“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Looking back through the lens of history over the 232 years since those 56 determined men chose to formally take a bold stand for the cause of liberty it is easy to loose sight of the fact that the outcome was far from determined. By defying the British crown they made themselves enemies of one of the most formidable military forces of the day.

In a land where nearly all the materials of war were of necessity imported via ship they were picking a fight with the world’s preeminent naval power controlled by a nation whose empire would continue to expand for another 160 years, right up to World War II.

To stand against this force they had an army which had been authorized less than three weeks before, effectively existing in name only, and a handful of smaller war ships, which were still largely under construction.

They knew the implications of the resolution they were adopting that sunny but cool July day in Philadelphia. A fleet of British ships transporting a sizable army with the express purpose of crushing the growing rebellion had landed in Boston just two days before. Years later one of the Declaration signers, Benjamin Rush recalled the seriousness of that occasion to his good friend, and fellow signer, John Adams.

Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants?

Overpowering Belief

What they did have in abundance was an overpowering belief in the rightness of their cause. You see
these great minds had long debated the merits and meanings of such lofty terms as loyalty, independence, tyranny, liberty, taxation, and representation.

And they held fast to understanding that they would have, as stated in the last line of the Declaration, “a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence“.

It was an idea that was perhaps best stated by that masterful orator Patrick Henry in his famed “give me liberty or give me death” speech in which he said

“Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.”

Morality the Key

History clearly reveals that these fine men were in fact right. Circumstances did maneuver themselves in favor of the rebellion. Friends did rise up to join the fight, eventually. It would take 8 long uncertain years of hard fought war to get there. But eventually these brave men were vindicated.

In order to establish a government that would uphold liberty over tyranny and despotism the founding fathers placed their trust in the people, though they knew that trust could be a tenuous thing. Even 200+ years ago these great minds knew that the citizens of our nation could only be trusted to guard liberty and freedom as long as they remained a moral society.

When expressing his somewhat reluctant approval of the US Constitution, the great thinker Benjamin Franklin said that the proposed government

can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.

Invariably the founders tied the morality needed with religion, which in their understanding was inexorably tied to the teachings of Jesus Christ found in that ubiquitous book found in nearly all American households, the Bible. Some examples are

George Washington

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

John Adams

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Thomas Jefferson

Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good governance and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.

Our Responsibility

These statements give a person pause on this anniversary of the momentous chain of events that was formally set in motion that solemn July day. As Abraham Lincoln famously said we are still, “testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

The responsibility for safeguarding that very liberty these men were willing to fight to secure rests on each of us. Perhaps no one spelled this principle out as eloquently as that master of words Noah Webster.

Whether it is today or some other, the next time you see fireworks reflect on these words of his.

“When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers, just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty.

If the citizens neglect their duty, and place unprincipled men in office,

• the government will soon be corrupted;
• laws will be made, not for the public good, so much as for selfish and local purposes;
• corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws;
• the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men;
• and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded.

If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws. Intriguing men can never be safely trusted.”

Please have a wonderful holiday weekend.

In response to my Thanksgiving post this year Alex over at the Advice Network left a thought provoking comment. Here’s the comment:

It’s interesting that the European (illegal?) immigrants could not survive with a communal (communist?) economic system, considering the aboriginal neighbors who saved their lives by showing them what crops to plant DID have a communal economic system.

What do you think accounted for this difference?

I started a comment in reply but the question is interesting enough that I think it warrants a full post. So here it goes.

A Historical Perspective

Advice, I’m thinking history is pretty clear that the Native American communal system did not allow them to thrive. They could survive in the harsh climate, sure. And that was something the Europeans had to learn. But Native American system kept them at subsistence levels and allowed their culture to be swept aside by the European privatized system.

Perhaps I’m being naive, but I’m thinking that if the communal Native American system had been inherently better then they would have emerged as the dominant culture and America would be a vastly different place today.

The Reality

It’s a simple reality of human nature that folks will work much harder and be far more committed to that which they personally own and are permitted to profit directly from versus that which belongs to a group they are part of.

People are inherently selfish. If they see equal rewards for varying amounts of effort it isn’t long until nearly everyone is putting forth the least amount of effort possible. Productivity and efficiency rapidly fall way off.

Communism in Practice

On paper it makes a whole lot more sense to plan whole industries from one central location. With large scale coordination of resources inefficient redundancies can be eliminated and the economies of scale that an entire nation should be able to achieve are in theory huge.

Trouble is, in practice Communism runs smack into a Yogi Berra truth:

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

Unfortunately that communal system runs afoul of human nature.

It turns out the increased production people achieve when they are allowed to directly profit from their own hard work and ingenuity far more than compensates for the inefficiencies of redundant resource utilization and inefficiencies of smaller scales. The overwhelming majority of people, even very good people, will not work anywhere near their potential when they see someone else getting the same reward with much less effort.

In the end, because they go against the way people are naturally wired, communal systems eventually break down as people learn shortcuts and how to corrupt the system for their own personal gain. Instead of a system where increased production is inherently rewarded, a system set up so that everyone is rewarded equally regardless of effort creates a situation where the only personal pay off comes from doing less work. That causes productivity, quality control, and innovation all to fall way off.

The Missing Element of Hope

But I think there is an additional piece that has to be in place beyond just a systemic change. To my way of thinking that additional piece is the spiritual element of hope or belief that change is possible.

And I think that is the key ingredient which helped the European immigrants ultimately dominate in the Americas.

Unlike the Native Americans, the Europeans believed that things could be different. Then they set about to make that difference happen.

Without hope for a better future people waste away.

For example, here’s a heart wrenching article about how the Soviets destroyed a farm community from the New York Times back in 1991. (Free registration required.)

Change didn’t happen in this particular community even after the farming system was privatized. I think the big reason is that the people were truly hopeless.

Here’s an excerpt.

Ultimately, the Communist state succeeded in what it set out to do, to reduce peasants to tame workers in a system totally controlled from above. The cost was starkly illustrated in a local newspaper by a reporter who found cows bellowing in pain at one farm because they had not been milked for days. A single milkmaid was leaving for home. Where were the others? “I don’t know, they didn’t show up.” Why don’t you milk the cows? “I’ve finished my shift.”

Mrs. Dobritskaya, now close to tears, said, “I’d get out of here if there was somewhere to go.

“But where? Everywhere it’s the same mud, the same manure. Maybe they have glasnost somewhere, maybe they have democracy, but not here. We’re used to working under the old system — as it was, so it stays. What would happen if we go on strike? No, if this privatization comes, it’ll have to come from above, not from below. That’s how it’s always been. You know what we say: Fish begin to stink from the head down.”

They didn’t believe change was possible so they were unwilling to even try.

Hope is Spiritual

It takes a degree of faith, which is a spiritual thing, to have hope for change. In fact here is how the Bible says it:

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.

To answer your question, Advice, I think that ultimately the difference in success between the two systems in the end is that the European immigrants had hope that things could change. Once they changed their system to be in line with how people are wired they had the spiritual strength of hope to be successful.

In contrast the Native Americans were using a communal system that ran contrary to human nature. On top of that lacked any belief that they could change.

But that’s just the way I see it.

Effectiveness is often a good measure of success. When we are effective we are producing the results we striving to achieve.

Trouble comes when the results we see are different from what we expected. What then? How do we become more effective?

One sure way to be more effective is to Clarify Your Win.

We All Want to Win

Everyone likes to win. People love the excitement when their team is getting ahead. It’s the reason sports are a multi-billion dollar industry around the globe. We are hard wired to crave winning and being associated with winners.

This is also why a team that’s in the middle of a big loosing streak has trouble filling a stadium. No one wants to associate with “losers”.

With sports it’s easy to see who the winner is. One quick look at the scoreboard, or maybe the clock is all it takes. Winning in most sports can be reduced to numbers and guys often memorize an amazing amount of data from their favorite sports teams all with the the goal of figuring out who’s got the best chances to win.

Or sometimes they use their stats to explain why this team won and that team lost.

Clarifying Your Win

How about in you business? Do you know what a win looks like? Does your team? How about your customers?

Have you even defined your win?

If you give people a clear goal, more often than not they’ll work like crazy to get there. But if your goal is unclear then they’ll be forced to guess. Or worse yet they may choose their own goal and decide for themselves what a win is.

You see, with our without a goal they are going to work hard to get somewhere. The question is, Are they getting where you want them to go?

How to Clarify Your Win

So how do you do it? Simple. Just ask yourself, What is the most important thing?

As you think about the answer to that question, your win will begin to come clear. Boiling it down can make the win even more compelling.

The obvious answer is that business exist to make money. However when making money becomes an offshoot of winning, you are much more likely to make decisions that will make your business successful over the long term. When you don’t, you will be tempted to make short sighted decisions that will increase the bottom line today but ultimately hinder the success of your organization.

For example, here at SuccessCREEations we’ve defined our win as

Making a client so happy they refer 3 jobs a year to us.

Is it ambitious? Sure is. But how would your business look if every one of your customers referred 3 other customers to you? What if only 10% of your customers did? How much is a referral worth to your business.

In our case here a good referral is incredibly valuable. And three from the same source? That’s definitely a win and something to celebrate!

So what’s your win?

Yesterday I mentioned some rules that you can get away with breaking in your efforts to keep focused on the money making activities in your business.

But there are some rules you should never break. These unbreakable rules apply not only to your business but also to your entire life as well.

Really there aren’t many of ‘em. But you can totally shoot yourself in the foot and potentially sink your business by breaking them.

They are basic rules, and should be common sense. Of course common sense isn’t so common these days, is it?

It all boils down to basic things like good customer service and treating your business associates and employees well. Most all religions have some form of instruction along these lines. Lots of philosophers even have addressed the issue.

Jesus said we should treat other people as we would like them to treat us.

It’s a rule we should never allow ourselves to break.

An Example

A friend of mine recently was burned pretty badly by a business associate in a way that was completely unethical. There was a bunch of money involved and talk of lawyers.

Thing is the industry my friend is in is way smaller than I think the burner realizes. These things have a way of becoming known. Before to long folks stop doing business with unethical players.

Treat someone the way my friend was treated and word will get around eventually.

It doesn’t matter whether you neglect you blog to focus on your core business (unless your blog is your core business, of course). Your web site will still be there.

And so will those customers, business associates, and employees. At least the same people will be there. You break this rule and they may become your competitor’s customers, former business associates and ex-employees.

Or you can follow the rule and keep them all on your side.

The choice is yours. Treat others well.

Everything choice we make has consequences. And the place we find ourselves in life is simply a direct result of all the choices we’ve made, large or small, added together.

Successful people realize this fact and strive to make their choices wisely.

Many other people instead choose to ignore the cause and effect relationship of their choices and look for something or someone that they can blame for the circumstances they find themselves in. Until they realize that all of us do in fact have choices and that they can start making different choices, their circumstances are unlikely to change.

Unintended Consequences

But here’s the thing. Not all of the consequences of our choices are what we might expect. There are times when unintended consequences might result from our choices.

None of the decisions we make happen in a vacuum. Every choice we make in some way, large or small, affects those around us. And it is quite possible that there might even be a ripple effect of those choices that end up affecting a whole lot of folks.

This principle of unintended consequences is especially evident when governments make policy decisions and change laws for very large groups of people.

Ethanol and Corn – Unintended Consequences in Action

Let’s take a look at an example of this that’s happening right now.

The good Idea

Here in the US laws have recently been changed to require more ethanol usage in the fuels for our automobiles. On the surface it is a very sensible change. There’s some great benefits.

• Renewable energy source
• Cleaner burning fuel
• Fewer greenhouse gases
• Reduced dependency on foreign oil

Sounds like a good idea. Who wouldn’t be in favor of seeing that happen? I know I’d like to see all that and more.

Trouble is, we are running smack into the principle of unintended consequences with this one.

Turns out the only viable source of ethanol at the moment comes from corn.

Shouldn’t be much of a problem, right? I mean the US is the larges corn producer in the world. Our output is measured in hundreds of millions of metric tons. That’s a lot of corn!

The Unintended Consequences

But. We supply much of the world with their corn as one of the largest corn exporting countries. Now that a larger portion of our corn is being diverted from feeding people to fueling cars, people in some parts of the world are starting to feel the pinch at the table.

For example, they are now seeing serious corn shortages in Mexico, Guatemala and the Philippines.

There are feedstock shortages in China.

The US might even be headed for a food shortage itself. Part of the reason for that may be that we are already seeing a corn seed shortage, and the laws don’t come into full effect for another 5 years!

Or maybe it is because farm land prices are on the rise and are keeping new farmers out of that line of work.

Of course we all know that our rising fuel cost is directly related to these new governmental requirements.

But did you know that corn prices factor into the cost of a wide range of food sources from eggs, milk and cheese, to chicken, pork and beef? We’re already on our way to increasing world hunger for our ethanol.

Not only that, but I’m in the transportation industry and I’m here to tell you that these higher fuel costs affect every singly segment of our economy. Think about it. Everything you see on your local Wal-mart or grocer’s shelf got there via truck. Don’t be fooled. The higher fuel costs to run that truck are already coming out of your pocket. In the form of higher prices on the shelves.

Summary

So what we have is a great idea to force cleaner, renewable fuels having the unintended consequence of causing huge problems which will likely at a minimum cause more starvation around the world.

In hind sight, was it a good decision by the government?

Applying the Principle Ourselves

Does the principle of unintended consequences mean we should never strive to achieve high goals for fear of causing some horrible things to happen around us?

Of course not.

We can however take the time to think through the long term ramifications of our decisions. The bigger the decision, the more thought that should go into it. In our personal lives that means we should weigh out very carefully the major decisions.

How will this affect people around me?

What will this decision allow to happen?

Which things will no longer be available to me anymore by making this choice?

Successful people think through their decisions. By asking tons of questions, and considering the possible consequences of our decisions, we can better manage those unintended consequences.

And we’ll be more successful in the process.

My Addiction

I like coffee.

I drink lots of it. Potfulls. Mass quantities.

These days the perfect cup is a nice mild blend with a little half and half and a teaspoon of raw sugar. Or, if I’m feeling especially healthy, perhaps a bit of Stevia instead of the sugar.

I like the smell. The taste is wonderful. And with my goofy work schedule the caffeine kick is an extra bonus.

I’m on day two of coffee withdrawal.

Another Addiction

You see our secretary smokes.

I don’t know exactly how much, but I’m guessing somewhere around a pack a day. Whenever I’ve asked her how much she smokes she usually says, “it’s not that much,” which really doesn’t narrow it down very well.

We’ve been going back and forth hassling each other about our addictions in a very civilized, kid your coworker sort of way for a few months now. She’s a master of diverting the topic of discussion, asking questions aimed at steering the conversation in another direction.

But I wasn’t falling for it.

Friday I finally got her to say out loud that there is no positive health consequences that result from smoking. She also acknowledged a bunch of other things about her smoking.

For example, she admitted that she believed she could quit if she really wanted to. And that the reason she didn’t was mostly because she thought it would be hard.

Oh, there were a lot of other excuses and juicy rationalizations thrown in there too. My favorite was her claim that smoking a cigarette was no less healthy for you than eating a hamburger. Did I mention she’s a vegetarian?

I don’t know if the hamburger thing is true or not. Who knows? It might be.

But just the same I don’t know too many folks who eat 20+ hamburgers a day. Every day.

I’m just saying.

The Aggreement

Anyway I got her to the point of acknowledging no real health benefits from smoking on Friday.

That was the point she turned desperate (and tried her usual diversion tactic).

“I’ll quit smoking when you give up coffee!”

“OK. Pick the day.”

I didn’t miss a beat.

Her eyes got really wide.

She didn’t expect that.

She stammered. “Ahhhhh…”

I said, “How about Monday?”

“Um, OK.”

So the deal is this. From the time we woke up Monday I won’t drink any coffee and she won’t smoke. Until one of us caves.

The one who looses, well, is a looser. No consequences other than being subjected to unlimited bragging rights by the winner.

But that may be just enough.

She seems serious. And I figure that at 21, it’s a good time for her to quit.

The Success Principle

Successful people master their addictions. They face them head on without any rationalizations or excuses.

Many of us have them. My poison is coffee. Hers is smoking. Others are into drugs. Or porn. Or excessive spending. Or are workahaulics.

Are you a compulsive blogger, perhaps? Eat way more than you should?

I’m not here to set some arbitrary standard or judge your behavior.

I’m simply holding up a mirror for a reality check.

Even good things taken to excess can be detrimental in the long run.

Take the workahaulic for example. Someone with an extreme hard work ethic may very well seem quite successful. Maybe their business is flourishing, growing rapidly, and bringing in lots of money.

But if that piece of success comes at a cost of field of relationships devastated by neglect and borderline abuse all around them, how successful is that really?

When the subject comes up, I often get the you don’t know how hard it is speech from the person I’m talking with.

Um. Yes I do.

I was basically a drunk for many years. I stopped over a decade ago. I know it’s hard. I also know it can be done.

But there was no way I was going to have a successful life unless that addiction was conquered.

Success takes discipline. Addictions are at the core a lack of self control. We will never be successful until we have the self control and achieve discipline to see our addictions conquered.

Being out of control can be very thrilling. I’ve been out of control in airplanes. It was part of our flight training. And it’s a total rush!

But. We had to regain control of that aircraft. If we didn’t, we were certain to crash and burn. Not likely. Certain.

Even an addiction as benign as a drinking coffee addiction has long term negative consequences associated with it. I don’t want to see them first hand. Nor do I want a 21 year old lady who works in my office to face the consequences of her addiction.

And that’s why I’m living through this crushing headache today.

“Two men were walking in a forest, when they suddenly saw a savage, hungry-looking bear. One of the men quickly put on a pair of running shoes. The other guy exclaimed, “You idiot! You can’t run faster than a bear …”

To which the first guy replied, “But I don’t have to run faster than the bear, I only have to run faster than you!”

The Wrong Take Away

In the business world I’ve most often heard that little story told to get the wrong point across. Usually the person relating the story uses it as a spring board to convey some point along these lines.

If you want to be successful you must outrun your competition.

Nope. Wrong. Dumb. Misses the greater truth.

I caught myself falling into that line of thinking at work yesterday.

Things have been nuts. We’ve all been scrambling just to keep our heads above water. We’re all a little behind.

As I was assessing the situation and where I was at I thought, “Well at least I’m not as far behind as my boss.”

Nope. Wrong. Dumb.

The Wrong Measure

Truly successful people don’t keep their eyes on everyone else’s progress. They keep their eyes on their own lane.

If you measure your success relative to how everyone else is doing you’ll probably end up far below your potential.

One of my good friends in the Navy washed out of pilot training later than anyone else I ever saw, after he got his wings. He used to joke that he was the Worst of the Best.

I would usually “correct” him jokingly and say he was the Best of the Rest.

Getting it Right For Success

We all have seeds of greatness planted within us. Those precious seeds will ultimately come to fruition when we maximize our potential.

And we can’t maximize our potential when we are focused on how poorly people around us are doing.

Rather than simply trying to outrun the next guy, take a close look at which track you are on. Too many people have spent their entire lives climbing the ladder of success only to find they had it leaning against the wrong wall.

Are you running the best race for you?

Or are you running someone else’s race better than they are?

Take the time to find the best race for you to run. Then don’t let yourself get distracted by how others are running the race you were meant to run. Run your race to the absolute best of your ability.

When we do that we will no longer settle for being the Best of the Rest. That will be the point when each of us finds ourselves truly becoming the Best of the Best.

It was a tremendous opportunity.

The first pass over the numbers was exciting. In theory we’d be increasing our net worth considerably, lots more equity the moment we signed the papers.

When we looked at the property it was just the sort of thing Gorgeous and I’d been talking about. And in the right location too.

We’d already been talking about refinancing anyway, so why not just pull some of the equity out of our house, use it as a down payment on this good deal? Then we could rent our our current house and we’d come out way ahead at the end of the day.

In theory.

But the thing about theories is they don’t always play out as expected when put to the test. Like Yogi Berra said,

In theory there’s no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

When I was finally able to pull together actual numbers (instead of the probably “about” numbers we’d been theorizing over) it was immediately obvious.

That won’t work for us.

Too much into the negative cash flow. And right now we don’t need any negative cash flow! (I mean who really does?)

Putting on the Brakes

So I had to make a bunch of calls and tell the folks involved that it wasn’t going to work for us.

They were professionals and tried to offer up options. “What if we did this…”

We’d already thought through all the options they came up with. No dice.

Those calls weren’t easy to make. It wasn’t fun to tell people, “Well the truth is we really can’t swing this one right now.” More correctly we weren’t willing to put ourselves into an untenable situation just because it was a good deal.

I mean someone would have loaned us the money. I just want to be sure I can pay it back!

Some Food for Thought

So here are some things to think about.

How do you respond when the reality doesn’t match the theory?

Are you willing to make a course correction when things aren’t working out as expected?

Can you cast aside a project you are emotionally attached to when the evidence indicates it isn’t the good idea you thought it was?

I promise making that correction won’t be easy. And it is no fun calling folks to tell them, “I was wrong.”

But we were never promised life would be easy. I can’t find that written anywhere.

Can you do the right thing even when it’s hard?

Last night Gorgeous and I had a date night and we went to see the movie Amazing Grace.

All I can say is Wow. Talk about a powerful movie.

It tells the story of William Wilberforce who was the main driver in Parliament behind ending slavery in Great Britain at the turn of the 19th century.

The fight to end British trading in slaves was a bitter one that lasted more than 20 years with Wilberforce bringing the issue before Parliament only to have it rejected year after year.

William was a reluctant warrior in the battle. But once he took on the role he kept at it with a passion that nearly consumed him completely.

The movie takes its title from the hymn Amazing Grace which was written by John Newton. Newton was a former slave ship captain whose change of conscience after his conversion to Christianity forced him from the business of trading in slaves and eventually into the clergy.

Apparently Newton heavily influenced Wilberforce in his own decision on whether or not to stay in politics.

There are a few lessons I brought home from that movie last night.

The Impossible is Worth Attempting

When Wilberforce started his campaign to end the slave trade he was the lone voice in Parliament speaking against it. As his friend William Pitt, who was to become the youngest man ever in the history of Great Britain to become Prime Minister, was working at persuading him to stay in politics Pitt used that as a challenge.

He flat out told Wilberforce that the odds would be 300 to 1 against him.

To us today it is incredible that there was ever so little sentiment against the whole idea of slavery. But unfortunately at the time it was seen as primarily an unfortunate business arrangement that had been in existence since the beginning of time.

There were a whole bunch of folks in Great Britain a the time who were making a great deal of money either directly or indirectly from the slave trade.

That the trade would ever end was far from a forgone conclusion when Wilberforce started out. In fact it seemed down right impossible that it would ever be changed.

Yet he waded into the fight anyway because he felt it was the right thing to do.

There are times in our lives when the impossible is exactly the right thing for us to attempt.

Passion is Powerful

At one point in the film, Wilberforce feels completely defeated. He’s been fighting for his cause for 15 years and nothing has changed.

His friend Pitt, the Prime Minister at the time, flat out told him to back off on his pressure because war with France changed the political landscape and his ideas would be seen by some as treasonous.

Some of his friends in the cause have retreated into seclusion. Others have died.

The weight of his passion is destroying his health. He is so angry at his complete inability to affect any change that he is literally wasting away. He even hesitates to talk about the subject because he doesn’t want his passion to spill out onto others.

And when a lady friend finally gets him to talk about it, we see the power of his passion. For a brief moment he isn’t a frail man, aged before his time. We see a glimpse of a strong warrior who will fight to the death for his cause.

It is his incredible passion, his unwavering belief in the rightness of his cause that ultimately carries him through that desperately dark season and on to victory.

Passion is a powerful force that can fuel us beyond the point where we’d normally give up when things get difficult for us.

Some Victories Will Be Costly

Eventually, after more than 15 years of struggle, Wilberforce and his friends come up with an idea that actually makes their first dent in the slave trade. Rather than proposing a bill that directly addresses the slave trade they come at it sideways.

Or as one of their staunchest opponents says, they use a cross wind. And they are sneaky about it too.

They basically come up with something that is anti-French at time when they are at war with the French. But they do it in a way that the anti-French measure will have a significant distinctly adverse and effect on the slave trade.

It is a tremendous victory for their cause.

One of the things they don’t address in the movie is that the measure they come up with ends up being one of the contributing factors in starting the War of 1812 with the USA. Because even though the law they pass is perceived at home as being anti-French, it is in actual effect very harmful to the United States shipping interests. And not just to slavers, either.

I think it could be argued that another war, especially one on the scale as the War of 1812, was an acceptable price to pay to begin to put an end to British involvement in the slave trade.

But we should keep in mind that most victories come with costs attached. And there may even be some that we don’t even realize at the time.

On the whole it was a wonderful film. I highly recommend y’all go see it.

Twitter is all the rage these days. Several big blogging names are fully on board tweeting away. And a few others have not embraced the idea. The die hard Twitter converts would probably add a “yet” at the end of that last sentence. We’ll see.

Fortunately for me their IM connectivity is still not working, at least with GoogleTalk, which has been good for me from a productivity standpoint because I’m not all up in the madness non-stop throughout the day.

Most of what goes on there is only of passing interest to me. And I see an interesting principle that seems to be in play over there. I’m open to other names, but for now let’s call it

The Cree Principle of Twitterization

Your Twitter posting frequency will be directly proportional to the length of your friends list.

It seems those folks on my friends list who have hundreds of friends (and huge followings) tend to be the heaviest Twitters. And that makes it easy for me. I can just check in a couple times a day, skim through, glean the interesting stuff and disregard the rest.

A Moment of Brilliance

Which brings me to one truly brilliant comment I saw there yesterday. Chris Brogan has been at VON for the past few days and at one point yesterday he said

Lots of visionaries and not enough princes of execution

Now I’m not sure if he was talking about a specific panel or session he was in there, or if that was a general commentary on the whole conference itself somehow. Regardless the idea Chris expressed has applications for us.

Especially in business.

Too often those of us who start businesses are full of great ideas. Obviously this is a very good thing, without which our businesses would never get anywhere.

But where it is easy to get into trouble is a that very point where the rubber meets the road. In order to make our vision a reality someone has to execute. It could even be argued that without execution, the idea falls short of greatness regardless of how brilliant it may seem.

I see it all the time with clients. They finally see the vision for blogging to support their business. They understand the value of conversation, the search engine benefits, and the advantages of adding humanity to their web presence. They see all that and say, “This is what we’re going to do.”

Yet, when it comes to the execution, the day to day effort of blogging, all too often the whole thing breaks down.

The Princes of Execution

It’s a role that isn’t as glamorous and sexy. We all want to be the visionary leader. The big cheese. In charge.

Yet somewhere along the way everything that happens requires a prince of execution. Even though it can be a thankless roll it is absolutely critical to the success of the organization that someone takes it on.

Chris is right. We need more Princes of Execution.

I’m guilty of trying to escape that role myself. I’ve been operating under this delusion that I needed to be more of the visionary leader and less of the executioner a prince of execution. Fortunately P of E is a role that I’m good at and have had many successful years with. I just need to give myself permission to be me.

So let me ask you this. Who is your Prince of Execution? Do you have one?

Did you even know you were missing one?

Gives you something to think about, doesn’t it.