Sunday, March 29, 2009
Dallin's Departure
Dallin left us Wednesday. We are all very sad. He was an awesome roommate and somebody that knows how to have fun and yet get his homework done. We will always remember his surfer-hair, "better licked than bitten," squirtgunning, and "L" fixation.
Important! Change Your Bookmarks!
Sometime soon my domain name will expire. I've chosen not to renew it because I'm going on a mission for the next two years. So, what does that mean?
My blog will no longer be found at http://blog.sdfisher.com, but at http://sdfisher.blogspot.com. Please take a moment now and update your bookmarks or blogrolls.
My blog will no longer be found at http://blog.sdfisher.com, but at http://sdfisher.blogspot.com. Please take a moment now and update your bookmarks or blogrolls.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
How Watered Down is Your DNA by Corporate America?
Warning! Long article ahead!
Today in social entrepreneurship we had a rousing lecture by our professor, Ron Lindorf, who is a highly successful entrepreneur. What follows is what he said to us, usually in his words.
Ron, at age 12, experienced his older brother's death, forcing him to confront the reality of mortality at a young age. This, he says, provided the ability to "not care what other people think. There's no bets on death." While in Jr. High, he started a successful window-washing business, employing two brothers from his school at $2 an hour while making $55 from each job. While pursuing his graduate degree in communications at BYU he bought Volkswagen cars for cheap, drove or trucked them down to California, and sold them there for more than a 700% markup. Needless to say his class attendance was not the best. In fact, in 6th grade his report card gave him full marks (a 1) for achievement but the lowest marks (a 3) for effort. He says, "I did exactly the amount of effort needed to get those 1s." Speaking of his entrepreneurial spirit, he said, "I'm not like those other guys. There are those entrepreneurs who are just smart. Captain of the track team, head boy in a group . . . they're the annoying ones. I'm a reluctant entrepreneur. Nobody would hire me and so I just thought, how can I generate some revenue?"
We don't make our own decisions often enough, Ron says. Growing up in the church, our decision making skill is sometimes crippled. We are a product of the thousands of small decisions we make during our lifetime, and there are plenty of bad decisions to make even in the framework of how our lives are planned out. "Is it better to marry the right person at the right time outside of the temple or to marry the wrong person at the wrong time inside of it?" Ethical decisions are some of the decisions that we don't see as often. Those that have made some bad decisions have learned early on how to make good decisions. We need to make more of our own decisions.
An important factor is an internal locus of control. This is what Ron developed in his high school years after his brother died. This is a critical component of a successful entrepreneur. Changing the world, not letting the world change you. Figuring out that "you don't have to let other people muck around with what you decide."
Ron gave the example of the L.A. Riots. During the riots, not a single 1st generation Korean immigrant with the entrepreneurial spirit had their business burned down. Why? Because the same spirit that pushed them to come to America and start their own business (usually a liquor store), to find a location, and to push for a better life for them and their children pushed them to climb on top of their roofs with AK-47s and illegal semi-automatics and pistols and shoot at the feet of anyone who looked like they were coming to cause trouble. They had that spirit that enables them to risk it all, and then to stand on the roof and defend it when their whole life's work, 10-15 years, is threatened. Not one of their businesses were touched.
"Some time long ago," Ron said, "we all had to decide. We were pitched two different ideas. One said, 'Look, it won't be hard. I mean, you can have security, you can go home at 5 and get a pay check every two weeks, there won't be any risk.' The other one said, 'Hey, it'll be hard. There'll be times when you fail, when you make mistakes, when you risk it all. There will be rough patches. You will have to work from nine to midnight every night after your wife goes to bed. But in the end it will be fair." Every measly human on this planet chose plan B. This is how Ron sees the world. So why can we go work at the post office and show up every morning and salute and go to work and then get off at five and do that for 40 years with nothing changing? We can get up and go to work among the devil's followers for 40 years and do nothing. But can we not come up with ideas about how to make it better? Can we stay an extra hour once in a while to get some things done? A person who does this, he says, will make it to leadership positions. Moving up within the system. Even that is following Christ. Sometimes it seems like forever that things don't happen and all the extra work does nothing. But somehow it will pay off.
Instant gratification. America doesn't know how to put it off. This part kind of led into a discussion about inflation and about how it's a silent tax on the people of the lowest income level and the middle class. So what do policy makers do? They can't tax the people who elect them or they're booted out. The upper level doesn't have enough wealth to keep up with a $10 trillion national debt. So what do we do? We let people overseas buy our bonds. Of course, as Ron says, "it's somewhat patriotic to hose the Chinese when they buy up our debt and then our dollar inflates." He also brought up the fact that as American car makers fire people over here and then outsource to other countries it actually creates a middle class in China and India. Bucketloads of people who would normally earn $1 a day are now earning $3-9 a day. Our world is going on sort of it's own wealth redistribution system.
All the people who originally came from England to this country were the ones who took the risk. They said goodbye to people who they'd never see again for some fantastic story they had heard, sold what they had and acquired a little capital, and risked everything. Every single person in the country has that in their DNA. Maybe it was from a couple generations ago.
So how watered down is your DNA by Corporate America? The fire of creating an income generating activity as a business has gone out of 90% of the people, statistically speaking. Of course, Ron recognizes that not everybody can be an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, this is how he sees the world to explain what he does to himself. The whole purpose of Corporate America, he says, is to preserve the status quo. "'I don't think we can do that.' ' Even if it increases your revenue by $4 million in a $10 million company?' 'Well....'
"It's because they like security! Go home at five and have security."
Entrepreneurs are weird. Talking to many people, Ron has found that entrepreneurs all have some sort of story. Or that all entrepreneurs have some sort of story. They all had to discover, or decide, rather, what he and Gibson (the other instructor of the class) discovered. They don't let what people think affect them. At all.
So are we going to work among the devil's followers our whole lives and lay down and die when the riots start? Or are we they type of person that crawls up on the roof with our AK-47 after risking everything to come to America and start a business? Internal locus of control! Don't let what other people think affect you! Trust more in the Atonement! We're supposed to make mistakes. Honest mistakes. Learn wisdom in thy youth. How? We have to learn through experience. Ron advises to work for somebody else for five years to make mistakes on somebody else's time and money. But don't just sit around!
Anyway, needless to say, an hour and a half of listening to this brilliant, accomplished, spiritual, driving, caring man was something.
Today in social entrepreneurship we had a rousing lecture by our professor, Ron Lindorf, who is a highly successful entrepreneur. What follows is what he said to us, usually in his words.
Ron, at age 12, experienced his older brother's death, forcing him to confront the reality of mortality at a young age. This, he says, provided the ability to "not care what other people think. There's no bets on death." While in Jr. High, he started a successful window-washing business, employing two brothers from his school at $2 an hour while making $55 from each job. While pursuing his graduate degree in communications at BYU he bought Volkswagen cars for cheap, drove or trucked them down to California, and sold them there for more than a 700% markup. Needless to say his class attendance was not the best. In fact, in 6th grade his report card gave him full marks (a 1) for achievement but the lowest marks (a 3) for effort. He says, "I did exactly the amount of effort needed to get those 1s." Speaking of his entrepreneurial spirit, he said, "I'm not like those other guys. There are those entrepreneurs who are just smart. Captain of the track team, head boy in a group . . . they're the annoying ones. I'm a reluctant entrepreneur. Nobody would hire me and so I just thought, how can I generate some revenue?"
We don't make our own decisions often enough, Ron says. Growing up in the church, our decision making skill is sometimes crippled. We are a product of the thousands of small decisions we make during our lifetime, and there are plenty of bad decisions to make even in the framework of how our lives are planned out. "Is it better to marry the right person at the right time outside of the temple or to marry the wrong person at the wrong time inside of it?" Ethical decisions are some of the decisions that we don't see as often. Those that have made some bad decisions have learned early on how to make good decisions. We need to make more of our own decisions.
An important factor is an internal locus of control. This is what Ron developed in his high school years after his brother died. This is a critical component of a successful entrepreneur. Changing the world, not letting the world change you. Figuring out that "you don't have to let other people muck around with what you decide."
Ron gave the example of the L.A. Riots. During the riots, not a single 1st generation Korean immigrant with the entrepreneurial spirit had their business burned down. Why? Because the same spirit that pushed them to come to America and start their own business (usually a liquor store), to find a location, and to push for a better life for them and their children pushed them to climb on top of their roofs with AK-47s and illegal semi-automatics and pistols and shoot at the feet of anyone who looked like they were coming to cause trouble. They had that spirit that enables them to risk it all, and then to stand on the roof and defend it when their whole life's work, 10-15 years, is threatened. Not one of their businesses were touched.
"Some time long ago," Ron said, "we all had to decide. We were pitched two different ideas. One said, 'Look, it won't be hard. I mean, you can have security, you can go home at 5 and get a pay check every two weeks, there won't be any risk.' The other one said, 'Hey, it'll be hard. There'll be times when you fail, when you make mistakes, when you risk it all. There will be rough patches. You will have to work from nine to midnight every night after your wife goes to bed. But in the end it will be fair." Every measly human on this planet chose plan B. This is how Ron sees the world. So why can we go work at the post office and show up every morning and salute and go to work and then get off at five and do that for 40 years with nothing changing? We can get up and go to work among the devil's followers for 40 years and do nothing. But can we not come up with ideas about how to make it better? Can we stay an extra hour once in a while to get some things done? A person who does this, he says, will make it to leadership positions. Moving up within the system. Even that is following Christ. Sometimes it seems like forever that things don't happen and all the extra work does nothing. But somehow it will pay off.
Instant gratification. America doesn't know how to put it off. This part kind of led into a discussion about inflation and about how it's a silent tax on the people of the lowest income level and the middle class. So what do policy makers do? They can't tax the people who elect them or they're booted out. The upper level doesn't have enough wealth to keep up with a $10 trillion national debt. So what do we do? We let people overseas buy our bonds. Of course, as Ron says, "it's somewhat patriotic to hose the Chinese when they buy up our debt and then our dollar inflates." He also brought up the fact that as American car makers fire people over here and then outsource to other countries it actually creates a middle class in China and India. Bucketloads of people who would normally earn $1 a day are now earning $3-9 a day. Our world is going on sort of it's own wealth redistribution system.
All the people who originally came from England to this country were the ones who took the risk. They said goodbye to people who they'd never see again for some fantastic story they had heard, sold what they had and acquired a little capital, and risked everything. Every single person in the country has that in their DNA. Maybe it was from a couple generations ago.
So how watered down is your DNA by Corporate America? The fire of creating an income generating activity as a business has gone out of 90% of the people, statistically speaking. Of course, Ron recognizes that not everybody can be an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, this is how he sees the world to explain what he does to himself. The whole purpose of Corporate America, he says, is to preserve the status quo. "'I don't think we can do that.' ' Even if it increases your revenue by $4 million in a $10 million company?' 'Well....'
"It's because they like security! Go home at five and have security."
Entrepreneurs are weird. Talking to many people, Ron has found that entrepreneurs all have some sort of story. Or that all entrepreneurs have some sort of story. They all had to discover, or decide, rather, what he and Gibson (the other instructor of the class) discovered. They don't let what people think affect them. At all.
So are we going to work among the devil's followers our whole lives and lay down and die when the riots start? Or are we they type of person that crawls up on the roof with our AK-47 after risking everything to come to America and start a business? Internal locus of control! Don't let what other people think affect you! Trust more in the Atonement! We're supposed to make mistakes. Honest mistakes. Learn wisdom in thy youth. How? We have to learn through experience. Ron advises to work for somebody else for five years to make mistakes on somebody else's time and money. But don't just sit around!
Anyway, needless to say, an hour and a half of listening to this brilliant, accomplished, spiritual, driving, caring man was something.
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