Another 50th anniversary - Thank you, Sir Sidney.

Fifty years ago tonight, an event occurred that was much more important to me, my family, my friends, and most people I knew, than The Beatles' first appearance on Ed Sullivan two months earlier.

This 50th anniversary has received no notice that I know of, except that I saw it mentioned in the Post-Gazette's Almanac:

1964 Sidney Poitier became the first black performer in a leading role to win an Academy Award for his performance in "Lilies of the Field."

In the years and decades following, Black peoples' relationship with Hollywood would continue to be tested over and over by stereotypical casting, by the passing over of Blacks for awards, and by the awarding of awards for roles that many view as atavistic at best and damaging at worst.

But in 1964, such controversies would have been unimaginable. In 1964, for a Black actor to receive the Best Actor Oscar was barely imaginable. The mere fact of Sidney Poitier's nomination made us swell with pride.

And when he won...let me try to say it simply, since I can never say it adequately: on the night of April 13, 1964, Black America's world became brighter in two minutes. Something that might have been an impossibility before suddenly became a reality, widening the realm of possibility forever.

For a boy in the seventh grade, that was not a vague abstraction; it was a change in how I believed I could live.

If Sidney Poitier had never done anything else after that night, I, along with millions of others, would remain in his debt. The fact that he continued to do great work, year after year after year, merely adds more heft to the ledger.



Thank you, Sir Sidney, and may God continue to bless.

(This is a rewrite, because the Internet lets you do that. The original is here.)

Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield

I'm talking about growing businesses - I have three that I am working on now. Well, four, but one barely counts.

That's Capital Synergies. I say that it barely counts, because its was created purely to be a holding company for other entities. A couple of years ago, I decided to make it the home for my practice as a representative for Legal Shield.

So what is Legal Shield, and why am I a Legal Shield representative?

You may already know about Legal Shield without realizing it. For decades, the company was known as PrePaid Legal. After its sale to private equity firm MidOcean Partners, the new owners renamed it Legal Shield.

What does Legal Shield do? It provides affordable access to the legal system by providing basic legal services for a small monthly fee. It also offers the opportunity to earn an income by selling memberships to others, and/or by enrolling them as associates who in turn sell memberships.

I think I first became a member and an associate in 2007, when my friend Dan Jendrey, himself a new associate, signed me up. Back then, I did it primarily to help him get started. The idea of being able to call a law firm for an unlimited number of matters for a small monthly payment made sense to me, but I had no interest - NONE - in selling anything.

That reluctance was due to three things: 1) my job at the Post-Gazette paid well; 2) I had other business ventures in mind; and 3) I was totally turned off by the whole multi-level/network marketing thing.

By "thing," I mean both the structure that network marketing employs, which often leads to companies placing more emphasis on recruiting one's "downline" than on actually selling a product/service; and the culture that seems common to network marketing companies, which revolves around what I call "rah-rah."

"Rah-rah" is a way of presenting the business opportunity as a way to get rich - as signified by portrayals of a glamorous lifestyle - with little effort. The lifestyle generally portrayed never appealed to me - I'd rather die working. I'd rather work for free than for money, but I'd rather die working than have a luxurious retirement.

It is only within the past year that I have made any sincere effort - ANY - to sell the service.

What brought me around?

My belief in the value of the service. My desire to have time freedom. My desire to establish a residual income.

A residual income - that is, money that comes in month after month without working for it - is as close as you can get to having a money tree. If I had $50,000 a year in residual income, my wife and I could live quite comfortably, and I could devote myself more freely and flexibly to working on things I care deeply about (including for-profit and not-for-profit ventures).

The final thing that persuaded me to begin working as a Legal Shield associate (as opposed to lying completely fallow) was the availability of a program which can shorten the path to $50,000 in residual income, and which does not rely on "Rah-Rah."

That program is group sales, which is the company's name for employers offering membership in Legal Shield as an employee benefit. Unlike other employee benefits, it costs the company nothing; the benefits to the employee are a discount on the monthly fee, and having it paid automatically from their paycheck. When I learned about group sales, I immediately liked the idea of presenting to groups much more than that of doing one-on-one appointments - first, because I enjoy public speaking; second, because I would rather make sales 10 or 20 or 50 at a time as opposed to one at a time. The fact that group enrollments focus entirely on selling the service, without reference to recruiting people as associates, made group sales even more attractive to me.

So I became a certified group specialist. I haven't made any group sales yet; I'll share more about my journey toward that milestone as I go. For now, suffice it to say that if you own a business with at least five employees, and you would like to reduce absenteeism, increase productivity, and reduce expenses - and come off as a hero/shero to your workforce in the process - then you need to check out Legal Shield's employee benefits program. Then, let's talk (even if you're not in Pittsburgh: I love to drive, and I bought a Toyota Prius in October, and need to practice my pulse and glide).

***************
Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

Watching Barack Obama

Since I dipped my toe in the water last night with Bill Clinton, I felt obligated to watch President Obama tonight. Actually, I watched most of Joe Biden's speech as well.

In retrospect, it might have been a really good exercise for me to watch as many speeches as I could during both conventions, just to learn about speechmaking. A large part of the power and position held by people who have taken the podium in both conventions has arisen from their speechmaking. And paths that I have set myself upon will require me to be a skilled speechmaker.

Thank heavens for YouTube :)

I didn't intend to watch Joe Biden, I just walked into the room and he was on. His appearance, like most of either party's national convention, made me ask, "Why is this happening?" The extent of the show, the sheer number of speeches, mystifies me, and leaves me wondering about the real work of the convention. What are people doing there, between speeches, in one-on-one conversations and small groups? And why, oh why, must there be so much hoopla?

In his weekly column a couple of Sundays ago, my friend and former boss David M. Shribman, executive editor at the Post-Gazette, called the national conventions a waste of time and money, saying that in his years as a political correspondent, "not one decision of consequence was made in the 11 conventions I covered."

Nevertheless, the conventions lumber on, and we get speeches.

For my money, President Obama's speech tonight was not as good as Bill Clinton's. Simply put, Clinton's speech made more use of facts, while Obama's speech made more use of rhetoric, and I prefer the former.

Indeed, at times when President Obama stated specific facts, he echoed President Clinton. But I will guess that he echoed other people who have spoken at the convention this week as well, that all of the speeches together were intended to sound common themes (e.g., that this election offers "a choice between fundamentally different visions for the future"). And at other times, when he began to get into specifics, he was simply drowned out by the crowd chanting "Four more years!" or "U-S-A!"

(Interjection: the "U-S-A!" chant creeps me out, and the term "American exceptionalism" scared me out of my wits the very first time I heard it. I don't care who's speaking, when someone says something like - as President Obama did tonight - "We work harder and smarter than anyone else," I stop listening. Humans are humans, nations are collections of humans, and I consider it the height of hubris to believe that American humans are inherently superior to other humans. I do believe that the nation is based on some of the best ideas ever - ideas that have never been fully lived. But I also believe that much of its success has been due to either ruthlessness or luck, including the luck to stumble upon effective ways of doing things, like property law. None of that makes Americans better than other humans.)

My biggest disappointment was that Mr. Obama did not say what I wanted most to hear from him: "Voting for me is not enough. In order for me to succeed in my second term, you need to vote for Senators and Representatives who will support me in Congress."

All that said, the moments that worked best for me were moments of phrasing, and some of those moments were outstanding:

Referring to veterans returning from war: "No one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job..." (the sentence went longer, but was drowned out by the crowd.)

Referring to Messrs. Romney and Ryan: "My opponent and his running mate are - new to foreign policy." Delivered with perfect timing and inflection.

After saying that Romney said that he would not have ended the war in Iraq and won't say how he will end the war in Afghanistan, "I did and I will."

Towards the end, he really got my attention with, "We also believe in something called citizenship." The concept of citizenship intrigues me, and challenges me on almost a daily basis.

From there he moved into, in my view, increasingly powerful rhetoric (that is a compliment, not a criticism), harking back to his first appearance at the convention in 2004 and then his nomination speech in 2008, quoting his 2008 self as saying that the campaign "is not about me, it's about you," and re-sounding that campaign's theme of hope and change. And then he laid this on the crowd:

"My fellow citizens, you were the change."

I'm getting chills just typing that. Not even because I agree, but because it's so darn good.

Then he cited some changes have happened in the past four years, not as his achievements, but as victories by the people: "You're the reason (such and such happened). You did that."

Then he pulled out stories of individuals, like Samantha Garvey, the homeless teen who became an semifinalist in Intel's Science Talent Search, concluding each with "She/he gives me hope."

In full throttle, he declared, "Ours is a future filled with hope," and then launched into a closing that, in both language and delivery, sounded like...well, activist and hip-hop artist Jasiri X may have said it best when he tweeted: "Is it Sunday already? Cause somebody's preachin."

"Yes, our path is harder but it leads to a better place..." After that, hearing him became harder, because the crowd was tearing up the place.

Yeah, he's still got it.

And here it is, in two parts: