Every time that happens, the authorities have to shut the economy down. It matters that you can lose your job, hurt the economy, and really lose your freedom, not just by having to wear a mask, but by being ordered to shelter in place again. These developments are happening regardless of your opinions.

Sure, looking back there’s plenty of folks to blame, but that doesn’t matter now. The only thing that matters now is that we increase our hospital capacity and follow the European lead – short-term pain for long term gain: Super cautious reopenings with disciplined mask wearing and social distancing. It can be done. It has been done. But not so in the USA.

It’s getting harder to face our European friends on international Zoom calls because we look like fools for our lack of resolve, our selfishness, and our lack of discipline. Our national behavior of repeatedly filling up hospitals and getting closed down is undermining our credibility on other levels. Why should others listen to us when we continue to damage our own health and economy?

Where we live in Northern California, we have seen the community pull together to fight, contain, and rebuild after huge climate-caused and out-of-control wildfires. One, in our region, was the size of the city of Sacramento driven by 90 mile-per-hour winds that destroyed more than 6000 structures.

We could have blamed the power company, the utility oversight body, or even the oil companies for raising the temperature. We could have, but it wouldn’t have mattered. What mattered was getting the fire under control – and fast.

We could have whined and belly-ached about our loss of freedom when the firefighters closed down our freeway and evacuated us, but we all knew we had to cooperate to overcome the threat. There’d be time enough for blame and politics later, but now we had to save our lives and our economy, and everybody knew it. The result? Short-term pain for long-term gain. We got the fire out and are rebuilding our communities.

That’s what we have to do now, with the same conviction and the same resolve. They say, “Only fools fight in a house on fire!” No matter what our opinions may be, let’s all at least agree that overwhelming the hospitals is something we must work together to prevent. This virus is spreading like a wildfire! Let’s not go out and set new fires by not wearing a mask or social distancing. Until we have a proven vaccine, the authorities will continue to shut down the economy and order us to shelter in place every time that red light goes off on their dashboard indicating that the hospitals are filling up.

A country’s reputation is ultimately defined by the determination of its people. If we show ourselves to be foolish while overwhelming our hospitals, we will certainly look that way to others. We can tell you from being in business for decades, “It takes many years to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute!”

Compassion should be driving our resolve to put out this “fire”! As the song say’s “…and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.” Where is the brotherhood these days? But if all you think about is yourself, why foolishly lose your health, your economy, and your international reputation? Others have controlled this wildfire. We can do this!

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post When The Hospitals Fill Up, The Economy Shuts Down appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

You can’t get a driver’s license without knowing the rules of the road, but you can vote without knowing the rules of the government – unless you are a naturalized citizen! Then you have to know the divisions of government, what they do, and how they check and balance each other. Why should native-born Americans know any less?

As we get further into the information age, we have become more and more inundated with a constant din of information and noise. Is it any wonder we have such short attention spans? Is it any wonder we want to hack everything so we can get the process without the principles?

We may think that all this access to information is making us smarter, but isn’t it just dumbing us down with over-generalized sound bites, sensationalized headlines, and simplistic explanations? Just having access to information doesn’t make us smarter. There needs to be a learning process that involves deductions, analysis, and validation in order to improve our intellect.

In the last election, we had two candidates, one at each extreme of the political spectrum. Each one addressed two very different crowds. But what both crowds had in common was a simplistic view of what the president could do legally. And it was wrong! Neither candidate could actually deliver what they promised without breaking the law. Nonetheless, both candidates got votes …and one got elected!

Why? Is it because we’ve grown so impatient that we want simple answers that sound good to us and we don’t know enough about how the government works to realize they are impossible to execute?

Are we now living in a country whose citizens think that they are voting for a cure-all candidate who can exercise extra-legal power to “get the job done”? If so, what’s to stop future candidates from pandering to this uninformed “populism?”  As long as we don’t make knowledge of basic Civics a requirement, nothing!

Many folks who preferred a candidate who was not on the final ballot simply didn’t vote. They were not willing to cast their vote for the “lessor of two evils.” “That’ll show ‘em!” they may have thought – But without their vote, they got 4 years with the “greater of two evils.”

Hostile governments know what Jefferson warned us about. They know that we are likely to take action without fact checking. That’s why they spent millions on Facebook ads and tweets. They know the ads and tweets will get passed on before they are verified. Why? We’ve become impatient and want simple answers fast! This enables them to spread distraction, polarity, and chaos. This enables them to divide and (possibly) conquer.

The evidence is mounting that US election, the Brexit vote, and the Catalan succession votes were all at least influenced by foreign ads that played on simplistic cure-all themes.

Most of the world’s democracies are parliamentary systems where the prime minister is elected by the legislature, not directly by the people. So, to change government you just vote for the opposition party so that you can presumably cause a vote of non-confidence and form a new government, more to your liking. But in practice, fragile coalitions must be formed because the multi-party system may not allow a clear majority in those legislatures.

In the US, our founders wanted to allow us the ability to vote for legislators of one party and a president of another. The problem is, however, that the decision you make on election day lasts 4 years! Even more reason to have an educated population.

So, if this sounds like a plea to bring back Civics class, it is – to save our democracy, to save our economy, and to save what really makes America great, diversity!

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Is Tech Dumbing Us Down and Making Us Vulnerable to Mob Rule?  appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

The event had its first annual celebration on September the 12^th, and was a big success with participation in 47 of the 50 states! Going forward, it will be observed on the second Thursday of September. Hundreds of businesses throughout the country said “Thank You” with haircuts, dental visits, meals, oil changes, car washes, and tanks of gasoline. All were free, with no strings attached – just a sincere expression of gratitude.

Working with the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) across the country, we can truly appreciate the message and the impact Freedom Day USA will have on our military service people. Acknowledgement and gratitude are the most important things they can receive right now to help them validate their sacrifices on our behalf.

Since conscription (also known as the draft) was abolished forty years ago, we have moved toward a professional all-volunteer military, and consequentially there has been a growing a tendency to view the military as ‘just another profession.’ Nothing could be further from the truth! During the days of conscription, every male between the ages of 18 and 25 was required by law to register to be inducted into the military. As unpopular as the draft was, it did made every American more empathetic to the plight of our military service people and more appreciative of their sacrifices. It was too close to home.

We now have a whole generation of Americans who are fortunate enough to never have been concerned with involuntarily military service. This is a luxury and should never be taken for granted. It certainly should not make us apathetic. The Selective Service System remains in place today and can be resurrected at any time. Meanwhile we are being protected by men and women who have given up family, life, and limb. They did it so we can safely enjoy the infrastructure, order, and trade that give us our standard of living.

Sometimes we get so busy with our own lives that we take our freedom for granted. When we asked the folks at the EBV, “What is the most important thing we can say to the vets?” we heard over and over, “be sure to thank them.” They don’t want to feel like they’re on the outside, forgotten, or taken for granted. Thank you’s are definitely in order, and what better way to say thank you than by setting aside a special day when your business can give our military service people free goods and services?

Dr. Marino’s Freedom Day USA is well thought out and timely. It provides a blueprint and an infrastructure for businesses to have the most impact with gifts of goods and services. It offers a directory of participants and makes military service people in your area aware that you care. Shouldn’t your business participate in the new national tradition of giving back with appreciation? Think about what you have to lose, and then consider what you have to give. Dr. Marino and all our brave military service people, we salute you!

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Freedom Day USA – A Big Thank You to Our Military Service People appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

As we approach the nation’s 236^th year of independence from England and thereby Europe, we find ourselves glued to the financial news out of Europe like we were still part of it. And we are, more than ever. We worry about the economies of China and Russia as if they were our own – regardless of our political differences. Why? Because our very livelihood depends on the world’s economic and environmental health.

We live on the Pacific Coast where debris from the Japanese tsunami is now just starting to wash up from a catastrophe clear across the world’s largest ocean. Beyond our human empathy for the brave people of Japan, many Japanese products we took for granted became scarce. We were confronted with how the damage to their infrastructure affected our marketplace.

If there’s even a hint of an interruption in the supply of oil from the Middle East, we feel it at the pump. That cost trickles up into everything we buy, including the food we eat.

On the West Coast, we’re now getting air pollution from China. If the developing world continues to copy our approach to “prosperity,” we will suffer the health and environmental consequences right here in the USA.

So yes, we wave the flag and celebrate our great nation. We are thankful for the opportunities and freedoms we enjoy. We are proud to be Americans. But independence? We are all here on the same planet, all interdependent and becoming more so every year.

The good news is that the superpowers all know that their customers and suppliers in the other superpowers are too important to allow anything that would hurt their infrastructure, economy, or the world atmosphere. The bad news is that we haven’t yet realized that our economies and health are ultimately dependent on the health of the environment.

But we as individuals are not completely powerless, especially in America. Over and over again we hear that the world economy depends largely on the health of the American consumer. We all know by now that we vote with our money. In our incessant desire to get everything at the very lowest price, we can inadvertently subsidize political, social, health and environmental practices we would never allow in our own country. Every purchase we make is a vote for how it was made, the working conditions and how it got to us.

It’s hard to blame the government when the lobbyists are financed by our choices. If all politics are local, as it is often said, we can start to make changes in the way we spend our money. We can shop at the local organic farmer’s market and try to buy as many goods and services from local merchants as possible. We can avoid the purchase of single use plastics and vote for cleaner beaches. We can vote for lower healthcare costs by making healthier food choices. Every time we fill up with gas we can at least recognize where those funds are going and hope the day will come soon when we will have cleaner alternatives. Car-pooling, biking, and just plain walking are great votes for a more sustainable future.

This Independence Day let’s recognize our interdependence and how our individual choices can shape the future of not only our great country, but also the world. We are free to make independent choices in how we spend our money, thereby casting our votes. We can yet bring in the “New Order” that our nation’s founders called for by recognizing our true power right here in our wallets.

Happy Birthday USA!

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post On Independence Day, We’re more Interdependent than Ever appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.