TheBottomlineNow

I'm involved in a group on FB called "The Smartest Guys in the Room". This is an engaging group that usually provides some downtime entertainment for me during the day. We talk about sports, trending topics and issues. Many useful ideas and pivots (for me at least) are given on this site. That being said one day I felt, why don't I try an experiment. I'm going to take a hot issue and try to approach it as a business problem and see whether "The Smartest Guys In The Room" will come together to develope a functional solution for our issue. The issue was in a nutshell, Funding of schools in poverty area and creative funding options( of course I didn't call it that to be fair, I just wanted to hear what was thrown out on the table)
As the conversation began I realized quickly that 4 different animals began to participate in the discussion (and I'll let you know, to my surprise it got hot and very intellectually territorial. I mean the educator, professional, the politician and entrepreneur quickly laid down their flags to establish their territory in the discussion and really didn't have any intentions of budging toward a consensus. (I was really surprised at the level of resistance. Now I know what's going on in Washington. Woooo.....)
The Educator sarcastically just corrected my errors (like I'm in school), the social reformer (the politician) thought it was unthinkable to pimp out poor and urban youth to corporations in the education system ( but she had no problem sacrificing them to the penal system because of their deadbeat parents LOL) and the professional challenged my credentials ( how dare someone have an idea that they didn't put a proposal together, present a presentation and charge me to listen to the presentation. What kind of businessman are you and the only way that you have could have succeeded was luck? LMAO). Man I was just asking for a brainstorm session and it turned into full scale war. All humor to the side, here's the downside. Maybe with all this friction on the front, the idea may get lost.
My proposal was to create a tax free municipal fund that wealthy people would have the option of putting their money in as opposed to creating all these financial animals to avoid estate and inheritance taxes. Nothing is more frustrating when dealing in probate, than your parents estate or your own wealth being divided up by the government. Not only is it time consuming but it's expensive (dealing with the professionals). I felt that I personally would prefer I put my funds in a tax free muni that would be overseen by established financial entrepreneurs (professional grow the fund to slow and they want to charge to much to be safe for me) and allow the school systems to use the profits from the fund to help operate the school extracurricular actvities that I feel are still important. Sports, music and activities that help us to groom our youth to be more well rounded adults. Also this fund would be able to provide bonuses to educators that performed above their expectations therefore creating a true rewards system for teachers and the best will be paid more and the other would be able to strive to be better educators. The fund would be non political therefore it probably would reward better that the school systems. We set a metric, you achieve it and then your rewarded. It's that simple
I personally would feel much better about contributing to this type of situation as opposed to paying an estate taxes.( I mean really, why would I gamble, achieve and win to share it with those who didn't have the vision or the confidence to bet on black. I'm just saying). In life people win that take the most risk. You can be safe and succeed but the payout better for those who risk and win.
Let's explore this type of situation as an option. America's best investment is our youth (ask Hip Hop LMAO) and I believe that giving our youth every chance to succeed is the best solution to growing a healthy and functioning economy once more called America.

Who remembers the second person who died in the battle of Little Big Horn (for that part who was the first).  No disrespect but my point is (don't be so stupid that you run blindly into an ambush of an Indian Nation.  Uuh maybe...) that sometimes what we believe in can put us in positions where it will give others an edge to manipulate.  Sometimes the person who is telling you to work hard is just wasting time until they find a way to get an edge.  In essence they may be using your sense of commitment and honor against you.  They know that you're just stubborn enough that you will keep working until you either quit or find an answer that the person who delegated the task had no chance of finding.  The person who delegated this task may see this as Win Win genius, others may see it as disengenious (I for one).

 

In today's business climate noone needs to be trying to learn on the job.  Especially in small business.  The small businessman doesn't have the room to train a newbie or the patience to retrain an old know it all. So who do you keep?  The puppy or the old dog.  The one you keep is the one that's most commited to your strategy and you're values. that's easy.  Usually that will be the young puppy.  Why because the young puppy is open to new values and experiences.  Usually that old dog, who might work better, is slower and stuck in they're own value system. They may also need more money because of their adult obligation and those obligations will be the determining factor in their needs system.  There's nothing wrong with their values but business is not an enviorment where the values experiment should ever be in the conversation.  The only values that matter in business is the value that your product bring to your current customer solution (that will make them keep coming back) and your new customers solution (that will make them stay). 

 

When you as a business person get into trying to change the world, as a business you run the possibility who straying on course of your real focus, and that is to make money for you and the tools you need to stay in business (not just you and your past bills).

 

You will need pros and pros want their money.  If you are fortunate enough to get the pro bono services of a pro then make sure that you tactically know what you want them to do.  Don't waste their time or good faith in research or developement and look at it as a favor.  Not cool.  If you want to maintain your value as a leader, then be strong enough to lead or smart enough to follow.  Never take pros and use them as a research stem to your organizational research.  It's insulting to a person who values their value and time.  It also signals other professionals that you're either don't know what you're doing or you don't mind wasting others time.  Neither is good.  Because if you do this, unconcsiouslly you might be trying to impose your values and will upon someone else.  By doing this you run the risk of not only lowering your associates value but also your own.

 

I'm ReggieRedd and thats TheBottomline