August 30th, 2008
8:32 am
Life
This November, the citizens of the US will vote for a President who’s black or a Vice President who’s a woman.
And I couldn’t be more proud.
I’m proud because those who have struggled with issues of bias, prejudice and hate will have to grow up. This goes both ways of course, and that’s what makes this challenge so special.
Think about it. Those who vote for Obama ’cause he’s black, will also vote for a white VP. Those who vote against the black candidate will also vote for a woman. Those that just want a typical white male leader are plum our of luck!
This, of course, will mean lots of stories from the media pointing our all the biases, prejudices and hate, and they won’t be wrong. But here’s the bigger story that they’ll miss: Outside of a minority of people who simply won’t vote, a large number of people will grow this fall. They will – perhaps with difficulty – set aside pre-conceived notions and examine these candidates as people.They will study the issues more than in the past. They will listen and read and think.
Then they will go the voting booths and cast votes in an historic election. An election that will move our nation a few steps further towards the fulfilling words that started it all:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
God bless America.
August 27th, 2008
6:19 pm
Life
Giving something to everyone is always a noble idea, until the bill comes due as in the quickly going backwards Universal Health Coverage plan in Massachusetts.
The money quote (pun intended):
“While it’s tempting to
vilify “Big Employer” as stingy and selfish, the truth is that there’s
only so much you can ask businesses to do without harming citizens…research shows that there’s a big tradeoff between health care costs
and workers wages: when employers have to pay a lot for health care,
they take the cost out of employees’ paychecks.”
Audrew Rondeau’s thorough and powerful thoughts on success. My favorite, mistakes are part of being successful.
Hmmm, sounds like failure can teach you something…
Here’s what I do everyday:
In the fall of 2001, I was hired as a Tech Support Specialist at Manheim’s Inspection Solution. I’ve held many positions at the company, most recently product manager for our corporate inspection department. On August 7, 2008, I was asked to take full responsibility of Inspection Solution as manager.
Manheim is the world’s largest provider of auction and support services for the wholesale vehicle remarketing industry. We provide online and live marketplaces for automotive manufacturers, leasing & rental companies, dealers and wholesalers to buy and sell cars, trucks and a host of other things. We also finance the transactions and process the titles, as well as transport, recondition and yes, inspect the vehicles.
Across all our 90+ Operating Locations in North America, we inspect about 5 million vehicles per year. BUT, that doesn’t touch the approximately 20 million other vehicles that change hands outside of our facilities – dealer to dealer and person to person. Inspection Solution serves this niche. Through a network of small companies and independent contractors, Inspection Solution provides inspections for vehicles at dealerships. We take service requests, schedule and dispatch the appointments, collect the inspection data and deliver it to wherever it needs to go.
I’m blessed to be asked to lead this division. We have an amazing team of people and with the industry just now beginning to understand the power of online, we have the perfect combination of experience and expertise to capitalize on a booming segment in our industry.
The future looks bright.
This is how I learn.
I heard it once said that you can tell where a person will be in five years by two things: the books they read and the people they hang with. I’ve found it’s true.
I took full advantage of our team’s suggestions and read “How To Win Friends and Influence People”, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, “The Magic of Thinking Big”, “Wild At Heart” and dozens of others. These are the reasons I was able to move from music to the business world. In fact, the most influential transition book I read “What Color Is Your Parachute”, was recommended to me by a team leader.
Become a reader, it will change your life like it has mine.
The reasons I’m not in the music business anymore:
1994 was the beginning of the end. A few short months after winning the Academy of Country Music New Group of the Year award, the Gibson/Miller Band was done. Though I did work for several more years in the music business, my career never recovered.
Because I hadn’t been the “a-team session” drummer before the band and the band had never been a top selling act, I was left in an ambiguous middle ground. I thought that I’d quickly find work, but half the people in Nashville had forgotten about me while I was touring and the other half didn’t know the band had broken up. The result? Not much work.
I was in my late 30’s and at a crossroads. Down one path was building/rebuilding a music career and down the other was a BIG question mark. It took over two years of wrestling with myself and God until I realized it was time to move on. Though I had succeeded at working as a musician, I had ultimately failed to build a music business career.
More in my series on who I am. This time it’s pieces of my former life as a musician.
I worked as a drummer for 20 years and although I failed to reach my ultimate goals, I played in almost every state and several countries, worked TV/radio jingles, records and live shows and even won two awards (see below). I lived the life of a working musician and it was a dream come true.
I banged on everything I could from the time I walked and got my first set of drums when I was five. There was never anything else I did as well and never a question about whether I would pursue music as a career. It didn’t hurt that both my parents were musicians – trained music teachers in fact – and I took advantage of every opportunity to practice and play.
I attended the University of North Texas to put myself against the best in the country and graduated with a Bachelors in Jazz Performance in 1984. After a couple of years playing in top-40 bands in Dallas, my wife and I moved to Nashville when I got the gig with Russ Taff in 1986. This led to a long series of country, rock and christian gigs which kept me on and off the road for nearly all my career.
In the early 90’s while playing with the Sweethearts of the Rodeo, I had the opportunity to join a band called Twang Town. Lead by two successful writers, they were on the verge of being signed to Sony/Epic. I jumped at the chance to join this band that had amazing songs, killer players and a rock-n-roll attitude. A band that later became The Gibson/Miller band.
I say that The Gibson/Miller Band was an “almost famous” act. We had numorous top 20 songs, but never cracked the top 10. We toured all over, but never headlined arenas (opened for lots of acts though). What we DID do though was establish a loyal following of people who wanted rock-n-roll country about 2 years before it really took off. This led to our winning the 1994 Academy of Country Music New Group of the Year award – a crowning achievement for the band and myself.
Recording:
- Out of the Grey – Out of the Grey
- Gibson/Miller Band – Where There’s Smoke
- Gibson/Miller Band – Red, White and Blue Collar
- Kick In The Asphalt Band – No Bull
- Blue Miller – Blue
- John Cox – Sunny Day
- Eli – And Now The News
- India Arie – Acoustic Soul
- India Arie – Voyage to India
Awards:
- 1993 Academy Of Country Music New
- Group Of The Year — Gibson/Miller Band
- 2001 – 7 Grammy Award Nominations for
- India Arie’s Acoustic Soul
- 2002 Grammy Award Winner – Best
- Urban Contemporary Album for India
- Arie’s Voyage to India
Touring:
- Russ Taff
- Kim Boyce
- Paul Smith
- Cody
- Sweethearts of the Rodeo
- Gibson/Miller Band
- Kick In The Asphalt Band
- Trisha Yearwood (for about 5 minutes…)
- Sisters Wade
- Charlie McClain
- Shelby Lynne
I noticed over the weekend that the auto-posting of Delicious links isn’t working. Looking around the internet revealed I’m not alone, so until Delicious gets this figured out, you can find my links here:
http://delicious.com/stillgrossman
I pass along a bunch of stuff, so please check it out.
Thanks
We are living in an age of discouragement. A discouragement born of both activity and inactivity.
The activity behind this discouragement is the critical spirit that is rampant in our world. It seems you can’t read or hear anything that’s not from the perspective of pointing out what’s wrong – often through hate and anger. Spend some time over at Digg and you’ll see what I mean. Or just read the news. Most articles contain adjectives and/or adverbs that contain a veiled – or not – cut at the subject. And don’t even get me started on most of what’s on TV.
On the other hand is the inactivity behind this discouragement – the absence of encouragement. Oh sure we say “great job”, but what’s missing in our society is hope. Hope that we – each and every one of us – can and should be working towards. We should be working towards what we know we’re called to be. People will not do that without encouragement.
Put these together, a vile, hate-filled critical spirit and the lack of an empowered hope and you get what we all know well. People content to take up space by simply getting to the end of life with a minimum of trouble. But they’re not content. They are sad, bored, longing, questioning and frustrated. And sadly, our churches aren’t helping much either. We may not cut each other to shreds (um…yeah), but we don’t provide meaningful encouragement.
We do an excellent job of teaching about prayer, worship, service, tithing, faith, healing and scripture, but we’re missing the part about life. The part that talks about how/why to have healthy marriages, how to be successful at work, how to deal with the difficulties of employees and employers, bills, juggling all our priorities and still enjoying a laugh or two. We’re missing the part where most people WON’T become missionaries and Pastors, and that’s okay.
In fact, it’s MORE than okay, it’s supposed to be that way.
Be encouraged. Be encouraged to learn and protect your calling – whether called to have a job, be a singer, start a company, invent the next life changing widget, whatever. Next, work your guts out to succeed (as in the opposite of fail). Your success matters. Not only in the sense that we need what you’re going to do, but we need to be inspired.
Which brings me to my last point. You can succeed. You have everything you need to do what you’re called to do. You have yourself, those around you, access to education, mentors, etc. Know that what you experience everyday matters. That God is passionately interested in your success and that success is critically important to His success.
Know that you matter. Live fully alive.
Continuing the sharing of content from my upcoming “About Me” Google pages site, here’s me as a dad:
Jill and I have two kids; our 17 yr old son Kayce (Case) and our 12 yr old daughter Jennah.
Kayce is watchful, strong, throughtful and engaging. He is also an amazing drummer, dancer and actor.
Jennah is pure spirited, fearless and creative. She’s absolutely fearless on the computer and a captivating actress, dancer and singer.
We are blessed to have them as kids and friends and truly enjoy spending time with them as often as possible. This does not mean however, that we are not parents, because I/we take that role very seriously. It is our job to steward the growth of our children towards effective and successful adulthood and that can’t be done by being a big “buddy”. We will have succeeded if they both see and go further that we have.
This is why we homeschool. Though Jill and I are devoted Christians, it is the secondary reason behind our desire to give them an education that prepares them for success. An education designed to prepare them for the future of work by teaching them how to learn.
Today’s college graduates are likely to have seven jobs in multiple fields, some of which haven’t even been invented yet.Success in that marketplace (which is here today) will be based on the ability to explore, learn and adapt to ideas and technologies. It will also be based on the ability to create and synthesis ideas – a true knowledge and information based society. I’d like to say we saw all this coming 10 years ago when we started homeschooling, but we didn’t. I thank God we made that decision.
