I spoke at a Summersearch meeting of board members yesterday and thought I would share my remarks:

• I’m here because of Katherine Kennedy
  • Like many of you, I heard Katherine and her wonderful laugh long before I met her
  • Katherine and I shared a common passion and caring and belief about the “formula” to form responsible adults:
    • love, integrity and discipline, as well as the value of an experience
• I’m from Minnesota, spent my summers paddling the lakes of the Boundary Waters, all the way north to the arctic circle, as well as one trip across the great lakes
• Today I manage a business strategy consulting firm and we are regularly hiring
  • One of my favorite questions is to ask is, “tell me about your motivation…when or where or how did you find your motivation?”  what gets you up in the morning?
  • I don’t get to give my answer to this question very often, but it’s always seemed relevant to why I support summership
  • I found my motivation one hot summer day, paddling across a glassy lake, looking at a horizon three miles ahead that never seemed to get any closer, my mind semi-numb from the monotonous motion and dull aches in my shoulders
    • Canoeing in my early years was always something of a chore, something I actually didn’t like that much while I was doing it, but liked a lot more afterwards, when I was safe at home lying on the couch watching tv
    • But somewhere in the midst of the monotony and beauty of paddling across that lake, I realized that if I could make it across this lake, then I could probably make it across all sorts of “hard” tasks back at home – and so I started daydreaming about all the things I wanted to accomplish when I got back home…and then I achieved those goals
  • So I support Summersearch because of that daydream, because my hunch is that summersearchers, who are born to situations infinitely more difficult than mine, will, somewhere in their experience, have that daydream moment, when they figure out why or how or simply that they can guide their lives and the lives of others to better shores.
• Another reason I support summersearch is because of the purity or strength of its mission, combined with the fact, as I’ve heard it, that the mission is carried out in the actions of its staff and leaders.  What is that mission?  Well, I read the website, but that was too complicated.  Here’s how I interpret the core of the summersearch mission:  No free lunch.  Work hard.  Help others.  Merit is rewarded.  You can’t get in to summersearch if you are not both of need and show sufficient merit or promise.  Summersearch is selective.  I was searching last night for an analogous organization to summersearch and, because I have young kids, I was drawn to this (light saber).  Summersearch has some similarities to the Jedi Academy.  Jedi Knights, as any five year-old will tell you, are some seriously cool dudes.  They live by a code, they work hard, help others and are incredibly talented…and it’s really hard to be both selected as a Jedi in training (they call that a padawan) and to become a Jedi Knight (Anakin never made it).
• Needless to say, I’m a huge fan of summersearch (and Star Wars) and, although the strength of the summersearch mission poses some challenges, precisely because it is selective and more kids cannot be included, I still thoroughly support summersearch.  So my view is that if you can figure out how to build more and more relationships with donors, like the relationship I have with Katherine, where the donor can sense that the mission is real, or, as Katherine and Lissa say, drink the cool-aid, then I know you will be successful.

The 88 year old mayor of Missassauga Canada is a true inspiration.   Is she for real?  See the video. 

So my five-year old son is telling me about the other kids, whose parents by them all these cool Star Wars Lego sets, and all I can think of to set him straight is the following:  “Michael, listen up, buddy.  You can’t always have what you want, but if you try some time, you might just find, you get what you need.”    My next favorite parently mentor:  The Berenstein Bears.  Check ‘em out, parents.

My friend Jayne Hillman is a part of the Full Circle Fund, a community philanthropy group.  Sounds fascinating:  “Full Circle Fund is an engaged philanthropy organization cultivating the next generation of community leaders and driving lasting social change in the Bay Area and beyond.”  Click here to see more:  Full Circle Fund

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This book recommendation, “Ten Degrees of Reckoning,” from Ann Phillips, friend of our family.  When Ann refers, it is always worth listening!!!  I will definitely be attending this reading on May 14th in San Francisco.

My friend, Hester Rumberg, has written a remarkable book –it’s about sailing, love, courage and remarkable resilience …

TEN DEGREES OF RECKONING

Hester will be speaking and reading from the book on May 14th.  I do hope you will attend and FORWARD THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS, because it is an amazing, and beautifully written, true story. I can’t do it justice in this email, so please look at her web site:

www.tendegreesofreckoning.com

“Ten Degrees of Reckoning: The True Story of a Family’s Love and the Will to Survive” by Hester Rumberg (Amy Einhorn/Putnam, $24.95). A Seattle author tells the story of Judith and Michael Sleavin who, while on a round-the-world sailboat voyage with their two children, were hit by a merchant ship off the coast of New Zealand. Only Judith survived.

Take a look at some of the readers’ reviews – it’s a book I couldn’t put down, and neither could the reviewers.

Reviews of the book have been enthusiastic. The Book of the Month Club has chosen Ten Degrees of Reckoning as nonfiction January 2009 main selection; the American Booksellers Association has chosen to include Ten Degrees of Reckoning in its Independent Booksellers Next list of “Great Reads from Booksellers You Trust” for March 2009.

Here are where the readings/signings will be held, and if you go, tell her Ann sends her love!

San Francisco, CA

May 14, 2009

Books, Inc in the Marina

 2251 Chestnut Street

San Francisco, CA 94123

(415) 931-3633

7:30 p.m.

BEST CALL AHEAD TO CONFIRM TIME

Ann  Phillips

arthurphillips.info

tendegreesofreckoning.com

www.ironrangejewishheritage.org

For-profit charters a target | Cincinnati Enquirer | Cincinnati.Com

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Nationalization is generally not a good thing.  Capitists and libertarians hate it. 

Cannibalization is also generally not a good thing.  People with a social conscience don’t particularly like the thought of eating our own. 

However, it seems to me that in today’s world, we need to get a bit more comfortable with both words.  Nationalization seems to be what is needed for our banks.  Cannibalization is what seems to be needed for all the industrial companies that can’t make it.  The bankruptcy system is here for a reason.  It is a means for renewal of businesses that are not sustainable.  Nationalizing industrials companies will lead to socialism and survival of the neediest.  Letting industrial companies be “cannibalized,” or eaten up by various entities for their assets, is the only way that true renewal can be achieved.

Let me be clear:  if we could let our banks go bankrupt without jeopardizing the global financial system, I would favor that outcome.  Problem is that bank bankruptcies will have a catastrophic impact.  Kind of like an ice age, imagine a global ice age for credit.  Not good.

The two articles below from the New York Times are advocating weak banks being nationalized and weak industrial companies being cannabilized.

OPINION   | February 23, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist:  Banking on the Brink
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Why not just go ahead and nationalize? Remember, the longer we live with zombie banks, the harder it will be to end the economic crisis.

OPINION   | February 22, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist:  Start Up the Risk-Takers
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Precious public money should focus on investing in a new generation of innovative companies, not on bailing out the losers.

Here’s a refreshing view of our world and capitalism forwarded to me by my good friend Jan:

Terrific article by David Brooks in The New York Times about how we tend to think about what we ask of life, but the truth is that we are more about what life asks of us. 

My wife teases me because she says that when she met me, I was very, very independent and believed that people made their way in the world independently.  Today, I believe that people make their way in the world because of BOTH their efforts and the efforts of those around them, both those alive and those dead.  We are still reaping the benefits today of the freedom that theWWII generation won with their lives.  I fear that today few of us are willing to give our lives to protect our freedom.  I’m not saying that we should run to every hot spot in the world and risk our lives.  But I am saying that it doesn’t appear to be present in our minds today that we, the citizens of the United States, are likely to have to fight (and perhaps die) to protect our freedom in the future.

My thanks to Jim Wallace for this wonderful post at this wonderful time of the year.  Life really is good.  Cheers,  Tom

Good Karma Jim Wallace