A Slice Of Thanksgiving

I have much to be thankful for today, including having more opportunity than most people can imagine.

I'm talking about being a independent representative for LegalShield, a company with the declared goal of creating more millionaires than any other company, and a company whose chief financial officer has pledged to pay out a billion dollars in commissions.

And one of the things that I love most about LegalShield is that both the goal and the pledge are for anyone who wants to partake of them. I love the way that the company practices diversity.

Note the second-to-last word in that sentence: practices. Not "strives for," not "seeks". Practices.

Each year, LegalShield's international convention brings together 10,000 or more members of its sales force, along with its corporate leadership. I have attended twice, and both times, I have been struck by the diversity of the crowd.

Black, white, Asian, Hispanic; native-born, immigrant; male, female; disabled - when I walk the halls at our convention, I seem to see every kind of person there is in North America.

And it's not just that every kind of person there is, is present. It's also that every kind of person there is finds success in LegalShield. One of the key features of the convention is the awarding of recognition for high achievers, including bonus checks. One person who comes onstage might thank God through Jesus Christ, the next might express gratitude to Allah. One might virtually dance across the stage, the next might roll up in his wheelchair.

While other companies talk about diversity, while other companies have diversity statements and diversity policies and diversity officers - while other companies spend lots of money trying to figure out how to break down the barriers that homogenize their workforce - LegalShield simply demonstrates what happens when you don't put those barriers up in the first place.

And that is what I love most about this aspect of LegalShield: not the diversity itself, but the way that the diversity happens - organically, in the most natural way possible, not through plans and programs, but by friends talking to friends. It just happens.

I have been privileged to bring two friends into the business this month. One happens to be black, the other happens to be white. That pleases me, because I want to build a team that reflects the diversity of the company (not to mention the multiculturality of the Kingdom) - but the company doesn't even know that, because the application form doesn't even ask about race. Or religion. Or sexual orientation.

Because LegalShield doesn't care.

Becoming a LegalShield representative is the most truly equal opportunity I've ever encountered. My challenge is to be as open as the company is in presenting that opportunity, to neither prejudge who would want it, nor to make assumptions about who would succeed.

Everyone I know, deserves to know that there's a company that is willing to pay them as much as they earn. Period. And that offers training to help them earn as much as they want.

With no barriers.

I thank God for the unlimited opportunity that has been placed in my hand.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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P.S. - If you want to at least consider the possibility of living at least part of your life without barriers, take a look (click on "Sell LegalShield).

I'm going to make up a word now, ok?

You ready? Here goes:

eukairopia

pronunciation: yoo-kahee-ro'-pee-ah

As you might guess, I formed it from Greek..

eukairia ("opportunity") + ops ("eye")

Like its cousin myopia, eukairopia is a vision condition, but it is not a condition of the eyes. It is a condition of the mind that affects the processing of information received through the eyes (and other senses as well, but we may say primarily the eyes).

To describe it most simply, eukairopia causes a person to see opportunity not seen by most people, by normal people, by the average person. It is a condition that can develop over time if someone forms the habit of looking for opportunity; but it can also develop spontaneously as an apparent predisposition of character. In its most extreme form, it causes the sufferer to see opportunity everywhere, in every situation.

And even people who do not suffer sustained eukairopia may experience moments of it, when specific circumstances create a startlingly obvious opportunity.

I consider myself eukairopic, and work at becoming more so, being fond of asking what I call the GQC, or the Great Question of Capitalism: "Where's the opportunity?"

This separates me from many of my neighbors, who seem to view most things primarily in terms of potential threats or dangers. I acknowledge the value of being aware of threats or dangers; but I fear that sometimes people with kakopia (yep, I just made that up, too - kakos ("evil") + ops ("eye")) invent threats that aren't there, or allow real threats to blind them to real opportunities.

Eukairopia is not to be confused with being a Pollyanna - it does not say, "Everything is going to be fine" all the time. It says, "Hm. What can we do in this situation to make things better somehow?" - or even asks, more directly and ham-handedly, "How can I make money here?"

The full-blown eukairopic, however, sees so much opportunity in the world that making money is only a small part of the spectrum. Opportunities to exercise power, to learn, to help others, to create...the list, in a world designed for abundance and inhabited by billions of brains, is endless.

So, been to the movies lately?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation since 1995 has totaled 48 percent. That is, what cost $1.00 in 1995 cost $1.48 in 2011.

That's an overall generalization: some things have gone down in price, and some things have gone up, but by less than 48 percent. And some things have gone up by more than 48 percent. Way more.

Like movie tickets.

According to a piece in the Chicago Tribune, headlined "Movie ticket sales hit 16-year low in 2011," movie tickets prices have risen more than 80 percent since 1995.

So is anyone surprised that people are buying fewer tickets? Really?

Last Thursday, I returned from 10 days or so in Louisville. Usually when I'm there for an extended visit, I'll go to a movie with family members. This time, I didn't. Janet and I stopped at a theatre once, but we didn't see anything showing that we wanted to see badly enough to part with the necessary cash.

I know people who have sworn off movie theatres on the basis of economics. Again, with an 80 percent increase in ticket prices during a period in which overall inflation has been 48 percent, does this surprise anyone?

Better question, perhaps: who cares? Or more precisely, who cares enough to change anything that they're doing?

Hollywood studios charge movie theatre owners to rent movies. Do they care enough about ticket sales to change anything they're doing, or do they view theatrical exhibition as merely a prelude to DVD sales and rentals?

Theatre owners certainly care, but do they care enough to do the most obvious thing to do when sales of an item decline - i.e., reduce the price? Do they trust their market enough to say, "At the right price, we'll sell more tickets, enough to cover increasing expenses?"

Atticus shared with me yesterday his idea that a smart studio/production company would have theatre owners cut the ticket prices for their releases, while offering them 15% of sales.

Are any Hollywood studios that smart? Hmmmm........

Becoming the Solution

I'm eagerly/nervously awaiting the phone call that will let me know that PeaceBuilder: Homewood has gone live on Facebook. I was going to say something like, "I expect it to change everything," but it has already changed a lot. Last night I became known among Greens, Grahams and affiliates as the uncle (primarily) who has a game coming out on Facebook. That's a big ol' change.

I began reading a new book last week: "The Coming Jobs War," by Jim Clifton, chairman of Gallup, the polling company. Clifton describes how in 2005, Gallup took their work global, polling people from around the world on a series of issues, and says that all of their results pointed overwhelmingly to one surprising conclusion. He puts it this way:

Six years into our global data collection effort, we may have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact.

What the whole world wants is a good job.

Defining a good job as "a job with a paycheck from an employer and steady work that averages 30+ hours per week," he goes on to say:

Humans used to desire love, money, food, shelter, safety, peace, and freedom more than anything else. The last 30 years have changed us. Now people want to have a good job, and they want their children to have a good job.

The assertion that people all over the world want a good job more than they want peace or freedom is startling, especially in light of the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement (if "movement" is the right word). But Clifton says that's what the research shows.

Unfortunately, while there are 3 billion people on the planet who work or want to work, there are only 1.2 billion full-time, formal jobs in the world. That shortfall of 1.8 billion jobs may be the world's biggest problem.

As I continued reading, it suddenly occurred to me that with PeaceBuilder: Homewood, I created work for guys that they didn't have before. I don't know how much time specific people spent on it at specific points, so I don't know if it ever became anyone's full time job, even if only for a week. But creating work has moved me in the direction of creating jobs. I am becoming a jobs creator.

That is hugely satisfying to my ego. For decades, I have wanted to help other people to put food on their tables. Now I've begun doing that. Yay, me!

As the game makes money, I do want to create one full-time job for sure: the position of editor at Homewood Nation. Creating that job and filling it would take Homewood Nation to an entirely new level.

And it would take me to an entirely new level personally.

Reading "The Coming Jobs War" reminds me that, for all of my community involvement, perhaps the best thing I can do for Homewood is to build a company that creates good jobs.

I think I'm on my way toward that. And that feels mighty good.

Quick - somebody call the DSM guys!

A couple of weeks ago, I met with a friend at the Amani International Coffeehouse and Cafe, over on Foreland Street on Pittsburgh's North Side (I'm guessing that no one in that vicinity would want their area mistaken for the nouveau creation, the North Shore).

I am not a coffee drinker, but I can recommend Amani for its comfortable atmosphere, for its fruit smoothies, and for the charm of its owner, Ms. Terra Jones.

My friend, Scott Izzo, introduced me to Ms. Jones and said that he's been trying to get her to consider becoming the proprietor of the planned Cafe 524. So Ms. Jones and I wound up chatting a bit about why she's not doing that. Basically, the reason was that her circle of advisors, whom she has come to regard as family, are telling her to remain focused on Amani.

This is hard for her, because she's attracted to Cafe 524. And to a bunch of other possible projects.

I told her that she suffers from OV - opportunistic vision. She sees such an abundance of opportunities in the world that her challenge is deciding which ones to focus on and which ones to let go.

I made that diagnosis so confidently and quickly because I have diagnosed myself as having what I'll now call OVD - opportunistic vision disorder.

OVD is not in DSM-IV, the American Psychiatric Association's manual of mental disorders. But I experience it so often that for me, it may as well be.

I constantly see opportunities where normal people don't. A vacant house is someone's potential home. A vacant building is a potential office, or store, or warehouse, or movie studio. Among other things. A vacant lot is a potential flower garden, vegetable garden, duck pond, greenhouse, rain barrel station, or building. Among other things. Unemployed people are a potential workforce. And every problem that anyone has, anywhere, is a potential business that provides a solution to that problem.

Worse, I actually nurture this disorder by habitually asking myself regarding situations, "Where's the opportunity?" I am so fond of that question that I have named it - the GQC, or the Great Question of Capitalism.

But I probably need to put the brakes on asking that, at least for myself - the GQC has worked so well so far that my life is now bulging with opportunities, so the more useful question might be, "How might I effectively exploit the opportunities at hand?"

Which leads to subquestions like: What resources do I possess? What can I do right now with the resources I possess? What further resources are available? How might I access them? Et cetera.

Yep, time to suppress my OVD, and to fire up my incipient IPD.

What's IPD? Why, implementation planning disorder, of course.