Hurrah! 2nd Amendment Gains Ground

Dear Friends,

For the first time since 1939, the Supreme Court has seen fit to hear and rule on a case involving the 2nd Amendment.

For the last 68 years, individual rights have been losing ground, not just with regards to personal weapons, but in general.

Let's hope that this landmark ruling, modest as it may be, is the start of a trend re-establishing the supremacy of the principle of individual rights that this country was founded on.

Any biologist will tell you that the prime instinct of every animal is that of self-preservation. We, the "tool-using-animal" typically use a variety of artifacts to accomplish this goal.

Further, in ancient Rome, it was easy to distinguish Citizens from Slaves while in the marketplace: Citizens carried swords, Slaves didn't. No self-respecting Citizen would think of venturing out without their personal weapon.

Today, there is a growing division among modern societies. In one camp you find the attitude that resistance to aggression is almost as bad as the aggression itself (I refer you to the bizarre English phenomenon of convicting the resistant victim for more jail time than his attacker). This camp naively believes that tools are the cause of violence and simply removing the tools will undoubtedly make lambs of us all.

The other camp, to which I freely admit I belong, believes that there have been, are and always will be those miscreants who live to predate on those who allow it. We have made a fundamental decision to accommodate ourselves to this reality and take prudent measures to prepare for it. This means carrying a handgun.

Empirical evidence supports our long-held intuition that guns, in the hands of law-abiding citizens reduces crime. Unfortunately, due to the overwhelming anti-gun bias of the elite media (New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Tribune and Chicago Tribune to name a few) this news never makes the front page. Neither do stories of the nearly 2 million incidents of law-abiding Americans using firearms to defend themselves from attack each year.

Hopefully, this is the start of a very good thing; re-establishing the sanctity of the individual against the predations of others.

Sincerely,

Erik S. Olson

The Horror...

Dear Friends,

We are now seeing the depths of depravity that come with the demise of freedom. Today, a rag-tag militia of Strongman Robert Mugabe supporters committed an unspeakable crime.

In the first somewhat free and fair election in over 20 years, Zimbabweans overwhelmingly chose the leader of the Opposition party to lead the country back from the hell that it's been thrown into by Mr. Mugabe and his vicious brand of thuggery.

The Opposition leader, Patson Chiprio had just been released from political detention. A group of Mugabe loyalists stormed up looking for him. His wife said that he would be back in a few hours.

They left, only to return sometime later, grabbed Mrs. Chiprio, chopped off one hand and both of her feet - then tossed her into a hut along with a fire bomb. She was mutilated and burned alive.

I've never met Mr. or Mrs. Chiprio, but tonight I grieve for them.

Some might say, "Give Peace a Chance"... but to this, I reply, "A Piece of Lead... and Plenty of it!".

Once again, we see proof positive what happens when a populace is disarmed and relegated to the status of indentured servants.

Amidst all our foreign policy boondoggles, missteps and outright hypocricy, here we are faced with a burning example of despotism at its most vile.

For all the posturing and puffery done in New York and Capital Hill - the inanities and personal aggrandizement - we have nothing but talk and pomposity about this abomination... but no action at all.

I hope the screams of anguish and cries of bereavement haunt the deep nights of those who would DO nothing .

Sincerely,

Erik S. Olson

Once Upon a Time...

There was a young boy, on his way to the market. He carried a sack filled with home-baked sweets and rolls to sell. He felt very proud to be entrusted by his mother with such an important job. As he walked, he drifted into daydreams of all the money he would make for his family.

Henry enjoyed the warm summer day. Walking on the dirt road, the bees buzzing, the sun shining. He hadn't a care in the world.

Henry's mother worried about him, as he always had his head in the clouds. Henry wasn't very practical at all, didn't take life seriously and was always concocting some strange notion or other on how to make money for the family.

Henry felt bad about this, he tried to be serious and practical... several times he vowed never to think fanciful thoughts again. He wanted to be like his brothers - dour and responsible. But it was difficult. Sometimes he'd forget and for a while, he decided to pinch himself every time he found his thoughts drifting away. This didn't last long, as he quickly got tired of all the bruising.

Along the way, there was a dirty old man sitting by the side of the road under an enormous oak tree, dressed in rags. He was rocking back and forth, muttering to himself. Between his crossed legs sat a box about the size of a shoe.

When the boy, whose name was Henry, got closer, the old man started to sniff the air like a dog picking up a scent.

"Hey... Boy!" shouted the man. "What ya got in the sack? Sure smells good!"

Henry was startled out of his reverie and came to a halt. "Umm, well I've got sweet rolls to sell in the marketplace."

"Oh ho! I thought so... well it looks as if you've been walking for a while, why don't you sit down under this tree and take a few minutes of shade?" The old man invited.

"I really can't - I'm supposed to go straight to the market." Said Henry.

"Ah, but would you like to see some magic?" Cackled the old man.

"Magic? You mean like turning me into a newt or something?" Asked Henry skeptically. The old man certainly didn't look like any kind of magician.

"No, no, no, not at all... unless you want to be a newt. Do you?" The old man inquired.

"Um, I'm not sure my mother would approve." Answered Henry.

"Hmmm, sensible woman." Nodded the old man.

By this time, Henry was really starting to enjoy the coolness of the shade, and he thought to himself, "I'll just stay for a minute or two..."

"No, I'm talking about real magic." The old man cocked his head and looked at Henry sideways.

He patted the soft cool grass beside him and Henry sat down with the ease of a young man's limbs.

"What kind of magic?" Indulged Henry.

"Real magic that changes you from the inside, not the outside."

"I don't understand... besides, I'm sorry to say this - but you don't really look like a magician." Henry said as gently as he could.

"Ahhh, and how many magicians have you met?" Came the pointed reply.

"Not many..." Henry mumbled.

"Any?"

"Well, no." Admitted Henry.

"Then how do you know what a magician is supposed to look like?" Cackled the skinny old man, his eyes twinkling with delight.

"See here Henry, I'm not here by accident. I've been waiting for you. Waiting until you were ready. You are ready, aren't you?"

Henry was bewildered, "Ready? Ready for what? And how do you know my name? Are you really a magician!?!"

"Ha! Heee, hee... I am, but as to knowing your name - well it's embroidered on your shirt. I suspect it's so you don't confuse it with your brother's clothes." The old man's ears waggled with delight.

"Oh." Said Henry in a small voice. It was true, his brothers were forever taking his clothes until he had crudely written his name in thread on them.

To be continued...

Why The World NEEDS You To Be Wealthy

Dear Friends,

I had a funny thought today as I was playing with our dogs (1/2 Wiemaraner 1/2 Yellow Lab) Bella and Loki (named all-to-accurately for the Norse God of Mischief).

As we were tussling with their favorite toy, it occurred to me that most of the world's problems are far better solved by Entrepreneurs than by anybody else.

Lets look at the history of Government do-gooding... not so good after all. To twist the phrase, "The Road to Mediocrity is Paved With Good Intentions and a Bureaucracy".

After 40 years of our best efforts to fight "The War On Poverty" it seems as if all we've done is institutionalize it.

Frankly, it's a fools errand to steal from those that are productive and give it to those that aren't.

This has been amply magnified by our disastrous foreign aid policies... We insist on sending American grain to countries in need; no problem there.

But (and it's a big but) as Buckminster Fuller said, "You can never do just one thing". By dumping all this free grain, we created the unintended consequences of:

• Destroying the entire local agricultural economy.
• Forcing farmers to leave their fields and migrate to already overcrowded cities to find work.
• Creating slums and shantytowns with little to no clean water and sanitation facilities.
• Permanently crippling the capacity of the country to ever feed itself again.
• Artificially boosting the birth rate ( universal biological response to the relief of starvation)
• But because of the population migration, this new influx of people is concentrated in exactly the wrong places.
• Because of little to no opportunity in the city for unskilled, illiterate peasants, they turn to crime, drugs alcohol and violence.
• Meanwhile, the fallow land is taken over by desertification. (Contrary to popular belief, farmed land left idle does NOT regenerate on its own... it quickly degrades into a barren wasteland).
• And finally, to add insult to injury, we have the arrogance, the presumption to ask for their gratitude. I believe that in Japanese the word for "gratitude" can also be translated as "resentment" which is exactly what we get.

All because of a government program.

Now, contrast this with the "Micro-lending" banks of Asia and India. These loans of $50 or so help a mother buy a few chickens and/or rabbits as breeding stock. She raises them for family consumption and sells the excess for cash. The food for the livestock comes from the cullings of the family garden. The earth prospers from the natural fertilizer, people are fed, and villages are maintained.

This is the promise of Entrepreneurship.

Sure it starts small, but this cycle is in harmony with nature and is a perfect example of how wealth is CREATED - not just divvied up.

As each of us CREATES NEW WEALTH, there's more for everyone... without all the suffering, corruption (did you know that most of the grain that we sent over to places like Ethiopia and Somalia was sold on the black market by the very governments we were trying to help?)

Better by far to help others learn to create their own wealth than to strip it from the "Haves".

Here's an idea: let's all become "Haves"...

Yours in Wealth,

Erik

Just Released: Erik's Newest Book!!!

It's been a lot of work, but I'm so excited to finally be able to announce...

My latest book:

"9 Simple Rules for Building a World-Class Business".

Over the last 17 years, I've personally worked with several hundred small business owners and talked to thousands more about doing three major things:

• Make More Money
• Work Less
• Have More Fun

Funny, each and every one of these entrepreneurs starts out saying the exact same thing...

"Gee Erik, I know you've helped all those other people - but my business is different".

And, from one perspective, every single one of them was right. But those differences are never where the problems hide. It's been my iron-clad experience that the vast majority of business problems are ALWAYS the same.

No matter what industry, from Construction, Chiropractic practices, Plumbers, Industrial manufacturing, Restaurants, Printing houses, Newspapers or Retail stores... the problems facing each business are universal.

Which is good news! Because that means by mastering a few key skills, you can prevent, solve or avoid the vast majority of entrepreneurial roadblocks.

I've distilled it down to 9 Simple Rules. Follow these rules and you'll be so far ahead of your competition they'll cease to matter as a practical issue.

You really can Make More Money, Work Less and Have More Fun... all at the same time!

Yours in Wealth,

Erik

You've just got to be kidding me...

I was reading about the Congressional hearings on steroids in baseball, and the thought occurred to me, "How could this possibly be construed as something for Congress to be focused on? Don't they have any real work to do?"

If they've got time to fart around, snooping into grown people's lives... then they've simply got too much time! We could shorten up the time Congress is in session and save the country some money.

Lemme see here; a grown man, adult for many years, decides to stuff some substance into his body such that it will allow him to perform better on the job. It could be caffeine for a night watchman, it could be Gatorade for a professional marathoner... or it could be steroids for a baseball or football player.

Now, if the league as a private entity says they don't want their player to be on the juice - so be it. They have every right to run their business the way they want.

But for our main legislative body to get involved... that's just silly.

I really don't care about the so-called "ethical" issues... that's for the team owners and the fans to decide. In a free market, there would be a separate league that promoted itself as "REAL BASEBAL" or some such.

Whoops, there's another thing I don't get... why does Baseball get an exemption from our monopoly laws? Why can't I start another league if I think I can do it better?

The obvious answer is money, of course. The owners of the league DON'T want me to be able to start my own league... that would mean competition - and competition is bad for short-term profits.

The worst, in my mind, is the utter hypocricay of the whole thing. Players aren't told they can't do steroids... they're told they can't get caught using them. That's just wrong. And so every now-and-then, they throw one player to the wolves as a token, hoping the wolves won't get greedy and grab the whole thing.

Instead, let's just go back to kids playing in fields or lots and having fun. That's what it's all about, isn't it?

The Lesson of the Phoenix

The Lesson of the Phoenix

Without creation there is entropy - but creation without limit is chaos. Sustainable success needs thoughtful creation and equally thoughtful destruction.

Have you ever wondered why the IRS Tax Code is more than 54,000 pages, with a staggering 2.4 million pages of associated regulations? No one, including the IRS can even pretend to understand such a Gordian knot. Yet each year our tax code grows and grows. Why? The answer is simple; the system is rotten at the core. It cannot be fixed – must be utterly dismantled – and a new system needs to be erected in its place.

This is the lesson of the Phoenix; destruction is a necessary part of renewal and rebirth. This is the lesson of the vintner; for a grape vine to produce, it must periodically be pruned of old, dead wood in order to make room for new vigorous growth. But how does this apply to systems?

A “System” is the combination of inputs and processes that produce a specific outcome. We agree on an outcome, we design a process and dedicate certain inputs to achieve that outcome.

Good systems create consistency and stability. McDonald’s success is the result, not of wonderfully imaginative chefs and creative menus, but on standardization of systems and inputs resulting in unparalleled consistency. A Big Mac tastes the same in Paris, London, Tijuana or Peoria. These systems work, because McDonald’s understands that systems exist to create the outcome; quick, tasty hamburgers purchased by happy customers at a consistent and acceptable profit to the franchisee’s. Systems are means to an end; not an end unto themselves. Systems are supposed to serve the outcome.

Perhaps it’s pesticides in the coffee, but it seems government employees go through a transformation whereby they start think that the system is the outcome. As long as all the forms are filled out right, Hannibal Lector could get a grant for “Culinary Performance Art” from a government bureaucracy.

Who hasn’t been tempted to violence when filling out insurance forms, government forms or hospital forms? Each and every one of those forms was created as part of a system. Forms are to systems what cow pies are to cows; necessary, but not the point. But aren’t forms, much less systems, supposed to increase efficiency and reduce waste? How could something so promising go so wrong?

The reason is simple, though subtle. In life, you can never do just one thing. Eating is essential for health, but too much eating is unhealthy. Running is healthy, but too much running can ruin your knees.

Balance is the key. Yin/Yang, ebb/flow and in business the key is to find a balance between building and tearing down.

Unfortunately, building systems is easier than tearing them down. It works like this; to improve efficiency, we standardize resources and processes. Then a problem surfaces that wasn’t covered by the original system, so we create an amendment to cover it. Another oddity pops up so we have to create an amendment for it as well. And on, and on. Pretty soon, your sleek and elegant system is so bloated and covered with amendments it looks like a giant toad stuck in a poison ivy patch.

The systems become bloated, obsolete and inefficient. They end up hindering progress and creating more work than they save; the exact opposite of what they were supposed to do.

In our bodies, cells regenerate at a stately and choreographed pace. Old ones die, new ones take their place; order is maintained. When something goes haywire and the cells start multiplying faster than old ones can die, we have cancer. Cancer essentially consumes the body from the inside out. This is the same problem that unfettered systems run amok create.

What’s a smart entrepreneur to do? The first step toward making a good decision is to stop making bad decisions. All systems are guilty until proven innocent. Make sure all systems are serving the outcome: Profit.

I used to have a rule for all my clients; for every report or form you want to add, you must kill two others. They would argue and complain, but as long as we stuck to this rule, paperwork improved and people could actually get some work done, instead of wasting their time filling out forms. I explained that reports do not make you money. They (might) provide information that helps make profitable decisions, but in and of themselves, reports and paperwork are meaningless and almost always a waste of time and trees.

The next thing to remember is that you, the entrepreneur, need to constantly think about three things. What the company should start to do, what the company should continue to do, and what the company should stop doing.

Each is critical to the success of the organization. Almost no one pays any attention to what they should stop doing, and this is why once great companies fall apart. They get ponderous, slow and unwieldy. Eventually they succumb to a start-up competitor that doesn’t suffer from systems overload.

Manage your company like a Phoenix. Create a system for construction and a system for destruction. Allow each part to grow, mature, decline and finally die – and then help it to be reborn new and vigorous once again. This will keep your company lithe and adaptable. Adaptability, not size, is what allows a company to thrive in the long run.

Erik Olson is co-author of the business bestseller Create The Business Breakthrough You Want and author of the soon-to-be-released book, The Profit Center, Why Your Business Doesn’t Work and How To Fix It. He is a recovering Yankee and lives in Charleston with his wife and children. You may visit him on the Web at www.theprofitcenterinc.com.