If you are reading this there is a good chance you are not on the street, in a tent, protesting, or complaining about how greedy the guy in the Mercedes is. I am so disturbed by the negativity that has come out of one of the most divisive movements in our country since the Viet Nam War. The “Class War” is here, do we really need it or does it help people get ahead? President Obama has long wanted this debate in the U.S. He campaigned on it and now he has implicitly endorsed the illegal occupation of private land in NY. I wonder how this turns out for his next election? Does he own this protest or does he distance himself from it when it gets nasty or even violent?

Should we protest? Should we exercise free speech, absolutely. This right is what separates our nation from every other country on the planet. But protesting works both ways. It is not the loudest, dirtiest most outrageous that is right just because you show up. We must look  at the movement and wonder are there alterior motives to a group? Who is funding their efforts? Is this a protest complaining about special interest and the “greedy bankers” any different than a group that is funded by special interest unions and left wing organizations? What makes their form of greed different than businesses special interest?

The protest should be about the message. It should be about what it is being said and why. Our nation is very tolerant and responsive to hardship and inequity. Look at our history of public education, social and medical welfare programs, mental health programs and our prison system. These few programs above state the will of Americans to take care of those that are incapable of caring for themselves.

Is it the responsibility of our citizens to subsidize any capable person in a capitalist market driven economy? Are the opportunities limited to only those with “connections and wealth”?

From my experience it is more about the effort than the opportunity. It is more about the common sense budgeting in your own life. It is not a right to buy every product marketed and ending up with huge debt that you can never pay back. Who are we to blame, ourselves or the more fortunate?

Oh I could go on and on. Lisa (wife) says that I am obsessed with this issue. I am! I grew up with both my brothers in a middle class home that stressed hard work, education and to live within our means. We were never told to blame someone else for a bad grade, getting cut from a team, not getting into the right school or not getting the job we desire. We just figured we had to keep trying.

So I offer to OWS. Get out of the street already. Take the drive and the tenacity that you have demonstrated in the parks you inhabit and start to make your way back to the main stream economy (if you want to). If you choose to continue the protest, do it legally, try to clarify your message and stop asking for society to change until you are willing to do so yourself. You too must adhere to laws of the land that you feel you are entitled to.

Take care and have a good week. If you want me to continue to post blogs, let me know so!

Respectfully,

Glenn

What makes you tick? Who do you think of when you must make a critical decision? Do you go back to a lesson that you were taught as a child or one passed onto you this morning? This past weekend I was inspired to blog  because it was clearly Spring again. For as long as I can remember this season has awoken a spirit in me that is usually missing in the winter. I also get inspired by a conversation with a friend or stranger. I am a person constantly in search of inspiration. I am also influenced by brilliance in any shape or form, then I must act on it.

Last night at a dinner party that Lisa and I  hosted for friends from out-of-town was one of those moments of Inspiration for me. My dear friend brought his wife whom I hadn’t met in the past. We had the normal dinner conversation regarding family, hobbies and business. Usually these dinner parties last just an hour or two. Before we looked up we had been sitting for over four hours…..why? We started speaking about community, regional and national issues regarding education. Many of you that know me best, know that I am very critical of the failed policies and practices of our education system in the nation over the past thirty years.. My frustration comes from the high cost and mediocre results from the current system (I will blog another day about my ideas.)

Back to “Inspiration.” So at the dinner party I met a woman who is on the same page as me concerning many issues confronting our society. She is a leader and innovator. Harvard trained attorney is not on her business card, nor would she post her many professional accomplishments. My impression was  that she has a passion for a better America. She wants to live in a country where individuals make a difference, take responsibility and give back to their community.  This person has opened a Hospice in her community, her and her husband are committing money for an Alzheimer’s facility and what touched home with me,  she wants to launch a national program for Education Reform.

This blog is less about this lovely person and more about the person in your life that can inspire you. Or even better, hopefully that you become the person who inspires others. That is my message today. I promise you I can give you no better gift than the feeling that you will get from making another person feel like they just met you and came away with the emotions I describe here.

Have a fantastic day. Glenn

So what are you going to do about this opportunity to launch “you” into Spring? Have you set goals regarding your personal life, career and family? If not, before you do another thing put your want to do list together. Do not let this opportunity to spring forward right now pass. For longer than most,  I have been incredibly optimistic about your choices and opportunities. Even when the media and some friends  spewed negativity I encouraged you to stay positive, stay around positive people and look for your chance to advance yourself.  I feel so strongly about this being your time? Your generation is so bright and trained with education that has prepared you to be the future leaders. Do not doubt that for a second.

There isn’t a person reading this blog that does not have the right stuff to help themselves to a better  and more fulfilled life and career. The economy is telling you now is the time. Survivors of the downturn are more equipped and battle ready for any challenge that confronts any part of their life. We can thank the bad economy for the gift of grit. This is the time to apply what you have learned, take all your growth and knowledge and capitalize and monetize it this Spring.

Please spread the word that Spring is the season of hope and possibilities. Have a great day. Glenn

How did we get where we are? You can send thank you notes to your legislators who have voted for every single cost line incurred. Their backbone for what is right is tied to the next vote they can buy. The easy way to identify the problem is to blame the municipal unions that have negotiated work rules, pensions and benefits for their employees. I do not point the finger at them yesterday or tomorrow. As I have said before, each person is out to get the best deal they can negotiate for themselves. This holds true for ball players making twenty million a year or a forty-year old policeman retired and making one hundred thousand a year for the rest of his/her life after putting in their twenty years. The fault lays with the team owners/legislators/ and us if we elect people who gave away the whole store.

What can we do now? Is the problem hopeless? Can we count on the people who got us into trouble to solve the problems now? I don’t think so.  You must have a voice. In your own life you try not to spend more than you can afford. We need to send that message loud and clear to the president, congress and locally to our state and county representatives.

It would not be fair or just to go backwards and penalize former employees and workers who signed on to contracts that were  honestly negotiated. But it is time to write to new plans that reflect new economic realities. We must deal with the fact that people are living longer and cannot retire at forty.  Working twenty years and collecting for sixty or seventy years towards the new life expectancy is clearly unsustainable. I am not a genius but I figured out that this does not work.

Mayor Bloomberg is a practical and independent thinker. He gets it. The time is now to make the governments work for its people with a fair deal for those that educate our children, protect us from fire and crime and those that keep our communities clean. If our governments were a business, they would be Chrysler and General Motors. You know what happened to them. Without (whether rightly or wrongly) a government bailout, they would be gone. As it was, they went bankrupt.

If you do not want things to stay the same, write to congress and tell them. If you do not want the three thousand a year in taxes that you are currently paying that goes towards municipal workers benefits to double in the next five years, make your voices heard. This is your time to get involved and make our country a better more competitive nation with a cost structure that works.

Make your voices heard. Have a great week.

In my position as a blogger/mentor, it is very easy to give advice. In your position as entry-level or career minded early stage employees, it might not be as easy  to argue for what you believe. You might tell me that your boss does not want to listen to your ideas, he wants you to follow orders and get projects completed without questions. This attitude might single handedly be responsible for the largest component of apathy in the American workplace than any other technical factors. Does America want leaders in their ranks or followers. Read the book to see where the culture in the workplace or military is in Israel on this subject. 

I try to practice what I am preaching here. Throughout my career, I have never punished failure on its own by employees. I have tried to embrace failure and learn from the experience. I also have given autonomy to entry-level workers as well as managers. The last thing I ever wanted to do was limit our creativity to a singular individual (me), and the limits implied by trusting only me.

You have a choice in developing your own careers and opportunities. Are you willing to step out and put yourself in the line of fire to advance yourself and help your company. Or do you want to blend into the background, do your job, take a check each week and not take chances. Clearly each situation is unique and deserves to be analyzed on its own merits, but don’t make excuses for dead-end jobs if you do nothing to change your circumstances.

I know I am generalizing, but the DNA of the typical Israeli comes from a ancestry of survivors. The fact is that Israel through the years has always been an incredible longshot at survival. My interpretation of their survival is completely credited to its people’s ability to make critical decisions at the right moment. This translates into every aspect of their lives. Today it has translated into one of the most dynamic economies in the world. What makes up an economy…THE PEOPLE!!!!!!!

I hope you take some time and read Start-up Nation and come away with a career tip for yourselves. I know I did. Have a great weekend.

This is not the first time our  economy has woken up from a recession, but this time it is different. The change is you! The country is loaded with highly educated young people with the need to invent themselves when the traditional economy tried to leave them out. Jobs are not being created at the businesses that analyse hiring. Those businesses are slow to hire and are pushing their existing employees to be more productive and grateful to be employed. So where are the jobs??? In my opinion and the opinion of some professionals, the new economy is in the Household Employment numbers. I have heard that as many as 500, 000 jobs were added last month. The economy is reinventing itself with startups and entrepreneurs. It is so exciting to see new business growth.

Many of these businesses will not make it, but within this group is the next Google, Amazon and Ebay. In our real estate portfolio we have ten new startups in the last four months. A photography studio with an investment in state of the art equipment is competing with bigger and older competitors. A Chinese Buffet and Cafe with Bookstore to mention a couple. Why is this happening now and not twelve months ago? The answer is optimism in the future, opportunity to create a future for themselves and lastly and most importantly “The American Dream” to own their own business.

Please look  at your future now and think about where your skills, creativity and dreams should lead you. The reviving U.S. economy will create opportunities that do not come along often. You might remember me writing to you when we were at the lowest point of the economic downturn and I told you to seize this period.   This is when we have a chance to advance ourselves most. In any event, you should be considering moves now that you might not have thought about a year ago.

It is time to go on offense. As Ben Stiller said in Zoolander “Do It.” Have a great week.

So where are you today? Does it still seem hopeless or hopeful? Most of the recent college grads and college students I speak with feel more secure about the future then they did last year. Most of the young people that I know are working or making “career moves.” Clearly we are not in a booming economy yet, but the future feels brighter than the past. What do you think contributes to this mood change? I will leave it to you to come up with the conclusion to this statemment rather than me opining.

There are a few things that I hope you remember from earlier blogs. First keep a positive attitude. Next build relationships with positive people. I also told you to speak with people you admire at work. Develop the highest ethical standards for you to adhere to at your job. Get in early and leave late was another piece of advice that I passed along. No supervisor really is worried about the subordinate that is trying to impress them or work harder than there colleagues. This is called setting the stage for a successful career.

My fingers are getting very excited to be writing to you again. I have so much to say and will keep in touch periodically to update you with my form of wisdom and practical ideas for you to ponder. As I have said before, I am so impressed with your generation. I have had so many conversations with contemporaries of yours that have just blown me away. Right in front of me I saw  future business leaders. In the past year, consider how far you have come. Keep it going!

Have a great weekend and I look forward to communicating with you soon. Glenn

Speaking Up for American Capitalism

I have spent my entire career trying to build business everyday. I never did it with selfish motives. It was what I was brought up by my parents and relatives to believe you were supposed to do. I was taught to get up early, work hard and there will be benefits and most importantly personal satisfaction. I hope this dream is still alive in America. I sense a populist movement away from capitalism and towards entitlement and socialism in our country.

The message today is that everyone is entitled to first class  healthcare, education a home and a retirement plan whether you earned it or not. Our country was not built on an entitlement economy, it was built on opportunity. My point is without an incentive to earn the benefits of life in America, you take away the drive to attain them. Our economy is growing at a snails pace with high unemployment. Are we heading in the right direction? China is worried that their GDP is slowing down to 10% and quality of life, jobs, autos and homes are expanding so quickly that their government is taking away stimulus from their economic strategy.

I am not saying we can or want to be China, but they are doing many things right. I will say that we do not want to follow the failed socialistic policies of Europe….but we are. Can we turn this ship around and go back to the roots of our capitalistic economy? I hope so for your generations sake. You must take a position on how you want your country to provide services and benefits to our citizens. In my opinion we are at the tipping point of over-taxing our income producers and job creators.  In my opinion the problem is unearned benefits given as an entitlement (welfare) creates the most inefficient economy. Without  incentives who could blame one for not working harder.

A number of years ago I read the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, it made an impression on my views that shape my vision for our economy. It is worth the read if you haven’t read it yet. First Published in 1957, yet so relevant today.

Have a great day and think about your future and how Congress and President Obama are impacting your future.

I read this morning that he bought the Yankee’s in 1973 for 10 million dollars with only 100,000 dollars of his own money. They estimated his return to be 46,00o percent, while the S and P has returned 900 percent during the same period. It appears he made a great investment and most importantly, made all the right moves with his asset. There are lessons to be learned from public figures like George or Gates or Buffet.

You can be sure that the men mentioned above made many mistakes along the way, but the one thing they were successful at was their company. In our lives we know people that we admire and aspire to be like as well. Have you begun your ascension yet? What are your plans to get there? Have you studied and read about people that have achieved a successful path? As you start your journey it is important to pick a road map that you can follow.

I will remember George Steinbrenner the rest of my life for all that he did with the Yankee organization.  I appreciated that he gave me exciting October’s and championship baseball. He knew how important it was for him to provide the highest quality product money could buy and he delivered most years. I will try to do the same in  my small world for my customers.

Thanks George!

Lisa and I were just in Tuscany and the South of France for the past twelve days. I always take the first two weeks of July off. It is a common time to take off, so business is naturally slower when many people that you do business with are also out. I have found that when you really get away, you come back with a renewed positive attitude. Another benefit of being out of the daily routine, is that your creativity has a chance to flourish. Being in the daily grind might feel like the best way to get things accomplished, but just try opening your mind when you have some free time off.

In my daily business life I am reading and reviewing documents all day. On vacation I read the newspaper leisurely and read a couple of books. We had great lunches and drank a lot of wines from the region. Days went by where I didn’t think about the office at all. What a pleasure! However, as I was nearing the end of the vacation, I could not wait to get back to the office. I have  new goals and projects that are in the works that will get my attention right away. I am excited again and it feels really good!

I hope you can get away  for a week this summer. It does not have to be a destination as exotic as the South of France, it is good to just be out of your normal routine and have a chance to think and relax. “Recharge Your Battery” and go back to work or school ready to advance your opportunities.

It is great to be back and have a wonderful week.