The Book Only YOU Can Write! 

“Why do you want to write another crappy book on marketing?”  Well I don’t know if that is exactly what she said but it is close.  She is my talented and brilliant daughter, who is an editor and author in her own right, who lives and works in New York City.  Watch out for her. She will be a best selling author.

 

I had just told her about my plans to totally revise my own present book on marketing which she helped me edit and approves of, and make it a new and complete book for everybody on how to market themselves.  It would be based on my great coaching experience program entitled, The Marketing Life.  And that is when she unloaded with above quote.  She then explained,

 

“Dad, the world is full of books on marketing.  Most of them full of the same old stuff and written by self-absorbed and stupid idiots.  Don’t join them.  I’m sure yours would be one of the better ones and helpful, but it is still another marketing book!”  And then she challenged me, “Dad, write a book that only you can write.  Write on something and in such a way that only you can tell the story and share the wisdom.  Write a book that only you can write.”

 

I had nothing to say.  I sat there, stunned by the wisdom from this remarkable thirty-one year old woman.  I am still figuring out how to respond.  But one of the ways is to share this story and wisdom with you.  Many of you have stories to tell, and wisdom to share, and love to give, that only you can bring forward.  Write a book that only you can write.

 

So very simply I ask you this week to think about your unique giftedness and the grace that has come into your life.  Then resolve that in three years you will write only the book that you can write. 

 

Can I help you?

 I share again a story that I tell every year at this time of the year.  I’ve always wondered why it never became one of those traditional rituals.  This is Easter Monday in the Christian religion.  The day following the story of the resurrection of Jesus has an interesting scene. The scattered followers have been wandering around after the events of the crucifixion.  Some are lost and confused and some have gone back to their work of fishing. 

 

According to the story on what may have been the following Monday, the disciples finished a miracle fishing trip and came to the shore and found Jesus cooking breakfast for them on the shore.  He invited them to “come and dine.”  I have often wondered why an Easter Monday Breakfast was not part of the tradition followed by the Christian faithful.

 

I have personally followed that practice myself from time to time by inviting people to join me for an Easter Monday Breakfast.  It is a way of reminding me of three good things that I should seek to bring into my life, business, and leadership practices.

 

Obviously the followers were surprised to see their master and mentor serving them breakfast.  Successful and thoughtful people are full of good surprises.  In fact they often cultivate a sense of mystery about them.  Mystery, with authenticity, combined with service, is very powerful.  That brings us to the second quality.

 

It would have seemed that Jesus should be the guest of any such event.  It had been an eventful weekend!  But instead he was the host; he was the one doing the serving.  Successful people who make their mark in a broken world are not those who lead us by their power, as much as those who lead us by their service.

 

Thirdly, the gift of hospitality is the essence of what we are made for.  The wisdom of the ages in all the traditions of faith invites us to remember that opening our hearts, homes, and pocketbooks to share what we have with others, assures us that life will go better for us.

 

These are just some of the things I seek to remind myself on Easter Monday.

I live in the desert.  I love the desert.  The desert is full of wonder.  The desert is full of danger.  There are good things in the desert and there are things that kill in the desert.  Throughout the history of time when men and women sought wisdom they would go to the desert so that the stars and the sun would inspire them and in the solitude God 's still small voice could be heard. 

If we listen we may know what to do to win the war, to live right.  it was said that when the early Church Desert Fathers were asked why they went into the desert ... they often replied that in the desert they could become fully alive.

Let us seek to live Fully Alive

It was the gipper at his best.  President Reagan threatened a presidential veto with the classic Clint Eastwood line from the movie Dirty Harry, "Go ahead punk, make my day."  In his gentlemanly way Reagan left out the punk bit.

If the Funding cut-off bill just passed by the House gets through the Senate, George Bush might want to mimic the gipper.  He should publicly veto the  bill on cut-off funding, bought with huge amounts of pork.  It should be done on television with the very same Reaganesque words.  He should name the beneficiaries of the subsidies, the reps who want them for their own deal, and then give a strong defense of his actions on the World War IV battle now going on in Iraq. 

He should smile, tell us that this "makes his day", veto the bill, and hand it to the courier to deliver back to the Congress.

Let's raise the level of the show!

You are not serious is what a committed blogger would say to me.  You have not posted for almost two weeks.  That's right.  I have had a serious business setback with a loss of a key employee.  I have had a miserabale cold and or allergy.  I write from Arizona and there is a lot cold and allergy crud going around.  It was also important to take two days off to watch spring baseball.

I love spring baseball.  I know many people who are like me in that they like spring training baseball better than the regular season stuff.  My life has been full and life has been difficult.  I have also had some major radio work to get produced.  So this blog is a very very avocation.

But the reason I did not write is that I had nothing really to say that needed to be said by me.  To comment on politics now is to get involved in the silliest of silly seasons.  Are we really expected to pay attention to Valerie Plame?  And please I don't want to hear about the election for another year!  And then just a little bit.  If only people who had something to say would write, there would be a lot less writing.  So when I have nothing to say, that is what I say, nothing

Right now we need to win the war and kill bad guys.  We need care deeply for our families.  We need to build our businesses.  We need to press on and win the white rose for everyday acts of courage.  I hope I can win some white roses in the next few weeks and sustain a culture of being fully alive.  That is what I will write about!

It's a line I use often and today I live it again.  "Adversity is part of the plan,"  Years ago Scott Peck in his amazing book, The Road Less Traveled told us "that life is difficult."  On a personal and professional note I have been living my own prophecy.  The details are not important.  In a world of too much information about people and things that do not matter to the public, I will take to the ancient road of public stoicism.  I also know that I have very much to be grateful for.

"This too will pass"is an ancient promise and a threat.  The great and good times will pass.  The difficult times, they too will pass.  I believe President Bush ultimately understands this great spiritual truth.  The Iraq theater of war in this World War IV will pass.  But the war will go on.  The question is; will I through mine, and will we though ours, have the courage to press on in the bad times?  I believe I will.  I have no conviction that the current political circus of flat-chested men will do the same!

I never watch the Academy awards, but it is in the background as my wife watches it.  I guess the only things of interest to me were to discover that Jack Nicholson has a new haircut just like mine!  That is good.  Helen Mirren deserved the award, and Al Gore needs to lessen his carbon footprint by losing weight.

I do not know how I feel about the whole global warming controversy.  I conserve and care, but I also know that the "Earth is the Lord's" and eventually He will be in charge.  I do not know if we can do anything about it, and I do not know if we can make a difference without exploding economic development all over the world.

So congrats to Al ... but it makes no difference Al ... and now get back on the treadmill!

My past post on boldness needs an exclamation point.  We also need to have someone in national leadership promoting an exchange of ideas.  Please President Bush and others start introducing us to people who think boldly about our world and our future and force the media to have to give it some time because you are leading it.  Please have a springtime of townhall meetings across the heartland!

Please confront and even get nasty with the agenda driven rather than the reporting media.

The recent coverage of Anna Nicole and Britney Spears shows that while the poor women have lost their lives and their hair... we are losing our minds and souls.  Someone try and stop it.

I once helped a young woman start to buid her business and take it to new levels.  In going through some of the desires of her life, she smiled and said, only half seriously, "I would like a BMW."  To which I replied, "... as a reminder that Bold Moves Work." 

Success is a paradox.   Little things mean a lot, and Bold Moves Work.  It is the obvious attention to detail and seeking the tipping points that makes things happen.  However, on the stage of public attention and persuasion, bold moves work.

The political disaster for the Republicans in '06 was due in part to tiredness, and leadership stupidity.  Too much power, too much money, and too much food without responsibility do that to you.  Take a heavy dose of apathy and lethary with that,  and it becomes a you fall down formula.

There was no boldness.  The war had also fallen into a political process of small footprints, political maneuvers, and military patrols.  The time has come to remember what I told the young woman, indeed, bold moves work.  The majority will respond to bravery, boldness, and breaking bad guys in two!

Wow... am I prophetic.  I am also busy and tired.  I have not posted for well over a week.  I am working hard to make a living and do life.  And sometimes life is difficult.    But now for just a note.  I started this blog called White Rose Review  as an honor to the courage of those in The White Rose Society under the horrors of Nazi Germany.  They had the courage to see the cost of defeating evil and paid it.

We now have a new society ... The White Flag Society.   I suggest that many of us send white flags to the members who have joined, and perhaps a white rose to those who keep the faith and the courage.

The election is still twenty-one months away and already I am tired.  By the time it comes I believe that most Americans will be sick of it.  It is another Clinton legacy - the perpetual campaign and it is part of the reason for the increasing dysfunction of the system.  I do not want to hear about people and issues; I want to hear about ideas.

Obama will not be fresh anymore.  Hillary has been around for almost sixteen years and wants to give us eight more.  We will all be truly tired of them all, and they will be tired too, and out of ideas if they ever had any in the first place.

President Bush can help make them irrelevant.  He can declare that he does not give a damn about the Senate resolution or the resolve of anyone less than he, and go after the pursuit of victory in World War IV.  He can introduce us to ideas from Victor Davis Hanson, Thomas Barnett and others in well-lead town halls across the nation that even the MSM would have to carry because the prez is there.

He should tell the American people that they can love him or they can hate him and he could not care less.  He has a mission in the next two years to advance the cause of victory in World War IV and to scare the rest of the Mid-East bad actors into second thoughts and possible retreat.

Such political boldness would not be tiring but inspiring.

The economy is booming.  I am glad.  Hopefully it will mean more business for us all if we truly give a great experience to our clients and customers.  But the war is difficult.  If ever there was a time when we must have the courage of The White Rose, it is now.  It is not a time to do what is popular, it is time for leadership to do the right thing and that is to win! 

Be bold, brave, and brutal if you must... but win!

It now has truly become the one thing.  It is not just about the war in Iraq; it is about our entire political culture.  I often write about the City Slickers movie scene where the Curly character tells the dudes that it is about "the one thing." 

What happened in Boston yesterday will become part of the general scene if the Jihadists know that they can beat us up in Iraq.  The war will have wide repercussions in the Middle East unless the assorted fanatics are not killed.  I recently had a conversation with an old friend who talked about the war in the last days in Europe in World War II.  "The German Army was first class" he said. And in a sense "they played fair" about war.  "The thousands of young SS ers' were different ... fanatics ... you had to kill them and kill them we did ... by the thousands."  The same thing is true today.

But now that the war has become the chief political issue of the Democrats and the left; their rise to power must be thwarted.  Their defeatist, retreatist, and so-called progressive politics must lose.  In 18 months we have to be able to say proudly, "President Bush was right and you dumb defeatists were wrong, shut up ... you have no right to political power." 

Then they must be defeated in ideas and in the election, or we will have the politics of the left for a possible decade.  That will be very bad.  So there you have it.  It is not just the war in the Middle East and Iran, but the war for the political soul of the country... so once again I say to the leadership about Iraq.... Just Win!

When the 9-11 attack took place,we all rallied to the strength and wisdom shown by President Bush.  At that time he said that he now only had one agenda for the rest of his term; and that was to win the war.  That was a good idea.  The tax cuts are right but the energy spent on Social Security reform without the help of the Republican congress wa a waste of time and political energy.

Immediately after the 2004 election we should have opened fire on all the bad guys and elements in Iraq and let the Iranians know that they were next, and the Syrians before that.  The mistakes were to try and do what the idiot elites still think is possible; win a war by political means.  You win a war by using war means; brutal, bloody, and bold.

The time has now come for the President to tell the Senate to pass their non-binding resolution (what cowards) and go to hell ... and then go win the war in Iraq and scare the Iranians.  It's time to do what we said we were going to do ... Just do it!

As I get ready to post today I do so as the XM is on my favorite station, The Sounds of the 40's.  I often joke that in my retirement I want to do the announcing on a 40's format place.  Not only was the music great but the announcers were people who actually tried to cultivate the talent of using their voices as instrujments of communication.  Even more, they did not ask about the seven forbidden FCC words because gentlemen (yes most of them were men at that time) certainly did not ever think of speaking crudely, on the air at least.  Yes, they were different times.

But the thing that caught me was the song this morning.  Vaughn Monroe was singing, When The Lights Come On Again ... all over the world.  I was deeply moved.  The sentiment was the same as today; and particularly today after the word of the casualties in the Blackhawk down and int the attack on our troops. 

We do want the lights to come on again in that dark hell-hole of a place and we must determine that we will not leave or walk in darkness.  The lights will come on again and we must persevere.