Ask Not What Anyone Can Do For You…

“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address


What the hell has happened? When did we become a culture of spiritual beggars pressing the fence with our hands crying for scraps from the very people who derive their power from us?

This isn’t about politics or religion. I’m talking about the dormancy of the American spirit. This complacency crosses partisan lines and the spiritual power I’m talking about is not the domain of any particular religious group.

It’s likely that in this argument I’ll be accused of a lack of compassion. So be it; but I’ll quote a far greater philosophical mind than mine. Whatever happened to the idea that giving a man a fish only feeds him for a day where teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime? Which is more compassionate, throwing fish to the begging masses or making sure everyone has the opportunity to learn how to fish?

I don’t want to be misunderstood. I did not say we need to make sure we teach everyone to fish; I said we need to provide the opportunity to learn how to fish. Ultimately the responsibility for learning is the student’s.

The only person responsible for your success and happiness is the same person who brushes his teeth in your bathroom mirror. It’s not the job of the government, or your company, or your neighbor to provide the essential resources you need to create your personal vision of success & happiness.

Our government is supposed to be the mechanism whereby we can cooperatively assure we each enjoy the basic security we need allowing us the freedom to pursue our dreams as individuals. More enlightened companies know that productivity and profitability of the organization increases when the organization is proactive in providing the opportunity and resources that encourages the success of each individual.

We’re much more powerful as a group when we each accept personal responsibility for becoming powerful individuals.

Times are tough and it is right and generous to help your neighbor. When you’re the recipient of generosity it’s right to respond with appreciation and gratitude. It’s counterproductive at best to respond to generosity with demands for increased charity. It’s destructive to create a system where our cooperative institutions become the primary resource for this continual stream of entitlement.

Part of our current economic state is due to conditions and circumstances well beyond the control of any, if not most of us. That’s no excuse for a lack of participation in the solution. The first part of the solution is for each of us to make ourselves more powerful and effective. Power: your ability or capacity to act or perform effectively is what makes you more valuable to yourself and those around you. Value is what drives commerce; at all levels our system is based on commerce.

Much of our current economic state is due to conditions and circumstances beyond the control of the President, Congress or the Supreme Court. A democratic system of government is by its very nature slow. It takes time to develop a consensus; a dictator can change conditions at will. Which do you prefer? We’re also the first generation to deal with an authentic global economy. Today nearly any service and many goods can be delivered across borders at the speed of an internet connection. Speculation in global markets creates conditions tomorrow that we have to deal with yesterday.

As individuals and as a community we still have to work within the scope of that which we can really do something about. Most of the conditions we face today are not the result of what’s going on today, but a product of what we’ve allowed to happen in the recent past.

The solution is clear: let’s step up and take control of our own lives. At any time you can acquire new skills, knowledge and experience that will position you to take advantage of new opportunities. You can make a direct impact on your life and the lives of others by maintaining a positive outlook; and before I’m accused of naiveté, there are no solutions in negativity. Positivity does not guarantee desired results, negativity assures undesired results.

Negativity is blinding. Positivity opens your eyes, ears, mind and heart to possibility. The more open you are to possibility, the more you increase the probability of success. Simple, not easy.

Not convinced yet? Let’s apply positivity to an immediate real world problem. Many of us have grown accustomed to the freedom of driving solo anywhere we want to go at any time. Take a look at the other cars on your next morning commute and notice how many are still driver, no passengers.

Now you could continue to complain and wait for the government to institute some policy to affect the price of gas; but bear in mind that reactive policy usually results in some deficiency somewhere else. For example, we could drop a state tax on gas; but then don’t complain as you drive through unrepaired potholes. Negative thought and action usually results in substituting one problem for another.

Or, you could car pool: positive and immediate action! Share a ride and you just cut your gas expense in half; that’s reality! If that’s too inconvenient, fine; just stop complaining! Put three people in that car and you’ve lowered gas expenses for your commute to near a dollar a gallon. Notice I said “expenses,” you still haven’t affected the price.

Get a million people to share a ride and your regional gas dealers start to pay attention. Ten million of us and suppliers may start to get nervous. Fifty-million of us sharing a ride and the speculators and the producers start to worry; we just might lower the price of fuel for the entire world. Simple, not easy. Of course, neither was going to the moon!

Times are tough; let’s get tough right back. Let’s fight negativity with the only weapon that works: positivity. Let’s stop wondering when someone is going to save us and start accepting full personal responsibility for our success and happiness. Let’s start sharing solutions instead of commiserating in misery. Let’s start where we can have the most impact; with ourselves and with those in our daily lives and local communities.

Let’s not ask what our neighbors can do for us, but rather what we can do for our neighbors. Let’s offer encouragement in place of discouragement and sweat in place of tears. That’s how we create opportunity from adversity.

Two Filthy Words Again!

I’ve been watching very little television lately. Quite by accident I happened upon a panel discussion on one of the early morning newsertainment shows featuring a group of college students and someone who was offering advice for managing finances during and after college; it got my attention!

Then I nearly threw up! I had just eaten breakfast as these words, as nearly as I can remember them actually came out of the mouth of one of these babes: “I thought that when I started cutting back on my Starbucks frappacinos it would really make a difference; I really didn’t realize how hard it would be!”

About two years ago I decided to investigate the cries that college costs were out of control. From the perspective of my all too often squandered youth: I can remember feeling the world was unfair, costs were too high and college was indeed very expensive. Point of fact: college was expensive for me because I wasted the opportunity. I skipped classes, partied too much and never graduated. I post a zero return on investment from my college degree because I don’t have one.

At any rate; the crying about high college expenses was beginning to severely impact my martial arts business. Parents were telling me that they had to make a decision between continuing their children’s martial arts programs or saving for college. For the record; investing in a quality martial arts program is one of the best ways to assure maximizing your investment in college tuition; but more on that in another article.

I had to find out if college expenses were really that out of control and if I could make sensible adjustments to keep my students while honoring those parents who were at least recognizing, and here come the two filthy words, PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for educating their children. There’s no way I could argue with a parent prioritizing the assumption of financial responsibility for higher education, particularly in this age of entitlement.

FACT: Post-secondary education is a privilege, not a right!

Before I completely piss you off; at no level is education a right. Historically you’ll find many examples of education being denied to Americans because of gender, ethnicity and race. In part to correct these injustices we enacted policies to not only guarantee, but in most cases to require education to at least a high school level. Still, this is not a fundamental right as spelled out by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. I only labor this point for one reason: If we could somehow restore the appreciation of education as a privilege we could go a long way toward helping students appreciate and take full advantage of the great opportunity of education at any level.

Back to our TV show: The next young genius was belaboring the impending burdens of student loans he was apparently forced into as the only option he had to finance his college tuition. I apologize for any lack of clarity in relaying this young man’s obviously well considered opinions as my thinking was clouded in this moment by a searing pain I was genuinely concerned may be a brain hemorrhage. At the word “unfair” it felt as if a stick was driven into my skull! “Exploitive loans, unfair interest rates, it’s not fair,” the words ripped at the back of my eyes. Once I knew for sure I was still conscious I did my best to maintain focus and follow the flow of this conversation when Frappacino Girl chimed in again!

I remember thinking that beer and a weekend ski trip were higher priorities than books and my next tuition payment. I also remember how easy “they” all made for me to dive into the deep end of college loan debt. What I don’t remember is anyone holding a gun to my head and forcing me to make these choices. I also clearly remember that when I complained about not having money for a ski trip because tuition was due; I was just as clearly told that it was up to me to decide which was more important in my life; of course I chose skiing! My fault, not theirs!
Sorry to be jumping around so much; this is a complicated subject, isn’t it?

Back to the parents of my martial arts students: is college really that expensive? Enter Michelle Obama; she claims that college expenses place an unfair burden on many families. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for providing assistance to help level the playing field and to make sure talented kids get the opportunity to share their talents with the world. This argument is not political; I’ve frankly gotten to the point where even I can’t tell the players without a scorecard. It seems any candidate that wants young voters is using some form of this platitude. Let’s just look at Mrs. Obama’s words and what they mean in this context.

Mrs. Obama attended Princeton and Harvard Law School. Her father, who worked at a city utilities job despite having MS should be held up as a model for trying to make life better for his children. Still, Mrs. Obama could have decided to attend less expensive institutions; attending Princeton and later Harvard were choices, not mandates.

Michelle herself should be held up as an example of how hard work pays off in school. She even skipped second grade based on performance. This early dedication to her work ethic no doubt served her well at university and later in professional life. She succeeded at two Ivy League colleges despite discouraging advice from her counselors and lingering prejudices.

I don’t know if she got financial aid to help her attend these schools; I’ll assume from her story that she did and she openly talks about taking student loans. Wonderful! These are both great tools to help finance a college education.

But…expensive? We can’t argue the fact that both Princeton and Harvard cost a lot of money to attend. I won’t even bother to lower the cost of Mrs. Obama’s education by adjusting for tuition in the 1980’s; let’s just assume she’s attending today at a cost of around $50,000 a year. Even if fully self-funded, let’s estimate the total cost of her post-secondary education at around $200,000. Given her last reported salary as Director of the University of Chicago Medical Center in excess of $320,000 a year. Isn’t that about a 65% return on investment for just one year in that position? I’d take that in business every day of the week!

College can cost a lot; considering the return on investment it may be considered cheap. The average return on a college degree is one million dollars over the course of a lifetime compared to people with only a high school diploma. Expensive?

Back to the TV show: no offense to Starbucks their reputation for a quality luxury product is beyond reproach. It just seems interesting that these young people don’t have a problem spending $6.00 on a cup of coffee, yet consider their college tuition expensive.

And…we haven’t even considered the average cost of a college education or less expensive alternatives. My research found a list of the top 20 business schools offering MBA degrees for $15,000 or less. Here are some sobering, and in my humble opinion, very encouraging figures:

• 56% of 4 year college students attend schools charging less than $9,000 a year.
• 43% of students attending public colleges & universities pay between $3,000 & $6,000 a year.
• Even at the high end, only 6% of students attend schools that charge more than $33,000 a year.
• Public 2 year programs charge an average of $2,300/year; less than 2% of average family income.
• More than $130 billion dollar in financial aid is awarded to students EVERY YEAR!
  2/3 of all undergrad students receive financial aid averaging $2,000 at public 2-year colleges, $3,600 at public 4 year schools and here’s the shocker: $9,300 for private 4 year colleges!

Is my math way off, or are we doing a tremendous job at making college affordable? Where’s the disconnect? Of course, this information has to come from some slanted source with an agenda for wasting money on anything but education, right? Actually, this data is readily available for your own scrutiny at CollegeBoard.com, a website designed to help you find and finance a quality college education.

Now for the “unfair” loans cited by our frappacino drinking friends:

• The average loan burden of a needs based student according to CNN is $13,800. Compare that to around $10,000 in average credit card debt for Americans.
• These “unfair” loan rates have just been reduced by Congress from 6.8% to 6.12%, and you don’t start paying on these loans until after graduation. Kind of like “no payments until fill-in-the-blank” loans for furniture? Compare again to average unsecured debt interest rates at 22% to 25% and it really looks like a rip-off, eh?

What’s the story? Time to get back to our 2 filthy words: PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY!

The fact is that college is still a great investment. My message is POWER: Your ability or capacity to perform or act effectively. Can you perform or act effectively without college? Can you be successful without a college education? Certainly! I consider myself successful on many levels and I absolutely squandered my college opportunity. However…

…I wouldn’t advise anyone to do it the way I did.

I learned the hard way; with the gift of hindsight I can honestly say I wish I had completed my degree and entered the real world with a college diploma. A college education is a wonderful opportunity for expanding your effectiveness for the rest of your life. A college degree can be an incredible resource in developing Power for personal and professional success and happiness.

If you or your family have the resources to finance a college education; then do it. Quit bitching and whining, make the sacrifices you need to make and invest in yourself and your future.

If you genuinely need assistance to pursue a college education; here’s some useful advice:

• The best thing you can do to access merit scholarships is to perform well in high school. Pay attention, get good grades and take full advantage of your high school education privilege.
• There are circumstances and conditions beyond your control. If you’re attending a high school in an underprivileged area, focus on what you can control. Same advice: study hard, develop good work habit and earn good grades. You may have to work harder than some to get where you’re going, but that’s much more effective than waiting for conditions to change. Later, when you’re successful you can go back and change those conditions for others.
• Investigate all your options including:
  a) 2 year programs…at least to start!
  b) State and public colleges and universities. Many of these institutions provide top-quality educational programs at bargain rates!
  c) If you are targeting the most prestigious or expensive programs, consider starting at a less expensive college and earning the grades that will support a higher financial aid package at your target school.
  d) Consider a smaller course load that will allow you to work during your studies to support your tuition and living expenses.
• Most of all, start saving early and prioritize your spending during high school years.

Did you know that according to the Indiana Business Review the average American under age 25 spends over $1,500 a year dining out and $1,000 a year on entertainment? Cutting dining & entertainment expenses in half just during high school could pay for a full associate’s degree or cut the need for college loans in half for a four-year program.

Ultimately Power is about freedom. When you make yourself more effective, you become more valuable to others. Your opportunity for material, emotional and spiritual abundance increases. You have more choices; you enjoy greater freedom to live the life you choose. The foundation is Personal Responsibility.

I did not learn this lesson early. It took me over 30 years of living a life of cyclical scarcity to learn my lessons. My fault; I will not place blame anywhere but squarely on my own shoulders. With just a few years of focused effort you can save yourself from the cycle it took me my entire adult life to transcend.

You can apply a college degree to generate enormous Power in your life. Take Personal Responsibility and start creating your opportunities for a college degree now. Can you live without your frappacino today?

Check out Jim's CampusPOWER program for college & university students! How to get the most out of your tremendous opportunity, your talents and your abilities!

Possibility...Positivity...Probability

Possibilities: Everything is possible. Success is always a possibility, so is failure. The first step is to be open and receptive to all possibilities...

Positivity: Focus on the possible positive outcomes. Simple, not easy. Failure is the only outcome you can guarantee. To fail, all you have to do is quit. To succeed you've got to stay focused on the positive even when the crap is hitting the fan. The more you train yourself to focus on the possible positive outcomes, the greater your...

Probability: The probability of success is dependent on two major factors:

1. Opening your mind and heart to the boundless possibilities that exist around you at all times.

2. Training yourself to focus on the possible positive outcomes of your efforts.

Failure can be guaranteed. Success is always a risk; and always a risk worth taking!


Power is your capacity or ability to perform or act effectively! POWER! Get yours NOW!
Visit JimBouchard.org!