Dear Dr. (Eco),
  I attended the recent breakfast meeting on the economy at (my bank) would like to thank you for your efforts. However, I must confess that, with
exception to the historical data you presented, I believe your conclusions are
incorrect.
  I can empathize with your perspective as you, in your own words, confess that
you never left school after kindergarten. I assume this means that you have
never signed a check on the front, made a payroll, or had an entrepreneurial
idea that you have backed with your own cash, blood sweat and tears? Your
view of economics is based strictly on theory. Perhaps that is why you can be
so cavalier in telling me to send my jobs overseas.
  Aside from the local job loss that would result if I followed your advice, let me
give you an example of another drawback to your suggestion for me to import
my goods and services. GM currently outsources the production of their
transmissions to India. As you may be aware, India is on strike and production
is halted in Michigan as a result. Boy, am I glad we bailed them out so that
production can be paralyzed by something beyond our control! This is certainly
a downfall of having our supply chain spread all over the world, wouldn’t you
agree?
  In response to your perspective of why our economy is in its present state, I will
give you my opinion. In short, it is due to our lack of ability as American
businesses, to compete globally. This inability cannot be blamed on small
business and its entrepreneurs. Part of that credit can go to our educators. Why
were Tom Peters and a Ph.D from mighty Harvard visiting China in 1995 to
study their system? In short, they knew then, as we all know now, that our
education system is broken. We are not competitive on the world stage in large
part due to our curriculum shortfalls.
  Further credit for our lack of competitiveness can be given to the incompetency
of our government. Ours is a bloated government that has been lobbied into
oblivion by special interests. Big business has yet to understand that capital,
labor and management must work together to create return on investment for
the investors. These are investors who have risked their hard earned money to
wager that a company will be a winner, not the MBA that thinks he can create
subprime loans to gamble with all of our futures. Add to this the fact that there
are 535 lawyers creating laws that they have no experience to author, and you get exactly what we have now. Americans lack confidence in our government,education system, and the financial sector.
  In the future, I would carefully consider the answers you give in a non-academic
setting, for there are some who heavily weigh your credentials. For those of us
that have created a company, supplied health insurance, 401k plans, paid
vacation, paid maternity leave, ROI for its investors, created jobs for the people
of the surrounding counties so they could buy homes, and pay taxes so the
state can employee esteemed teachers, your perspective was offensive and
skewed.
  I do agree with your student,(Jim) . (Our) County will continue to
decline in real estate sales until jobs are created. Despite your advice, I will
keep my jobs here and continue to work to get the government off my back. I
will compete with any nation one on one, if you untie my hands from the
bondage of big government.
  I do believe you to be a very intelligent man. Why not pool all the great
financial and intellectual resources at your disposal through the University of
(our state) to create a plan for success for American business? This would lessen
the burden of government on small business, increase state revenues and
prevent further unemployment. This in turn would eliminate the furlough days
that you are currently experiencing.
Best wishes on your future endeavors,
Marlin

President & CEO

When small business owners talk…we need to listen. Like I’ve said before, sometimes you gotta get your hand dirty it’s part of the American work ethic.

Simply,

Sis

Raise your hand if you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up. This question has always haunted me. In fact the people who knew at five what they were made to do exasperate me. Really? At five? How can that be? What makes me even sicker is the thought of doing something just for a paycheck the rest of my life. I personally think life is too short to work at a job you don’t just love. I think people should get past the amount on the paycheck (after they are debt free of course–I mean we do have to be responsible) and pursue what turns their crank, makes them go DONG, work in their passion.

I found this book at the thrift store yesterday called What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson. What I really like about it is… Bronson interviewed around 900 people who left (or were required to leave) their jobs, to do what they love. He shares 50 of their stories along with some real-life ideas to implement as you chase your purpose. Cool!

Other books I plan to read are 48 Days To The Work You Love and No More Mondays by Dan Miller.  By the time I’m done…I’m gonna know what I’ll be when I grow up. Curiously, I think it may look a whole lot like a homemaker and writer. Regardless, I’ll let you know what I find out.

What about you? Have you read any good books about this? Do you work in your passion? If so, what do you do?

Simply,

Sis

On vacation Ben got me this T-shirt. I say ‘Ben got it for me’ because I am way too cheap to pay $25 for a t-shirt for myself. Even though I love everything thing about and even got caught saying once, “If I ever see another Bed and Breakfast t-shirt I’m going to buy it.”

I saw another (not on clearance this time, dang it), choked when I saw the price and cried when Ben insisted on getting it. I guess he figures since he has another woman  my love affair is with cast iron and cooking outdoors seem minimal and I needed this t-shirt.

Like all good things, Jake…

and the ”Life Is Good” wear, was built on a simple idea…

 I love it.

Before I married Ben, the Marine, I told him, “I don’t care what you do for a living. Pump gas for all I care. Just come home happy.”

God bless him, he does.

In my opinion, God designed everyone to do something. He gave everyone a passion. A passion is where you go to work and do what you do and when you come home you feel like you never went to work. If you are not working in your passion, you should be working toward working in your passion.

I love to garden, cook, write, and nurture those around me. Ben working in his passions allows me to work in mine. We go together like potatoes and carrots.

Simple ideas turn into dreams. Dreams turn into meager starts. LIG wear was started by two brothers spreading good vibes by selling t-shirts from the van they were living in at the time. (You can read about it here.)  Throw in a little (or a lot) of perseverance and presto…your life can be good too.

Ben feels (for the most part) his job allows him to pursue his passion. When he comes home, he is happy. When he leaves again to play his banjo in a gig somewhere and comes home late, and has to get up early, he is happy.

That’s passion.

However, if he got a phone call tomorrow to play his banjo full time, he would really be happy. (Yes, you can email me with offers. I’m he’s agent. sis at reclaimsimplcity dot com)

In the mean time…Life is good. 

I have a t-shirt to prove it.

Simply,

Sis

PS ~ Check out this website http://www.48days.com/ for my info about pursuing your passions.