Manufacturing Success

Success is Manufactured
by: Lawrence Watkins

I remember it like it was yesterday. I’m sitting in Perkins Restaurant as we finished our Friday morning bible study class in Louisville, KY. With me was Carl Brazley, my closest and most creative mentor. We were about to start one of our usual mentoring sessions that we had about once per month. This session was special as he shared his wisdom about success that has become fundamental in my life philosophy.

Mr. Brazley asked me two questions right off the bat: “What does success mean to me?” and “How will I go about achieving it?” I shared with him my personal mission statement that I had recently developed at the LeaderShape program in Champaign, IL. It states that “I want to become a tycoon politically, socially, and economically so that I may have a positive impact on my community.” Mr. Brazley then said, “That’s great! Now how are you going to ACHIEVE your mission?” This was the question that I was still trying to figure out. I had seen ultra-successful all around me in person or on TV, but I found the process mystifying at times.

Mr. Brazley continued, “Lawrence, don’t believe the hype that you see on TV when it comes to people who you view as successful. The media loves stories about self mad millionaires and billionaires, but rarely are they self made.” What he said next changed my perspective, “Here is what they [the media and often the individual in question] don’t want you to know: Success is manufactured! Many successful people have other hidden influential people in the background guiding them on the right path. Giving them the connections that they need to accelerate their success. This is what I am going to do with you Lawrence.” Whoa!! Talk about some heavy material!

The Real Secret Sauce of Success

I researched the statement that Mr. Brazley made further and I started to read more about individuals who I view to be successful. I was very surprised at the results/trends that I found. Let’s start with Donald Trump, the King of the Self Made…His father had over $100 million in real estate by the time he was born. Warren Buffett (a major influence in my thinking), the Sage of Omaha… His father was a stockbroker and four-term congressman from the state of Nebraska. What about Bill Gates? His mother sat on the board of directors of a bank and his father was a prominent Seattle attorney. The more people that I researched, the more surprised I became. Then I started to feel apprehensive, “What do I need to become successful?”

There are two things that I don’t want to happen by sharing this story with you:

1. I do not want to relegate or belittle the accomplishments of successful people just because they come from a well connected family. The people mentioned above are all extremely intelligent and have a strong work ethic. It’s also important not to hide facts about people’s environment as if that doesn’t play a critical role in success.

2. I do not want you to feel like the situation is hopeless if you don’t come from a rich and powerful family. Throughout this article, I’m going to teach you how to create your own “synthetic power family.”

Your Synthetic Family of Networks

If you don’t come from a rich and well connected family, do not worry about it. It is not the end all, be all. In fact, I know many people who come from well-to-do families, but their lives are in shambles. Money and entitlement can be hindrances to living a WEALTHY LIFE just as much as they can be assets. I come from a solidly middle class family where my father was a high-ranking police official and my mother was a high school guidance counselor. I was able to use this base to expand even further and broaden my experiences to study at Phillips Academy Andover, Carnegie Mellon University, and now Cornell. The most beautiful part is that I have paid very little for my educational experience and it’s because I created a synthetic family to help me achieve my goals.

A synthetic family is not the family you were born with, but one that you created that helps provide the resources you need to accomplish goals. I’m not just talking about money, but also advice and connections as well. Having a synthetic family is not a substitute for your real family, proper planning, or an intelligent work ethic (see my Pareto and Parkinson article). I view the synthetic family as an accelerator of the success process. The great thing about the synthetic family is that it is easy to start and replicate.

Be Your Own Barack Obama

After President Obama (wow, that sounds great) won the election for United States President in November, he had to move his actions from campaigning mode to governing mode. Immediately, Obama selected Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff and then dozens of other appointments were announced in the following weeks. President Obama surrounded himself with individuals who have a greater knowledge about different aspects of governance than he does. When President Obama and his advisors meet about the current economic situation, the advisors give their expert opinions about what Obama should do. After that, President Obama escorts them out of the room and then makes the decision he feels will be best for the country.

I ask, “What’s keeping you from being your own Barack Obama?” I urge you to assemble your own personal board of advisors to help you when you have a tough decision to make. There is not a human being on the face of the planet who knows everything. Seek out those individuals who have general wisdom as well as those who have specific expertise. Bring them into your family and achieve your goals more effectively.

The Early Bird Gets the Worm

One of the great myths of networking is that you start reaching out to others when you need something. The people who really succeed in building relationships know that you need to start building way BEFORE you need anything. This is especially true if you are thinking of opening your own business. Many people start the networking process too late in the game. Prospective entrepreneurs think about details like incorporating or the specific name of their company. Although those tasks are important, they have much less influence over your business success compared to relationship building.

Immediately after graduating from college I worked for my brother, Dr. Boyce Watkins. My job was to book him for speaking engagements and manage his growing national media profile. I knew long before I started to work for him that I wanted to start my own company and I took steps to achieve this goal. For example, when Boyce would appear on a national TV show, he was often on the show with other high profile guests. We would make sure to collect that person’s contact information and follow up with him/her right away. When I started Great Black Speakers Bureau, those were my first speakers. Make sure to always begin with an end in mind!

Overcome your Fear of Rejection

Bestselling author and networking guru Keith Ferrazzi calls this the “genius of audacity.” If you never ask for what you want, very rarely do you ever get what you want. The two major emotions that stop people from asking are the fear of rejection from the other person and a feeling that the other person is better than you. Question: What’s going to have a longer impact on your life? FEAR of rejection or FAILING to reach your goals? The answer to this question for me is not reaching the goals I set out to accomplish. In this scenario, rejection MIGHT happen but failure WILL happen.

Follow Up and Stay in Touch

If the yin is overcoming your fears and asking for what you want, then the yang is following up with your contacts. This is something that I have personally struggled with lately as my number of contacts has grown significantly. However, I have noticed a direct correlation between my rate of follow up and the amount of success I achieve over any period of time. It is funny how people spend so much time making new contacts and so little time following up with them. This reminds me of the local ladies man who is only interested in the chase of a woman. Once he gets her, he then loses interest. In business and in life, don’t be this person! It is much more expensive to attain a new client/contact/friend than to maintain the ones you already have. I am not telling you to not meet new people, just do right by them when you do meet them for long lasting business/personal relationships.

YourBlackLife: Shopping While Black

Almost every Black person has stories about being followed in stores or given suspicious looks while shopping. It has gotten to the point where even Oprah was once mistaken for a normal Black woman, and denied access into an expensive store. It happens almost everyday, but some poeple refuse to let it go. Some black people are suing- not just for the money, but for revenge on the humiliation that racial profiling causes.

Consider the example of a man named Alfred Ashford.- A Black man accused of shoplifting meat from a grocery store (article on WWEEK.COM):

"The security guard at the Safeway on Southeast 122nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard recorded several suspicious observations in her logbook for March 12, 2005.

But the incident that caused the biggest stir that day began with Alfred Ashford's entry into the Safeway at about 5 pm. That prompted Sandercock to write, "Black male at meat.... Has receipt in hand." Holding his shrink-wrapped pork chops, Ashford was staring at the meat case, searching for steaks to get in exchange.

Sandercock read her notes during a deposition in a discrimination and false-arrest trial in Multnomah County Circuit Court against her, Safeway and her employer, DePaul Industries. The suit ended last month with a $44,000 out-of-court settlement for Ashford, a 65-year-old former school counselor who supplements his income by playing piano at a church.

Portland police don't track arrests for shoplifting by race. But Ashford's attorney, Greg Kafoury, says this case and others like it represent an underreported phenomenon of racial profiling, "shopping while black."

"It's a major problem," Kafoury says. "Black kids grow up being identified as criminals when they go into a store. It's one of the first ways they realize that life is going to be different."

Ashford's case also represents what lawyers nationwide warn is a growing national trend in litigation: a rise in discrimination and false-arrest suits against retailers who single out black customers. Last year, the Macy's department-store chain settled a racial-profiling case in U.S. District Court in New York state for $600,000. "



(Continue to full article by Angela Valdez)




The interesting is, a video on YouTube posted by CCTV Cinema caught shoplifters on surveillance...and most of them were not black.

YourBlackLife: Black TV- How It Is vs. How We Want It To Be

By Chiderah A. Monde

W.E.B Du Bois and Alain Locke had contrasting ideas about how Black life should be portrayed by Black Art. In theatre, Du Bois’s plays depicted black life as it was: political propaganda, with struggling or less wealthy black families, self-taught intellectualism, and challenges of oppression. Locke’s plays reflected Black life as he thought it should be: successful and happy, with wealth, political equality and the triumphant black families.

Such views of Black life today have maintained similar contrasts, except now we’ve seen the same on television. Black sitcoms have made their way into the two categories that reflect Locke and DuBois’s contrasting beliefs.

For example, shows like “The Cosby Show”, “The Jeffersons”, “Family Matters”, and “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” portray Black life as we generally want it to be. The shows all have the successful and triumphant families aspect. There’s overall wealth and political equality (although sometimes there were episodes that showed the reality of racism), a tight-knit family that always worked through their problems, and most importantly, the stress of higher education for the shows with children- whether it is going to an Ivy League school or an HBC.

Shows like “Different Strokes”, “Living Single”, “All Of Us”, and now “House of Payne” portray Black life as it is in reality. There’s extended, multi-generational or broken families present in each sitcom, which reflects the truth that most Black families go beyond just the “nuclear” two parents and children model. There are also day-to-day (multi episode) struggles, lessons learned, and realizations of each character’s roles in the family and in society (like coming from a tough neighborhood or broken family). There isn’t necessarily a focus on the colleges that the characters go or went to, but more so a focus on the jobs they now hold.

It is no question that both televised ideas of Black life illustrate and reflect actual Black life. The ongoing argument of which one is more necessary can be satisfied by the successful ratings of both types of television sitcoms. I think both are very necessary, because there is factual support that shows like “The Cosby Show” increased enrollment in historically Black colleges and universities, and shows like “Living Single” (and later “Girlfriends”) have made it acceptable for Black women to be single and still successful.

Although these two theories of Black television summarize just about every Black sitcom, there are exceptions and characters of shows that fall into both categories. More importantly, as we move forward with the “life as it is” type of shows, there are still remnants of inferiority on television. There are now fewer shows that model Locke’s idea of “life as we want it to be” than there were in the 1970s and 1980s, and now most shows depict Du Bois’s “life as it is” with Black people having to teach themselves and their families how to get by and maintain values within society.

The lack of the “perfect” or Cosby-like Black family on today’s television could be related to the wake-up call that Black people are no longer living like this. “That’s So Raven” was cancelled, “Romeo” was cancelled, “Smart Guy”, “One on One” and “Sister, Sister” were cancelled, and so was almost every show that young Black children watched on Disney and Nickelodeon to see traces of happy families and wealthy Black people. The so-called “reality” show “Baldwin Hills” on BET is the closest we’re getting to seeing Black people live lavishly on television, and to be honest- it is not a good look. Is it better to have more black characters mixed happily into white television shows? Perhaps in our day and age we have to, since we apparently cannot combat the idea that Black people just don’t live happily, successfully, lavishly and with full families anymore.