WIND IN YOUR SAILS

We arrived at the market in Kohima at 12:30 p.m. I think if I could just stroll through the Kohima market about noon each day of my life I would be able to save lots of money otherwise spent for lunches. Puii reminded me that the people of Nagaland were historically regarded as great hunters. That fact was underscored immediately as I spotted a variety of monkeys offered there for butchering and cooking. Just a few yards away there were squirrels hanging by their hind legs, and below them were ordinary small birds for the picking.

On the market table to my left were deer quartered but with the hair and hides still on. Then I saw what I didn’t necessarily want to see: short-haired, tan dogs split open from their nostrils to their tails, cleaned and ready for sale. But the kiosk getting the most attention was the site of two older women kneeling down behind their sales table working on the entire forearm of a very large black bear. They had just severed it from the rest of the huge body and were now on the ground skinning out the body of the bear with careful precision so as to perfectly preserve the hide, which would be sold separately.

Having spent a considerable bit of time in Asia, I realized what a prized possession the women had brought to market. Bear meat was valuable and, except for being a bit greasy, would remind you of pork. But the value of the bear was really in the bones and organs and such parts as paws, claws, and skull. The Asians respect the medicinal value of spare bear parts, much as they desire the horns of the deer family.

We were at the market by invitation of Dr. Vike Thongu and his dignified and gracious wife, Puii. They had invited me to stay in their lovely home in Kohima while I was in Nagaland, one of the three insurgent states of northeast India. Bangladesh separates Nagaland, Mizoram, and Manipur from the body of India. Nagaland is snuggled up against old Burma and China on the lower slopes of the rugged Himalayas. Nagaland is a place of spectacular beauty and mystique.

At dinner the previous night, an intriguing discussion had precipitated the invitation to the market in order to view the diversity of items offered there. The exotic dinner entrees had included pig and goat (I think) for meat dishes, and lovely presentations of squash, rice, potatoes, and vegetables. But there was one side dish that in the ambiance of lantern light I presumed was ivory-colored pasta mixed with young bamboo sprouts.

“Puii,” I inquired, “please tell me about this delicious pasta dish; I am not identifying the nutritious taste.” Dr. Vike Thongu answered, “You are here in Kohima, Dr. Jackson, at exactly the right time. Only once a year do we have this opportunity, and it is very expensive. We honor you as our guest, for this is the most desired dish of our culture. This is black wasp larva in varying stages of development.” With a closer look, I could see that, indeed, the whole bowl was full of nice, big, plump worms nesting in the tender bamboo sprouts.

For the remainder of that memorable evening I could hear Mark Twain’s injunction ringing in my ears: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines – sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails . . . Explore. Dream. Discover.”

I was not the only person around that table who was exploring, dreaming, and discovering. I found the doctor and his wife to be two of the most dedicated and creative people I had ever met. Mother Teresa used to say, “If you can’t do great things, do little things with great love. If you can’t do them with great love do them with little love. If you can’t do them with little love, do them anyway.” Dr. Vike Thongu and Puii were doing great things . . . with great love!

Dr. Vike Thongu’s hospital was located on a narrow, steep street in the heart of the busy city. Painted across the front of the building were the following signs: “C. T. Scan Service,” “Ultrasound Machine Diagnosis,” “Pharmacy,” and “Endoscope Surgery.” Puii and Dr. Vike Thongu were running the most technically advanced hospital in the whole northeast section of India. Their story of insight, discipline, hard work, and entrepreneurial risk-taking was unparalleled. Dr. Vike Thongu was a gifted surgeon. He performed every kind of surgery from orthopedics to skin grafting to delicate brain surgery. 

The couple had begun with only a dream and a small clinic and pharmacy. They set aside 10% of all their pharmaceutical products for charity and performed at least 10% of all medical procedures for those who could not pay. They saved another 10% and purchased a piece of property for their hospital. They began to build their forty-bed hospital on a cash basis. The discipline and hard work paid off handsomely.

They knew that if they could offer the advanced technical services, they could capture the medical market. They would not take even needed medicine for their own children out of the pharmacy unless they paid the full price. They had no money to buy beds or other furniture for the hospital, so they made their own beds and sewed their own mattresses and sheets. When the hospital opened, they needed divider partitions between the beds. So Puii took the drapes out of their own house and sewed them into usable panels.

Soon they outgrew their hospital, and, with discipline and the money they had saved, they were able to purchase the adjacent property to build another forty- bed facility. In order to help pay for the new facility they began to rent out rooms in their own house.

As an economist and businessman, I was in awe at the entrepreneurial example of the wonderfully dedicated Christian team of Dr. Vike Thongu and Puii. Their eyes sparkled as they unfolded the story to me. As Steve Jobs would say, “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” They had never acquired an MBA degree from Harvard or Yale, but they were outperforming classic business planners by leaps and bounds and making sure all the time that their charity work was never cut short. They told me that Project C.U.R.E. was the first organization from the outside to ever come and help them. I left with so much admiration and respect for the two of them. Their level of hard work, discipline, frugality, and absolute confidence and obedience certainly must make God smile everyday!

So, throw off the bowlines – sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails . . . Explore. Dream. Discover.

MARKET BASKETS

In March of 1999, the U.S. State Department closed our Embassy in Belgrade and withdrew all diplomatic support personnel. Travel restrictions and travel warnings had been issued. Secretary Albright and NATO had made the threat of air strikes, and without the signatures on the proposed accord, bombing by U.S. aircraft began on March 24, 1999, and continued through June 10, 1999. During those seventy-eight days of continual air strikes over the Serbian Republic of Yugoslavia, 25,200 sorties, or missions, had been flown in which 1,100 aircraft took part dropping more than 25,500 tons of explosives on the Serbian territory of Yugoslavia. The total force of the destructive explosives was more than ten times greater than the force of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. All of that action was without ever having declared war on a sovereign country, or the U.S. Congress giving any approval of the action. It was strictly a decision by the Clinton Administration. 

A huge wave of anti-NATO, and especially anti-American, feeling swept over Yugoslavia and the neighboring countries. It was into that setting that Project C.U.R.E. was requested to go. I had been asked to travel directly into the smoking ruins of Belgrade itself and assess the situation with the idea of supplying medical goods to hospitals and clinics which had, because of the extent of the conflict, depleted their resources.

The U.S. State Department, along with the International War Crimes Tribunal, announced they were placing a five million dollar price tag on the head of Slobodan Milosevic. Serbia restricted its borders to keep out bounty hunters. I was finally able to secure a visa for my passport through Yugoslavia’s Embassy in Canada.

Once I had checked into my room at the Moskva Hotel in downtown Belgrade, I realized there was no air conditioning. When I opened my hotel window I additionally realized I was right in the middle of a huge political protest rally. The protesters were demanding the ouster of President Slobodan Milosevic. They were also registering their extreme disfavor of the U.S. and NATO military actions. I was in the middle of some intense emotions.

From the relative safety of my hotel room, I curiously studied the activities of the individuals gathered in the large intersection below. As a Cultural Economist, I was seeing more going on in the intersection below than just frustrated and angry protesters. I was seeing the clash of economics and culture taking place in its rawest form.

The study of economics has to do with the efficient allocation and organization of resources for production. Cultural economics concerns itself with the relationship of culture to economic outcomes. A given culture will influence political systems, traditions, and religious beliefs, the positions of importance held by the families, the formation of institutions, and the value placed on individuals. Likewise, economic systems have the power to affect and shape the cultures. All of those factors were in play in the intersection below.

My past thirty-five years of international travel have greatly influenced my beliefs and world view. I have had the opportunity of standing in Moscow, Russia, and personally witnessing the collapse of the old Soviet Union. I was in Brazil and Argentina when their unraveled economies were experiencing three thousand percent inflation. I was in Zimbabwe while they experienced the consequences of the foolish mistakes of the Robert Mugabe regime. I have been in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cambodia, and China while they were going through their cultural upheavals. I have come to believe that global transformation, national transformation, corporate transformation, and individual transformation has everything to do with cultural economics. 

Culture, with its components of traditions, institutions, families, and individuals, intersects with classic economic factors like land, labor, capital, and the entrepreneur. It is there that history takes place. It is at that intersection of culture and economics that transformation occurs.

But how does culture influence and dictate economics as it travels through that intersection? How do economic factors influence and dictate culture as they pass through that intersection?

Whether we like it or not, we each have a curbside involvement in that intersection, and I find that exciting and fascinating. Everyone alive has gathered at the curbside of the intersection of culture and economics. 

Each person has been busily shopping at the market place and carries a fine market basket in his or her hand. Inside the market baskets are the most valuable possessions each person owns. The individuals have literally traded their lives for what they have in their baskets.

The personal inventories in the baskets include financial possessions and individual possessions of physical, intellectual, emotional, volitional, and temporal characteristics. Family, friends, and influence are included in the relational possessions. Also included are spiritual and other special possessions that are unique to each individual.

All of the shoppers are gathered there at the curbside of the intersection of culture and economics with their market baskets in hand. They possess the power and opportunity to ultimately determine what happens at the intersection of culture and economics. They hold history in their hands: by injecting the things from their market basket into the traffic flow of the intersection, they determine the direction, timing, and outcome of the flow of traffic.

The greatest and most powerful question that faces each one of us gathered at that intersection, regarding the contents of our market baskets is, “What’cha Gonna Do with What’cha Got?” How we answer that question determines the outcome and recordation of history.

What is it that you have in your market basket today? What do you plan to do with it?

After spending considerable time in examining and reviewing what I have in my market basket, I’ve made up my mind and this is what I plan to do: I want to spend the best of my life for the rest of my life helping other people be better off. I look into my basket and see the potential of a lot of evil in this world. But I also see an overwhelming amount of virtue there to be dispensed. I believe that virtue is extremely powerful in its influence. 

While standing at the intersection of culture and economics, I would like to be among those who believe that by living and dispensing unrestrained amounts of virtue into the equation of culture and economics, we can be extremely effective and positive agents of cultural and economic transformation.

Someone once told me, because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. Or, as C. S. Lewis would say, “It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

I don’t want to rot or go bad. I do want to hatch and become a dynamic transformation agent bringing help and hope to the people in my world.

SPEND MORE THAN YOU EARN

I am convinced that when dealing with the simple but priceless commodities like kindness, justice, and righteousness, you should spend more than you earn.

In the structure of our present economy people and organizations are allowed to do things they could not otherwise do because of the employment of debt. In our culture many things are too expensive for people to buy out of the cash they have in hand. Debt enables people to make purchases they could not otherwise afford by allowing them to pay off items with small monthly payments that include the price of the item as well as interest. 

Not only individuals, but companies can utilize debt to leverage the return on the equity of their assets. That portion of debt to equity is used to determine the riskiness of the investment, i.e. the more debt per equity the riskier the investment. That is where debt becomes dangerous to both individual and corporate borrowers. Although debt can appear helpful, it can also become a burden and a hazard to your personal well-being. Real trouble comes when the cost of servicing the debt grows beyond the ability to repay what is due. Usually, that inability happens because of insufficient income or poor management of resources, coupled with increased interest rates, late fees, and penalties. 

Historically, excess in debt accumulation has been blamed for many woes of this world and the tragic breakup of many honorable relationships. I grew up following the Great Depression and the stress of World War II. The accepted advice of that era was, “Who goeth a borrowing, goeth a sorrowing,” or, as Ezra Pound would say, “Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt.” 

Benjamin Franklin expressed his opinion of debt and advised, “Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.” “Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity,” was the way Samuel Johnson expressed his concern of debt. During that period, most people even saved up enough money under the mattress to pay cash for their automobiles and other major purchases. They believed that home life would cease to be peaceful and beautiful once they needed to depend on borrowing and debt. As kids, we were instructed that we should run from debt as if it were the plague or an addiction. Today, we have grown quite accustomed to words like bankruptcy, foreclosure, short sale, bubble, meltdown, universal default, “too big to fail,” and spending more than you earn.

The above stated description seems to be the attitude and structure of our economy today. I have, however, discovered a wonderful alternative economy when it comes to earning and spending, and spending more than you earn. I have become convinced that when it comes to commodities such as kindness, justice, and righteousness you should spend exponentially more than you earn. With those commodities it should be the rule of thumb that lavish and exorbitant behavior is the investment rule of the day. You can throw all restraint overboard and be totally thriftless. You can never bankrupt your asset account of kindness, justice, and righteousness no matter how much you spend from the account.

Kindness: People universally long for kindness to be shown to them. In all the traveling I have done around the world, I have concluded that people will be exactly as happy and kind toward you as you are toward them. That was true in North Korea, Pakistan, Congo, Iraq, or Afghanistan. Showing benevolence, courtesy, tact, gentleness, patience, and unselfish consideration sends a signal of hospitality that pays great dividends.

Justice: Everybody carries around a psychological-spiritual scorecard. It is very high tech, and is placed somewhere up front, on the inside of one’s forehead. It has an emotionally activated, electric extension cord that runs down to the heart, and it concerns itself with issues of fairness, due process, equity, integrity, fair treatment, reasonableness, and reparation. You can never go wrong dispensing way more truth and justice than you ever dreamed possible. Spending more justice than you could ever earn will always prove to be a blue chip stock investment.

Righteousness: More than likely, your greatest fulfillment in living will be realized through your giving of goodness, virtue, fairness, respectability, honor, and dignity freely into the lives of others around you. Righteousness is a powerful phenomenon that keeps you alive in the hearts of others long after the action on the stage is over and the audience has gone home. That is because the source of righteousness is from a different economy. 

In the structure of our present economy, people and organizations are allowed to do things they would not otherwise do because of such things as the use of debt . . . and there is usually a tragic downside. In this new economy people are allowed to do things they could not otherwise do because you were able to personally transfer into their lives such things as kindness, justice, and righteousness. In our culture we have to employ such things as debt because of the reality of limited resources. But there is no limit to the supply of kindness, justice, and righteousness, because they flow freely from God’s economy and you simply can’t out give God.

Here is the simple challenge: Try it. Freely spend into the lives of those around you the simple riches of kindness, justice, and righteousness. Spend out of your limitless supply. Plant the fertile seeds and watch the astounding harvest as the people around you are able to do things that otherwise they could not have done.

IS IT NECESSARY?

Winston Churchill was such a hero of ours that we named our second son after him. Jay Winston Jackson and I even traveled together to London on Jay’s twenty-first birthday to spend some time at Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s home outside London. At Chartwell we enjoyed the pastoral setting of verdant green rolling hills and the peaceful grazing sheep. Churchill was the first person ever to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.

Of special interest to me, however, were the rooms inside the stately residence where the famous world traveler-Prime Minister-author wrote his many volumes of the history of Britain, India, Africa, and the world. He even wrote biographies and a novel. He had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953. Churchill did not have just one desk where he sat and wrote at Chartwell. Rather, he had built writing desks around the perimeter of the room where he could stand and research and write while moving from one location to another in the room. 

I took several “take-aways” with me as I left Chartwell. Some were quotes I gathered from Winston Churchill’s writings on display. Over the years the words have changed my personal world view. He is the one who said, “It is of no use saying ‘we are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.” 

At first read through, that quote seems about as cute and innocuous as Yogi Berra saying, “I just want to thank everyone who made this day necessary.” But, when studied, you find the innocent looking word package filled with explosive dynamite. 

The poignancy of the statement is developed at the intersection of four interesting issues: Your perception of what is your best, your evaluation determining havingdone your best, your idea of success, and your perception of necessary. Success is only another name for failure if you don’t have your priorities figured out. 

I recall the incident at the basketball game where, in the heat of excitement, the basketball gets loose on the floor. The excited team member shoulders his way into the players, grabs the basketball, and shouts aloud, “I’m goal oriented,” and heads toward the basket. He dribbles expertly, he runs fast, and his footwork and balance are something to behold. The crowd screams and the closer he gets to the basket the more the fans go crazy with excitement. 

Little did the player realize that he was heading toward the wrong goal! But amid all the noise and clamor, the player with the ball hears the voice of his coach. He is not just calmly saying, “Oh, my, he’s going the wrong way.” But, with a thunderous voice and emotion that would spark a coronary meltdown, the coach hollers to the player, “Damn you, Jimmy! You are going the wrong way!” The player hears in time, drops to the floor and mutters, “I’ll be damned.” 

Steven Covey says, “It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall.” And the things that are so necessary should never be held hostage by the things we have, until now, perceived to be important. 

There are three things that might help as we deal with the issue of “doing what is necessary.” 

PASSION: There has to be a lot of dedicated passion involved in order to say, “We are doing our best.” A person who is serious enough to plan and carry out a strategy that would result in her doing her best has already encountered the cost involved in doing her best. That passion dare not be lost but transferred now to the achievement of the necessary. 

PERCEPTION: How sad it is when we spend our passionate energies to climb the ladder of success only to discover that it was leaning against the wrong wall. How sad to run perfectly to the wrong end of the gymnasium floor and score a magnificent shot in the wrong basket. Our perception of the important, the crucial, the fundamental, the imperative, and the quintessential is worthy of the time it takes to determine against which wall our ladder is leaning

PRIORITIES: It is not a bad thing to go back and reevaluate what you had previously held as priority. Albert Einstein used to say, “What counts can't always be counted; what can be counted doesn't always count.” We need to make certain that the things we ultimately consider as our priorities are really the things that represent our heart’s desires and the goals for which we are willing to give our lives. 

The things that are necessary should become our true heart’s desires, and they should dictate our priorities. Our priorities will then shape our choices, our choices will display our character, and our character will be reflected in our actions. So, the main thing is not just to prioritize the things on our schedule, but to overhaul the schedule of our priorities in order to accomplish what is truly necessary. 

That clear thinking and resolve was what allowed Sir Winston Churchill, in the moments of crucial leadership, to courageously stand before the people of a ravaged Britain and say, 

            “. . . we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing           confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost       may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. 
           . . . You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs — Victory inspite of all terror — Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.”

Winston Churchill certainly had it figured correctly when he said, “It is of no use saying ‘we are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”

STUCK ON YESTERDAY

“If what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today.” 
                                                                                                         Mikhail Gorbachev

Trying to drive forward while looking through the rear view mirror can get you killed. Someone once told me that you can tell when people are getting old: their eyes start to move around to the back of their head . . . they keep looking back and they get stuck on yesterday. 

What you have accomplished in the past is a very strong indication of what you are capable of doing in the future. Through your past accomplishments, your actions have indeed spoken louder than even your words. Your past accomplishments should be recognized and applauded. You were able to dream and visualize and bring your energies to bear on what you valued and what you perceived would fill a specific need and make other people better off. At your time and place in history you were able to FANTASIZE: you dared to dream. You asked yourself, “what if . . . ?” 

Then, you were able to CRYSTALIZE: you engaged in dream screening, where you determined what it would cost you to accomplish your dream. You became determined and specific. You then began to actually VISUALIZE that dream: you began to see yourself as having already achieved your dream. It became such a reality to you that your subconscious mind began to work out the details of accomplishment. 

But that future accomplishment needed to be reinforced, so you began toVERBALIZE the dream to yourself and to others. You had to become vulnerable and accountable in order to see your precious dream come to fruition. You depended on that verbal affirmation to maintain your focus and strengthen your confidence. You may have even quoted King Solomon’s observation: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7) The dream was working! 

All that was left now was to actually see your dream MATERIALIZE: you saw your plans for the accomplishment of your desired goal become reality. The pathway for your accomplishment had gone over, under, and around all the obstacles and the impediments that could have become your tombstone. Now, they have wonderfully become your touchstone. As your goal was attained, a feeling of fulfillment and worthiness developed. “Wow! Just look at what was accomplished!” 

You are to be congratulated and recognized for you success! However, you now stand at one of the scariest and most fragile points in your life. Accomplishments should prove to be not a destination, but a journey. Nothing can fail like success, and nothing can be as miserably defeated as yesterday’s spectacular accomplishment, if your success makes you lose your focus. 

We all must learn from yesterday’s accomplishments, gain from the confidence acquired, and press on to the opportunities of tomorrow. But we must not stop. The temptation will always be to allow yesterday’s triumphs to use up too much of today’s opportunity and creativity.

George Herman Ruth was best known as “Babe Ruth.” As an American League baseball player for twenty-two seasons, he helped the New York Yankees win seven pennants and four World Series titles (his World Series championship total was seven). He became one of the first five players to be elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He set the record for home runs (714) and runs batted in (2,217). He was home run champion for twelve years of his career. 

But Babe Ruth was never disillusioned regarding his incredible successes as home run champion. To his greatest credit he was able to maintain his focus on the game that was being played that day, and with true perception remind the world that,“Yesterday's home runs don't win today's games.” It is nearly impossible to have a better tomorrow if you are stuck on yesterday.

I vividly recall the euphoric feeling I got as Project C.U.R.E. shipped its first million dollars’ worth of donated medical goods into the needy country of Brazil in the late 1980s. There was an overwhelming temptation to just settle into Brazil and rejoice in the success. That would have been undeniably good . . . but that would not have been best, and that would not have been smart. We could have gotten stuck on yesterday, and been stuck on stupid. 

It wasn’t long before other Latin American and South American countries came asking for our help. They wanted desperately needed medical goods, also. I remember considering the choices: we could sit and enjoy the beauty of yesterday’s mighty oak tree—the life-changing contribution to the nation of Brazil—or we could take the newly gained knowledge and confidence and help create a mighty forest for the future by getting busy and planting the precious acorns of today. I chose to plant for the future, and today Project C.U.R.E. is shipping into 128 different countries, and taking help and hope to thousands of needy people around the world. Even to this day, we are striving to never get stuck on yesterday.

We want to fulfill today and embrace tomorrow, remembering that if what you have done yesterday still looks big to you, you haven’t done much today.

GRATEFULNESS

There is a certain excitement and energy that gusts down through our Colorado mountain canyon as October morphs into November. The golden aspen leaves of autumn skip along the surface of our high altitude stream in lively funnels of brilliance. The late afternoon air takes on a crisp and moist characteristic as the nighttime dustings of snow begin to cover the highest mountain peaks. The gorgeous summer flowers are but pleasant memories now, the picnic umbrellas have been put away, and the bright yellow snowplow blade has been methodically re-attached to the ATV. It’s fall in Colorado! 

I love the fall, and I love November, because I am still the kid who loves Thanksgiving. I have adopted, and throughout my life I have embraced, the idea thatit is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy. Gratefulness is the thankful recognition and acknowledgement of having received something good from another. When we receive something and express our appreciation for it something happens in our very soul. 

It has been my observation that people who are more grateful are happier, less depressed, less stressed, and more satisfied with their lives. It seems that grateful people also have higher levels of harmony with their environments, and more control over their own personal growth. Additionally, it seems they have clearer purposes in life, and enjoy a broader spirit of self-acceptance. I’ve even heard grateful people claim that they sleep better, because they practice thinking thankful and positive thoughts just before going to sleep, instead of allowing their minds to be filled with bothersome thoughts. 

Because of my travels into so many venues, I have been able to observe that the major religions encourage the practice of appreciativeness and giving of thanks in their religious practices. According to the Greek philosopher, Cicero, "Gratitude is not only the greatest of the virtues but the parent of all others." 

Judaism is grounded in a Hebrew worldview that all things come from God and that the worshiper must be continuously involved in the practice of being grateful for that goodness: “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart” (Ps. 9:1). Faithful Jewish worshipers recite more than one hundred blessings, called berachot, throughout the day. 

In Christianity, gratitude is regarded as a virtue that shapes not only emotions and thoughts but actions and deeds as well. Gratitude could be called "the basic Christian attitude," and is referred to as "the heart of the gospel." One of the most sacred rites is called the Eucharist, that is translated thanksgiving. 

The Islamic Quran is filled with the idea of gratitude. Islam encourages its followers to be grateful and express thanks to God in all circumstances. Islamic teaching emphasizes the idea that those who are grateful will be rewarded with more. A traditional Islamic saying states, "The first who will be summoned to paradise are those who have praised God in every circumstance." 

Dr. Casio Amoral and his wife, Vera, ran the best cranial/reconstructive and plastic surgery hospital in Brazil, and it was there I learned a most unforgettable lesson about the inner need to express gratefulness. Anna Marie and I were ushered into a conference room where Dr. Amoral and Vera shared the story of their lifelong work and the establishment of the hospital in1972. We were escorted through the hospital as I performed the customary needs assessment study. At 11:00a.m. , we returned to the conference room and joined a team of twenty staff members and the Drs. Amoral for a pre-operative session with all the surgical patients for the following week. One at a time the cases were reviewed, and the doctors handling each case reported to Dr. Amoral and made recommendations regarding the upcoming operation and status of the case. 

There was really no way to prepare ourselves for such an experience. I was invited to sit right next to Dr. Amoral during the examination and consultation. Viewing each of the nearly twenty patients was enough to make me cry out. It was very traumatic. The patients ranged from just a few weeks old to some being in their teens. Most of the mothers and patients had traveled perhaps hundreds of miles to get to the hospital that day. They were poor mothers who were typically single, unemployed, indigent, and very frightened.

The first little girl, age eight, had already undergone ten operations. She still had many, many operations to go. Her hands were completely grown together as one clump per arm. Many surgeries had already been done on her hands to separate the clumps into fingers and thumbs. Her feet were the same way. But it was her head that was most severely deformed. The present operation was to include a complete cranial restructuring to relieve the constriction on the brain that was causing behavioral and motor problems. 

But one mother, who appeared very poor, brought in her daughter, Sylvia, who was wearing a large hat, jeans and a T-shirt. I would guess the daughter to be in her early teens. She had many congenital deformities of the face, head, and thorax area. She had received several earlier surgeries, and only recently had Dr. Amoral been able to complete a major operation. 

The girl’s mother, an older lady, was sitting next to me. As the doctors began discussing Sylvia’s case, she turned to me, gripped my forearm, and began speaking directly to me. Her eyes were like sparkling fires and her words flowed in a steady stream of white-hot emotion. I could literally feel the intensity of emotion build as her speech rose to a crescendo and her grip on my arm tightened. Neither her emotion nor her flow of talk slowed down a bit when they informed her that I could not understand any of the Portuguese she was talking. She just kept on. 

They said she was telling me that her daughter had been so deformed and so ugly, but now Dr. Amoral had made her pretty. She just couldn't stop praising the doctor and thanking him. No one could quiet her. I took her by the hand and just smiled. She needed to express her feelings and her praise, and she was not concerned whether I spoke English, French, Chinese, or Pig Latin. She needed someone to listen as she expressed her gratefulness, appreciation, and thanksgiving. Her precious daughter was now so beautiful! And with every word of recognition and tribute came an uncontrollable flood of happiness and deep joy washing over her. 

I learned a spiritual lesson from that sweet Brazilian lady. Many in the room were embarrassed for the woman and tried to quiet her. I simply stood up as she left and kissed her, first on one cheek, then on the other. I had just experienced the unstoppable power of praise and the satisfying gift of gratefulness. 

A VICTORY FOR HUMANITY

“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” Horace Mann

In my early years I was handed down a pretty powerful concept: One day your life will review in a flash before your eyes . . . make sure it’s worth watching. We were encouraged to pursue ideas of personal responsibility and accountability. Our mom even gathered us around her in the evenings and read to us stories of character growth and development. We were expected to make the days of our lives count for something good. 

Because our mom was a school teacher and principal for most of her life, we heard about another educator named Horace Mann. Some of the effects the man had on standardized education were controversial. But over all, he left an indelible imprint on the American educational system that was positive and enduring. Horace Mann was born May 4, 1796, in Massachusetts. His frugal, rural upbringing taught Horace characteristics of self-reliance and independence. Between the years of ten to twenty, Horace had no more than six weeks' schooling during any year. But he took advantage of the new, local libraries. Eventually, he graduated from Brown University, went on to law school and was admitted to the Massachusetts legal bar. 

Mann became involved in Massachusetts politics and the development of the state’s public school system. At the time, American educators were fascinated by German educational trends. In 1843, Mann traveled to Germany to observe their educational system. Upon his return to the United States, he lobbied heavily to have the "Prussian model" adopted, arguing that universal public education was the best way to turn the nation's unruly children into disciplined and judicious citizens. 

Building a person's character, Horace felt, was just as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic. By instilling values such as obedience to authority, promptness in attendance, and organizing time according to bell-ringing helped students prepare for future employment. He also developed the “normal schools” that specialized in training teachers. Most historians treat Mann as one of the most important and beneficial influences of educational reform in early America. He died while serving as president of Antioch College. He certainly lived out his own admonition to win some victory for humanity before you die and if his life did indeed flashed before his eyes before he died, his life was certainly worth watching! 
In the city of Owerri in Imo State, Nigeria, Project C.U.R.E. became involved in an educational and humanitarian opportunity to win a victory for humanity that could not be ignored. Honorable Ike Ibe, the Nigerian Ambassador to the United States, traveled from Washington, DC to Denver, Colorado, in 2003. The trip was to specifically request help from Project C.U.R.E. In 2000, King Eze A.N. Onyeka had already made me a Royal African Chief, “Chief Uzoma of Nkume People,” at a ceremony in Nigeria. Now, the country needed help. “We desperately need to relocate the university medical teaching hospital to Owerri, in Imo State. We have enough resources to build the buildings, but we have no way of furnishing the facility with beds, medical equipment, or supplies. We simply need everything to put inside a teaching hospital! Will you please help us?” 

After assessing the request, Project C.U.R.E. agreed to help them. Over the months, we processed and shipped nearly eight million dollars’ worth of desperately needed medical goods to the new University Teaching Hospital in Owerri. A huge miracle was taking place. In the late summer, I received word from Ambassador Ike Ibe that I should make plans to return to Owerri on November 30, 2004, for the grand celebration and commissioning of the beautiful, new hospital. Everyone who was important in that area of Africa would be attending. The president of Nigeria would be there, as would his cabinet, the governors, the university officials, and the tribal kings and royal chiefs. I would need to bring my royal chief regalia and be prepared to celebrate a modern miracle. 

I arrived in Lagos and was flown to Port Harcourt, then escorted by car to the city of Owerri, in Imo State. The evening before the day of celebration, the president of Nigeria hosted a lovely dinner at the hotel ballroom. The next morning my hosts arranged for me to view the new teaching hospital by myself. They escorted me through the front doors and into the beautiful reception rooms and down each hallway of the hospital. They were afraid that if they made me wait until the president and his entourage and all the press toured the facility, they would not have time to personally show me and properly thank Project C.U.R.E. for the impossible miracle. 

As I walked through each room and hallway, I was overwhelmed with emotion and a deep sense of satisfaction and gratitude. Immediately, I began to spot pieces of medical equipment and shelves loaded with supplies that had once been in our Project C.U.R.E. warehouses in the U.S. 

Examination tables, various diagnostic scopes, blood pressure equipment, needles, syringes, and wound care kits that had been carefully sorted and packed into large ocean-going cargo containers by Project C.U.R.E. volunteers now filled the offices and rooms of the out-patient department. The only mammography machine in that part of Africa had made it safely from Project C.U.R.E. in Nashville to Nigeria, and had already been installed by bio-med technicians. The large x-ray machine had already been installed and the portable x-ray machine was proudly displayed in the hallway leading to the operating rooms. 

I recognized the beds, the gurneys, the EKG machines, the defibrillators, the baby cribs and incubators, and all the items in the operating theaters. Everything had come from Project C.U.R.E. You can only imagine how terribly excited the doctors were when I came to their departments to share the moment with them. 

The nurses were in their best starched outfits and busily scampering around making sure everything would be perfect for the tour of the Nigerian president and the governor of Imo State. It was an unbelievable day of history and importance for the people of Imo State. They all knew as of Tuesday, November 30, 2004 that their hospital would be judged as one of the finest teaching hospitals in Africa. They proudly declared, “This now is the finest medical facility in Imo State and one of the best in Nigeria because of Project C.U.R.E.” 

We didn’t have to be ashamed. Project C.U.R.E. had not waited for some other day to win a victory for humanity. That teaching hospital would not only be the venue for saving thousands of lives in the next twenty years, but well trained doctors and nurses would go out from there to clinics and hospitals all over Africa to give health and hope to needy people. 

I stood there, and through the tears that filled my eyes, just that short portion of my life flashed before me . . . and it was well worth watching! 

REPUTATION BUILDING

When you set out to help other people build good reputations for themselves, a strange thing happens: you help build a good reputation for yourself. Work hard to tear down someone else’s reputation and you find that you have set into motion all the forces to see your own reputation destroyed. It all has to do with personal character. 

Reputation is how you would hope other people perceive you to be. Character is the real you. And it is absolutely beautiful when the two are the same. Socrates once said, “The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.” It is always a delight to meet someone face to face and discover there is no dissonance between that meeting and the person’s reputation. 

In the for-profit business world, as well as the not-for-profit business world, a sterling reputation is necessary. A good reputation will allow you to go places and do things otherwise impossible for one with a shoddy reputation. That sterling reputation is earned over time by constantly doing difficult things well.

One of the distinctive characteristics of the Project C.U.R.E. organization is that we faithfully endeavor to help other people be better off. That written objective applies to our volunteers, our staff, our money donors, our in-kind donors, and most certainly the needy recipients of the medical goods around the world. It also includes our project partners; we surely want to see them better off.

When we partner with a Rotary club in our neighborhood or thousands of miles away, we enter into that relationship with the expressed idea of helping them end up better off. We try to take their gift and multiply it twenty times in value before it is delivered to the intended hospital or clinic on the other side of the world. We insist they receive the press photo opportunities and the accolades that might flow from the multiplied totals. We want their reputation for concern and goodwill to be multiplied and celebrated locally and internationally. 

Recently, we celebrated another First Ladies’ Luncheon in Denver. Nearly two thousand guests were in attendance at the Hyatt Regency Convention Center to welcome Dr. Maria da Luz Dai Guebuza, the First Lady of Mozambique. The luncheon is an annual fundraising event that brings awareness to the humanitarian e­fforts of First Ladies from around the world. The guests join together to learn about that particular First Lady’s key healthcare issues in her country, and raise funding to deliver life-saving medical supplies and equipment for approved health projects in her country.

At the most recent event, enough funding was received to deliver nearly $4 million worth of medical goods for the First Lady’s healthcare projects in Mozambique. Our desire in bringing the First Ladies all the way to Denver, Colorado, is to spotlight not only the needs of the country, but also display and enhance the character and reputation of the country, the officials, and the wonderful people of that sovereign nation. Reputation is the position that a country occupies in the world. That standing is the opinion of others throughout the world with respect to that country’s concern for their own people, their history of attainments, and their perceived local and international integrity.

Project C.U.R.E. loves to make other people better off. We can do that by helping them build a good reputation for themselves. The opportunity is not only there to showcase the current standing, but also to be the ones standing alongside, cheering and encouraging character growth and enhancement. That character development, then, serves to even further multiply the eminence of the honorable reputation. 

Project C.U.R.E. feels that it is imperative to help others build good reputations, and the time to become engaged is now. Henry Ford rendered some excellent advice: “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” We accept that challenge to do it now! And as for the rewards that come from helping others build good reputations . . . we are a very happy and thankful people! Our efforts to give goodness to others have returned goodness to us a thousand times over.

ASTOUNDING CAPABILITIES

I had a friend tell me once that he estimated that over eighty-five percent of the world’s populations spent their lives as underachievers. I joked with him and asked him to please help me find the other fifteen percent. I don’t think our conversation was very scientific. But, I have observed that nothing noble and splendid is achieved without someone deciding that deep within him was the possibility of passionately overcoming the impossible circumstances and breaking the inertia of nothingness. That dream, plus passionate diligence, translates into higher levels of achievement. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt said “Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.” The person who is afflicted with poor motivational health spreads the contagious affliction to others, and bears within him the symptoms of discouragement and poor self-esteem. But nothing can ultimately conquer the person who desires to achieve. Every obstacle works as a weight-machine in the gymnasium of life that develops the achievement muscle. The workout proves to strengthen the powers of accomplishment. 

It was Thomas A. Edison who reminded us, “If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” Having laid hold of the possibility of the dream, we should mark out a direct pathway to achievement. We dare not look to the left or to the right or embrace doubts and fears that would cause us to veer from the course and become ineffectual. 

On one of my early trips to Ethiopia, I was introduced to one of the grandest stories and one of the most intriguing venues I had ever encountered. We left the old capital city of Axum, the ancient home and palatial ruins of the Queen of Sheba, and where I had also helped rename the main street of the city to “Denver Street” in honor of Axum’s new Colorado Sister City. We flew in a small aircraft almost directly south to the very center of the country of Ethiopia. Our destination was the ancient city of Lalibela, often referred to as the “New Jerusalem” of Africa. 

In the early 12th century, a baby boy was born to the royal family of Zagwe in the province of Wollo. At the time of his birth there was a dense cloud of bees that completely surrounded the baby and mother and brought honey for him to eat. The mother announced the bees to be soldiers who would one day serve her son just as they were now bringing protection and sweet sustenance to him. The mother named him Lalibela: "the bees recognize his sovereignty." 

But Lalibela had an older brother, Ile, who was threatened by all the adulation, and decided to poison Lalibela. But instead of killing Lalibela, the poison put him into a type of coma for a period of time. Later, Lalibela revealed that during his sleep the angels had taken him to heaven where Jesus Christ had given him instruction to build duplicates of the eleven early churches on either side of the Jordan River. Churches on one side of the Jordan represented the earthly Jerusalem, while those on the other side represented the heavenly Jerusalem. He was to build the churches far up on the stone hillside in the province of Wollo. 

In a matter of time Lalibela became king, and with the authority of the office set out to accomplish his mission. Within an unbelievably short period of twenty-three years, King Lalibela, with the help of his royal masons, chipped away and carved out eleven monolithic structures completely free-standing. To the very day of my visit nearly one-thousand years later, those hand hewn stone churches were still being used for worship.


By definition, monolithic simply means there were no cut stones stacked one upon another. The workers dug around the sides of the church, starting from the surface of the stone mountain that would ultimately become the roof. Once the entire outside of the church was carved out of the solid mountain, they chiseled doors and windows into the stone walls, entered inside and carved out the entire interior: arches, domed ceilings, altar areas, side rooms, and three dimensional carvings of the saints on the walls . . . all out of one solid mountain of stone. And, he did it eleven times!

The design and sheer magnitude of the task baffles all those who view the project even today. His contemporaries could not believe how fast he was able to not only carve out the churches, but also the stone stairways, tunnels, winding stone pathways connecting the churches, and even hidden monasteries and catacombs. Legend holds that Lalibela had the help of the angels working for him in order for such a task to be completed. King Lalibela worked by day; the angels worked by night. 

Lalibela was driven by zeal and compassion. He accomplished an impossible task that still stands today and rebukes the scoffers and naysayers of this world. 

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves as well as the world around us.

LEO TOLSTOY WASN'T IRISH

Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina, published in 1877, has been acclaimed “flawless as a work of art.” Even William Faulkner described it as “the best ever written” and in 2007, Time magazine’s J. Peder Zane polled 125 contemporary authors who declared Anna Karenina the “greatest novel ever written.” 

Tolstoy sets the stage for his epic Russian novel with his very first statement: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” With one broad stroke of the brush, Tolstoy covers a huge portion of canvas. He introduces the concepts of perception as well as exception.


However, in order for it to be judged as a happy marriage, the relationship must succeed in many different respects: sexual attraction, agreement about the handling of money, discipline of the children, in-law influence, religion, and other vital issues. Failure in any one of the essential respects can doom a marriage even if the marriage enjoys a lot of other ingredients necessary for perceived happiness. 

In real life we tend to seek easy, single factors to explain successes for the most important things, while success actually requires avoiding many possible causes of failure. Tolstoy’s parallel plots, covering nearly a thousand pages, give ample room for his many Russian characters to demonstrate how choices set into motion life-altering consequences. But it also makes the reader go back and consider just what does a happy family really look like, and what makes unhappy families unhappy in their own way? 

Recently, we spent about ten days on a trip to Ireland. I have roots in the Ulster region, north of Belfast. While driving through the thinly veiled political partitions of Ireland, I began thinking about Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Is it possible that happy nations are all alike; every unhappy nation is unhappy in its own way? I believe that Ireland is closer to being a happier nation now than it was when we first started visiting the shamrock island thirty years ago. But the noisy, jovial clink of the Guinness Stout mugs, or the hearty toast with a shot of Jameson Whiskey, belies the subtly suppressed angst and the frustrated irritability that continues to exist. Ireland is not necessarily a happy nation: tired of bombs? . . . Yes; tired of terror? . . . Yes; tired of innocent civilians being murdered? . . . Yes; enjoying the present fragile peace? . . . Yes, but not happy.

So, just what makes for an unhappy nation? Just what makes for an unhappy family? Just what makes for an unhappy individual? Is it possible that each is unhappy in his or her own way, but based on some similar and universal factors? 

After visiting all the economic and political hot spots in over 150 countries in the world in the past thirty years, I have become convinced that all global, national, corporate, and individual transformation takes place at the intersection of culture and economics. Those intersections are custom made, and each intersection has the equal possibility of conflict, and change, and happiness. 

Strife in Northern Ireland can be traced back to the 17th century, when the English finally subdued the island after successfully putting down a number of rebellions. The English and Scottish (Protestants) settled in Ulster somewhat apart from the rest of Ireland, (predominantly Catholic). Through the 19th century, the north and south grew even further apart due to economic differences. In the north, the standard of living rose as industry and manufacturing flourished. But in the south, unequal distribution of land and unfavorable laws resulted in a low standard of living for the large Catholic population. 

In the 20th century, Protestants and Catholics divided into two warring camps over the issue of Irish home rule. Most Irish Catholics desired complete independence from Britain, but Irish Protestants feared living in a country ruled by Roman Catholics. So, in 1920, the British passed the Government of Ireland Act, which divided Ireland into two separate political entities, each with some powers of self-government, and that is where the next eighty years of brawling and bloodshed began with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the British forces locked in bitter struggle. Even the creating of the Irish Free State in 1949 as an independent republic, and leaving the six counties in Ulster as part of the United Kingdom, quelled the violence and bloodshed only temporarily. 

“The Troubles” as they are called, erupted in the 1960s, and terrorist violence tragically escalated until 2007. Peace efforts failed time and again. Finally, as recent as March, 2007, the leaders met face to face and worked out an agreement for a power-sharing plan. Tony Blair praised the historic deal. "Look back and we see centuries marked by conflict, hardship, even hatred among the people of these islands," he said. "Look forward and we see the chance to shake off those heavy chains of history.” But it took until February 5, 2010, to even get the Hillsborough Castle Agreement signed. “Happiness” is very recent and extremely tentative in the islands of the Irish. 

Of course, novelist Leo Tolstoy was not Irish. He was Russian, and he wrote a treatise on his era’s Russia. But he writes universally, and paints with words his portraits of living, breathing characters that stood in their time at the intersection of culture and economics. They lived out their lives reaping the whirlwinds of consequences they themselves had set into motion by their life-choices. They dealt with hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, family, marriage, society, progress, carnal desire and passion, and the agrarian connection to land in contrast to the lifestyles of the city. Tolstoy doesn't explicitly moralize in the book; he allows his themes to emerge naturally, as his main characters complicate their lives in a broad array of unthinkable situations, and then leaves his readers to come to their own conclusions. Tolstoy allows his characters to debate significant cultural-economic issues affecting Russia in the latter half of the nineteenth century, such issues as the place and role of the Russian peasant in society, education reform, and women's rights. 

Leo Tolstoy wasn’t writing about Ireland . . . but in a sense he was. And he was intuitively writing about happy and unhappy families, individuals, and nations everywhere, including America.