The reason for this is that a group of inner city minority children showed up at the club, having paid for the right to be there, and were quickly rounded up, sent back home, and had their money refunded to them without an explanation. Some of the children heard disparaging remarks coming from club members, which was uncalled for.

Initially the representative of the club came out and made a statement to explain his club’s side of things, and he immediately put his foot in his mouth by saying that these kids would change the “complexion” of the club. Later on, after a week in which both the state senate and one of the senators for the state of Pennsylvania got into it, the representative came out and made a longer speech, saying his club has underestimated the capacity of their swimming pool, decided it was in the best interests to refund the money because of that, stated that they weren’t racist and didn’t mean to insult anyone or make anyone feel uncomfortable.

Whether anyone believes that or not (and I don’t), this is an example of someone not thinking about what they wanted to say before they said it. It was also an example, if we even want to believe that they didn’t know the capacity of their own swimming pool, of improper communications between the club and the organization representing the children to begin with.

I’ve talked about communications in both talking with other people and in writing, and the importance of trying to get it right. Often, the first message is the only chance you’ll get, and even though no one is perfect, if the message that gets out is so bad that it immediately sets a tone of distrust, it’s hard to turn that message around to whatever you really meant for it to be, and certainly harder to ever establish any real trust in what you have to say.

True, one doesn’t always have enough time to work out the proper thing to say. In those cases, it’s probably best to not say anything at all. With this club, the fallout might have been much less if the representative had just issued a “no comment”. It still would have been an incident, particularly because of the comments of other club members, but it could have been mitigated somewhat by the official word saying something different than what they said.

Of course, with all the extra scrutiny, no one would have ended up believing anything this guy had to say eventually anyway.

There were a lot of high points from the memorial service, but two things really stood out in my mind. The first was Jermaine, one of Michael’s older brothers, singing his brother’s favorite song, Smile, written by Charlie Chaplin. The second was Michael’s daughter Paris having the final say on the day, which tore at heart strings all over the world.

What happened with both of these is that, even with the grief that they were going through, they felt a sense that something had to be said and done, that it was their duty to go above and beyond because, as emotional as it was, it was the right thing to do. Both showed amazing strength, from a 54 year old to an 11 year old; just the stuff of greatness.

I remember when my dad passed away. On the day of his funeral, I was a mess; as many kids would be. I didn’t want to have to go through any of it, and it was hard to control my emotions. At the cemetery, though, the military personnel were there, as my dad was a veteran of two wars and had earned the full military procession. Just before they began, I thought to myself that this was a moment not to grieve, but to be proud. I was a military kid, after all, and I knew something about military protocol and honor. So, for the 25 minutes or so that they were there doing what they had to do, in their way, with the 21 gun salute, I didn’t cry. I didn’t come close to it. I was proud of what my dad had done for his family and country at that moment. He was buried in his uniform, with all of his medals; that was an honor that he had earned, and it was going to be about him.

Sometimes, in moments of intense stress and emotion, it can feel daunting to have to come to a realization that one had to realize it’s not always about them. The Jackson family didn’t have to put on this memorial service, but they knew it wasn’t only about them. It was for all Michael Jackson’s fans around the world. We just couldn’t have proceeded to live our lives if the family hadn’t done this. I certainly couldn’t, and I know I wasn’t alone. People flew into Los Angeles from all around the world, just to be there, whether they could get inside or not. I forget how many countries were watching, but this shows the intense interest. Even two weeks later, Michael Jackson albums are holding the top 10 spots on Billboard’s Album charts (for some reason, I’m glad they still call it the “album” charts).

Sometimes, one just has to try to pull themselves together to get things done. It doesn’t mean you can’t grieve when it’s time to grieve, or in other situations get upset, but sometimes, when it’s critical enough, or there’s a deadline, you just have to put the emotional part out of your head, get it done, then deal with the emotions later.

Every once in awhile, the military way does turn out to be the best way.

I fully understand this, although, because of my upbringing, I don’t quite know that I could do it. I’ve said for years that if you do or say anything, you may have the right to do it, but you have to be ready to accept the consequences for your actions. This means everyone, including employers, who have been sticking it to their employees for, well, pretty much forever.

Employers can’t continue to expect loyalty without giving any. Sure, businesses have downturns, and sometimes there are things that happen that are out of your control. Still, every business knows whether they’re doing well or doing badly, and they should always be keeping their employees in the loop. That’s where the overall breakdown comes from. There’s not a single employee who would blame an employer for layoffs if that employer had been honest with them all along, let them know there might be problems, and what the solutions might be. Sure, some employees might decide to start looking elsewhere, but that’s still better than how it works now.

At least that’s how I see it; what say you?

Then one day he surprised me with an intriguing question: Do black people celebrate the 4th of July holiday?

I had to think about that one a little bit. Believe it or not, this isn’t such a cut and dry answer as most of America, that non-minority part, would believe.

Think about it this way. When Independence Day came about, black people were slaves. So, there was no independence for them. When the Constitution was adopted, there was a provision in there which made black people 2/3rds of a person; that’s gone now. When the Civil War was over, black people, in essence, were still slaves. Sure, they weren’t slaves in the southern states, but those states that were above the Mason-Dixon line still had slaves for awhile.

It wasn’t until July 28, 1868, that the 14th amendment was approved, and even then it was only ratified by 28 of the 37 States at the time, which was enough for it to pass. If anything, black people should be celebrating every July 28th as their independence day in America.

Still, there are two other points to consider. One, how many people in today’s world really celebrate all that many holidays? Most people call having a holiday where they can drink a lot of liquor celebrating the holiday; that’s not quite the reason we get those days off.

Probably the only holiday where a lot of people actually celebrate anything related to the holiday is Christmas. Thanksgiving, most of us think about eating a big meal, but there’s no big ceremonies for it. The 4th of July has parades, but they’re not well attended anymore in most communities, and most people sit around drinking; it’s the most unsafe holiday for driving. Most people have no idea why we celebrate Labor Day or Memorial Day. Mainly black people celebrate the King holiday, as not every state even has that day off. I’m only counting holidays where we actually get a day off, just so you know.

Two, is it fair to have a blanket statement, taking the above into account, if it’s not only black people who potentially aren’t doing much celebrating on the holiday? For that matter, is it even true?

I gave a different answer to my friend than the one I’m going to give here. For us here, I’ll say a couple of things. One, my dad was a military man, so I tend to celebrate holidays, in my own way, that have something to do with veterans, or those who served. Two, in my mind, the most important thing for me tomorrow is to watch the Wimbledon women’s tennis finals with the Williams sisters.

After that,… well, it’s going to be a long day, and I’ll probably be working. I guess that’s about as independent as I can be.

I went to a political fundraiser, which doesn’t happen all that often, and it was at someone’s house, which would be even rarer. The only other political fundraiser I’d ever been to was held in the ballroom of some hotel, and someone else paid for me to go. Actually, the same thing happened this time around, only it cost my benefactor a lot more money.

To preface this, I’ll say that I don’t belong to any political party. I’m totally independent, but when you’re independent, you don’t usually get invited to things like this, or even know about them. However, the guy who wanted me to go, Sean Branagan, said he’d pony up my contribution; he wanted me to be there.

So I went, and let me say that, as I was driving across town, knowing it was at someone’s house, I was speculating on just how large this house had to be. I’ll say that I wasn’t disappointed; it was beautiful. I don’t have a tiny house, but this lady’s kitchen was larger that my living room, and my living room is more than 250 square feet.

I was introduced to the hostess, and guided into the area where “food” was, and I say it that way because initially there wasn’t anything I would eat. I’m known to be fussy in general, but I’m not a big hoidy-toidy eater; I like my food fairly basic most of the time. However, as I stood there next to four big name local and state politicians, I said out loud to them “I feel like I’m at home watching the news.” They enjoyed that.

I spent a lot of time talking to one of our state legislators, a lady I’ve met before but who didn’t remember me; I’m betting she’ll remember me from now on. We agreed on a lot of topics, and that was really cool; with the mess New York state politics is in right now, it was good to see some sort of agreement.

Then it was time for our federal representative to speak, and he did about 10 minutes of a presentation that wasn’t bad, as all politicians learn this way of speaking, then he took a few questions. After that, he said he’d be around for awhile to answer any other questions or talk about things we might wish to talk about.

I decided to fill my glass with more diet soda first, which I did, then I went to seek him out. He was talking with one person before me, and I figured I would stand there and wait my turn. They were talking about energy, as our representative, Dan Maffei, is on the energy committee, but suddenly the guy started to ask a question about health care. That was my topic, so my ears perked up.

He asked about getting coverage for health care for people because of this statistic that came out saying that around 60% of those who declare bankruptcy usually had a major health care expense that helped put them over the edge. He expressed his worry about this and said he hoped Congress would eventually do something for these people.

That’s when I jumped into the conversation. I mentioned that I was a health care revenue cycle consultant, and how this was a topic I had a lot of interest in. I then kind of pitched my own health plan, and as I was going step by step, he was agreeing with me on most of the points; after all, there are some things one just can’t refute. I said that, with my plan, it wouldn’t cost more than $100 billion dollars, and probably would cost half that, based on the habits of people, and that my problem was trying to figure out what the President wanted to do with this $600 billion dollars, which the Republicans say will end up costing $1 trillion, that made it cost so much. I also said that this country couldn’t afford to have the federal government taking money away from Medicare and Medicaid, the two groups that needed the federal money the most (and, for Medicare folks, a plan they’ve paid into) He pretty much said he didn’t know; he actually said they’d have to look at the full plan more closely.

But I wasn’t done, now that I had his attention. I mentioned that the federal government had to find a way to work with states to cap the amount of malpractice awards, because physicians were getting killed with some of these judgments. That’s why they request so many lab tests, which we probably don’t need, and why President Obama got a very muted, non-positive response when he spoke to the AMA and said that he knew physicians worried about malpractice lawsuits, but that the government couldn’t continue to support physicians requesting more tests, while not agreeing with limiting malpractice.

He said he didn’t like limits on malpractice either because some people get hurt pretty seriously, and might need further healthcare. I then said why not have a cap, say maybe $2 million, with the caveat that the physician, or their insurance company, must pay full health insurance benefits for the victor in any of these cases for as long as they need coverage. It costs way less over the course of time to pay for someone to have health care coverage than it does to award someone $10 million at the whim of a jury.

He looked at me, said he’d never heard that idea before, and thought it was a great idea. The other guy standing there said that the representative was probably going to take it back to Washington, get it passed, and take the credit for it; we all laughed. At that point he asked me for my card and asked if he could talk to me again about it, I said yes, and that was that.

Look at that; I got to talk one on one with a federally elected politician, I got to present something to him that might help save health care for some physicians in this state (as a sidebar, New York is losing OB/GYN physicians with some of the highest malpractice insurance rates in the country), and hopefully got him thinking about health care for all in a different light. I’m not against universal health care by any means; I just want to know what they’re hoping to cover, and I want it done right, otherwise leave it alone.

Hanging with the big boys; yeah, I’m shaking and moving a lot lately. I like it.

We had the passing of Michael Jackson, my favorite musician of all time, and someone who was able to break down the barriers of race and potentially bring people closer together around the world.

But the week began with a poll conducted by CNN which indicated that blacks in America (they’re running that theme again this month) overall don’t think much has changed for them since President Obama was elected president. As a matter of fact, some of them think things have gotten a little bit worse.

It’s an interesting thing to look at, this thing on race, and as you know, I even wrote about what is a racist myself a little over two weeks ago (and actually got a few responses; surprised there). There are strange dynamics afoot that many people who aren’t minorities just don’t fully get, which is why, when surveys end up with results like this, there are a number of highly confused individuals.

First, no one is saying it’s President Obama’s fault that things got worse. What’s happened is that non-black people say to them all the time “What do you mean racism still exists? We elected a black president after all.” I’ve heard that one myself. How the heck did electing one person change the course of history in America? Jackie Robinson also broke the color barrier in baseball, but that didn’t immediately turn things around. Did everyone forget the uprising when the NY Times cartoonist drew a cartoon equating President Obama with a shot monkey?

Here’s some reality for folks to think about, and it’s not just about black people as minorities. One, racism didn’t change for anyone once President Obama was elected president. Two, not all Hispanics or Latinos believe in the same thing; for that matter, the fastest growing “minority” group in America isn’t a monolith; it’s its own melting pot of diversity, people from different countries, so they don’t quite have their own voting block as the media would like you to believe. Three, Asians aren’t smarter than the rest of the world just because many of them get high test scores. Four, blacks aren’t dumber than the rest of the world because they often get lower test scores.

From the Hal Turners to the Rush Limbaughs to the Pat Buchanan’s to the Newt Gingrich’s to the,… no, I’d best stop there. Racism is alive and well in America, President Obama, heck, me, notwithstanding. You can’t judge the whole on one person, no matter which direction it goes.

And thus, so goes the world.

Okay, I’m actually doing the webinar, but it’s her software. Her name is Renee Scherer of Presentations Plus, who still has open her MS Word webinar for July, which you can still register for. Actually, it’s on the same page as the advertisement for my webinar, and hers is three weeks of seminars for one price, so you’ll be getting plenty of good information, for sure.

Anyway, back to me for a minute. I couldn’t be happier to see some of what’s been going on for me lately, what with the interviews I gave above, and now this new interview that I gave to Murray Newlands for his blog of the same name, and another interview I gave that’s been posted on a site called Clickkt Dot Com, written by a young man named Toan Nguyen Minh. Add that to my being in the local newspaper, and someone else writing a very nice blog post about me after the second interview, and I’ve had quite the last five or six weeks.

It’s odd talking about social media when it hasn’t been a core of my business, and yet, as I’m going through a slight transition in my business, it seems apropos to where I’m heading. Hey, none of us can afford to stand still anymore, as I wrote when I was talking about reinventing yourself. I guess I really am a jack of many trades; I hope I end up being a master of one of them.

Anyway, I hope you check out the link to my webinar, and I hope you sign in; it should be fun, and it’s my first so it should also prove to be interesting.

I state this because in the last week I’ve talked to two companies, one that contacted me first, and one that was really keen on my working with them, which came crashing down because they didn’t want to work with me unless I became their employee. The one guy, who was actually a very nice guy, said that if I weren’t an employee, it meant they couldn’t control me.

Control me? For that comment itself I’m going to name the company, which is Nearterm. Control me? What’s this concept of controlling employees anyway? Control me? What’s this thing about wanting to control people?

When I was an employee, no one “controlled” me. I knew the job I had to do, and I got the results that were wished for, surpassing what was requested more often than not. And it wasn’t because anyone “controlled” me; I control myself. Always have, always will.

Still, this shows the corporate mentality, the total disregard for employees, the non-realization that employees are NOT property, ARE people, and thus deserved to be treated with the respect that these corporations supposedly want themselves.

As I wrote in my post on convictions, I will always stand by mine. One thing I’ve always stood by was that any employee who reported to me was responsible for themselves, but I was responsible for making sure they had the tools to be successful. I was also responsible for the performance of my employees, but control them? That wasn’t happening. Control the department overall, yes; control people, no.

Any employee under me was allowed to use the phone to talk to their family members; what kind of stupid policy is that, not allowing employees to take personal calls from their family during working hours? What gives corporations the right to determine that people have to make the choice between their families and the job for something that’s so superficial anyway? Who do they think they are?

Oh yeah; they think they’re the controllers of people. It sickens me, but I know the score. That’s why, if I have any control over my life, which I do now, I don’t ever want to have to deal with that type of thing again. Folks, we should talk. If you feel controlled by your organization, we should talk. Executive coaching can help you take control of your life; that’s the only control you should ever have.

We’re all supposed to work with each other, not control each other. No wonder, when it comes to business, we don’t like each other. What a shame.

Not even a week after my dad had left, it was a Sunday night, and, of all things, my grandmother had turned on the Ed Sullivan Show. I say it that way because we weren’t regular watchers of Ed Sullivan. However, what we were at the time were watchers of TV whenever we heard that black people were going to be on TV. It seems odd to think about in 2009, but back then, it was still a relatively rare occurrence. People in the community would hear something, and the phone calls would start. By this time we’d had I Spy with Bill Cosby and Julia with Diahann Carroll, but it wasn’t enough.

So the TV was on, and the special musical guests were the Jackson Five. And out come these five brothers, the music starts playing, and I jumped off the couch in disbelief of what I was hearing. And then I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, which was this kid about my age as the lead singer. And the dancing; wow! I started dancing myself at that point, and I certainly wasn’t a dancer. My grandmother said I looked like Michael; I’m betting every black grandmother in the country who was with their grandson probably said the same thing.

My mindset changed. I had been depressed, couldn’t think of anything else, and now I was happy, joyous, feeling really good about things. I hadn’t stop missing my dad; I had just been able to change my mind and see that there were some positive things in the world, and felt that everything would work out just fine.

And it did. My dad came back home, we moved a few more times, and it seemed that every time there was going to be some kind of turmoil in my life, a Michael Jackson song of some kind was being released, and it always gave me pleasure and helped my thinking. You see, it’s hard to think, hard to produce when you’re depressed. When you feel good, good things have a better chance of happening.

I feel a great loss now. It’s not quite as bad as when my dad passed, but it’s close. Dad was someone I could always talk to; Michael Jackson was someone who always made me feel good when I needed it. I can still pull out the music, as I’m probably one of many people who has every album or CD he ever put out, and I can glory in that and enjoy my favorite songs. But I know there’s nothing new really to look forward to. Yeah, I know there’s an unreleased album that will probably come out within a month, but it’s not going to be the same. There won’t be any videos, or interviews, or anything like that. It’ll just be music, and if it ends up being successful, we’ll never really know if it was successful because it was truly good or if it’ll be successful because people just can’t get enough of Michael Jackson, no matter what it is.

Maybe it won’t matter. Maybe the point is that so many people have been touched in so many positive ways, that all we need in our lives is just to hear the music, hear the grunts and chirps and whatever else noises that are easily identifiable as him. Maybe that’s all the motivation we need to continue on. Hey, we survived Elvis, right?

The end of an era; Michael Jackson, rest in peace.

Loyalty is absolute. If I’m loyal to you, I expect loyalty back. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking business or personal life. I have friends who have been my friend for over 30 years, even if we only talk every couple of years or so. I would be there if they needed me, and they’d be here if I needed them; that’s what loyalty is all about.

Trustworthiness is the next in line. I don’t even trust anyone until they’ve shown me trust. However, I always try to trust first, then wait to see if it’s been justified. I do tend to go by my senses, though, so if I’m reading a situation and my body is sending me signals, I listen to them; I trust my feelings because I’ve known them a very long time.

Honesty is my final major conviction, but I know it’s not as absolute as the first two. I won’t be brutally honest with anyone who doesn’t deserve that; honesty doesn’t have to be mean and nasty. I will withhold information if I don’t feel it will benefit anyone. I won’t lie to anyone, though, and I won’t break a promise. I rarely make promises, therefore I don’t have to break any. I also won’t openly lie; who can remember all those lies anyway? But I will stay silent if I need to; in business, sometimes you have to stay silent, such as if you’re in management and you know layoffs are coming, and the directive from above is not to tell anyone anything.

Of course, I have more convictions than that. One in particular which every once in awhile precludes my getting a contract with another company to provide services for, or with, them. I have a conviction of my right to privacy. Not absolute privacy, obviously, as I divulge a lot of information about myself on my blogs and in my newsletters. My right to privacy concerns companies that want me to take drug tests and allow them to review a credit report. Nope, that’s just not happening with me; never has, never will.

Once again, this isn’t as absolute as my first two. For instance, if I were going to be handling money for someone, I can see their wanting to look at a credit report. That makes absolute sense. And, if I was going to be working directly with patients in a medical capacity, I could see taking a drug test. Again, that makes absolute sense.

However, as a businessman, that makes no sense at all. As a subcontractor, that makes no sense. As someone with a business license, incorporated no less, that makes no sense. A conversation I was having with someone on it last week was interesting. I asked him if I contracted with him would he provide me with a drug test and a credit report on him? He said no because he was a representative of his company, not a direct report, to which I replied so was I. Goodness, in these financial times, I’m the one who should be more worried as to whether or not some company has the financial wherewithal to pay me.

Still, when all was said and done, he, and his representative, both had to say that they understood my standing by my convictions. Luckily, my wife and most of my friends do also. I’ve always been a person of my convictions, sometimes to my detriment. My loyalty has probably cost me a couple of careers, but it’s also taught me some lessons about people and business.

The truth is that, unless you’re a one man operation, there isn’t a single company that has any loyalty to anyone. A company will lay you off at a moment’s notice if they’re in trouble. They will keep an employee in a position until Friday afternoon then let them go, when they knew on Monday they weren’t retaining you. They will sign you up for insurance, only to change the terms of that insurance within six months. They will bring you into the company on the promise of training and an increase in salary in 3 or 4 months, then act like they have no idea where you got that from when the time comes. And yet, they wonder why employees don’t trust them, and what keeps unions in the picture; please.

And where there’s no loyalty, there can’t be any trustworthiness, and thus honesty goes out the window as well. You see why I say that my number one conviction is loyalty? Now, how strong are your convictions? What won’t you, what will you do, and for what reason? If you’ve ever thought about it, share if you’d like.