“People are more interested in how much you care, not how much you know.”
– from an attendee at the Peak Retailer Summit
“People sometimes act funny at those career applicants who have had a lot of jobs. Why? When a mechanic has worked on multiple cars, that experience makes him more of an asset to someone who needs automotive work done. Find out why the changes were made, and if other factors like integrity, dependability check out, you may discover a wealth of talent.”
– The Elk
There is no wrong time to do the right thing. There is no right time to do the wrong thing.
– Lou Holtz
This masterful opening for the movie clip above was from a different era, during the Second World War. While some things have clearly changed, one of the many insights and take aways from George C. Scott’s vivid portrayal of General George S. Patton was this line: “Americans Love a Winner and Will Not Tolerate a Loser.”
Catch the entire speech in context and think about how this applies to the manufactured housing industry or your business. # #
Video submitted by
Tom Kovach
Norman City Councilman
Political Consultant
“There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder. ” – Ronald Reagan
“Obsessed is just a name the lazy use to describe the dedicated.”-Author Unknown
Whether you are a pauper, a President or the people in between, we all have irritants in our lives. Those irritations may be circumstances, difficulties with a person(s), or some pain. It can be almost anything that bothers us.
Pearls in an oyster half-shell
My friend and Industry colleague, Dennis Hill, reminded me a couple of weeks ago how oysters form a pearl around a speck of dust or dirt. The oyster’s body ‘coats’ the dirt-speck with a chemical as a protectant against the irritation that the dirt causes the oyster. This process of protection against irritation over time is what yields the pearl.
Rare Black Pearl. Photo credits Wikimedia Commons
What or who irritates you?
What keeps you up at night?
How can you take a negative piece of dirt and turn it into a magnificent pearl? ##
Irving Berlin wrote this song in 1917 for use during WWI. Does anyone know why he did not release it then? No? Well, I will tell you. He thought it “too saccharine,” (sentimental) even for the horrific inferno that was WWI.
You will enjoy this and you younger folks will learn some history…
The link below will take you to a video showing the very first public singing of GOD BLESS AMERICA.
But, before you watch, you should also know the story of the song. The time was 1940. America was still in a terrible economic depression. Hitler was taking over Europe and Americans were afraid we’d have to go to war. It was a time of hardship and worry for most Americans.
This was the era just before TV, when radio shows were HUGE, and American families sat around their radios in the evenings, listening to their favorite entertainers, and no entertainer of that era was bigger than Kate Smith. Kate was also large in size, and the popular phrase still used today is in deference to her, “It Ain’t over till the fat lady sings.”
Kate Smith might not have made it big in the age of TV, but with her voice coming over the radio, she was the biggest star of her time. Kate was also very patriotic. It hurt her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the next day would bring. She had hope for America, and faith in her fellow Americans.
She wanted to do something to cheer them up, so she went to the famous American song- writer, Irving Berlin (also wrote “White Christmas”) and asked him to write a song that would make Americans feel good again about their country. When she described what she was looking for, he said he had just the song for her. He went to his files and found a song that he had written, but never published, 22 years before – way back in 1917. He gave it to Kate Smith and she worked on it with her studio orchestra. She and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be received by the public, but both agreed they would not take any profits from “God Bless America”… any profits would go to the Boy Scouts of America. Over the years, the Boy Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties from this song. This video starts out with Kate Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra and an audience. She introduces the new song for the very first time, and starts singing. After the first couple verses, with her voice in the background still singing, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie, “You’re In The Army Now.” At the 4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an office, reading a paper, it’s Ronald Reagan. Frank Sinatra considered Kate Smith the best singer of her time, and said when he and a million other guys first heard her sing “God Bless America” on the radio, they all pretended to have dust in their eyes, as they wiped away a tear or two!
To this day, “God Bless America” stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country. Back in1940, When Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of her fellow Americans, I doubt she realized just how successful the results would be for her fellow Americans during those years of hardship and worry, and for many generations of Americans to follow. Now that you know the story of the song, I hope you will enjoy it and treasure it even more.
NOW HERE IS HOW “GOD BLESS AMERICA” SHOULD BE SUNG!
(Editor’s note: This blog post was submitted by a manufactured home community operator who wishes to remain anonymous.)