“Springhill is growing: …extraordinary.”
Assisting contributor Dr. Steve Broe, author of, “Leaders in
Transition”
mycareerimpact.com
Robin Williams
lived an extraordinary life, in the public eye, comedy and laughter falling
from his performances, so quickly, that they made Daytona drivers drool. Robin mastered his art over a career of very
successful stand-up comedy in addition to television and movies. By doing this he helped us see sides of our
lives that lay buried under what we force ourselves to swallow; the delusion of the ordinary. We know that our lives become this as we
constantly choke back chances to take risk.
Each time that we choose no risk, we fall into the unfortunate life
lived ordinarily that poets over the centuries have written about. Robin Williams took that edge of the cliff
humor to the point where we had to either listen, or turn him off. Was he a lightning rod for thought, which
when the lighting struck, couldn't actually handle the charge? In his movie “Dead Poets Society,” he plays a
professor at a very conservative school, who wants his conservative students to
realize, there is more to life than what everyone else tells you must be. He uses Keating, “This is a battle, a war,
and the casualties could be your hearts and souls.” Behind the frequent bilge of political
correctness we’re on the edge of losing our ability to listen to a Robin
Williams. It’s so unfortunate, so unlikely in the U.S., that this fight for your
soul may have become our moment extraordinary?
If you choose ordinary, will those around you stand alone and
extraordinary?
Battle, war, these
are terms that politicians who depend upon being elected, have tried to put
aside, especially locally. Local voting
has dangers. As Jack Nicholson being
Colonel Jessup famously says about grave danger, “is there another kind?” Local
politics constitute the breadth of America, and even in the Metropolis life,
our country is forged in small units of business at the local level. Politics, on the other hand, is the art of
doing what seems to meet the majority need, that’s how we vote for
representation that matches our needs.
The system of electing those who represent what we are doing, however,
needs to step up to battle, but those who want to be elected, and especially at
the local level, find they often have to choose between being a leader who
isn’t going to let fear be their guide; and the tough decisions which will
bring our nation home. Now more than
ever small business is being lied to, and the deadly lies involve how it’s
going to be funded. Who will be allowed
to succeed who won’t? The rules to that
series of choices changed between 2012 and now, the vast majority of possible
loans, are categorically “too risky.” At
this point entrepreneurs’ begin to feel the bite, every time they fill out an
application for funds only to be told, “We’re sorry we can’t help you.” Which is true, banks don’t make any money on
loans they can’t make, politicians can’t cash in on votes they don’t get- read
that sentence again, it is what is now in control of your country, at the local
level, it’s extraordinary.
This movement
toward business which can prove it will succeed before it’s allowed to take the
risk isn't new, the deadly precision
which small business must now prove it’s potential beyond surety, is. It means
most entrepreneurs’ won’t get to try. The
difference is the fact that in decades past, if an idea were solid and the bank
said “the risk is too high,” then we’d go to mom and dad, or friends, or the
community. Today families and friends are
strapped with the worst tax standard in all of human history; we pay over 60%
of our dollar into taxes; that do? We
have social media based financing groups, such as “Lending Tree,” “Street
Shares,” and others; but those people are also strapped to the point that $25
dollar contributions are 70 percent of the time the most contributed amount to the group effort at financing a small
business’s needs. Guess what, it isn't working; across the board the results are stated to be positive, but when you
look deeper at the number of applications and the number and amounts of
financing which occur, it’s bleak. The
answer is going to take local leaders with heart and real courage; the fake
vote getting, compromising truth kind; won’t get America out of this trap. The tax and law structure which placed us
here didn't happen overnight and won’t cure rapidly. Every person who
understands money and its use is going to have to pony up to the battle, or
lose the market on small business, and kiss this country good bye. Banks don’t make any money on loans they
can’t make, politicians can’t cash in on votes they don’t get. Politicians and
bankers need to get into this fight in a way that cannot be anything but
extraordinary, and so, my friend, must we be extraordinary.
