Money Mythology
For those of you who read “A Failure to Fail,” consider this the sequel. Ask yourself this question: Does it take money to make my dreams come true? If you answered, “Yes,” hold on and don’t bet the farm. Keep your favorite baseball cards, classic car and autographed Michael Jordan basketballs. Today’s biggest myth is that dreams cannot be built without money. On the contrary, there are many ways dreams can be manifested without spending a dime. Remember when I begged you to grab a shovel and dig up your graveyard of dreams? Notice I did not say, ‘Grab your checkbook.’
Let’s break down our shovel and look at its major components: skill, passion, vision and discipline. All of these components, when combined, will make dreams come true.
Skill: To manifest a very specific idea, we need to have tailored skills. If you have money but lack skills, it’s very hard to turn your dreams into reality. Remember, anybody can learn a skill if he/she has the passion and discipline. Most big-name companies will hire a person based on personality and natural character traits rather than skills, because they know skills can be acquired. Under skills falls experience. The more experience you have using your particular skills, the more likely you will be able to manifest your dream yourself. From here, you will only need to invest time. Consider this: We are all investing time, whether we like it or not.
Passion: Each of us loves to do something, often to the point of being a slave to it. Most of us have no choice but to listen to our passion. When it knocks, we have to answer. Our passion owns us — we do not own it. Do you think you are alone in your passion? If you answered, “No,” you are on the right track. People who share the same passion often can help make each other’s dreams come true. An ant by himself will have a hard time toppling a domino, but when more ants join in, the domino falls pretty quickly. Sharing your dreams means you will likely have to share a portion of your company with partners, but that’s all right. Just ask yourself if you would rather have 70 percent of your dream or 100 percent of nothing. Don’t let greed be an obstacle in your path to achieving your dreams.
Vision: This is our creativity and imagination, and the powerful ability to contrive an idea, path, solution or strategy in our minds. The process of manifesting a dream does not take a straight line from point A to point B. There will be many deterrents to your dreams, and you must be able to develop solutions or create new paths. It is this skill that separates managers from leaders. This is where you must be careful. Ask yourself if your vision is people friendly. If your dream is solely tailored to your likes, you are gambling with it. Again, if you do not sell the farm and simply invest your time and skills, you have nothing to lose. Are you going to be the only one enjoying this dream? To make your dream financially profitable, it needs to be people friendly, but if you just want to manifest it for yourself, make sure you are only investing your time and skills.
Discipline: Did you see the movie, “The Last Samurai”? Recall the scene in which Tom Cruise’s character, Captain Nathan Algren, spars with a samurai for the first time using wooden swords. Captain Algren clearly lacks the skills his opponent possesses. However, every time Captain Algren receives a beating, he proceeds to get back up. My good friend, Bill Mehner, told me an old martial arts proverb: “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” Those with true discipline will get up again. I can guarantee you will fall as you pursue your dreams. But remember, experience falls under the skill portion of making our dreams come true, and even when we fall, we are accumulating experience. If you have the discipline to get up again, I promise you your dreams are not too far away.
Michael Erkiletian
Creative Sanctuary
What is creative sanctuary? It’s very simple and very important in protecting your career. Ask yourself two questions: “Can my job be done overseas?” and “Can my job be done by a computer?” If the answer to either of these questions — or both — is “Yes,” you are in deep, deep trouble. This is an issue that can no longer be ignored. People left and right are losing their jobs to computerization and overseas labor forces. Many of my friends have been victims of this. The problem is not going away, people; in fact, it’s getting worse. All you have to do is sit in a coffee shop and listen for about five minutes, and you will hear the effects of what I’m talking about. This will affect more and more people, because big companies need to successfully compete in order to survive.
Do you remember Rivendale, the majestic and beautiful sanctuary in “The Lord of the Rings,” where Gandalf the White and the Hobbits found safety? I give you the Rivendale of our modern age — it’s called, “creativity.” This will be our sanctuary from the problem at hand.
Computers are not yet capable of creativity; however, I fear the rush to develop artificial intelligence may result in a major threat to our creative uniqueness. Even though people overseas are similarly very creative, we seem to keep these jobs at arm’s length. By being creative in your job, or finding one in which you can express your creativity, you are securing your role in the workplace. You must do your job so creatively it would be impossible to replace you with mass production. Need an example? Take a day and visit Disneyland or Disney World. I recommend going on a weekday, when it’s not as crowded. Sit on a bench and simply observe all the creativity occurring there. No one would dream of saying, “Let’s replace this staff with computers.”
Here is my solution: Invest in us. We want everything so cheap, big companies manufacture at the lowest possible cost. Invest in us by spending that extra bit of money on something made in America. Once large companies see we are willing to pay more to be patriotic, they will bring the work back to America, hoping they will also be seen as patriotic. Think of it as an investment on behalf of your friends and family who have lost their jobs due to computerization or their employers taking their businesses overseas. Please spend a little more money to support companies showing their patriotism. Remember, patriotic companies will not last long if we do not reward them. So, on that note, let us lead by example as the people of America and reward patriotism. We have the power to stop job loss from spreading.
I’ll see you all in Rivendale.
Michael Erkiletian
A Failure to Fail
As you can tell from my last blog, imagination is very important to me — and more importantly, its future. The most critical part of the imagination’s development is during youth. I worry about this stage the most, since our youth listen to what adults have to say.
About four years ago, I ran an aquatic exercise program for individuals with disabilities. More often than not, I had to substitute and teach swim classes as well. At the end of the class, I would hold a contest to see which kid could do the worst possible dive. Each child would be judged on how terrible the dive looked, and the lower the score, the better. For example, a zero was the best score a child could receive for the absolute worst dive. The kids absolutely loved it, but here is my point: Each time we played this game, at least a few concerned parents would comment, “Why are they doing bad dives? Shouldn’t they be doing good dives?” I tried to explain to the parents that children need to learn failure is not a bad thing. In fact, I encouraged it. I always loved the blank looks on their faces, as they could not grasp the point.
After they finish kindergarten and preschool, we bombard children with the idea failure is unacceptable. Schools apply a very strict system that rewards them for not failing. The pressure not to fail is also endorsed by the parents as seen in my example above. A child’s ability is boiled down to four letters: A, B, C and D. The reason I did not mention F is because there is no such thing as failure.
Pick up any child development or psychology book and read about the amount of growth and development a child goes through during the first few years of life. It’s far more advanced than any other stage in human development. But why? Look how frequently failure occurs during early childhood development. Since we do not have fine and gross motor skills, we must learn by error. We fail, and then we try again until we get it right. Each time the child fails, he/she learns something and refines his/her actions until he gets it right. Failure is just as important as achievement — they have equal value. To say failure is not important is like saying the head side of a coin is more valuable than the tail side. They exist together to create one function: experience. Whether or not we fail or succeed, we gain experience from both situations. Isn’t knowing what not to do just as important as knowing what to do? This is why we should not solely focus on achievement as a means of growth, as growing only through achievement is literally impossible.
I get so sad when I see adults who fail once and give up. Why do adults do this? Is it because as children, they were hammered so hard to consider failure unacceptable? Do they think it’s better to avoid the experience altogether in order to avoid failing? In truth, I see a graveyard of dreams — dreams never chased because of that single word: failure. Not even Tim Burton could create a more depressing and morbid cemetery. So, I beg you all, please grab a shovel and dig up your graveyard of dreams. Please dig them up! And if you happen to fail…well then, good for you!
Michael Erkiletian