“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily.  To not dare is to lose one’s self.”

Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish Existential Philosopher and Theologian said that.  I love Keirkegaard’s work because he explores our emotion and choice when we as people face big life decisions.

“Facing a big life decision” is a fancy way of saying making an choice that will change my life.  We say a decision is important because it alters the current balance our life in a substantial way.  Once we’ve made a big choice, there is no turning back.  Choosing where I eat lunch isn’t typically a life-altering event.  There isn’t a lot of risk involved.  Choosing to live in Santiago Chile when I was 20 changed my life forever.

Choosing to start a new project, or start a new business carries a great deal of risk with it.  If things don’t go as planned, the business could fail.  We could fail.  Whatever the outcome, it can take time to regain a sense of balance.

Earlier this week, I wrote that I am moving out my parents’ house because it will make my life less stable.  The goal is to lose my footing in order to not lose my dreams.  I am choosing to take a risk, and I feel afraid because I know that might fail.  The fear can get in our way if we bow to it.  Recently, I’ve decided that if I’m feeling fear then I’m doing the right thing and pushing my comfort zone.  It means I’m making progress.

Here’s another quote from Kierkegaard:

During the first period of a man’s life, the greatest danger is to not take the risk.

When I feel afraid, I remind myself of this.  I am 25, and I don’t have much to lose.  With each year that passes, I have more to lose.  Now is not the time to wait for something to happen to me.  Now is the time risk failure in order to make something happen.

Two weeks ago, I was talking about risk with a mentor of mine, and she reminded me that taking a risk is like riding a Segway.  Segways won’t move forward until the person riding them risks losing their balance and leans forward.  Segways move when rider leans forward past the point of being balanced. Right now, if you stood up and started to lean forward, once your center of gravity passed your toes, your body would fall forward.  The human body is programmed to prevent you falling on your face.  Once you lean too far forward, your foot steps forward and catches you.  You’ve almost fallen, but you’ve also taken a step forward.  If you didn’t lose your balance, you would have stayed in the same place.

The Segway works the same way.  Only once the rider leans forward and loses their balance the gyroscopes kick in and the Segway moves forward.  The farther forward the rider leans, the faster the Segway moves.  It’s natural to feel uncomfortable when you lean forward like this. If you’ve ridden a Segway, you know the sensation of almost falling over right before you start moving.  After a few times, most people learn to trust that the Segway is not going to let them fall flat on their face.

Instead of a wheelchair, I rode a Segway all 4 years of college.  My arthritis was very bad those four years, and  I rode the Segway to class every day.  I forgot how scary it was the first time I rode it.  Leaning into the risk and trusting the Segway became natural.  Trust was my segue through the pain of walking and helped me graduate from college.

The YouTube video below is me riding my Segway across the stage at graduation to accept my diploma.

Taking a risk is the only way I know to segue from one stage of life to the next.  And once I get comfortable with one risk, it seems like it’s always time to take the next one.

What is your Segway?

I hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter

PS: Kierkegaard also said that “anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”  Here’s to your anxiety.

But I found this video because Bret Hurt, Founder / CEO of Bazaarvoice, tweeted it out, citing the importance of good company culture encouraging employee productivity.  Bazaarvoice is famous for their culture, so I queued this up and listened to it in my truck while I drove over the weekend.

I was inspired.  Eric Schmidt talked about the potential for connecting people together as a way to foster entrepreneurship and innovation, and how technology like Twitter keeps governments accountable.  He made the point that connecting people is a fundamental good for society, even if it doesn’t seem like a directly profitable enterprise on its face.  It was the encouragement I wanted to hear.

I’m a genetically-inclined connector.  It was awesome to hear the CEO of Google encourage me to continue seeking to connect inspiring people, pointing out that Search didn’t look profitable when Google was started either.  I don’t really want to be Google, but I would like to make a living being Austin W. Gunter, the Connector.

Since I’m constantly reading, I thought it would be fun to share the list right now.  I think that I started 2-3 books last week alone, so they’re all in various states of completion.  Imagine the piles of books around my room and try not to be too jealous.

 11/22/63
by Stephen King

What if you could go back in time and stop Lee Harvey Oswald from assassinating John F. Kennedy?  Would you do it?  What would the consequences be?  That’s what this book covers in about 800 pages.

I’m a big Stephen King fan, mostly from his Dark Tower series and his book on the craft, On Writing.  This book is lagging about 500 pages in.  He gets caught up in this fantasy of living in the 1950s.  Everything King writes anymore is painfully autobiographical.  It’s like he’s got a giant sandbox to recreate his own life and we’re along for the ride.

 I Will Teach You to Be Rich
By Ramit Sethi

Ramit writes my favorite personal finance and career blog.  He is sarcastic, off putting, and a bit of a dick.  But I read him because he’s got a lot of good data about setting up my 401k and Roth IRA, as well as how to automate the crap out of my checking account and credit cards.

It’s personal finance for the Generation Y audience.

Tribes
By Seth Godin 

When I built the community of entrepreneurs at Tech Ranch Austin, we were building a Tribe of Entrepreneurs, and the ecosystem to support them.  Seth Godin has written another immortal little chapbook to discuss how to imagine the community that you wish existed in your town and then go build it yourself.

Stop waiting for someone else to build it for you.  Go become a leader.  Imagine how many people you’ll serve.

The First-Created Man
Fr. Seraphim Rose 

If you know me, you know that I’m actively reading about Spirituality and Orthodox Christianity.  I picked this book up a few days before Christmas and added it to the collection.  It’s a collection of Homilies from Saint Symeon the new Theologian on Adam and Eve and the creation of the world.

The book has answers to meaning of life questions as understood by the Orthodox Church.  It’s really dense reading, but applicable to how I’m living my life.  If you decide to check this out, I want to have lunch and talk about what you thought.

Brining Nothing to the Party  - True Confessions of a New Media Whore
By Paul Carr 

Paul Carr writes like he’s a selfish tool and I think he’s exaggerating.  It feels like a melodrama of the wallflower writer archetype:  The asshole on the fringe of the party, wishing he was actually throwing the party.

Yes, writers think this way about things.  We really do.  We also want to be entrepreneurs as well, as Carr becomes, getting funded and growing a big company, parties and all.  It’s a great romp in the UK’s Startup Culture of the 1990s.  And a fun read on my new Kindle Touch.

I just think he’s more human than he makes himself out to be.

The Book of the Shepherd
By The Scribe
As Discovered by Joann Davis

Sylvia, my business coach, gave this to me for Christmas.  It’s a book about forgiveness and hope.  It’s about questioning the status quo and making your own way.

When I read the book, I can feel both sides of my brain wriggling around, digesting the archetype as I read.  It’s how I know the book is doing what it’s supposed to do.

So far, I highly recommend it.

The New Yorker

My favorite magazine of all time, now on my freaking Kindle.  I was in a wheelchair when I first started reading the magazine at 15.  There was this amazing story about this nutjob who owned a diner in upstate New York and the writer for the magazine who had been going there 20 years.

The owner / cook was openly hostile to new patrons, but would treat his regulars like family, making them custom meals and telling nutjob stories.

The prose was amazing, and I was hooked.

The Harvard Business Review

Ever since visiting the Acton School of Business (Entrepreneurship), and reading the Harvard Business Cases for the classes I sat through, I’ve started a love affair with this publication.  The school electrified me and I think that rubbed off on the reading material too.

I’ve just come out as a big business nerd.  Hope you still love me the same…

If you like reading about business models and making money, and want to keep learning, go grab this.  

Writing on the back of the Chevy my Granddad gave me.

Before he passed away, my Granddad, the beekeeper, would tell these fantastical stories of his entrepreneurial journey.  He would talk about saving his nickels and dimes in order to buy Chevy Trucks, or a few acres of land, so that he could work more and make more money.  The stories were fantastical because a few nickels and dimes always had this funny arithmetic that without fail would add up to  brand new pickup trucks.

For example:

Granddad was stopped in Midlothian, Texas delivering some bees or honey to some customers.  He pulled into a diner for breakfast, and didn’t add the bacon or the ham to his meal, thereby saving about 5 or 10 cents.   Then, as he told the story, he took that dime he saved and bought the land around the diner.  When I was 15, a highway project paid a lot more than 10cents for the land he bought.

He ended each story the same way.  ”Austin, I didn’t buy the ham for breakfast, and I saved that nickel and bought a new pickup with it.”

His stories were fantastical in their simplicity.  Nickels and dimes always added up to a new Chevy Truck or some land.  The truck would help him make money as a beekeeper.  The land almost always became very valuable a decade or two later.

I never understood how this magical arithmetic worked for him.  The proof, however, was in the pudding.  I invariably heard this story while riding in the passenger seat of a new Chevy Truck on the way to work some bees on some land that he had bought years ago.

Yesterday, I decided that a MacBook Pro is a Chevy Pickup in my life.  I make my living writing and connecting people using my blog, email, and a word processor (I’m using Word and Pages right now).  I can work from anywhere as long as I can get my computer online, but I need the computer to write and connect just like my Granddad needed the truck to work his bees and make honey.

What is the equivalent of ham at breakfast for me?  It’s definitely coffee at Starbucks, and lunch around town.  Excluding the lunches and coffees that I invest in when I meet someone new, or pick their brain, how much money could I put to a new MacBook Pro each month if I skipped coffees and lunches, putting that same money towards the computer?  I bought my laptop in 2007, and replaced the hard drive in 2010.  It’s time to upgrade.

Looking through my wallet, I have about $40 in Starbucks giftcards.  That’s $40 towards a laptop right there.

Sure, a well powered MacBook Pro, and warranty (essential) will top $2,000 easily.  But I think that Chevy Trucks probably cost about as much when my Granddad started buying them in the 30s and 40s.

Does the same fantastical arithmetic that worked for my Granddad run in my family?  Here’s the experiment.

1. Each time I go out to Starbucks and use a gift card, I take the amount of my purchase, and transfer it to a separate savings account.
2. Every time I can get wifi for free without paying for it, I put $2.00 in the savings account.
3. When I find a way to eat lunch for free, instead of having to go out to eat, I put $10.00 in the account
4. Each week, I tally the money in the account and see what I’ve saved on trivia, and put towards my next Chevy Truck / Macbook Pro.

Assuming a few other basic revenue sources, the Goal is to bring the laptop home by the end of March.

Hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter

Granddad would love this: My first Installment: $2.00 from Starbucks to MacBook Pro Fund.

Even Patrick Bateman would agree with me

I think business cards may be pointless. 

They take up valuable pocket space.  They’re expensive.  Organizing them is a pain.  And everyone has a good one anymore.  They’re not memorable.

Honestly, I may just be rationalizing things.  I hadn’t gotten around to ordering more business cards and I went out for some serious networking last night.

I might as well have gone to war without my gun.

But I think I may have turned an sloppy move into solid networking gold with a simple iPhone app called Contxts.

Contxts is wickedly simple.  Sign up for free, register your email address, and write a 140 character bio with business card information.

When someone asks you for your card, ask them to text your username to 50500.  As long as they can send one text message, they can get your card and contact you the next day.

Try it: Text “Gunter” to 50500 and you’ll get my card.  

Seriously…try it.  It’s like a magic trick on your phone.

I’ll wait….

Ok, cool.  Now that we’ve got that out of the way.

Last night, I put Contxts to the test at the Internet Marketing Party and the Web Holiday Bash. Serious year-end events.  I did my normal networking bit, laughing really loudly, making quirky jokes, and generally being a fascinating person to be around while I drank a Hendrix and Tonic, my cocktail of choice.

Pretty soon, someone asked for my card.

“Hey Austin, I need a copywriter/community builder/marketer/nude model, do you have a card?

I felt the world slam on the brakes.  This was going to be interesting.

What did I do?  I hesitated because I knew that I had exactly zero business cards on me.

When they saw me flinch, “I don’t have any cards tonight…” I immediately began to lose credibility, I could see it in their eyes.  So what did I do?  I didn’t let it go at that, I didn’t scramble and ask them for their contact information.  Nope.

I doubled down on the risk.  I told them to pull their phone out and send a text message.

They looked at me like I was nuts, but I knew that I needed to do something awesome to salvage the situation…but I also knew that I had Contxts set up.

While they sent the text message, I stood there, waiting with a big smile on my face, hoping that it would work out.  Sometimes it can take 10-15 seconds for the service to work.  It gets a bit tense.  An entire conversation has ground to a halt while everyone waits for this text message to come through.  People one conversation circle over are wondering what is going on.  I’m starting to wonder if Contxts is having downtime…

And then it happens.  Their phone lights up:

Great to meet you today! 
Looking forward to connecting with you.

Austin W. Gunter
5129440841
austin.gunter@gmail.com
www.austingunter.com

Suddenly, I’m not the idiot who showed up to network without cards.  Maybe I actually know what I’m doing…

10 times I did the same thing last night.  After the first or second time, I started getting as theatrical as possible, having as much fun as possible.  Trafton Esler, fromWP Engine, introduced me to a group of writers from Speak Social, and Trafton, God Bless him, called me out for not having a business card.

So I got all 6 people in the group to pull their phones out to text “Gunter” to 50500. There is a circle of people staring into their smart phones, waiting for something to happen. Suddenly everyone’s phone is lighting up with my txt card.  People are laughing and smiling.  Trafton still says that I’m a slacker…

Lessons Learned: 

1. A Faux Paus is an opportunity to become unforgettable.  If you’ve already screwed something up, take an even bigger risk to solve the problem.  If you fail, you lost nothing.  If you succeed, you gain immediate and lasting credibility.
2. Be daring with your networking, and make it fun for you first.  Networking can be a grind sometimes.  Last night, I made sure that I was having fun first, and it made the conversations a lot more interesting.

My business cards were in my mailbox today, but I didn’t get around to putting them in my pocket. Contxts was more fun than the slickest business card.  Patrick Bateman can eat his heart out.

The best part?  Every time someone requests my card, I get a text message with their name and phone number.

Anonymized Text Cards from people who got my txt card last night

Hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter.

Don't say yes to someone else if it means saying no to yourself.

Level of Focus determines how good of a networker you are.

Focus makes it possible for anyone to walk into a room and know what they will get before they leave, why they want it, and how to get it.  Focus means planning to know what’s important and unimportant.  Most importantly, focus means that knowing when the goal accomplished, and it’s time to move on to the next project.

When you go to Molotov on that Thursday night to hang out with all the cool Austin tech people, are you trying to get a job?  Do you need to find a developer?  Do you just want to have a good time?  Have you asked yourself that question at all?

“What do you do?” 

 …Do you already know the answer?  Are you waiting for someone else to tell you?  Will you accept the first thing that comes along?

Focus is knowing what you will reject.  You can’t say yes to anything, until you’re willing to say no.

We must know with certainty exactly what we don’t want in order to know what we do want.  When we’re willing to say yes to the first thing that comes along, and don’t know what we’re willing to say no to, it’s usually a signal that we have zero clue what we actually want to say yes to.  It’s an indicator that we haven’t decided what is important in our life.

We have the responsibility to know important and not important, and then have the confidence to choose what’s important.

This post is very personal.  Lack of focus, and learning how to focus myself is one of the things that I’m focusing on these days (heh).
Who am I focused on becoming?

When I first started chewing on the concept of “focus” almost two months ago, I was prompted by people that I thought were terrible networkers.  I saw the same pattern at several events, and it got me to thinking.

The Pattern
           A. [awkwardly] I’m looking for a new job these days.  If you can help, that would be super!
           B. [smiling heartily] What sort of job are you looking for?  I’d love to help you find it.
           A. [looks around the room uncomfortably] Oh, I don’t have much of a preference.  I could really
do anything.  I like marketing and
                 social media though…
           B. [wanting more information] Well ok, lots of people do social media these days.  Let’s get
specific,  which companies in Austin really inspire you?
           A.  I don’t really know, any of them would be cool…Facebook…Google…Bazaarvoice.. I like lots
of them…Do you know people there?…

The conversation will die at this point because Person A has no idea what they want or what they’re qualified for, and Person B isn’t going to make an introduction to anyone but a career coach.  Introductions are a form of currency.  Asking for an intro is asking for a loan of social capital.  It’s essential that we give someone a good reason to make that investment.

Focus and Commitment are big factors to convince anyone to invest in something.

Commitment is dangerous.  Committing total focus to one course of action means saying no to everything else.

The rest of the world disappears when we’re focused.  When someone tries to interrupt you, you don’t notice at first.  And once they distract your attention, they break your focus.

Focus is the place we go to create things and change the world.

Why wasn’t I focused?  I was terrified of saying no.  I was afraid of what I might lose in the process.

Trying to focus was was uncomfortable.  But I needed to find focus and commitment before my life and career could take off.

A simple realization shifted me.  I realized that all the leaders that I admire have things they would say yes to, and things they would say no to.  They weren’t everything to everyone, and consistently rejected certain ideas, and even pick certain fights.  Somethings are worth fighting for.

The title of this post might also be, “How to become exceptional at getting what you want.”  People can learn to be exceptional at getting what they want, and become sought after in the job market.

I’ve started asking myself the following questions to refine my focus:

• Where am I better than everyone else?
• What do I read, watch, listen to, write about, talk about, think about, care about?  What am I already focused on that I can apply to my work?
• What are the things I do effortlessly or intuitively? (This is a hard question to answer)
• How could I experiment with those things in my work?
• What demands do I place on others in my life, and why are those important?
• Is the experience of working with me so good that people rave about it?
• Do they recommend me and say that I’m worth every penny?

Here’s the ultimate test.

When people ask me what I do, how do they react to what do I tell them?  Do they nod in understanding, or do they have to ask for more information?

You’ll know you’re focused when everyone everyone else describes exactly what you do because they clearly understand what you absolutely do not do.

What will you absolutely not do?  To what should you start saying, no, immediately?

Ask that question.  If the answer scares you, then you’re probably looking in the right place.  Go after it. Run towards that fear, and then share what you find with the rest of us.  We could use your example to light the way.

I hope this helps.

Austin W. Gunter.

I believe that losing one job can often be the best thing that ever happens in your life. Do you?

Let’s face it.  Layoffs are all to common right now.  It’s a rough economy.  However, I think it’s easier to get back to work than people realize.  All it takes is a different perspective on your job search.

This fall, my life has really forced me to examine how I focus my attention and intention.  In October, I was laid off from a nice consulting gig where I was writing requirements for some of the larger hardware companies in Austin.  It was a really good job, and layoffs are never easy.

However, since then, I haven’t had much trouble finding projects to work on that keep my belly full and my tank full. They also keep me busy and learning.

Since that Friday in October, I’ve gotten involved with several projects, all of which challenge me, and none of which require me to commute regularly.  Not all of them are paying gigs yet, but all of them have a clear path to getting paid for the quality of my work.  For the gigs that aren’t paying me yet, I’m basically operating as a temporary volunteer.  And I know when I’ll walk away if I’m not getting my needs met by a certain date.

Aside: Volunteering will get you hired.  I worked for 2 years at Tech Ranch Austin, and that position began unpaid.  It took 2-3 weeks for me to convert the job from volunteer into part time, and another month or two after that to go full-time.  I highly recommend that you find volunteer opportunities for yourself.  It’s one of the best ways to get a better job.

I’ve gotten to where I enjoy the challenge of only getting paid when I’m adding significant value to the company.  It means there’s no ambiguity about what I’m accomplishing.  I am either making a measurable contribution and getting compensated accordingly, or I’m not making a contribution, and I’m not getting paid.

It’s a scary proposition at first, because there isn’t a guarantee that I’m actually going to get paid.  But the other side of the equation means that I can earn more money if I do better work.  For the time being, it’s a good arrangement.  I’m not saying I’ll never accept a full time job again, but I am saying that right now, I have found a variety of good projects to work on, and I’m enjoying them all.

Examples: I’ve done a blogger outreach for the Ronald McDonald House’s Lights of Love last week, which shattered it’s fundraising goal for 2011, or logo and branding work for the 2012 launch of the World Entrepreneurs Network, and a few other projects that I’m looking forward to talking about as they develop.

It’s not been a seamless process for me by any means.  Transferring from a job to a more entrepreneurial existence requires a different way of thinking.  For example, it requires a higher level of focus because nobody is telling me what to do.  On any given day, I have to figure out what needs to be done and decide how to do it.  I decide what I accomplish in a given day, and when something gets done, I get credit.  If something doesn’t get done, I have no one to blame but myself.  I have to (get to) make it up as I go along.

Sometimes it freaks me out not having a rule book or instruction manual for my life.

Google "focused" and you get pics of Jay-Z and P-Diddy. Men in possession of legendary focus.

But, if I remain focused on what I want to accomplish day to day, I’m likely to get it all done.  But when I’m unfocused, I get so much less accomplished in a day.

This applies directly to your job search as well as building a solopreneur business.  The more focused your attention is on what you want to accomplish, the easier it will be for you to accomplish it.

If you’re going to go volunteer, you’ll have to be focused.

When I suggest people volunteer, I often see varying degrees of emotional reactions, varying from an openness to the idea, to a slight wince, and my favorite is the shudder going down someone’s spine.  The shudder says that the conversation is over.  They don’t want to stop sending resumes in on Monster. Volunteering seems too risky and unconventional.

For those who want to volunteer and create new opportunities for themselves, I’ll share the Top 10 list of things that I do to create Volunteer Opportunities.  These will help you find work you love to do almost immediately.  Feel free to apply any of them to your life as you see fit.  Some of them will work great, others may not work for you.  Don’t be limited by my experience.  And if you think I’m full of it, let me know.  

1.  Network 3-4 times a week - make sure you get out of your house and talk to new people as often as possible.  Even going out for a beer with acquaintances has turned into paid work multiple times.  Things happen by accident a lot of the time, and the more you put yourself out there, the faster those accidents happen.  It’s just like dating…
2. Ask people how you can help them first - This is the secret to building a network.  Make as many introductions as possible and people will remember you and they will help you out when the time comes.  
3. Email everyone you meet within 24 hours - Frequency is critical to building a solid network.  The more visible you are, the easier you are to remember.  And if people remember you, they will help you out.
4. Make a list of people that you admire - Then go interview them about their business.  Don’t talk about you.  Just ask questions about what they do.  You’ll learn where they could use a volunteer to solve a problem for free.  
5. Know how to ask questions about someone’s business - “What work do you need done” doesn’t count.  ”What problems are you facing this week / this month” is a much better question.  Everyone has a dilemma that you can solve.  You just have to find out what it is first.
6. Make a specific offer to volunteer - It must have a simple objective that you know the other person cares about, and it must have a time limit.  ”I want to help you reach out to bloggers for this upcoming event by emailing them individually so that they will share your event with their readers,” is awesome.  ”How can I volunteer for you for a month,” is too ambiguous.  
7. Know how to ask for more work, and ask to be paid for it - The goal is to get paid, right?  And if you’re doing work that matters, it’s a no-brainer for you to get paid for it.  Volunteering is just an unconventional, and really effective, way to get yourself in the door (Read: It’s better than a resume).
8. Know when you’re going to walk away - If a month passes and you don’t see your volunteering leading to work, it’s probably time to go.  Say thanks to everyone, write thank you cards after you leave, and keep everyone posted on what you’re doing next, but don’t hang around waiting.  This is about creating your own opportunities, remember?
9. Make sure that you’re doing work you actually want to do - Because if you’re volunteering you’re not getting paid, so you better enjoy what you’re doing.  
10. If you’ve done good work, but you didn’t get paid, ask for a reference - This is a gangbusters way to keep your resume filled up while you’re in between gigs.  If you’ve got a gap in your resume, make sure you’re doing short-term work in your field, even if it’s volunteer work.  Showing signs that you’re a go-getter is a hirable trait.  (NB: During job interviews, it’s not always helpful to mention that you’ve been volunteering, but not working.  It can complicate the interview process.  If you’re asked, be honest. Don’t ever lie in an interview.  Get hired because the company knows who you really are, not because you’re acting.  But you may not always need to explain the circumstances of your work, just explain what you accomplished along the way.)

I’ve done all of these in various capacities over the past several years.  All of them are effective network builders, and all of them build your personal brand.  None of them are a waste of your time or energy. 

If you’re curious how to create an amazing LinkedIn profile, or want to update your online resume, let me know.  I’d love to talk to you about that in person.  If enough people are interested in reading about that, I’ll be happy to write a post about how to make your social profiles bring employers to you.

You can answer these questions in the comments:

• Which items on the list is most surprising?  
• Are there any of those steps you already do without even thinking about it?
• Do you think any of those are a complete waste of time?
• What’s your #1 Tip for Savvy Networking?

I’ll be curious to see what you guys say below in the comments.

Thanks for reading.  I hope this helps.

-Austin W. Gunter

Regular Meetings for Occupy Austin are on their calendar

In Part 1, I analyzed the social and economic challenges that are making it hard for the American middle

class to find good work, and pay for things like gas and health insurance.  Again, since the economy is making it hard for so many of us to stay in the middle class, we’re suddenly waking up to the corrupt and broken political system.  It is no longer easy for us to ignore the problems around us since we’re not comfortable in our lifestyles anymore.  If we had a growing economy right now, Occupy Wall Street would have zero momentum because it would not represent the unspoken anger and fear of the middle class.

But since there aren’t enough jobs, our nation is suddenly looking for answers, and Occupy Wall Street is looking right at the broken political situation.  It’s an easy villain.

Had there been no market crash of 2008, the American narrative of going to college, getting in debt, and getting a good job would have continued to play out.  But our over-leveraged society caught up with us, revealing a political process that was so intimately joined with large corporations, lobbyists, and yes, Wall Street, that we realized that the government, which was brought into existence by the people, for the people was not always living up to its side of the bargain.  The cultural narrative of our political system has broken down.

Specifically: The The American Global Political Decision-Making Process of our American Democracy has always asserted that everyone has a voice in politics. The narrative has told us:

Vote your beliefs + Elect your candidate =  Be part of the force that guides the US Government

But it’s clear that voting is not as powerful as corporate money, which is necessary to provide a campaign budget large enough to elect the President of the United States.  A successful presidential campaign budget exceeds $500 million.  For his 2008 victory, Obama raised around $750 million.

Large donors contribute to campaigns in order to secure political influence.  It’s come to light recently that the board of the Fed is made up of Corporate Chiefs from companies like General Electric and Lehman Brothers.  The chief of Lehman, Richard Fuld was on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the same time that one of its subsidiaries was bailing out Lehman Brothers.

Occupy Wall Street is marching in part because political and financial institutions are so unregulated and create a conflict of interest.

The real narrative of political decision making looks something more like this:

Hire a lobbyist + Financially support a candidate + Help them stay in office as long as possible  =  Make sure that your interests are protected by the government

This played out for everyone to see in 2008, when instead of holding the banks accountable for making bad loans, the federal government bailed them out to the tune of $7.2 trillion dollars, at almost zero interest, money that the banks proceeded to lend out at about 3% interest, making a tidy $13 billion profit.

I don’t have a problem with the banks making a profit.  They’re supposed to.  I would love to see American business in general making neat profits because then companies would need to hire so they could keep growing.

I have a problem with the banks profiting from tax dollars when the middle class is unemployed and shrinking.

The banks didn’t suffer appropriate market consequences for making bad loans.  In 2011, banks are foreclosing on an average of 89,000 homes a month; leaving the middle class staggering, the banks themselves have not suffered similarly.  They had bailouts of government money – money that the middle-class paid in taxes and it didn’t help sustain them.

At least Fannie and Freddie are halting foreclosures over the holidays. 

Occupy Wall Street recognizes that the government, supposed to serve the people, has stepped out on us.  We aren’t convinced that the politicians we have elected have our best interests at heart, and we believe that they ought to.  I spent Wednesday afternoon at the Occupy Austin “rally” at the Texas Capitol, and while I didn’t hear one singular argument about government and corporate corruption, the general consensus among the half-dozen protesters was that the political decision making process is undeniably corrupt.  But when I asked what could be done to solve the problem, the answers varied from violent uprising, to civil disobedience.  And I noticed that more than one protester admitted that if and when they get hired at a good job again, they will probably not have enough time to participate in the movement any longer.

If there were enough jobs, nobody would be asking any questions.  As the Romans noted, the populace is easily appeased superficially with panem et circenses (food and entertainment).  As long as everyone is fed and entertained, they will turn a blind eye.  The decline of the Roman Empire may have more parallels to the United States of America than that one.

It worries me that Occupy Wall Street has started to dwindle because of the crackdown on the protests in major media centers of America, like L.A. and NYC.

The Occupy Austin Movement at its peak

The dwindling also confirms my statement that, despite what Naomi Wolf suggested, Occupy Wall Street does not have a coherently articulated message, and the ranks cannot agree on what they want to accomplish.  Again, speaking with the Austin protesters this week, I got similar answers about what was wrong in the country, but widely varying opinions about what solutions to offer, and how to carry those out.  There were certain people who spoke the loudest, but those people also insisted that the movement should not define itself any more than it already has, because then people might be alienated.

I think that’s probably an excuse for the movement to not take itself seriously.

To wrap this up, I believe that Occupy Wall Street is the vocal expression of anger and fear that many middle and lower-class Americans are feeling right now.  Not everyone is protesting in the streets, but I am convinced that widespread and sustained protests are proof positive of an angry society.

1. We’re angry that there aren’t enough jobs
2. We’re angry that we don’t know how to create more jobs
3. We’re angry and afraid that corporations exert undue influence in politics
4. We’re afraid of what might happen to our society if we don’t get things under control

Occupy Wall Street can be the beginning of how to solve these problems and creating new social narratives.  The movement has the power to help us re-write the broken political decision-making process, and re-write the narrative of creating jobs and growing our economy.

But it’s not enough to be angry if we aren’t willing to do something with our anger.  If we just stay angry, we’ll never change anything.  The collective anger of the populace can be the spark to ignite important social change.  Or it can be a tantrum in the streets.

Occupy Wall Street, in a nutshell, is the result of:

1. Americans who feel powerless to make a living for themselves and their families,  and so they are questioning…. 
   
2. The validity of our political and economic decision-making process

College grads fill the ranks of Occupy Wall Street as well

conversations, both on twitter, and in-person.  As a result of that post, I’ve been able to discuss the movement with a diverse group of opinions, not only in the comments , but also on Facebook and Twitter, and including a meeting with a friend who may end a long absence from political movements soon.

The more I talk and write about Occupy Wall Street, the more personal the conversation becomes to me.   I’m going to continue writing about Occupy Wall Street, and this week you can look for a few posts coming from my conversation with Eugene and with my experiences with Occupy Austin’s Capitol Occupation.

Once again, I haven’t begun taking a stance on any of the issues.  I’m going to continue to listen and digest to get a better understanding of what Occupy Wall Street actually is.  The movement continues to intentionally leave itself open to individual interpretation and this is the source of its power  - millions are able identify with it.

I’m making sense of Occupy Wall Street as the expected angry response to and product of dual broken narratives in America. How broken both of the narratives are is not trivial.  Both are essential to sustain the fervor of the movement which has already changed the focus of our media to the plight of the working class.  What follows is my impression of what motivates Occupy Wall Street.  Why is this relevant?  It’s the place to begin answering the question, “How will we know when Occupy Wall Street has accomplished its goals.”  

When Occupy Wall Street has realized its potential, we’ll see a new set of cultural narratives defining our nation.

Broken Narrative One:  The American Global Political Decision-Making Process
including….

• The relationship between politics and corporations – it’s corrupt
• The way the Fed is structured with regard to leadership and conflicts of interest - it’s corrupt

Broken Narrative Two: The Personal Economic Capitalistic Creative and Productive Process
specifically…

• The formula to make money that middle and lower-class children learn in school – it’s flawed
• The relationship between a college education, debt, and competitively paying jobs – isn’t linear

Which brings me back to the economic crisis of 2008, and Broken Process One:  The American Global Political Decision-Making Process.

I’ll post that part tomorrow.  Thanks for reading.

Hope this helps.

-Austin W. Gunter

The Voice of a Generation

I think that Occupy Wall Street has been losing steam over the past few weeks.  I’m starting to see fewer articles and less media attention directed towards the various activist communities who call themselves the 99%, many of whom are part of Generation Y.

While I have very strong reservations about being associated with the movement, I find myself unable to deny that I am part of the same generation, and I can see potential in the movement if it fixes what is broken.

When Occupy Wall Street began, I did not see any real goal of the protests.  As a whole they looked directionless and so I didn’t pay much attention.  I had steady work at the time, but since OWS began, I’ve experienced firsthand the layoffs that are common in the Austin Technology industry.  Since then, I’ve been a bit more willing to actually examine the movement to see what I think about it.

I’m not willing to identify with the movement, and one of the big reasons is I see it missing key elements that previous social movements required for their success.

I’ve spoken with several people about the movement this week and I’ve drawn a few conclusions about what is missing from Occupy Wall Street that would allow it to seize the opportunity to accomplish something with the momentum that is gathered.

Note: I’m not commenting on the spirit of the movement, nor am I denying the clear inequality present, the white-collar crimes that have been committed, or the government action that has permitted those crimes.

That is a different discussion entirely, and I’ll leave that for another blog post.

Understanding what’s working and what’s not is a way to understand what you or I could do in order to make a movement successful, independent of its ideology.

Occupy Wall Street can be broken down into a basic model made up of simple, generalized, elements.  Each element can then be applied elsewhere.  This sort of deconstruction permits a valid comparison to other similar movements, and then we can separate how effective Occupy Wall Street is actually being from the fervor of its rallying cry, enabling stoic discussion of the topic at hand.

Elements of Occupy Wall Street Today:

• The Circumstances: Widespread unemployment, and perceived absence of opportunity.
• The Narrative: Small resemblance between real life, and the promise of good jobs awaiting all Americans with college degrees. Instead high unemployment and low wage jobs hardly justify the expense of a college education.
• The Victims: Middle and Lower Class Americans.
• The Villain: A group of elites operating criminally, and without consequence, to enrich themselves
• The Emotions: Deeply felt powerlessness, expressed as anger and fear.
• What is at Stake: Strongly held belief in the possibility of a brighter future.  Our hope in the future is at stake.
• The Inspiration: Successful 19th and 20th Century Social Movements (Women’s Suffrage, Mexican and Black American Rights, etc).

Occupy Wall Street is: Masses of individuals following old models of social change with an unfocused desire to make a difference, and a shared belief that powerful forces conspire to prevent the good and the just from prevailing.

Seeing the Occupy Best Buy protest last night demonstrates the absence of those elements.  That was a protest not supported by the rest of Occupy Wall Street, yet it used the Occupy Wall Street name to target middle class consumers, the Americans that it purports to represent.  They didn’t realize who they were protesting.

All this is worth the time and effort to write, because I do believe there are problems, and I do think that something has to change.  All evidence points to a depression if America can’t get its economy straightened out, not to mention the European Union.

Occupy Wall Street has the potential to achieve social change and reform a broken economy.  And while I disagree with many of the core beliefs and the ideology of the movement, I think that it has the potential to evolve into the movement that our country clearly needs, and is obviously crying out for in many ways. What’s more, I think that many of the solutions that we will arrive at are less complicated than we realize.

I believe that an entire generation of young men and women, MY generation, has found itself in a tough situation and that we must be willing to offer solutions.  We didn’t ask for the problem, but we can solve it.

Otherwise, we’re going to be left holding the bag at the end of the day.

The challenges we get to solve are immense, and for the moment I have faith that Occupy Wall Street can be more than just a tantrum thrown by a generation that didn’t realize how much power it could wield.

I believe that while we may not have found a voice to speak with, that we will soon.

Occupy Wall Street will begin to be worthwhile when it:

1. Offers Real Solutions
2. Starts a Dialogue with the Establishment
3. Finds a Leader to Represent a Generation of Americans

I don’t believe that Wall Street is the place to look for answers.  The problem is much bigger than that.  My generation can solve the problems and develop solutions when we look past the obvious villain, and begin the work of creating systemic change and create a country we’re proud to offer to our children someday.

We can hand off a thriving economy and a strong country.  We can be proud of the legacy that we leave.  We can move beyond the nonsense on Wall Street.

We’ve got what it takes to focus our attention.

Hope this helps.

-Austin W. Gunter