Diatribes by Joah

Black America Needs to Play More Baseball

I was having a lively discussion with two really good friends over dinner tonight, and I want to share some of my points. Although I have a 6 a.m. flight, this is the kind of heavy topic that prevents me from sleeping soundly.

I think there is something fundamentally wrong with the way Black Americans are educated from one generation to the next. The analogy I’d like to use, a timely one I believe, is that of a game of baseball.  Black Americans are taught – self-taught, primarily - to bunt and hit singles, but then our only options are to stand on the base waiting to be driven home or to steal our way across the bases. We have an outsized need of help from others, or we take what hasn't been given. Government or prison.

You're considered "special" if you make it to 2nd base in life: white-collar work. Seriously, do you realize how many runners reach 2nd base that never score runs? Second base is nothing. It's just a stat. If people want to get credit for stats, then they should go play in the minor leagues. The big leagues are for winners, through and through.

This isn’t an analogy I use lightly. I know this may rub some people the wrong way, because it will seem like a gross generalization and maybe Black self-hate or something else that is customarily lobbed onto anything critical of the standard m.o. in America. So be it. This here is a diatribe. 

Us Black Americans need to learn how to move across the bases ourselves. I believe in agency, and my life to this point has been my best attempt to be the best agent for my own level of success in this world. Sure, I've had help from plenty of people, Black and White, but I can't credit anyone other than myself for getting my where I am today outside of my mother for birthing me and my father for leaving me.

White Americans have dominated baseball for decades, centuries even. I’m not talking about the Yankees. I’m talking about the Waltons, the Romneys, the Kennedys, the Zuckerbergs. This is a game as old as any we’ve played in America. It's a game of bases, four total, that take a generational - team - effort.

The first base/generation has a sole purpose. That is to reach base. Bunting with zero outs is not ideal. Preferably, you have a good leadoff hitter to reach first base on a single. This is a speedy, hard working guy who doesn’t hit for power but hustles extremely hard. These are many of our parents, grandparents or great-grandparents if you're lucky (for those HBCU legacies).

Blue-collar work is the duty of a first generation. Scoring opportunities are significantly increased with a runner on base. You no longer have to hope for a home run, the rarest feat for a generation, to score. The lottery, the get-rich-quick-tips...these are home runs as rare as no-hitters. 

The next step is advance the runner. You can do this in one of four ways:

1) A stolen base. This goes back to the hustle. You have to have that in order to be able to move yourself ahead in the game. Whenever people mention things like “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” they’re talking about stealing bases. Some people can do this, but it’s not common. Less common today, in fact, than ever. The gap is widening, stolen base kings no longer as prolific as the days of Rickey Henderson.

2) A sacrifice play. This is far more common. Far too common, actually. One generation making countless sacrifices for another. The common perception is that single Black women make these types of sacrifices to raise their young children. This is true, but I don’t think this is a female-only fact. Men make sacrifices, perhaps of their professional ambitions and dreams, to provide for their families. Advancing their children’s ceilings from blue-collar to white-collar work.

3) A base hit. A good team may have a batting average in the area of .280, meaning out of 100 opportunities to reach base with a hit, 28 are successful. Does anyone like that average for young Black America? One hundred students walking into a classroom and 28 walking across a stage? I don’t think so. We need better hitting coaches in America’s classrooms and, in many cases, home settings.

4) Luckily, there’s a fourth way: walks. Walks require lots of patience. Often times there is an intimidation factor as well; the pitcher has to feel you’re a threat to get a hit at the plate. So that patience, coupled with skill as a hitter, make for a stronger case to walk the batter. Walks aren’t extremely common, but they are common enough to indicate there is some discipline involved in generation advancement. My mother didn’t graduate from college, but I did. She’s been a secretary or assistant for many years of her career, and I’m probably in need of one of my own.

Third base is hard. Stealing third base is really difficult. Double steals (where runners on both first and second base advance to second and third, respectively) happen, but very rarely. If the previous batter reached on a walk, a consecutive walk allowed is highly unlikely. Another sacrifice play is possible, but the field of play becomes smaller to achieve the intended goal of advancing the runner without risking giving up a double play. Ground balls are not your friends, either. 

Long story short, you need a decent bat on the ball, there needs to be some power and loft with any contact. This is where a lot of generations get hung up. The right contact is never made. They leave too many runners on base and don’t bring enough runs home. Generation after generation, runners are left on first and second, blue-collar and white-collar work alike, yet never reach home. 

Whether your paycheck is for $7.25 an hour at McDonald’s or $75,000 a year as an accountant, you may not have scored a single run yet. You haven’t won anything. Sure, you’ve shown signs of success…you have potential…but your scoreboard still shows zero.

Too many people confuse base hits, stolen bases, walks and sacrifices as runs. They are not. If you can’t get the runner over to third, you’ll never make it to the home plate. So what is third base if first is blue collar and second is white collar? Third base is creative professionalism.

It doesn’t mean you’re in Richard Florida’s “Creative Class” necessarily. You don’t have to be a web designer or writer or musician, no this creative professionalism is about how you utilize the hustle that got you to first base and the education that got you to second.

The combination of those skills and experiences is what has fueled a generation of tinkerers and thinkers whom are now creating their own jobs. Zuckerberg is a famous example, but there are millions of White Americans who've been able to do this for the last couple of decades. Sure, some of these jobs exist within corporations or organizations, but their existence is a result of the collective effort of many creative professionals. The pressure was applied to the pitchers so often that a pitch was met with a live bat. 

Unless you’re doing something you love, something you’ve been trained to do and trained yourself to master, and can make a living doing it, you’re not on third base. There are not many Black Americans on third base. I'm not saying there aren't any, I know quite a few actually like Johnica Reed and James Andrews and Coltrane Curtis, but they have thousands of Twitter followers and fans of their work because they are anamolies.

Black people: don’t lie to yourself if you’re on second. You’ll know deep down if the love and skill is there. No one else will tell you, but you should be honest with yourself and work harder.

Who knows, though, some people are happy with the stats of having reached base, gotten a steal or walk. But those stats fanatics aren’t the people winning the titles all the time. Sometimes, but not always. Why do you think Derek Jeter – and not A-Rod – is considered the Yankees great of today?

So reaching home is the pantheon of success.

You’ve hustled, you’ve been educated and worked hard, and you’ve been creative in paving your own way across life’s bases.

You want to score in this game? Score your run, congratulate yourself, then pick up the bat and hand it to a young Black American. They need us to help them learn how to run the bases too. My book “Real Role Models” and the numerous public speeches I give in classrooms and to youth organizations is my initial attempt to do just that, but I’m getting the itch to do a little bit more.

I can’t sleep on this one.

Albany, Georgia: Where MLK Cut His Teeth With the Movement

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was uplifting through his hope, but I am much more inspired by his honesty. It is through his vein of candor and frankness, that I believe lie some of the most essential lessons we have to learn from and about MLK.

When most people think of the Civil Rights Movement, they focus on the “I Have a Dream” speech, along with the image of a Klansmen and the fire hose-wielding bigot as the main oppressor. MLK would be pointing out a lot more to us, though.

Think about it: He called out the government for its lack of commitment to the Great Society. In his epic Letter from Birmingham Jail, he called out white clergymen whom could have used their platforms in Jewish, Catholic, and other religions to support “Negroes” in their fight against a prejudiced society. Most importantly, he called out those whom would deny the most unalienable rights to Black Americans simply by being silent. “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends,” he said.

His honesty about the Movement was often calculated and measured, and some of the younger more militant members of the Movement claimed he sugar-coated his speeches and involvement a bit too much at times, but it was always accurately targeted for impact. This is perhaps one reason why Dr. King said, “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” Unfortunately, he didn’t take his own advice in Albany and I believe he’d say so today.

If I could guess, I think he’d point back to a failure in Albany, Georgia, not the Birmingham campaign or the “I Have a Dream” speech, as the key point of his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement. It was there, roughly 50 years ago, in early 1962 in a small Georgia town, where Dr. King learned one of his most important lessons about honesty as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Albany Movement, which took place primarily from late 1961 through a good part of 1962 (and thereafter) is frequently forgotten or glazed over in the story arc of the Movement. This is not simply because Albany, Georgia, was a smaller town than Birmingham, Alabama, or a less violent scene than Selma, Alabama, where the infamous “Bloody Sunday” occurred in 1965, but mostly because the victory wasn’t as clear-cut. Some historians call it a defeat for Dr. King.

The previous year, during the summer of 1961, Freedom Rides had become a major pillar of the Movement, with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) leading the way. These rides were a sensational tactic in that the chief participants were not all Black and many of them, including a 19-year-old Stokely Carmichael (best known for coining the term “Black Power” and being a founder member of SNCC) were a decade or two younger than Dr. King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference colleagues.

Due to the SCLC’s limited involvement in the Freedom Rides, many King critics got to calling him “De Lawd” for his perceived lack of aggression toward Jim Crow laws. Possibly in response to such criticism, Dr. King and SCLC made it a point to be a more involved organizer of the Movement in Albany where the protesters called for the wholesale desegregation of the town.

The week before Christmas in 1961, Dr. King appeared in Albany and was quickly arrested amongst other peaceful protesters. At one point, King deployed the Gandhi strategy to have the jails filled to capacity with protesters in order to weaken the Police Commissioners powers. Unfortunately, the local police chief had out-strategized King and his colleagues – in large part due to the over-reaching nature of the Movement, which again called for desegregation throughout the town. Ultimately, in the summer of ’62 after minimal impact or gains, Dr. King left Albany.

Therein lies the lesson Dr. King likely learned. The Movement would have to be more targeted and more focused to succeed. Dr. King had tried, perhaps out of a desire to maintain his voice and signal strength as the national leader of the Civil Rights Movement, to do too much in Albany. A call for desegregation town-wide was a stretch in 1962, and hindsight clearly demonstrated that much.

But SNCC was becoming a major force in the Movement, largely through the success of the Freedom Rides the summer before, and Dr. King’s involvement in Albany may have been an attempt to keep these young, potentially aggressively-minded leaders like Stokely Carmichael (who would later become a major voice in the Black Panther Party) at bay while SCLC worked to strengthen the overall campaign through the eyes of whites and the national media by focusing on nonviolent conflict.

The lack of a clear victory in Albany is credited for instilling key lessons in Dr. King that would be critical to the successful campaign waged in Birmingham. While his work in Albany is often described as a “morass”, King’s more targeted strategies in Birmingham, which focused primarily on the desegregation of the downtown shopping district and parks and fair hiring practices, were a shot in the arm to the campaign. Dr. King’s April 1963 arrest in Birmingham led to national scrutiny with local retailers suffering financially and the Kennedy White House intervening. Just a few months later, the “I have a Dream” speech was birthed.

On MLK Day, much attention is paid to the speech and the Birmingham campaign, but I hope this brief essay has exposed a deeper reality of the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King’s leadership of it in the early 1960s.

Dr. King told us that, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase,” and we can now see that his faith enabled him to pursue a course of action in Albany, Georgia, that significantly altered the course of the Movement, and American history, for some of the wrong reasons. Ego, fear, hubris, inability to share leadership, lack of accountability and over-zealousness were all at play in Albany. For that brief moment in the campaign, Dr. King’s power was waning, his influence dissipating and the Movement’s focus thinning.

Dr. King also stated that, “Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”

In Albany, we hopefully learn that even the great Reverend could be blinded by half-baked solutions. But, as you’ve heard before, it’s not important how many times you fall, but how many times you get back up. [Something our President should learn from…]

It was from the clear lack of focus and unsound thinking that brought Dr. King to Albany and, ultimately, a lack of a publicity-grabbing victory in that small town that he was able to make much-needed strategic changes to lead the charge toward a much more important and symbolic win in Birmingham. The media frenzied battles with Birmingham public safety chief Bull Connor coupled with ample solitude for Dr. King to reflect and write in that jailhouse paved the way for the “I Have a Dream” speech we celebrate every year on this day.

So, this year, don’t just listen to the speech and think the Movement’s chief lessons are to be learned in Washington, D.C.

Think back to Albany, Georgia. Honestly, that’s where Dr. King cut his teeth as the leader of the Movement.

Yes, this needs to be said...and said again.

Who Inspires Me: Cory Booker

I've previously pointed out a couple of people who inspire me as friends. Cory Booker, unfortunately, is not a friend of mine just yet. But he's damn inspiring.

About Cory Booker:

Born in Washington, D.C. Raised in New Jersey. A high school All-American in football and graduated from Stanford (BA in political science, MA in sociology) before becoming a Rhodes Scholar recipient (Oxford graduate) and earning his Law degree from Yale in 1997.

After finishing school, he won an upset victory over a four-time incumbent for a seat on the Newark Municipal Council. Booker immediately established a reputation as being an unusual brand of politician by going on hunger strikes and sleeping in some of the most drug-infested and crime-inflicted parts of the city to draw attention to otherwise overlooked parts of Newark.

An Oscar-nominated documentary, Street Fight, was made of his unsuccessful run for Mayor in 2002 when he was defeated by incumbent Sharpe James...often being told he was "not Black enough" to represent Newark. As is often the case with educated, hardworking people who won't give up...Booker vowed to run for Mayor again, winning with 72 percent of the vote in 2006 and bringing an entirely new set of City Councilmembers into power with him. Booker was seen as such a hard-line crime opponent that the Bloods gang leaders were plotting to assassinate him even before he took office.

Upon approving one of the largest tax increases in the city of Newark's history, Booker expanded the size of the goverment by some 200 employees then promised not to raise taxes on his way to cutting government employee roles back to 50 below the levels he came into office with. Booker's budgeting processes have been lauded for transparency after decades of neglect and mismanagement before him. Booker also brought in a new police chief and was known to patrol the city streets into the late night. March 2010 was the first murder-free month in Newark in 44 years and Newark Police nabbed 11 of the top 12 most wanted felons.

I could go on and on, but you should read the articles, blogs and Wikipedia entries about him yourself. There's a reason why, in 2009, President Obama offered him the job of leading the White House's newly-created Office of Urban Affairs; which Booker turned down to continue serving Newark. He has over a million Twitter followers and he's not afraid to interact with us, nearly 10 times more than New York City's Mike Bloomberg. Booker was one of only two U.S. mayors to finish in the top 10 in the coveted World Mayor prize voting.

Many of you may know of him from his "feud" with Conan O'Brien or his friendship with Facebook founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg, which netted $100 million for Newark public schools, but you should know him because - as The New York Times wrote in this 2006 article after his first election to Mayor in 2006 - he's "On a Path That Could Have No Limits."

There's plenty of inspiration in a man like Cory Booker. I hope to make his acquaintance and thank him one day. Not for being the mayor of a city that I don't live in. No, I'd like to thank him for being the type of boundless, innovative leader that is so desperately needed in both the Black community and in American cities.

Why Older Black “Leaders” Are a Glass Ceiling for Blacks in America

I was on the phone with someone who, like me, has a substantial amount of experience reading about and working with self-described Black leaders. I’m going to be very specific about who I’m talking about.

For starters, I’m not talking about our President and First Lady. They’re actually being attacked by, what I’m going to call, racially conservative Black leaders. Cornel West called Barack Obama a “black mascot” and Tavis Smiley bitched about the President being unable to attend his “State of the Black Union” event and offering Michelle’s speaking services instead. They are conservative in that they believe they own the definition of what it means to be “Black in America”. Silly.

But I digress…the older Black leaders I’m really talking about aren’t even people like Cornel West and Tavis Smiley. No, they’re both actually famous and, in West’s case, have contributed tremendously to the discourse (not always positive, but that’s another topic) of Blacks in America for years upon years.

The people I’m talking about are in their mid-to-late 40s, 50s and 60s and they’re not famous, they haven’t created Black wealth or been significant contributors to large discussions about Blacks in America. Actually, they’re the exact opposite. They’re not famous, because they have focused on agendas so narrow that no one should pay attention to them. They’re not creating Black wealth (though some of them are themselves rich) because they don’t seem to understand economic development policies that focus on generating sustainable wealth instead of generating temporary favoritism. And they’re not significant contributors to the discourse about Blacks in America because they are so off-base in what they believe is happening or should be happening and so narrow-minded in who they’re working with or what they’re working on, that they just go in circles.

As a result, much of Black discussion in America has gone in circles. And the efforts of far too many Black-centric organizations has followed suit. Round and round and round they go. Literally, for at least the last decade, maybe two.

Meanwhile, us young Black people watch and wonder: “will you ever move over and let us do our thing?”

Historical tidbit: Dr. King was 26 when he led the Montgomery Bus Boycott and just a few years later with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was founded. Malcolm X was in his late 20s and early 30s when he led the creation of several Nation of Islam posts in some of America’s major Northeast cities. Stokely Carmichael was 26 when he took over the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, taking over from John Lewis who led the organization when he was 23 years old. James Farmer, one of the less-heralded Civil Rights leaders, was just 21 when he was invited to meet with President Roosevelt. Ella Baker, a leading female voice in the Movement, was actually the old member of the leadership tree having started as NAACP’s director of branches at the ripe age of 39.

So why in the hell do some of today’s Black leaders in their late 40s, 50s and 60-somethings fancy themselves our generation’s Dr. Kings, Malcolm Xs and Ella Bakers? When in fact King and others were our age when they were leading the Movement! We haven’t had a young Black leader in three decades! Why? Because these older people won’t let one in! They think that since Jay-Z and Kanye West are famous, they’ve allowed the younger generation to have a voice when – as pointed out in Why Hip-Hop Can’t Save America – this hip-hop voice is not nearly what is needed.

And don’t give me that lip about “we were a part of the Movement” stuff as if to get some five-star general level of respect from us. How were you a part of the Movement? By being the first-generation of beneficiaries from it? By being the Blacks first-allowed to go to college and fully enter Corporate America only to have to be the first person to become the VP of something and graduate from a non-historically Black college or university for once?

If you’re 65 today that means you were 19 when Malcolm X died and 22 when King died. Very formative years indeed, but to continue harping on that time as if you didn’t end up taking some job in Corporate America (or pitching against it) in order to ascend to the upper middle class in some management role is truly malicious. Especially since many of you end up raising your children with the biggest silver spoons ever seen by Blacks in America, quite literally hurting the poor Black people you say you’re about helping by creating an “us” vs. “them” reality in Black neighborhoods and schools until – like other races – we created segregated schools for ourselves in cities like Atlanta.

If you’re 45 to 60 years old, I really don’t buy your need to continue harping back on things like institutional racism as if you didn’t live in a day and time when Blacks experienced less racism than ever before in America. I really hate hearing people in Austin talk about this like it’s some type of cross they’re bearing from the 1760s. I know things are still bad and police brutality still happens, hatred is still spewed and jobs are still hard to come by for Black men who are poorly educated as young boys and poorly treated in prisons as young men and poorly considered in society thereafter. I know far too well.

But for you to pretend that you are the new incarnation of Black leadership in America when so little has been done on your watch in the last decade or two is pathetic. Actually, tell me exactly what it is that you’ve done in the last decade other than sit back in your cushy “association of” and “commissioner/chairman” jobs and meet with the same damn people week after week, month after month doing the same damn things, hosting the same damn events and complaining about the same damn federal/state/local policies that only people in real leadership roles and power can address.

Going round and round and round. Harping on the same issues. Coming up with the same bland ideas and events. Doing the most mundane fundraisers. Sending the most uninspiring emails. And reaching out to young people with about as much innovation as the General Motors Truck division brings to an alternative energy conference.

Move out of the way. If you need us to kiss the ring, us being young Black people, in order for you to pass on by then fine. (Please don’t let these long-standing organizations die out with your generation.) We’ll kiss the ring if you don’t also require we anoint you all chairman/chairwoman emeritus status too because we need some other people to serve in that role. Like mid-to-late 30-somethings.

Yes, I’m being an ageist. I would apologize if I wasn’t so spot on based on far too many conversations with friends of mine in Austin, Houston, D.C., New York and other American cities. These are friends who work in business, entertainment, finance, law, politics, technology…they went to good schools thanks to the work of King and others and they are ascended to higher heights in their professions thanks to the roads your generation paved. Yes, I admit that. You fought the good fight for us. These are friends who’ve worked on Obama’s campaign and work in Congress, they lead young professionals groups across the country (only some of them solely focused on Blacks) and they have bright, albeit untested, ideas about what we should be doing right now.

The only problem with right now is that you’re in the way talking about back then. You have absolutely no clue about right now. This is wholesale and generalized and exceptions certainly exist. I know that Cory Booker is in his 40s now and he’s amazing. Google’s chief counsel David Drummond is in his 40s and is largely unknown, but significant. But those few are the exceptions. So stop acting like the energetic, educated, inspired, innovative young Black person attending your meetings is the exception and needs to “pay our dues”. People like Johnica Reed, Jam Donaldson and Coltrane Curtis know more about what’s going on in Black America than your average NAACP chapter president, that’s for sure.

The honest truth is that the older you all get, and the more stuck in your ways you continue to be, the fewer dues paying members you’re going to have if you keep this up. So, no, I won’t pay those dues. Not until you acknowledge what we’ve been trying to tell you for years. Keep this up and you’ll be the generation that negated much of the unseen but good work that King and others did because more than lead the Movement and serve as positive forces of change, they were icons.

Icons to Black leadership. Young Black leadership. Young Black leadership that didn’t wait around for dues to be paid. As for me, I’m not waiting around. You can believe that I am going to bum rush your door and tell you to hand over the keys or else.

Yeah, it may be the house you’ve lived in for years, but you definitely did not build it (King’s generation did) and you definitely aren’t in a position to renovate it (my generation is). Especially not with that attitude toward the most important Black constituency in America: young professionals.

We have money. We have white, Hispanic and Asian friends. We’re educated, well traveled, well dressed, well read and well versed on our Civil Rights history. We know how to use computers and we’re savvy with social media. We can command six-figure salaries and start businesses if we want to. We can talk Jay-Z and foreign policy in the same dialogue. We can do many things for Blacks in America because unlike many of you, we actually understand the positive impact Obamas have been in the White House. So much so that our votes are based on policies and not on race alone. Truth to power.

You need to come to terms with the fact that we can’t be the generation that pays the majority of the mortgage for Black people in America if we’re also going to be told that the title to the house will not be ours for another decade or two.

Let’s see how long you can make those payments without us.

Re-Blog: Lessons We’re Learning Riding Mass Transit by Leo Babauta

For almost a year now, my wife Eva, my six kids and I have been walking and riding mass transit almost exclusively.

We have bikes but we’re still new to them, and we also use City Carshare for longer trips out of the city. But for everything else, it’s walking and mass transit — for meeting with people, going to restaurants and movies and museums and parks, for grocery shopping (we only buy what we can carry), farmer’s markets, fairs, visiting relatives, and more.

It’s been one of the best things ever for us.

We’ve adjusted from being car users when we were on Guam. I love walking tremendously (I can walk anywhere in the city), but I also love the mass transit … for the lessons it has taught my family.

Some of the lessons we’ve learned so far:

1. How to wait. Mass transit isn’t always on time (surprise!). But rather than look at that as a reason why riding buses and trains suck, we learn how to see that as an opportunity. My boys climb trees while I do pullups and (admittedly rudimentary) gymnastics from a low branch. We tell jokes and I swing the little kids around. We share things with each other, make each other laugh. It’s a good time.

2. How to walk. Mass transit doesn’t take you everywhere, so we walk more than most families. That’s a great thing. Even my little ones are in pretty good shape and rarely complain about walking. We deal with the weather, which is something most people don’t do, as they’re cut off from the world in their glass and metal boxes. Truthfully, we don’t always walk — we love to race each other up hills and be out of breath. It’s wonderful.

3. How to deal with humanity. We’re often shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, which is something you never experience with a car. We deal with smells, with annoying people, with those who talk loudly, with the mentally challenged, with plain crazy people. In other words, with people. And this is a great thing. We learn that we come in all shapes and sizes, that life isn’t the perfect picket fences you see on TV, that the world is real … and that that’s OK. We’re learning to celebrate differences.

4. How to live sustainably. We haven’t cut our emissions to zero, but by the simple act of giving up a car, we’ve cut our use of resources and our emissions down more than most people will by recycling, buying less, using less heat, using less paper, etc. I’m not saying this to brag, or to judge others. I’m saying we’re learning, and while we have a lot to learn, I think we’re making progress.

5. That transit can be more convenient than cars. Sure, it’s nice to be able to hop in your car and go somewhere quickly, no matter the weather. That’s convenient. But there are inconveniences with cars that we forget about: the frustrations of parking (especially in San Francisco), traffic jams, rude drivers, car accidents, flat tires, car maintenance, having to stop for gas, having to actually drive instead of relaxing on the trip, sitting all the time instead of moving around, and more. Again, I’m not judging cars, but all of that, if you think about it, makes riding on a bus or train actually seem nice.

6. How to live frugally. My kids aren’t poor, but I want to teach them that there are good ways of living that don’t have to cost a lot. That spending money for conveniences isn’t necessarily a good thing. We shop at Goodwill, ride transit, cook in big batches, eat little meat (my wife and I eat none). We’re not the most thrifty ever, but we’re teaching the kids that it’s possible. (Read more.)

7. How to live with less control. When you have a car, you feel that things are under your control (forgetting about traffic, accidents and the like). But when you’re riding mass transit, things are not under your control. You’re at the mercy of the schedule, of drivers, of other people slowing the system down, of trains breaking down and backing the system up, and so on. You learn to let go of the illusion of control, and to deal with changes as they come. This is a miraculous lesson.

Who is Ella Baker

Justice advocate. Civil Rights leader. Societal change agent. Women's rights and student's voice giver. Real Role Model.

Ella Baker was instrumental at the NAACP, before helping to drive the the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization MLK led, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (Snick/SNCC to most).

Reaching Your Potential, Your Debt to the World

I was filling out some type of questionnaire the other day and one of the questions was about my biggest pet peeve. It took me awhile to answer it and that’s mostly because there’s no one thing I hate more than people who don’t reach their potential. And I wasn’t quite sure that’s what they were looking for.

It’s a big world out there and there are so many people, places, opportunities, lessons, experiences, challenges and goals for just about all of us to meet, see, make the most of, learn, live through, take on and set. Why waste time not doing any of it when you can do it all!

But what are the main reasons why some people can’t reach their potential? 

1. They’re afraid. Of regretting something. Of challenging themselves. Of risks. Of failure. Of success. Of what people think. Of what their parents will say. Of not fitting in. Of having to choose. Of making a bad decision. Of rejection. Of doing something about it. Whatever it may be.
2. It’s easier to be mediocre. Slide into the background. Push goals aside. Forget all those ambitions. Disregard all the education, preparation and training. Stop wanting more than what you already have. Welcome complacency. Surround yourself with lackluster people. It’s easier to do all these things.
3. People only have enough time for so much. There’s enough time to see what someone else is doing, but not enough to do it yourself. There’s enough time to read, but not enough time to write. There’s enough time to learn, but not enough time to teach. There aren’t enough jobs. There’s already someone doing that. There isn’t room for me here. There’s been enough struggle already. There doesn't seem to be something that fits.

Time is time for everyone. The same 24 hours. The same set of days. The same calendar year. But people who are afraid or people who get content with mediocrity seem to have less time than us all. So I can't stand how much they talk about how little time they have, yet have time to talk about why they're not fulfilling their potential or to talk about their perceptions of your attempts to fulfill your own. This isn't about mental health or socio-economic standing or lack of access to affordable [insert word here]. This is just about work ethic and having a sense of purpose.

Those that lack both of those important qualities feed back into the 80/20 rule. Instead of being a part of the 20 percent of the people doing all the work of the world, they're the 80 percent of the people the world really needs to make it a better place. All of the world's problems - AIDS, illiteracy, poverty, you name it - could be put on their deathbeds if the people living life like they're already dead woud just wake up and realize that Sister Mary Clarence was right!

 

People who don’t realize they’re living life in that 80 percent without a genuine desire and drive and tenacity and dedication and persistence and love for themselves to reach their potential are my biggest pet peeve. It’s selfish to take from this world without so much as giving back your best shot at reaching your life's potential when so many others’ lives are cut short, like Andrew Runciman's, an amazing Bazaarvoice employee I never got to call a colleague and friend because he died the day before my first day.

Wake up and pay attention! The world needs you.