My thanks to those who have sent me emails wondering what's been up. In my youth, I'd often dream of taking a summer off to travel around the country. 25 years later I got my wish. In June I met with 11 new clients at the “Wizard Of Ads Boom Your Business” workshop in Austin. Since then I’ve been following up with market visits to each one. There hasn't been a lot of time for quiet contemplation.
I wanted to call this summer's travels my "Graceland to Ground Zero" tour but that’d leave out a lot of the real estate I’ve seen this summer by plane, and train and automobile. My head is full of thoughts, my moleskin notebooks loaded with ideas and there’s a three-page word document with my impressions of the United States circa 2006. Eventually, I’ll share some of the stories but for now I'd like to share an observation from the road.
Despite media reports to the contrary, Americans are pretty much the same no matter where they live. From Long Island to Los Angeles people are concerned with more or less the same things; doing the best they can, providing for their family and building a better community.
I’ve also noticed that if you spend too much time watching television you could be led to believe that the country is coming apart at the seams. Everything is a “crisis” these days. A stretch of hot weather is reported at the onset of global warming. Commentators raising fears that a foiled terror plot could mean the end of air travel, as we know it. Gas Prices, Immigration, the list goes on and on.
In the movie “Men In Black,” Tommy Lee Jones explains to Will Smith that “a person is smart, people are stupid.” As a group we wring our hands, looking for someone to blame, looking for an easy answer. As individuals we realize that there are no simple answers and no one person or group to blame. So we do the best we can, providing for our families, helping to build a better community. And by doing that, things usually work out in the end.
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