I was just
a kid coming to grips with the fact that I had to really put together some
serious career thinking and preparing to make a living on my own when President
Lyndon Baines Johnson launched his major initiative of the 1960s, the War on
Poverty. At that time the story was that around 15% of Americans were living in
poverty. This week, nearly fifty years later, the Census Bureau issued the
latest poverty numbers and what a surprise, about 15% of us are living in
poverty in this decade. This confirms my long held suspicion that the
legislative army in Washington
President Johnson’s "War on Poverty," was an initiative that
aimed to eliminate poverty in America VISTA , and the Community
Action Program. The declared intent of these programs was to help poor people
help themselves. Other notable acts included the Food Stamp program, Medicare,
and Medicaid. Since we have matching poverty numbers from 1965 and 2013, there
must have been many missing strategies and tactics in that war.
I believe that a real escape from the box labeled poverty requires
several fundamentals and they all involve entrepreneurial thinking. First, you
need a solid belief in your number one product, which is yourself! Next, you
should have a simple education on how the marketplace really works. Then you
need to be determined to develop your skills to a rewarding level. And finally,
never listen to anyone who tries to convince you that a life of poverty is your
destiny.
I grew up having a hand shake relationship with poverty. As one of four
children with both parents, we were living in a public housing project in Niagara Falls , New
York
In my current twenty
year mission of helping people think like entrepreneurs I’ve come to believe
that the answer is not socialism, it's not welfare, it's not just compassion
and it's not the redistribution of wealth. It's not higher taxes and slogan
driven legislation that bring people out of poverty. It is applied capitalism that
can move people up the self-worth and economic ladder toward their dreams of a
better life.
One of my favorite stories about rising above poverty was told to me by
an African-American grandmother living in Jordan Downs, a legendarily awful
housing project in Los Angeles
I grew up believing that the most effective antidote to entrenched
poverty was education. I don’t mean the education that leads to advanced
academic degrees, but the kind of self knowledge that encourages people to stretch
and grow beyond their perceived limits like the grandmother from Jordan Downs.
I want to help the children from households steeped in poverty thinking to
expand their horizons. What do we have to do for those souls to begin seeing
their true and greater potential? The old biblical tenet of teaching people to
fish rather than giving them a steady stream of fish supplied by a government
agency applies here. I don’t believe that we can eradicate poverty by helping
people remain in that unfortunate socioeconomic state by sending them a slogan
and a check.
We have gone so far down the road of teaching risk avoidance that we
now have generations of people who don’t really know what it takes to succeed
in reaching their dreams. By the way, having a multi-million dollar house on
the hill and a seven digit income isn’t everyone’s dream nor is it a true
definition of success. You get to compose your own personal definition of
success but everyone needs to know that it will take some risks to get there. The
playwright Neal Simon said, “If no one ever took risks, Michelangelo would
have painted the Sistine floor.”
Not everyone is an entrepreneur but everyone can benefit from learning to
think like one. That means creating value to put into the marketplace and
receive your just rewards. Whether you are offering your personal services,
your brainpower, a useful product or great skills, creating value can scrub
poverty from your life. We’ve all heard the term “Poverty Pimp” referring to
people who make their reputation and living by screaming about rampant poverty
without creating any durable mechanisms to teach the underclass how to escape
that trap. Some have accused Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton of creating the
category. Those households living below the poverty line form the basis of
their business and without them they’d have to find a new line of work. Did
those legislators who signed off on “War on Poverty” legislation nearly fifty
years ago really have a plan to drive a stake into the heart of the root causes
of poverty? The wily old French Premier Charles de Gaulle who reigned around
the same time as President Johnson said
“In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.” So
here we are today with a widening income gap in America
In America
The guiding strategy of my war on poverty is to teach people to think like
a small business owner even if you are working a minimum wage job or living in
your car. My tactic is to use all media to guide and support those who want to
take personal responsibility in building their life far above the numbers that
define the poverty line. After all, it is the men and women who operate small
and medium enterprises that are the key to job creation. Many have come from
disadvantaged circumstances and the jobs they create will help others to rise. There
is something wonderfully satisfying about occupying a place in life where the
buck stops, having the confidence and resources to make your own decisions. How
wonderfully proud a person can be when they have wrapped their arms around a
dream, working day and night to move it forward. These people are showing us
how to wage a real war on poverty.
