importance of family and faith rooted in our parents and grandparents. Finally, a desire to succeed by charting our own destiny.

It is refreshing to hear the perspective that we need to be accountable to ourselves first and that only we can navigate the roadblocks to our success. I recently had a conversation with a young lady who told me that if I were to do a bad deal I could get fired. She clearly had been taught by a former manager that to do nothing meant we would do nothing wrong. Your book clearly outlines the joys of being able to overcome the fear of failure in order to enjoy success. Your talk of dark days allows us to have perspective, and makes the book more genuine, not some sugarcoated sales manual. I appreciate your genuine approach to the balance of work, family and faith. So many times I feel I have given too much attention to one and caused others to suffer.

I am currently leading a team in a very complicated and time consuming integration. I have approached the process head on and told our team we are going to have a year of pain, before we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We lost three senior executives in a month, which whether I liked it or not, elevated me to a position of responsibility among my peers I had never been in before. Not only did I have to manage my team, now I had to be the voice of experience to a new group of peers. It is especially difficult because we are working with the former team still employed, but on retention. Fortunately, nine months out we are almost done. I finally am able to sleep at night. Still, we are going through the same process you did, where it seems one group at a time step up and get the job done. I am very proud of my team, my peers and my bosses.

In this day of entitlement your book is a refreshing look at the fact that we control our lives and our destiny. While this may seem scary to some, how much more scary is it to put control of your destiny in a Board of Directors bound by a fiduciary duty not to you, but to its shareholders. Or an elected official, or government bureaucrat, to whom we are just a statistic, or a possible vote. Sure there are dark days and barriers, these can be excuses, or we can see the barriers as experiences that provide the skills we need to succeed. YOU decide your course. I love those capital YOU’s!!!!!

I am proud to have you as my fellow classmate and Belmont Abbey Crusader. It is an honor to know you and your success inspires us. If you are in the Fort Worth area please look me up and we can go grab some dinner, I will do the same if I am in DC. I wish you and your family continued success.

HOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!






Kevin Mahoney
Vice President, Finance
erxnetwork.com




In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

President Kennedy on the subject of History

Upon request from American Heritage Magazine, 1962

There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country. Without such knowledge, he stands uncertain and defenseless before the world, knowing neither where he has come from nor where lie is going. With such knowledge, he is no longer alone but draws a strength far greater than his own from the cumulative experience of the past and a cumulative vision of the future.

Knowledge of our history is, first of all, a pleasure for its own sake. The American past is a record of stirring achievement in the face of stubborn difficulty. It is a record filled with figures larger than life, with high drama and hard decision, with valor and with tragedy, with incidents both poignant and picturesque, and with the excitement and hope involved in the conquest of a wilderness and the settlement of a continent. For the true historian—and for the true student of history—history is an end in itself. It fulfills a deep human need for understanding, and the satisfaction it provides requires no further justification.

Yet, though no further justification is required for the study of history, it would not be correct to say that history serves no further use than the satisfaction of the historian. History, after all, is the memory of a nation. Just as memory enables the individual to learn, to choose goals and stick to them, to avoid making the same mistake twice—in short, to grow—so history is the means by which a nation establishes its sense of identity and purpose. The future arises out of the past, and a country’s history is a statement of the values and hopes which, having forged what has gone before, will now forecast what is to come.

As means of knowledge, history becomes a means of judgment. It offers an understanding of both the variety and unity of a nation whose motto is E Pluribus Unum—out of many, one. It reminds us of the diverse abundance of our people, coming from all races and all parts of the world, of our fields and mountain ranges, deserts and great rivers, our green farmlands and the thousand voices of our cities. No revolution in communication or transportation can destroy the fact that this continent is, as Walt Whitman said, “a nation of nations.” Yet it also reminds us that, in spite of the diversity of ethnic origin, of geographic locale, of occupation, of social status, of religious creed, of political commitment, Americans are united by an ancient and encompassing faith in progress, justice, and freedom.

Our history thus tests our policy: Our past judges our present. Of all the disciplines, the study of the folly and achievements of man is best calculated to foster the critical sense of what is permanent and meaningful amid the mass of superficial and transient questions which make up the day-to-day clamor. The history of our nation tells us that every action taken against the freedoms of conscience and expression, against equality before the law and equality of opportunity, against the ordinary men and women of the country is an action taken against the American tradition. And it tells us that every action taken for a larger freedom and a more equal and spacious society is one more step toward realization of what Herbert Croly once called “the promise of American life.”

A knowledge of history is more than a means of judgment: It is also a means of sympathy—a means of relating our own experience with the experience of other peoples and lands struggling for national fulfillment. We may sometimes forget, for example, that the United States began as an underdeveloped nation which seized its independence by carrying out a successful revolution against a colonial empire. We may forget that, in the first years of the new republic, George Washington laid down the principle of no “permanent alliances” and enjoined the United States to a course of neutralism in the face of the great-power conflicts then dividing the civilized world. We may forget that, in the first stages of our economic development, our national growth was stimulated to a considerable degree by “foreign aid”—that is, investment from abroad—and by public investment and direction on the part of our state and local as well as our national government. We may forget that our own process of economic change was often accompanied by the issue of wildcat paper money, by the repudiation of bonds, by disorder, fraud, and violence. If we recall the facts of our own past, we may better understand the problems and predicaments of contemporary “new nations” laboring for national development in circumstances far less favorable than our own— and we will, in consequence, become less liable to the self-righteousness which is both unworthy of our own traditions and a bane of international relations.

A knowledge of history is, in addition, a means of strength. “In times of change and danger,” John Dos Passos wrote just before World War II, “when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a life line across the scary present.” Dos Passos called his book The Ground We Stand On—and the title concisely defines the role of the past in preparing us for the crisis of the present and the challenge of the future. When Americans fight for individual liberty, they have Thomas Jefferson and James Madison beside them; when they strive for social justice, they strive alongside Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt; when they work for peace and a world community, they work with Woodrow Wilson; when they fight and die in wars to make men free, they fight and die with Abraham Lincoln. Historic continuity with the past, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “is not a duty; it is only a necessity.”

A knowledge of history is, above all, a means of responsibility—of responsibility to the past and of responsibility to the future … of responsibility to those who came before us and struggled and sacrificed to pass on to us our precious inheritance of freedom … and of responsibility to those who will come after us and to whom we must pass on that inheritance with what new strength and substance it is within our power to add. “Fellow citizens,” Abraham Lincoln said, “we cannot escape history. … The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.” American history is not something dead and over. It is always alive, always growing, always unfinished— and every American today has Iris own contribution to make to the great fabric of tradition and hope which binds all Americans, dead and living and yet to be born, in a common faith and a common destiny.








In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL

Para mis amigos and those that read Spanish

Mensaje de la EditoraC+ (Sé Positivo)
escrito por Rosalinda Delgado


El nuevo año está aquí y Buena Gente cumple 7 años de existencia, comenzamos el 8vo. año con un nuevo mensaje que aunque es corto, significa mucho. C+ (Sé Positivo), en inglés: B+ (Be positive).

¡Si! Este nuevo año no podemos esperar a que la economía mejore. Tenemos que tomar cartas en el asunto para prosperar, mejorar nuestra salud, saldar las deudas, incrementar las ventas en el negocio, mejorar la comunicación con nuestros hijos, encontrar un nuevo empleo. Para lograr tener lo que queremos, tenemos que hacer algo que no hemos hecho.

En primer lugar, si quieres que contemos contigo, tienes que dejarte contar en el Censo 2010. Es imprescindible que se sepa cuantos hispanos vivimos en los EEUU. Si no tienes documentación, el Censo será una fuerte evidencia de su presencia en EEUU en el 2010. La oficina del censo, por mandato de ley, no puede divulgar información sobre ti a ninguna otra agencia, a menos que tú expresamente lo solicites. Esto te da gran ventaja al solicitar la ciudadanía y te pidan evidencia de haber estado en EEUU. En tal caso, podrás decir que fuiste contado en el Censo 2010 y solicitar que la oficina del Censo lo verifique. El censo también nos dará una fuerza mayor como hispanos/latinos en Maryland. Se estima que la presencia hispana en el estado puede llegar a un 15 ó 20% de la población. El gobierno federal tendrá, por consecuencia, que asignar más fondos a los servicios que presta a nuestra comunidad.

En segundo lugar, tenemos que pensar si queremos que nuestra población sea la más pobre o la más rica. Somos definitivamente los más trabajadores y los más consumistas. Ahora bien, ¿seremos los más educados? Nuestros jóvenes están abandonando la escuela para irse a trabajar, y nuestras jovencitas se están embarazando en plena adolescencia. ¡Es una epidemia alarmante! ¿Que indica esto? Que estamos en a riesgo de ser parte de la población más pobre de América. ¡Aun estamos a tiempo de cambiar el futuro de nuestros hijos con las decisiones del presente!

En tercer lugar, ¡Abre la boca! Habla con tu vecino y conócelo (así entenderá mejor nuestra cultura), entérate de lo que está pasando, intégrate a tu comunidad, participa, comienza un equipo deportivo, toma una clase, sal de tu casa y haz ejercicios, habla con otros comerciantes y averigua lo que están haciendo, arriésgate. No le temas al rechazo, sé positivo y piensa que todo saldrá bien, que sobrevivirás para contar tu historia. Ahora, ¡levántate y haz lo que nunca haz hecho, para que logres lo que nunca has tenido!

C+
Rosalinda Delgado
editor@buenagente.us





In the final analysis, your attitude determines your effectiveness in everything, every time! LGL