LIVING THE AMERICAN DREAM

In New York Harbor is a place called Ellis Island.  It’s merely a museum today with larger than life pictures of the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, but some of your ancestors probably came to our shores through that portal.  It’s strange, isn’t it, that Ellis Island’s warehouse for human processing stands in the shadow of the beautiful Statue of Liberty.  The dream of liberty and freedom that fills the hearts of immigrants sailing past the lady in the harbor becomes a shocking reality as one enters the Ellis Island buildings.  In just minutes, a dreamy pilgrim moves from the deck of a ship to the line where they are classified and processed.  Then the work begins.  If one is to eat, one must work (even in America).  Immigrants faced the same reality in America that they faced in their homeland.  America had poverty, bad weather, customers who didn’t buy, employers who didn’t hire and taxes.  But the immigrants came here by the endless boatloads because America had limitless opportunity.  It still does.  And they still come.  The dream of accomplishing great things is realized every day here in the land of the free.  For years, people in search of a better life have left their homeland and their kin in search of the American Dream.  Every day, those of us born here in The United States of America take for granted all the opportunity and freedom made available to us.  We think nothing of crossing a state line on a shopping trip.  Without government approval, we openly attend a revival meeting at a neighborhood church.  Without fear, we watch military planes leave their vapor trails across the skies and go routinely about our daily activities.  We bravely travel hundreds of miles on the Interstate highways to visit clients as we compete for their business.  Fewer than half of us routinely vote on issues and candidates.  If those in public office disappoint us, we write letters to our newspapers or call a talk show and speak our piece!  Once or twice in our lives, we may even express disagreement with government policies in an open televised meeting. Nowhere is the American Dream more real than in the marketplace.  Someone in your family has probably started at the bottom and worked his or her way to the absolute top.  Perhaps you started as a wage-earning employee and have now moved into management.  This is a routine occurrence here in America!  It happens every day!  We in America are limited only by our thinking and willingness to act. 

Many great Americans had no idea or intent of moving into management at some point.  We got a job because we wanted money and all the things it could buy.  In the process, though, we discovered a love for what it was we did for that money.  And we excelled.  And company leadership gave us a raise and asked us to move up into a leadership role.  Some of us failed to succeed in the leadership of an organization where we once were the bright shining star.  Perhaps this is one of those times when we have thought of it as the great American Nightmare!  If we had only stayed out of management!  Some people reading these words have experienced this agony on more than one occasion.  Or perhaps you’re in the pits of it right now! Even worse, perhaps you’re managing the efforts of several people successfully and you have no idea why everything is moving along smoothly.  If anything different comes your way, you remain calm on the surface but you worry about your future as the leader.  Each time you see a young star emerge from college, you cringe in fear.  After all, young people are so smart and educated!  And you are just a hard working person who survived all the cuts and changes. Many leaders with degrees in Business Management feel the same concerns!  You are a leader today because, in the opinion of leadership, you were the best qualified at the time of the opening.  You continue to lead because people (including leadership) don’t like to fix things that aren’t broken!  There are no magic formulas in these pages.  The author is no genius who has made millions or become famous.  He is merely a man who believes in the true American Dream, appreciates the price that has been paid to preserve it and the right of every citizen to seize it.  Far too many people only reach for a small part of what our free enterprise system offers to everyone who lives here.   This book is dedicated to the great Americans who see the opportunity and are prepared to go for it all!