[Paleopsych] Gary North speech

Sat Nov 5 20:31:03 UTC 2005

Howard,
This is an interesting speech to the Future Business Leaders 
Association, a high school club. As usual, North has a keen eye. I send 
it to you because it may enrich your already staggering intellect in 
regards to Vision Quest.

BTW, will you create DVDs of Vision Quest?

Here's the link and the talk.
Lynn

http://www.garynorth.com/public/424.cfm

http://www.garynorth.com

My Speech on Success in Business and Career to a High School FBLA Chapter
Gary North

Reality Check (November 25, 2002)

MY SPEECH TO A LOCAL FBLA CHAPTER

FBLA stands for Future Business Leaders of America. The FBLA is a 
national organization of high school clubs whose members are planning 
careers in business. I never belonged to the FBLA in high school, 
although there was a chapter. I knew of it only by its initials. Back 
then, I did not intend to go into business. Thinking back, I'm not sure 
what I planned to do. I think I planned to go into education. I guess I 
did. I'm in the education business. But I'm not on anyone else's payroll.

The FBLA was founded in 1940. The first high school chapter was begun in 
1942 in Johnson City, Tennessee. Today, it has 215,000 members. The 
related college organization, Phi Beta Lambda, has only 10,000 members.

http://www.fbla-pbl.org/

Clearly, there is very little carry-over between the high school and 
college organizations. It is basically a high school organization.

With 215,000 members, this is an average club size of almost exactly ten 
students per American public high school. There are 21,200 public high 
schools.

When you think about it, ten students per high school isn't a large 
figure. Given the crucial importance of business in creating the wealth 
of this or any nation, a figure this low testifies to the bureaucratic 
nature of modern education. Students are not encouraged by the system to 
go into business.

Given the fact of either tax funding or the non-profit status of most 
education -- rarely paid for by full-cost tuition -- this bureaucratic 
mind set is not surprising. Educators assume that education must go 
begging. The old saying, "He never met a payroll," applies to teachers 
and most school administrators. The idea that education must meet 
consumer demand -- mainly, parental demand -- is regarded as 
preposterous by professional educators. Their operating presupposition 
is this: "The education of children is too important to be left in the 
hands of parents."

The mind set of a classroom teacher is very different from the mind set 
of a businessman. I say this as someone who has taught at the college 
level -- briefly. The script writer of "Ghostbusters" had it right. The 
key scene in this regard was when the three self-appointed experts in 
paranormal science have just been fired by the university. Dan Ackroyd's 
character bewails their expulsion from academia. "This means we have to 
go into the real world. I've been out there. It's a jungle. You have to 
compete."

We must compete in all areas of life, of course, but the nature of the 
competition is different. In business, consumers set the standards. In 
academia, the screening system is run by the recipients of the public's 
money. The system is self-credentialed. Legislatures do not hold the 
system or its criteria economically accountable. Every failure of the 
system is dealt with by pouring more money into it -- the standard 
response of all governments.

What saves the West is that business as an occupation still attracts 
highly creative individuals who have a knack for meeting consumer demand 
at prices that buyers are willing and able to pay. These entrepreneurs 
were rarely the top SAT score high school graduates or straight-A 
students. But without the productivity of these people, today's teachers 
and administrators would still be in the corn fields somewhere, walking 
behind a mule. (Actually, they would never have been born, or would have 
died in infancy. The infancy death rate is high in non-capitalist 
societies.)

Business operates on this principle: "Formal education is so unimportant 
that you can leave it in the hands of professional educators." The most 
eloquent testimony in favor of this view comes from John Taylor Gatto, 
who was "Teacher of the Year" in New York State and three times in New 
York City. His web site provides the first eight chapters of his book, 
THE UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION, plus his essays and other 
choice materials. Gatto says that he wasted his career as a public 
school educator, and his site, as well as his books (DUMBING US DOWN, 
which I read this month, and A DIFFERENT KIND OF TEACHER, which I read 
last year) serve as a kind of academic penance.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com

Gatto came to his senses mainly because he had senses to come to. He had 
not started out as a teacher.

    After college, Mr. Gatto worked as a scriptwriter in the film
    business, was an advertising writer, a taxi driver, a jewelry
    designer, an ASCAP songwriter, and a hotdog vendor before becoming a
    schoolteacher. During his schoolteaching years he also entered the
    caviar trade, conducted an antique business, operated a rare book
    search service, and founded Lava Mt. Records, a documentary record
    producer. . . .

Gatto and I are both committed to education. The institutional legacies 
that I plan on leaving behind are all connected to education. But both 
of us have our sincere doubts about anyone's ability to reform 
tax-funded classroom education.

So, I occasionally give speeches to high school students. I am sure that 
these students are moved by my speeches, because after every speech, the 
students stand up and walk out.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

My most recent speech was given in a private K-12 school run by a large 
Baptist church. This lunchtime meeting was catered. For lunch, they had 
fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, huge rolls, and cookies with 
M&M's. The entire school had this for lunch. (I don't recall a single 
cafeteria lunch this good in my entire high school experience.)

Over 20 students showed up. That's pretty good for a high school of 
fewer than 300.

I spoke on three issues: the future, business, and leadership. That's 
three-quarters of what the FBLA acronym stands for. I didn't have enough 
time to deal with point four: America. Had I had more time, I would have 
contrasted America's future with Mainland China's, which American 
businessmen had better start thinking about if they want to survive.

In 2001, mainland China produced 465,000 college graduates in science 
and engineering -- as many as the United States has in total.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_43/b3805001.htm

Next year, they will do this again. And the year after that.

This doesn't count thousands of mainland Chinese students enrolled in 
U.S. graduate school programs and other foreign universities. It is a 
well-known secret that the best science and technology students in 
American graduate schools are foreigners, and the largest single source 
of these students is Mainland China.

The United States, on the other hand, is producing millions of people 
with B.A.'s in sociology, history, political science, and psychology -- 
degrees that have hardly any market value without a Ph.D., and not much 
value even then. All this for only $135,000 after taxes (Harvard, 
Princeton, Yale, Stanford).

But I digress. I talked about their futures. These were all bright, 
enthusiastic students. Well, anyway, they were students. And, of course, 
they hung on every word of a man who entered high school during 
Eisenhower's first term as President, a pre-historic world, i.e., pre- 
"Heartbreak Hotel."

I began with one of my favorite themes: goal-setting. I handed out the 
following outline, since I figured that they would not remember as much 
as 10% of what I said within 24 hours or less.

************

SETTING GOALS

Say that you are 70 years old. Your family has put on your 70th birthday 
party. All of your children and grandchildren are there. They cry, 
"Speech! Speech!" What will you tell them about your greatest successes, 
how you achieved them, and what lessons you have learned -- in five 
minutes, so that they may actually remember at least half of what you 
tell them? Start planning now for that birthday party. To make plans, 
you must answer three questions, the most difficult three questions of 
your life:

What do I want to achieve?

How soon do I want to achieve this?

How much am I willing to pay to achieve this?

Remember these principles:

    1. You can change a goal.
    2. You can change a plan.
    3. A bad plan is better than no plan.

The Goals Notebook

Buy a three-ring notebook. But a pack of lined paper. Buy some tabbed 
dividers. Insert the paper into the back of the notebook. Using as your 
starting point the date on which you begin your notebook, write the 
following numerical dates on the tabs:

    1. Three months out
    2. Six months out
    3. One year out
    4. Age 18
    5. Age 31
    6. Age 30
    7. Age 40
    8. Age 50
    9. Age 65 (normal retirement these days)
    10. Age 70
    11. The reading of your last will & testament

On a sheet of paper, write down your goals. The further away, the bigger 
the goals. Aim very high. Use these categories for your goals for dates 
1-10:

    1. Money
    2. Influence
    3. Legacy (if you dropped dead the that day)

As for category #11, never forget this exchange: "How much did he leave 
behind?" "All of it!"

Every day that a tab's date comes up, go to the notebook and write down 
on a new sheet if you're on schedule, why you're on schedule, or why 
you're not on schedule. Then write down your specific plans to meet the 
next deadline. You are entitled to modify your goals for the next 
section. Don't throw away the sheet of your original goals. Write down 
on that page why you have modified your original goals.

After year one is over, add new tabs:

    1. Three months
    2. Six months
    3. One year

Keep doing this every year. Always have your short- term goals written 
down in three-month segments. Keep referring to your list every three 
months.

When you start courting seriously, insist that your prospective spouse 
participate with you in a joint goal- setting session. Here you will 
find out if this relationship has a future. If you don't have a 
filled-in notebook to serve as an example, your insistence that the 
other person create one will not carry weight.

 From that point on, both of you must keep a notebook.

Budgeting

You must begin to budget. You have two primary temporal assets: time and 
money. All of life is a trade-off between time and money. In a world of 
scarce economic resources, you buy what you want either by paying money 
(goods/services) or lining up.

You must set up a money budget. If you have a computer, use Quicken. If 
you don't, then do it by hand. But get help in setting up your initial 
budget from someone who has Quicken. You must budget 10% for the church 
(pay God first) and 15% for your savings program (pay yourself second), 
which you will not spend except on capital assets. This is untouchable 
money for the rest of your life. You must be able to see where your 
money went. You need a budget.

You must set up a time budget. Buy a cheap pocket imitation of a 
Day-Timer. Start using it for your school work. You must be able to see 
where your time went. You need a budget.

Time management is more important than money management. Work on it.

*****************

I also handed out a bibliography on leadership. I told them that if they 
wanted to become business leaders, they would have to be economically 
successful. I also told them that they would need two skills: the 
ability to write and the ability to speak in public. The only other way 
to become a leader in business is to give away piles of money. It's a 
lit cheaper to learn how to write and speak.

***************

BECOMING A BUSINESS LEADER

Extracurricular Activities, Beginning Soon

    1. On-campus: debate team, newspaper, annual.br

    2. Off-campus: Toastmasters, Junior Achievement (high school).
    www.ja.org <http://www.ja.org>

Education

    1. Career. Work for a successful small businessman locally for at
    least 5 years. Master all aspects of the business.

    2. College. Major in journalism. Minor in accounting. Learn how to
    write and calculate revenues/costs. Second-best: major in English,
    minor in business.

Reading

    1. Subscribe to THE ECONOMIST. This year. Read as much of it as you
    can understand. This is the best single source of news on the
    planet. Subscribe (free) to "GARY NORTH'S REALITY CHECK." Send
    e-mail to reality at agora-inc.com

    2. Books on business success: THE MILLIONAIRE NEXT DOOR and THE
    MILLIONAIRE MIND, by Thomas J. Stanley. RICH DAD, POOR DAD, by
    Robert Kiyosaki. THE E-MYTH, by Michael Gerber. ACRES OF DIAMONDS,
    by Russell Conwell. This book is free on the Web:

    http://www.temple.edu/about/temples_founder/acres_text.html

    3. Books on leadership: DEDICATION AND LEADERSHIP, by Douglas Hyde.
    LEADERSHIP IS AN ART, by Max DuPree. STRONGER THAN STEEL, by R. C
    Sproul. MR. ANONYMOUS: THE LIFE OF WILLIAM VOLKER, by Herbert
    Cornuelle. Books of Ecclesiastes, Proverbs.

    4. Books on advertising: HOW TO WRITE A GOOD ADVERTISEMENT, by
    Victor O. Schwab. MY LIFE IN ADVERTISING and SCIENTIFIC ADVERTISING,
    by Claude Hopkins. Free:

www.geocities.com/MadisonAvenue/Boardroom/4124 
<http://www.geocities.com/MadisonAvenue/Boardroom/4124>

Tools

    1. Spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel). Master it.

    2. Texas Instruments BA-35 financial calculator. Master it.

**********************

The reason why I gave the speech is that the son of a friend of mine 
needed to fill a lunchtime speaker's slot. The father, who runs a 
successful small business, came along to hear my speech. Afterward, he 
said, "I wish I had head that speech when I was in high school." I 
replied: "You wouldn't have paid any attention to it. You would have 
been too young."

They were too young, too. Anyway, most of them were. But if Pareto's 
20-80 rule holds good -- and it usually does -- then about four of them 
will actually put some of my material to good use.

That's true of my mailing list, too. It's also true of those forwarded 
copies of this issue that my subscribers will send out.

Who knows? Maybe some outfit will post my two outlines for their 
members. I hope they do, if they post the entire text. But the fact is, 
no matter how good my material is, even for free, most people who read 
it will not put it to productive use. This is why those 20% who do apply 
it can maintain their advantage. Most of their competitors are too busy, 
too bored, or too ill-informed to pay any attention.

The Rotary Club speaker announces, "This nation is going to the dogs 
because of two reasons: ignorance and apathy." One member turns to the 
other and whispers, "Do you think that's true?" His fellow club member 
replies, "I don't know, and I don't care."

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