Professional Latex Manipulator

At some point, someone decided that they were going to license everything. You used to be able to hang a sign on your door and practice massage. To be a blacksmith, you needed to have the equipment, do the work, and if you did it well, people would come back to you. If you decided to become a tailor yo painted the needle and thread on your window and began making clothes, if you were good at it, you had more clients, if not, you went out of business.

At what point did we decide that in order to have a job in a specific trade, you have to be certified by someone else? Who decided that "Bob" was the one guy who could certify blacksmiths? Who made "Julia" the official designator of who could and could not call themselves "textile professionals."

I see all kinds of business cards with CPLP, CMT. LMP, PRH, PLC, etc. Why is that? Why is it that it is often illegal to practice a profession that is a learned trade that can be learned on your own. I have been making balloon sculptures for over 15 years. I've made 30 foot balloon sculptures, arches, pillars, dresses, wedding decorations and a literal incalculable number of hand-held creations. Yet there is an actual Certified Balloon Artist designation that I need to pay a fee and take a test to qualify for. So after my 10th year of creating balloon creations I added L.M. after my name on my cards. I figured that since I was at the point of being able to make absolutely anything that people asked me to make out of balloons I was a professional Latex Manipulator.

Several years ago a new-age practice of energy work started turning up in the local solstice centers, yoga studios and more adventurous massage practices, Reiki. Then few years later I started seeing people with Certified Reiki Master. Now Reiki is essentially the movement of energy through the body, often without even touching the recipient. Now whether you believe in the effectiveness of this technique or not, how do you establish a set of requirements on something that is guided by intuition and not proven to have any foundation in science?

I'm all for free enterprise. If you want to open a massage studio without paying the $10 THOUSAND dollars to get "Licensed" I think you should be able to. There is a difference between being good at massage and being a therapist. I understand that for medical practices, there needs to be a bit more oversight & education. But people are amazing. They truly are and the demand for certification and licensing for everything from balloon artists to people moving invisible energy is nuts.

If you happen to be good at making clothes you should not need a degree in fashion design, or be a "Master Seamstress" if you already have the experience to do the job, perhaps better than the so called experts. This is not brain surgery, building bridges, or anything else that puts other people in danger. And if people practice professions that they are not qualified or skilled at, people will stop utilizing them. The End. *steps off soap box*

Inclusion is the new Diversity

Time to bring it into focus for our business and for yours. Inclusion is the acceptance that we ARE in fact different. Even in a whole team of white christian men over the age of 40, each team member is different. Companies have been trying for years to say that "we are all the same" but it is simply not true.

It is true that age, race, gender, sexuality, size & ability are not determining factors in one's capacity to do good work. But they are in fact differences. The strength of an organization does not come from hiding these differences by pretending they are not real. They come from harnessing these differences, finding the strength of each person and allowing those individuals to perform as they are best suited to. People behave and perform best when they feel comfortable and feel that they can be their whole self. This is not achieved through tolerance.

Tolerance in the workplace tells me, as a person from a non-majority group, that no one is allowed to treat me unfairly because of my class, gender, etc. It does not tell me that my differences are valued. They are tolerated. Not desired, not chosen, not accepted or welcome, but tolerated. Tolerated because the law dictates that it be so.

We need to move beyond this. It is time for the diversity trainers, companies, HR professionals, ASTD, SHRM, and everyone else who puts their hat in the arena of education and "soft skills" in the workplace, to redesign their curriculum. Diversity education needs to be about encouragement, empowerment, strength, unity and inclusion.

"We can do it." said Rosie the Riveter when the women were asked to come into the workplace and "put down their aprons" to help the country. Women were not men, but they could do the work. During the civil rights era Dr. Martin Luther King said, "Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better." Those same people, the creative dedicated minorities are working at your companies being told that, to succeed, they need to blend in and be like everyone else. This is your loss as well as theirs.

Include the differences of your people and watch your business thrive.

The 401 Keg Plan

Think About This...

If you had purchased $1,000.00 of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49.00.

With Enron, you would have $16.50 left of the original $1,000.00.

With WorldCom, you would have less than $5.00 left.

If you had purchased $1,000.00 of Delta Air Lines stock you would have $44.00 left.

If you had purchased United Airlines, you would have nothing left. :)

But, if you had purchased $1,000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling refund, you would have $214.00.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

...But don't drive, the gas is TOO expensive. :)

Tolerance is Not Enough

I'm not here to discuss politics. I'm here to discuss the issue of tolerance. I am making this clear because the quote below is from a political forum. Last night I found myself enraged as the Vice Presidential Debates hummed in the air and our home was filled with statements like the one below.

From the transcript of the VP debate from the Commission on Presidential Debates:

IFILL: Governor, would you support expanding that beyond Alaska to the rest of the nation?

PALIN: Well, not if it goes closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman. And unfortunately that's sometimes where those steps lead.

But I also want to clarify, if there's any kind of suggestion at all from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves, you know, I am tolerant and I have a very diverse family and group of friends and even within that group you would see some who may not agree with me on this issue, some very dear friends who don't agree with me on this issue.

But in that tolerance also, no one would ever propose, not in a McCain-Palin administration, to do anything to prohibit, say, visitations in a hospital or contracts being signed, negotiated between parties.

But I will tell Americans straight up that I don't support defining marriage as anything but between one man and one woman, and I think through nuances we can go round and round about what that actually means.

But I'm being as straight up with Americans as I can in my non- support for anything but a traditional definition of marriage.

Tolerance. To tolerate something is asserting your power over it to exist. The assumption that if you did not tolerate it, it would be eradicated. All the definitions of tolerance are not ways I want people to treat me. They are punitive and reflective of a fear and distaste for people who are different.

Inclusion is what we need to see. The coming together of differences and the harnessing of strength through diversity. Not diversity of color, or sexuality, or religion, but just differences. All of our differences are ok.

Your religion is ok.
Your sexuality is ok.
Your body size is ok.

I want to include the views of your religion.
I want to include the views of your gender.
I want to INCLUDE the views of your race.

I will no longer tolerate tolerance.
Do not attempt to tolerate me. You do not have the right.
I will not accept tolerance, but I will accept inclusion.