Diatribes by Joah

Being successful means you don't shy away from a lofty goal

The Founding Fathers' goal was a nation free from Britain's tyranny. Abe Lincoln's goal was a nation united, not divided...be it over the type of economy we were to run or slavery. Joe Kennedy's goal was to put one of his son's in the White House. Dr. King's goal was to make it possible for someone like Barack Obama to become president. Kanye West's goal was to make it to the top of the hip-hop landscape, and then some.

At one point or another, each of these goals were probably viewed as too lofty if not downright laughable. A small startup collection of colonies taking down an entire empire? Are you kidding! Getting those Southerners to get rid of free labor and embrace the industrial age? You're joking, right? Putting an Irish-Catholic boy from New England in the Oval Office, good luck. A black man becoming president; not in this lifetime. Kanye being up there with Radiohead and Jay-Z and Coldplay in terms of touring and album success? Is he the opening act?

But, either through war or wisdom, connections or campaign slogans, each of these goals were reached. And if I'm being honest with myself, I must say, not all of these goals were that lofty or unimaginable.

The United States should have sought its independence far before the Stamp Act, but the Founding Fathers were a fairly conservative bunch. The Civil War was a long time coming, but the end of slavery was something American politicians were contemplating decades earlier. JFK ended up in the White House in large part because his older brother died on a pilot's mission he never should have went on. Dr. King's goal may have been realized much earlier if he and Malcolm X (and the Kennedys) hadn't been assasinated before they could put more collective energy into their work. Kanye should've gotten a deal much earlier, but Rocafella Records - the label Jay-Z built and Kanye signed to - was too busy with no-sales rappers like Memph Bleek and Freeway.

But like I said before, it takes rejection to become successful. So the Founding Fathers endured long enough to mount a military, the Civil War was waged, JFK rose to the presidency, Obama re-invented a progressive campaign and Kanye came out with 'Through the Wire'.

I'm fond of saying attitudes influence behavior and behavior influences actions and actions influence results. In route to those results, at least the successful ones, there are plenty of hurdles. They may come in the form of rejection (not getting into a certain school) or roadblock (having to wait for another election cycle) and sometimes you may have to go it alone because you have more faith or conviction in yourself and your goal than anyone else (not getting a record deal, for example)...but keep plugging away at your goal.

It may seem lofty today, but in hindsight it may seem like your accomplishment was just a long time coming

Being successful means you don't fear being rejected

Now that I'm back in Austin, I've been thinking a lot about what it takes to be successful. Most of us hear the same stories about successful people...boy goes to Ivy League school, girl practices on the balance beam for years, guy wins the lottery, pretty girl gets discovered, kid gets pushed by parents to succeed, etc. etc. We pretty much learn that money, luck and, sometimes, hard work leads us directly to results.

But that's only the half of it.

The truth of it is you can't ever succeed at anything, not sports, not a profession, and certainaly not a relationship if you don't learn about rejection. It's the untold story of success, well outside of Michael Jordan not making his high school's varsity basketball team.

But behind nearly every story of success in America is a story about rejection. Rejected by a crush and forced to go to prom with someone else, and that person becomes your high school sweetheart turned wife. Rejected by that Ivy League school and instead going to a top public university. Rejected by a prestigious fellowship or program and finding a career path that works for you, and not a resume finding your career path for you. Rejected by a music label or book publisher or art director and having to go out on your own, making due one dollar or one small gig at a time.

I know a thing or two about rejection.

My dad rejected me from his life. Too many girls to name rejected my offers for dates. The University of North Carolina put me on their waiting list. A handful of literary agents turned down my pitch for representation. My attempts at getting promoted at my last job went unrewarded. And I don't even want to mention my credit.

But through it all, I've found ways to find success. I relied more heavily on my mom and friends and made my way through school with good grades. I went to UT and fell in love with Austin. I got a book deal for Real Role Models without having to share any of my proceeds with an agent. I'm on the front end of a soon-to-be-announced startup company that is predestined for greatness (more on this soon).

I share this not to boast or brag, honestly. I share this because I'm sick and tired of so many people - people I care deeply about and want to succeed in their personal and professional lives - being afraid to run full steam toward their goals, no matter how big or small, because of fear of rejection. Fear of getting turned down by a guy, turned down for a job or turned down for a small business loan.

Being successful means you don't fear being rejected. Even Michael Jordan knows that. And if you get rejected somewhere along the way to your goal(s), don't fret...just thank God you learned something important along the way, even if it's not a lesson you were quite ready for.

Austinite for good...no, great

I'm not just in Austin for good...I'm in Austin for greatness!

My move to Austin has gone about like this so far...

Jan. 15 - Last day at my job in DC.
Jan. 18 - Going away party at my place in DC.
Jan. 24-25 - Packing all my clothes, kitchen supplies, etc. and selling all of my furniture on Craigslist
Jan. 26 - Arrive in Austin via US Airways, buy a new car (first car I've owned in nearly three years)

I'll keep you posted!

My Inauguration Experience? Don't Ask

Last Friday, I rode the nice Wi-Fi-equipped DC2NY bus to, you guessed it, New York. Just a quick overnight trip to see some friends before I move to Austin. I had a seat to myself in the back, but that didn't prevent me from hearing conversations being held in the seats around me. Mostly I heard people talking about whether they were from DC or New York, where they went to school, what they did, that kind of typical DC stuff. But a lot of the talk also centered on the upcoming inauguration and how some of my fellow riders were hurrying out of DC to avoid it. They'd heard the stories of four-to-five million people swarming to our nation's capitol to see the swearing-in or parade to celebrate America's first Black president. And, from what I heard, they weren't the big-crowd types and saw the $25 bus fare as an easy way out. I was dumbfounded.

As I sat on that bus, I couldn't exactly understand why someone would want to miss out on history like this. Were there people who passed up the chance to March on Washington with Dr. King? Were there people in Chicago who refrained from making the trek to Grant Park because they feared the crowds? I mean obviousy the numbers alone indicate millions of people passed up the chance to see MLK when he said "I have a dream" and hundreds of thousands passed on hearing Barack Obama on election night, but who in their right mind would leave Washington, D.C., on the eve of one of the most monumental events in American history?

Fast-forward to Tuesday morning at around 11:50 a.m. when after being awake and in freezing temperatures for five-plus hours - which entailed running around the National Mall what seemed like twiceover and talking to about a dozen different DC Metro cops, Capitol Hill police officers, TSA agents, National Guard soldiers, and suit-wearing Secret Service types, and moving the whole of 50 feet in about two hours on our way to the Blue Gate (a section designated only for official ticketholders) - and I learned the answer the hard way.

You see, Althea and I had purple tickets. But between talking to all those officers and guards, we never got a clear answer on how we were supposed to cross the National Mall in order to access the purple gate, so instead we went to the Blue Gate. From there, we waited in the cold in a line about 100 people wide and 300 people deep trying to fit into a door about the size of a two-car garage. We waited and waited and waited until around 11:50 when a guard got on a megaphone and told us that they would grant access to any ticket holders (regardless of color of their ticket) at this and every other gate. After lifting Althea onto my shoulders twice so that she could do some reconassaince for our entire section of about 50 people within two feet of us, we realized what people at the purple gate were learning as well...we were never going to get in on time.

Minutes later, the same guard got back on the megaphone and announced they were closing the gates. As Althea and I ran to the gate to see why they weren't letting us in, we watched as hundreds and thousands of people yelled, shouted, kicked, cried and stood by in a combination of shock and disappointment as their opportunity to see history - after being given an official ticket by their respective members of Congress - was ended by a hodgepodge of government ineptitude, you know...cops, guards and TSA agents.

Scores of friends, colleagues and perfect strangers I talked to yesterday shared their stories that were all too similar to Althea's and mine. Two million people may have been counted at the National Mall, but thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, shouldn't be counted as those who saw history in the making. Not unless you're talking about the failure of the DC government and inauguration committee to more properly plan and execute the event. But that's not really history I guess, that's just same ol' same ol'. Even Anderson Cooper pointed out the lack of information, direction, cohesion (between the guards, cops and agents) and organization of the ticketed gates. As he pointed out on the air yesterday, "people were never going to get where they were supposed to."

While in the line of thousands at the Blue Gate, I heard blame being thrown around like the Dallas Cowboys' lockerroom. The Bush Adminstration, Obama's people, cops, the FBI and others were blamed for the poorly executive gate system, but the reality of it all is that there are too many people and organizations and levels of government to blame, which probably means no one will get enough of the blame to make sure this never happens again. Which is a real shame because I'm not the only one who found out why some people chose not to take part in history at the National Mall.

Foreign Policy's Marc Lynch wrote, "I rode the metro home with a lot of people who had been turned away, including an elderly African-American woman muttering over and over to herself that it had been one of the worst experiences of her life."

It may not have been one of the worst experiences of my life, but it was by far the most disappointing. I ended up listening to the speech just a couple of hundred feet away from where Obama was speaking, but with no line of sight, in a crowd surrounding a radio like it was a fireside chat. So much for 21st Century technology eh?

The nation watches with tears of joy

So much has changed since August 28, 1963, the afternoon when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., told the nation about his dream.

In the four-and-a-half decades since the “I Have a Dream” speech, our nation has been divided by war twice over, our economy has zig-zagged like a kite in the sky, our country’s brightest minds put a man on the moon and our nation was hit both high and low with a tear-jerking mix of terrorism and disaster. America has cried aplenty over that span of years and not all of them unwanted.

Forty-five or so years later, another great orator comes to town with a vision to share. Barack Obama, a man whose own life represents an achievement of Dr. King’s dream, will take an oath making him the President of the United States of America. January 20, 2009 will give us an opportunity to reflect on the people and events who led us to this moment, Dr. King, being the most known.

And though it’s true that much has changed since that day on the National Mall, with hundreds of thousands again spanning that great lawn, so much remains the same.

In America, tears and triumph go together like black and white.

Why I'm Moving Back to Austin

No, I'm not moving to Austin for a woman.

What I was really trying to say was that I love Austin like a first love and that I'd realized that I shouldn't waste another moment if I already feel certain that my first love just may be my best.

So today, my last day working in my DC office, is a sad one because I'll be leaving behind some great friends and colleagues, but it's also a happy one because I'm headed to the place I belong.

In telling people why I'm moving back to Austin, I keep going back to one simple concept, one word rather: malleability.

Austin has it, DC does not. Nor does New York, Chicago, San Francisco or many of the other cities I consider great and would consider living in. Those cities, for decades, have been what they are today for the most part in terms of commerce and culture, while Austin of 2009 is a completely cooler, more dynamic, exciting place than it was even 10 or 20 years ago before the film industry, Lance Armstrong, SXSW and ACL Festivals and Dell were as big in the Austin area as they are today.

Even the Austinites who have opposed the rampant change and growth in the city, and are now opposing plans for a rail system, have to admit that the city offers far better entertainment and job opportunities than it did before, and that these changes have greatly benefited the city overall.

And that's just the last 10 or 20 years, I can barely imagine the next decade or two. Basically what I mean is that if you were to ask someone which city, of those I just listed, was most likely to change for the better in the next 10 to 20 years, the answer should be pretty easy because all the changes in D.C. - namely gentrification-based - aren't necessarily making the city better for the people who called Austin home 10 or even just five years ago.

Whether you look at population trends or economic and political activity, Austin has the potential for a lot more progress than almost any other city of its size in the country. The public transportation in Austin is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

San Francisco has cable cars, an on-time bus system and is very walkable. New York has the Subway and Yellow cabs galore. D.C. has the Metro. Meanwhile, the critical transportation infrastructure of inner Austin has yet to be established - the city is neither a bastion of pubic transit or walkability and the main Interstate is atrocious for several miles through the city - so in a decade or two, the entire downtown area could be 10 times more energy efficient and interesting than it is now simply by doing something to relieve the poor traffic in and out of downtown and making the city more walkable between the UT campus (to the north), Zilker Park (west), East 6th and South Congress. That entire area is no bigger than the downtown areas of other major cities, yet public transit is just about non-existent on a major scale that would truly benefit residents and employees in those areas.

So when I say malleability, I mean Austin has the ability to be morphed and shaped (by smart individuals, good ideas and well-funded institutions) in a way that presents someone like me - with loads of energy and interests - with every reason in the world to want to live there.

You could start a business in Austin and thrive in a way that other cities don't offer. You can run for office in Austin and make things happen there in a way that would be unimaginable in places like D.C. where entrenched groups are so used to the way things have been done that they'll oppose any attempt an improvement. You can be an artist, musician or writer in Austin and become known quicker than in places like New York and Chicago where there are so many to compete with that everything comes down to who you know more than what talent you may have.

Basically what I'm saying is the reason I'm moving back to Austin is to be a bigger part of a steadily-growing movement toward real advancement - in the way people live, the way people interact within the city's confines and the way the outside world views the city - in one of America's next great cities.