Black In Business

My beloved younger brother David Davinchi, a writer, artist, producer, music industry veteran and one of New England’s top car salesmen, called yesterday in an uproar. He like many of Hillary’s supporters feels Obama is blowing it and running a terrible campaign.
You get 2 brothers in a argument on the phone, 2 guys talking at the same time and neither is listening.My younger brother has a huge ego and I am the reasonable one. He felt I should blog about this and he would comment to state his opinion and have a debate.
As I pointed out, David Davinchi,aka, David Walton is a extremley talented man. I told him I have faith in David Axelrod, the brains of Obama’s campaign strategy.My brother was not aware of the past results Axelrod has had. My brother feels the campaign needs to be more street savvy and that racism is not the most pressing factor. Davinchi will comment, but I invite you as well to answer. How is Obama’s campaign running? Is he on track or should he be more street like?
My last question is; how can a man, he needs staff input to answer how many homes he owns, have a better connection with white working class voters, than Obama, whom as recently as this decade has had to watch how he spent his money? Davinchi, have at it!

I enjoy telling you about some of my posse, my inner circle. The tag line for this blog, “For ordinary people doing extraordinary things!” In the past I have spoken about the late, Tom Jackson, Richard Burns,. Zack Ramsey, Darrel Gresham, Bill Minix, and Eugene Jackson. All of these brothers and I share close relationships and all of them are quite successful. Most of these guys and I have been associated for over 20 plus years. Some of us were very young together and all we had were dreams.
The cool thing about getting old is to see your friends live good lives. You are witness to seeing how dreams become reality. We all have taken lumps along the way, but because of hard work, desire and pride we find ways to succeed.
My very good friends Rev. Phil Turner and his wife of 33 years, Janice came to Chicago recently. Of all of my friends, no one story is more remarkable than Pastor Turner. His wife, Janice,regal in appearance and of deep thought, has been a tremendous asset to the evolution of Pastor Turner. Mrs. Turner has been a leading educator in Syracuse, New York since her graduation from, State University of New York, Cortland campus. Together they have raised 3 successful children and now enjoy 4 grandchildren.
Why is Pastor’s story remarkable? For me it is the many ways he has reinvented himself. He has worked in 4 different careers. Pastor Turner was a star salesman for some of America’s top companies. he has also worked in the radio industry.He has toured the world as the lead singer for Skipworth and Turner. Stop and click on the utube to hear the former number one recording, Thinking About Your Love. You like it, here goes Can’t Give Her Up.
You have to admit, the music is still hot. Now Pastor Turner is the head of Bethany Baptist Church, in Syracuse.
You speak about getting it done, Now Pastor Turner visited his dying mother on her death bed. he made a promise to dedicate his life to Jesus. In a short time frame, he finished divinity school, became ordained, was an associate Pastor, then, interim Pastor and eventuality the Pastor of Syracuse’s largest black church.The time line, less than 10 years.You speak about cimbling the mountain to see the promise land, this man is verfication, if you can believe, you will achieve! Let me hear from you.

It is time to vote for the blackweblog awards for which I am a finalists. I won in 2 categories last year for best business blog. I can tell you it will be hard to repeat for there are some outstanding competition. I try to have an opinion and not state news that you get get from multiple places. I think you will discover the other 3 finalists have good looking sites full of great information. It is an honor to be in their company. I did not even know I had been nominated again and I am grateful to the one that nominated me.So help a brother out with a vote, vote for blackinbusiness.org

Speaking of competition; lets talk sports. I think out sports stars teach business people a lot about competition and what it takes to win.
Tiger Woods, the man is so good, he has his own race, he is not Black, not White, not Asian but some made up race, I am not sure about the spelling; canabilasian. Tiger you are black in America. He won on one leg and is out for the year. The PGA, ratings down 50% for TV. Who won, who cares?
Michael Phelps, I love his story, a B-More kid makes good. he is cool with the brothers and 8 Golds, amazing. In a Chicago newspaper, he is compared to Tiger, Michael and Babe as the best ever. If you need last names you are not hip to sports. What no Ali, no Jim Thorpe, where does Mark Spitz ranked? Ali is my vote for the influential sports figure ever.
I admit I was down on USA basketball. Now is it possible that the Olympic Gold medal may be a bigger accomplishment than winning the NBA finals.Hey basketball is the brothers sport and deep down inside, no matter how polished, how corporate, it is not lets win for America but rather, we can’t go home again if those white boys beat us. The American team is a racial pride first accomplishment and pride of country second. It is different for every other country in the world. LeBron is the man!
Where are the American track and field stars? where do the Jamaicans train? Some of our stars are on bail or in jail, but the sprints have always been black America’s moment in the sun, every since Jesse Owens kicked Hitler’s in the ass in Munich.
Can you name an American boxer, I can’t either. I remember the 76 Olympics in Montreal. I hung out with the Spinks brothers, Big John Tait, Howie Davis, and the legendary Sugar Ray Lenord was on the team as well.The Cubans were tough but we won the Gold. What happened to our boxers?
Black America is reclaiming basketball; but boxing, track sprints, and baseball are drying up for us. Why? I wish we could say, our kids are getting educated better but that is not it. What gives? It is like the Blackwebolg awards, The competition is getting better. Vote for blackinbusiness.org to win.

Many years ago when I accepted my first professional position at Xerox, my manager provided me with some outstanding advice. He said the difference between college and the business world was subtle. In college, you could put projects off but in the business world, you had to get it all done and now!
Have you ever put off something. here are some examples; some day, I will go back and get my degree, MBA,physical, lose weight, visit a friend, you get the point.
I had a friend that we often spoke of getting together some day. We were both Black Divisional VPs for Abbott Laboratories. My friend was a Pastor as well. One Sunday morning as he rose to lead the congregation in “The Lords Prayer,” he dropped dead. We never got together.
I took a development program on leadership and we had to predict our life expectancy; based on factors such as; family history, personal health,amount of exercise and other factors that could contribute to the answer. We had already listed out goals we had for our life. We then looked at how long we sleep, take holidays and time off. The purpose was to show, the clock was ticking, we may not have as much time as we thought.
Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes ran out of time recently. These stars has accomplished a lot in life but both deaths are reminders to us all, to not put off till tomorrow what we can do today.
Mr. Hayes and Mr. Mac had lives we can all be proud of. They worked hard with honor and started off poor. Use their passing to motivate you to do something for yourself and others that you have put off.

I came by an excellent post by my friend Dr. Weber, of brain based business. The post was titled, “Financial Woes That Make You Smarter.” The article was of great interest and I left a comment. As follows is my comment.” It can be humbling, which is a good thing and make one more mature and determined. Also good things, the best thing may be to be more grateful for what you have.It may not make us smarter but we may be forced to use more of our smarts to deliver results. Thanks for something to think about”
Dr. Weber responded to my comment as follows; Hey JD — how goes? I am intrigued by your sense that “It can be humbling, which is a good thing and makes us more mature and determined.”

I’d love to hear a bit more about your notion that - “It may not make us smarter but we may be forced to use more of our smarts to deliver results.”

Can you elaborate a bit more, JD? Any examples
Ok Dr. Weber; here goes,I worked in a business where everything we touched turned to gold. We had the best products, best service, best delivery, best sales force. We were young, in our 20’s and 30’s. We worked hard and played hard and grew business 20 to 40% a year. Many of our competitors and customers thought we were arrongant. I will never forget one day when reviewing our financials, it was presented for the first time in many years our year over year growth was less than 10 %. There was shock in the room, it could not be true.
We discovered doing business the same old way would not work. We had to look at our pricing and profit by customer and product line. We had to market our more profitable products better, we had to treat our most profitable customers better. We had to realize our customers had options and we needed them as much and more than they needed us.
The words I used was mature and determined. The maturity came, because it was no longer about us but rather our customer,Total Customer Satisfaction became a mantra. We did business better and formed closer relationships with our customers. The determination was because, we were used to winning and refused to lose. We no longer took success for granted.
Smarter, no, we could have done business this way from day one. We had the smarts but learned to use what we had.
Dr. Weber, give us some of your examples that might be similar! Thanks for stimulating a post for me. You keep us all thinking. Readers stop by brainbased business, it is a compelling blog!