Self Identity Theft - The Good Samaritan Revisited

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

There was a legal question about exactly who is your neighbor in the Biblical commandment to love your neighbor. The following story was provided as an answer. 

Attacked by thieves, a traveller lay injured on the roadside. Pillars of society passed by on the other side of the road, avoiding having anything to do with another's problems. Then a member of a despised minority saw the victim and stopped to help by bandaging wounds, providing lodging, and paying for future care. The question then asked was, who do you think was the traveler's neighbor?

The Darley-Bates Experiment

Divinity students at a well known seminary were asked to participate in a study. They were told to address a group of freshmen in a nearby building. Some were told to speak on the role of the professional clergy in modern society; and some were asked to speak on the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

As they walked to their appointment, each participant passed a man in obvious need of help. He was slumped over, coughing and groaning. When asked if he needed help, he would say no but appeared otherwise. Would those prepared to speak on The Good Samaritan be more likely to aid this stranger?

The Experimental Results

Studying and speaking about The Good  Samaritan made no significant difference to the seminarian's actions. Those stopping to care for the victim were about the same in each group.

There was another experimental variable. As they left the building some participants were told they were early and to go over anyway. The rest were told they were late and should hurry. This made a difference. Seminary students who believed they were late were less likely to help than those who believed they had extra time. 

A lot of well meaning business advisors recommend that clients add just 1 or 2 more activities to their schedule each day. They point out how the numbers quickly build over time. Active Investment may be a game; but it's not a numbers game. People (our neighbors in biblical terms) come to Business Owners and Professionals every day asking for our help. Our job is to have the time and capability to provide that help. It's more than quality or good customer service, it's the Active Investor's self-identity - a vision of being able to make a living helping our neighbor inspired us into our occupation in the first place. Balance is "being on the road" and yet allowing enough time to truly stop and help. 

1+1+1=4 Emergent Properties and Exit Planning

Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen all have their own characteristics. A certain atomic number, atomic weight, isotopes, etc. Put 12 Carbons, 22 Hydrogens, and 11 Oxygens together in a certain way and there is a sugar molecule. Sugar has a dominate characteristic that creates economic value; it's sweet. None of the elements have a taste. This is an emergent property and it is the most sought-out component of any business. 

Other business elements like inventory, equipment, and brand names are generally quickly available for the right price. But the magic of what happens when an active investor combines those takes time and insight. Business relationships and deals emerge out of combinations of capabilities and experience.

When a business is sold, it's owner wants its worth to be more than just the components on the Balance Sheet. On the date of purchase, accountants record that additional dollar amount as Goodwill. A business plan is all about how the Goodwill emerges from the investor's dollars and management's plans. The asking price of the business on the exit side of that plan will be a multiple of it's historical cash flow. The multiple represents the risk and difficulty a new investor will have in maintaining or even increasing the cash flow. The easier it is to keep the emergent properties growing, the more the business is worth. 

Business owner are unique kinds of artists. Not only do they creatively combine markets, facilities, and services to create economic value; they do so in a way the "canvas" can be passed to another artist (new business owner). No other art form makes this demand on its practitioners. 

It's hard enough for an owner to manage the business successfully. This second art is frequently ignored until the last moment. However, business owners who recognize they are not just operators, they are active investors, take stock of their progress periodically with an exit plan update. It's time to look at what happened and see the emergent properties of your work, understand their value, and find a way to codify what happened as a business process.  

A sense of satisfaction and a well earned retirement will both emerge.

Causes Carry, Disciplines Drop

Discipline is over-rated. It works like a high energy drink. First a rush of activity that makes you feel great. Later comes a crash as the ignored areas of life conspire to cripple your plans. Business disciplines and diets, they're the same.

A cause that's believed-in is different. The believer (in a market, mission, or business plan) takes initial enthusiasm and incorporates it into lifestyle. The important question to be asked is what small change can be made tomorrow that will permanently take me closer to the cause? There's some time before it becomes habit; but then the cause is a step closer. 

Sometimes the habit doesn't form. That exposes a fundamental issue that needs to be removed. Failure to first find and resolve that issue will kill any progress no matter how much disciple, effort, and will power is applied.

Bob Greene's Best Life Diet is a useful example. Bob's advise is to not start with a weight loss goal (a discipline approach).  His first step is to not eat 2 hours before going to sleep. That's all. Simple as that is, sometimes it cannot be done. When that happens the problem needs to be identified and resolved or no weight loss program will ever work. Resolve the problem; and the next step toward better living can be taken.

As active investors our activities are capable of producing enormous wealth and personal satisfaction. Just not all at once. Those activities need to be given over to the cause, one step at a time.

The Problem of Answered Prayer

It's not hard to believe in God. Given that, it's not difficult to believe in a personal God that responds to prayer. People pray all the time. What's really hard to truly believe is that the God of your faith actually answers those prayers.

It's safe to attribute answered prayer to preparation or hard work finally paying-off, or usually just to good fortune. We don't have to carry any responsibility when we are blessed by past efforts or good luck. But if a prayer relates to something happening in your business, and God is going to answer that prayer, then there are some significant fiduciary responsibilities involved. It puts you in the position of being responsible to an all-knowing, all-powerful business partner. 

This is such a serious subject an entire Old Testament book has been devoted to it. The Book of Jonah is often seen as a story about a reluctant prophet. On a broader scale it's about God wanting to communicate to a guy named Jonah; and Jonah doesn't want to hear it. If you don't already know the story, God wins.

When I pray about a business (or any other) matter, fear is involved. I believe if I now don't act as if God will answer, I may be swallowed by a metaphorical whale. It propels me to act on the potential of God's answer coming from my actions. I do things I may not have had the inclination or courage to ever try before. I think twice before putting myself in that position.

On the other hand, when God's answer becomes apparent, I go from humility, to feeling like a light bulb when someone has just turned-on the switch.

The Active Economic Stimulus

What we already have: Billions of dollars thrown at other people in the hopes something good will eventually happen. Critics also pointing-out a lot of it going to those with a history of creating economic disasters, not recoveries.

It's a passive stimulus. The investor, our government, is giving the money to others. The Active Investor, a business owner, personally works their own economic stimulus.

John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing, has a started a great example stimulus program for Active Investors. It's the National Make A Referral Week. Jantsch and his allies have a goal to create 1,000 referrals for 1,000 deserving businesses during the week of March 9 - 13. 

A good referral is priceless. When someone refers business to another, a thank-you or a referral fee is nice; but it's not what drives business referrals. Doing the best work possible for that client gives the person who made the referral prestige and credibility. There's the payback! Quality not quantity makes the referral system work.

The pledge to participate in the National Make A Referral Week is to personally make 1 referral that week. Imagine the economic value of this happening across the nation thousands of times. Consider the worth of the personal returns in terms of prestige and credibility. This is an economic stimulus everyone can believe in.

Can there be any reason not to stop here but to continue developing our own Active Economic Stimulus programs?