Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter – Martin Luther King Jr.
For a select few business folks emotion and business are like oil and water. Something that should never mix. Well guess what?!! I’m in business and my philosophy is very different. So now that there’s an elephant in the room, it needs to be addressed. I’ll Leave you this video from Charlie…
I believe that bad guys like Bernie Madoff, Kwame Kilpatrick, Jeffrey Skilling Andrew Fastow, and Ken Seawell (until he returns my money) would have never stood a chance in the Marketplace if the expression of emotion was welcome in the boardroom.
Yes, I’ve watched my fair share of Apprentice, so I’m not saying that people don’t yell, scream and backstab one another in boardrooms. I’m on some next level stuff right about now…I’m talking about folks coming out of their heads and living life in their heart. I bet you never thought of that. pun intended =).
Oh, No He Didn’t!
I remember when the Kwame Kilpartick trial was going on in Detroit, the general consensus was that he appeared cool as a cucumber. Almost like a robot pretending to be a human, and this outraged people.
Now in my opinion his lack of emotion was the nail in his coffin. Kwame Supporters waited on pins and needles, holding on to hope that he would show some kind of remorse for his actions.
We as human beings need this for survival, we needed to know and believe that Kwame was one of us, a human being. I don’t have a clue what he did in private, but in the public’s eye he gifted us apathy, and that pissed people off.
An Army of One
So here’s the deal I posted something on my blog yesterday about a company that I hired to do some work for me, and I expressed how upset I am about the product that was delivered. So I started sharing it on different social media sites. On twitter I asked Melinda Emerson of Small Biz Lady and others to read that post and share it, fair enough.
Well @SmallBizLady gave me some push back and said that she couldn’t share it and that the post didn’t represent me well. She went so far as to tweet that potential investors might be turned off by my post, because they would see “how emotional I become when things go wrong” and she even suggested that I remove the post immediately.
I took her advice with a grain of salt. I march to the beat of my own drum boom-boom pow (ask my parents). So her saying this via twitter didn’t shatter my foundation, because I am 100% clear on who I am, and what my intentions are. I want people to learn from my choices, just like I’ve learned from others. That’s what life is all about, right?!
In my book of life one monkey don’t stop a show. So what, maybe a group of investors that would invest in her company or companies like hers would find my antics most un-business-like. Then those are not the investors for a chica como yo. There is room for every single person on this planet in the marketplace EMOS included.
So here’s some push back for Melinda. If it weren’t for people like Charlie Wollborg Billy Durant, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul and Elizabeth Cady Stantons of the world, we would not have the privileges that we enjoy today.
These people expressed emotion, cried out from the mountian top and caused change in our world. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for being courageous.
Mums The Word
There are times in life when we don’t take a stand for what we believe in, and I get that…We pick our battles, yahdah-yahdah. On this matter I personally could not remain zip-lipped about the quality of the work that I’ve received from this company.
Our marketplace in Metro Detroit is reeling from the indiscretions of GREEDY PEOPLE, and it is my obligation as a fellow business owner in this arena to warn my constituents. We’re one and we need to start acting like it.
My choice to take to the streets of social media is because this gentleman and I have interacted on sm sites, people that follow me on twitter have now started following and interacting with him. Why would I allow someone else to suffer the same fate as me? In standing up for myself, I know that I am giving someone else the courage to stand up and be heard.
I’ve Got Your Back
When we sit quietly and allow injustice to happen to us, we’re giving that person power our power, and we’re not protecting our allies in the marketplace. That’s a game that I don’t play. If Ken Seawell was bold enough to deliver poor quality work and charge me for it, Then I’m bold enough to call him out on it, and ask for a refund.
I did address my issues with Ken face to face on several occasions and I gave him an opportunity to rectify the situation, and he has chosen not to. So I made it do what it do. I’m throwing down a challenge to whom shall ever read this post…Be Passionate about something.
I’m going to leave you with this video from Charlie…
