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Hurricane Irene wiped out many of the trees around our house. Crushed the neighbor’s car. Obliterated another neighbor’s storage shed that he worked so hard to build last year and knocked down the power lines. As such, Marie and I are camped out at my Mom’s. I’m using this calamity as an excuse to wear shorts to work and to skip shaving this morning.

As I walked to the car, just a block away from the house I was raised in, I flashed back on the Summer I was 9. Here I was 50 years later on a fresh, cool summer’s morn. Dressed in khaki shorts and tennis shoes without socks. It was the early sixties when I began to dress this way; the cool teenagers didn’t wear socks. This casual fashion statement along with my propensity for khakis and polo shirts continues to dictate my wardrobe choices.

Anyway, back to the cool Summer morning. As I walked to car I remembered that this is what I think of when I remember my childhood. The quiet of the day when the adults had gone off to work and the kids hadn’t geared up to yell and holler and romp so as to get the most out of the last few days before we had to go back to school.

The collision of wardrobe, time of day and season have transported me back to one of the happiest times of my life. It was the end of the part of my childhood where all I had to do was fill my days with play. The following summer I went to work carrying brick for my father. In my eyes the Summer I turned 10 was when I was no longer a boy, but a man working among men.

From then on the cool of the early morning was savored even more because you knew the day was going to get hotter and you didn’t get to go home until the job was done.

I hear people talk about kids not having a work ethic today as if we adults were born with work ethics and somehow today’s generation is deficient.

Well, I can’t speak for anyone but my cousins and myself, but after the first day working on a job site with our dads, we didn’t want to be there. We may have asked to go, but once we’d carried brick and mortar all day long we’d had it.

After that first day we slept in the truck on the way home. Got home took a shower and napped before dinner and then went to bed with no argument about could we stay up just a little bit longer.

We learned our work ethic day in and day out beside our fathers, uncles, their employees and one another.

We grew to want to be seen as men among men. Just as we had yearned to be chosen for the baseball team, we grew to want to be chosen as the one who could be trusted to get the job done.

So, for those who see the younger generation as lacking discipline I encourage you to look for opportunities to demand more of them. Give them the chance to work and demand they hang in there. They will rise to our expectations; just as we did. Or have you forgotten the way the old folks used to talk about us when we were young?

I wasn’t born with a “work ethic” and frankly when I was being taught one I didn’t ask for it, desire the gift or appreciate it.

But, I cannot ever thank enough the men who invested their time and energy in teaching me what it meant to be one of them. The people who don’t go home until the job is done.

My Canadian buddy, Robert McGarvey regularly reminds me of one of America’s greatest stories.

In 1861 President Lincoln signed The Homestead Act and began the greatest experiment in mutual cooperation and prosperity in history. For 50 years there after the US gave people land in exchange for their commitment to develop it.

People flooded in from all over the world and they were given the opportunity to develop an asset. They were given 160 acres and if within 5 years they cleared the land, cultivated crops, built a house and a barn they were given deed to the land. The great thing about an asset is it stores up all the energy we invest in creating it. It tripled the value of their time and energy. Stored it up for their benefit and that of their heirs.

We believe tomorrow will be better than yesterday. We’re unwilling to accept a declining future or for that matter a stagnant status quo.

Now the American myth of rugged individualism has been supported by all those Hollywood films that show the lone pioneer occasionally with his nuclear family chopping down trees, building a cabin and plowing the fields and we as a nation celebrate that pulling yourself up by the bootstraps vision.

But the true genius was requiring a barn. You couldn’t build a barn by yourself. You needed your neighbors help. That was inspiration. It created community. A sense that we were in this for more than just ourselves.

Americans volunteer more than any other people in the world. We give more money per capita to charities than any other people in the world. Habitat for Humanity is a purely American idea. People volunteering to build other people’s home in the belief that they too will be building their own home one day.

We are a nation of immigrants. We are all foreigners. Even our Native Americans came here from some place else. Start looking for ways to help one another regain our belief in our potential.

Start looking for ways to help one another and we’ll start helping ourselves.

There’s a parable of heaven and hell where people sit at the table with utensils too big to feed themselves with. The folks in the room starving as they try to feed themselves is hell. The room where the folks use the tools to feed one another is heaven.

America’s brand of capitalism is the highest form of cooperation the world has ever seen.

Remember, we live into the stories we tell ourselves. Look for ways to cooperate. You can. We can, together! Let’s get back to living a story worth living, together.

I’ve been silent for a week. We’ve had some health issues in the family, but everyone is healing nicely. So, I thought I’d take some time this quiet Saturday morning to share something that happened to me Friday a week ago.

For the last 10 years on the First Friday of every month the art galleries in Richmond stay open late and unveil new shows. It’s a practice that a lot of cities around the country have embraced and it’s been very successful. Some might say, too successful.

Now, I’m not comparing what goes on to the riots in London, but First Friday now draws not only folks interested in art, but also hordes of young teenagers. And the last few months as young men and women with raging hormones have crowded the streets we’ve seen violence break out. This past week they arrested several teens and charged one with the possession of a firearm.

The organizers have decided to cancel the September First Friday as it will fall on Labor Day weekend and the fear is we’ll see an even larger crowd with the potential for more mischief.

I’m saddened by this, but the story I want to share was what, if I may say so myself, I think was a moment of brilliance on my part last Friday.

I was walking the Art District streets with Adam and Coldon of Lot 49 Media shooting video for a series of VCasts to promote Catch Your Limit Consulting.

A group of young men approached and as boys will be boys they started being obnoxious and intruding themselves into the shoot. Now in the old days of shooting film that would have been costly, but when you’re just shooting 1s and 0s there’s no real loss.

Of course, one of them had to begin to cuss and this was my moment of brilliance. I looked at the boys and said, “Aw, guys, you know I can’t use this footage when you talk like that. I was going to put you guys on TV, but I can’t use the footage now. That’s a shame.”

The crew and I kept on walking down the street as the kids went on the other way.

I could not help but smile as I heard the boy’s buddies start giving him holy hell. “Man, you can’t talk like that on TV. We could have been on TV and you talk like that. What’s the matter with you, fool? Damn!”

Now, I could have gotten angry and yelled at them, but frankly I do not have a death wish. Besides, I was reminded of my Momma’s every present admonition “It’s not what you say, but how you say it.” As well as the old adage, “A kind word turneth away wrath.”

My hope is the pressure of his peers will curb the young man’s tongue; you never know. Cursing seems to be a rite of passage that fortunately some boys outgrow. And boisterous, obnoxious behavior is par for the course when a group of boys get together without their mommas around to keep them in line. And there’s something about a camera that makes people behave bizarrely. Just watch the Today Show in the morning if you don’t believe me.

None the less, I was happy with my moment of inspiration. I could have turned the incident into a confrontation. Fortunately, I didn’t. As I wrote earlier, I’m saddened that they’re canceling the September First Friday.

I wish instead the response had been to encourage the parents of young folks planning on attending First Friday to come along as well. People, even children with still developing brains riddled with hormones tend to behave better when people they know are watching.

Well, I’ll end with one more pat on my back. I’m pleased that I responded with love towards the little brats as opposed to being mean. The moment passed, no harm was done and hopefully those young men may behave a little better in the future.

We can only hope.

Peter Drucker said, “A business exists to create a customer.”

Customer-centric marketing is redundant.

A lot of people confuse marketing with advertising. Advertising is only a part of the marketing mix. Experienced ad folks know, the last thing you want to do for your client is a good ad.

Marketing is first and foremost about understanding who’s your potential customer. Understanding not only their demographics, but also their needs and optimally their wants and desires.

When you understand what they want and how important it is that need be filled, you can develop the appropriate products and services.

When you understand how important it is to your customer that those needs be fulfilled you can price your offering in a manner in alignment with its perceived value.

Where you offer your products and services depends upon your customers are.

Simply put your products and services need to be a solution to your customers “problems”. Your price needs to equate a valuable exchange in your customer’s mind. Your customers need to be able to get your offering whether they come to you or you go to them, they need access.

Once these issues have been dealt with then you can communicate the offer in a manner that gives your customer the factual and emotional information they need to make a decision.

If the customer isn’t at the center of your thinking you’re not marketing, you’re trying to sell.

A few parting questions:

Do you like being sold?

Do you think your customers do?

Let me encourage you to look at who you want to do business with and ask yourself, “Does what we do matter to these people?”

Then regardless of the answer, ask yourself, “How can we better understand their needs, so we can become indispensable?

I watched a great TED video this morning. What made today’s experience different was my discovery of About.Me.

I clicked on the link and came face to face with the speaker’s About Me page. There at the top of the page I saw “Want your own page? Get yours today!

And my heart stopped. Well not literally, but you get the idea. I was shocked by the fear I felt. Whoa, Nelly! I don’t have time for this. Don’t go there big fella.

I was shocked by how viscerally I experienced the fear.

Fear that I was unprepared to sum myself up. Has the irony dawned on you that you’re reading this on a blog called “Gayle Turner Speaks”? It would seem I have no difficulty with self promotion.

As I write this I am still feeling the unsettling physical tingling of anxiety. I’ve spent my career in businesses which require self promotion. Everything I’ve ever done has required a degree of sales. And we all know the first thing salespeople sell is themselves.

So, maybe you can imagine the shock of a salesman being hesitant to define himself.

Now, I imagine some of you are thinking I should seek professional help. (I hope some of you smiled at that.)

But I already have. I’m working with a consultant to help me clarify my personal brand. The value proposition I offer my clients.

Earlier in my career I helped ad agencies clarify their brands. People used to ask me, “Isn’t that like taking coal to Newcastle?” I used to say, even when you’re looking in a mirror you’re seeing a reverse image. We all benefit from an objective third party.

The issue is finding a third party you trust.

While reading this did you asked yourself, “What’s my brand?” What’s my value proposition?” “Why do people do business with me?”

If so, I hope you too, seek professional help. (I’m smiling at that.)

The shock is wearing off.

Time for me to overcome my fear and explore About.Me.

Check it out for yourself.