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Monday, April 27, 2009

Ted Endorses Headland Bank

Back in the late '70s and early '80s we used to see Ted Turner at Atlanta Braves baseball games. If I remember correctly, often times we had tickets just a few rows behind Ted and his small entourage on the first base dugout side. Look closely at the photo and you can see that he's wearing a Headland National Bank cap Dad gave him. Dad took the photo, of course. Back then, Turner owned the Braves as well as the the Hawks of the NBA. Of course, his biggest claim to fame was starting a 24 hour cable network we proudly know as CNN. On the side, he won the world's largest yachting race, The America's Cup, and started the Goodwill Games that brought together the world for a boycott-free sporting competition. Turner became one of the nation's billionaires and more than earned his reputation as "the mouth of the South." Today he's America's biggest landowner and one of the world's leading philanthropists. I would recommend his recent auto-biography, They Call Me Ted. Here's a recent interview where he plugged his book and talked about his intriguing life.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Four Ms

Major, Miles, Mark Sr., Mark Jr.

Mr. Weston from Headland, AL is in this photo. And Dad is behind the camera!

Now that baseball season is underway, this post is timely. I will have to check dates, but I am guessing that "going to see the Braves" started in the early 70s. Granddad Major had loved sports, and had actually played baseball, football and basketball in high school. So, when the Braves moved to Atlanta, he then started asking some of his banking contacts for tickets to games every now and then. This trend continued through the 80s, and a love for the Atlanta Braves stayed with my dad and his brother-in-law and several others over the course of their lives. I also went to many games, especially in the 80s. My greatest joy was getting there early enough, which we always did, to get autographs. If I had to pick a few games that were most exciting to me, I would go, first, with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Of course, these games were all in Atlanta. The Pirates had either already won their championship or were on the verge. We got to see Omar Moreno, Dave Parker, Phil Garner and the great Willie Stargell. The St. Louis Cardinals, with their raw speed and impressive gloves, also came to town. I loved Willie McGee, Vince Coleman and, of course, Ozzie Smith! And then the Mets came. This was when they had Dwight Gooden, Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter and the young phenom, Daryl Strawberry. Other great teams that we got to see play were the LA Dodgers and the Barry Bonds-led Pirates (the 90s). And to top it off, in the late 70s and early 80s, the tickets we had were just behind Ted Turner, the founder of CNN and then owner of Braves. On a baseball card, I actually got his autograph. I blogged about one Turner encounter here. The long drives to Atlanta, seeing the big skyline come into view, finding easy-to-get-out-of parking spaces, grabbing a box of KFC chicken for a quick "picnic" on the grass outside the stadium, rushing in when the gates opened, getting the autographs and seeing Chief Noc-A-Homa go through his pre-game ritual, always set the stage for enjoyable games.

Dale Murphy was the big star of the Braves for almost two decades. I never remember hearing direct talk from family about Murphy being a Mormon. although my grandmother, who loved baseball, referred to it in a matter-of-fact way on occasion. However, there was a preacher who went with us to a game, and as we sat there, in the stadium seats, struggling to eat pizza slices sticking to the paper plates they were served on, he would say, more than once, in a joking tone, but still serious fashion: "Good guys burn in hell, too"......referring to Murphy and the class person he was, yet the obvious (to this preacher) wrong course Murphy was on. I was very young, and obviously couldn't counter what he said, and just looked up at him, and laughed a bit. Just shows you the incredible power adults have on kids, and the messages that get passed from one generation to another. Fast-forward to the 2000s. Once reason I was intrigued by Mitt Romney's runs for president was the message it sent back out to folks like this preacher and to the greater public, and it showed how times have changed.

Some of our other photos from Braves games

Phil Niekro

I'm #32 here. Behind me is my brother, Mark. Miles is at bottom. That's Tim Cox on the right.

Friday, April 18, 2014

Why Few Revolutions Succeed

source

This was a fun, go-to motivational book I read in the '90s. If you're wanting to think out of the box, this is a good one. The excerpt above is one I bookmarked!

Benjamin Franklin is also quoted a lot in Jump Start Your Brain. Franklin had started a Junto club as a means to generate ideas and gain knowledge. When I was living in Thailand, I thought a lot about starting a Junto group or a Men's group, where some of my expat friends and I could meet regularly for this purpose. But it only remained an idea!

At age twenty-one, he formed a “club of mutual improvement” called the Junto. It was a grand scheme to gobble up knowledge. He invited working-class polymaths like him to have the chance to pool together their books and trade thoughts and knowledge of the world on a regular basis. They wrote and recited essays, held debates, and devised ways to acquire currency. Franklin used the Junto as a private consulting firm, a think tank, and he bounced ideas off the other members so he could write and print better pamphlets. Franklin eventually founded the first subscription library in America, writing that it would make “the common tradesman and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries,” not to mention give him access to whatever books he wanted to buy. - source

More excerpts I recorded from Jump Start Your Bain in the mid '90s:

The Courage to Face Fear

Most everyone wants to live on the edge. Maybe the feeling is deep down, but it’s there. Most everyone would like to be out front, the very best. But the only way to know for sure you’re on the edge is to slip over it. You can’t itch your way to it and peek over. You have to step out front and fall a few times. Success doesn’t happen without failure.

Do not labor under the assumption that the safe way is to do nothing. Standing still is not a realistic option. You can’t afford to maintain the status quo.

It’s as risky to maintain the status quo as it is to reach for the new and bold. In the first case, you can get run over. In the second, you have a chance to swing for the fence.

The only way to a get a significantly different result is to do something significantly different.

High 5 of Fears

FEAR of being laughed

The fear of ridicule causes us to build walls between ourselves and the world. It prevents us from asking questions so won’t appear foolish. It keeps us from taking on new and different pursuits because we might fall on our faces. It discourages us from reaching out and revealing our true selves because we might be rejected. It ties our hands, clamps our mouths shut, and closes our minds.

Being laughed at is a sign of potential genius. Think of Franklin in a thunderstorm, the Wright brothers on the beach at Kitty Hawk, Edison with his light bulbs, Ted Turner with his Cable News Network.

FEAR of losing what we have

The people in the middle are trying to coast. They often play not to lose instead of playing to win. They are the ostriches of the human race. They create elaborate justifications for their lack of action and forward motion. The result is disillusionment. Which leads to twisting in the wind, which in turn leads to certain death.

Fear of rejection

The fear of rejection grows stronger as we become adults. Instead of speaking our minds, we become conditioned to sit on them. After a while, we stop trying.

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.

Finding the courage means you believe in what you’re doing and that you are secure in your ability to go do something else, that you’re not afraid to take it to the monster. Finding the courage means you’re not afraid of getting kicked out, knowing you’d land on your feet if you did.

FEAR of the unknown

Many of us lack initial courage because we think we need to have every step choreographed before we embark on the adventure. We want a detailed road map with a clearly focused beginning, middle, and final destination, along with a synopsis of all the roadside tests and comfort stations. Sorry. It doesn’t work that way. America’s westward migration is an example.

If you want to be great, you must learn to live with uncertainty. You have to have faith in your ability to adapt and react. Ignorance of the future is not a sign of stupidity – it’s part of the human condition.

FEAR of exposure

It’s is one of the most crippling forms of dread, the fear that a deep-seated insecurity will be dragged out into the light of day. “I’m not (smart, creative, tall, good-looking, fill in the blank) enough.”

Identifying your fears is the first step to freeing yourself from them.

High 5 of Courage

Look to teammates

Your spouse, for example. If you don’t have a mutually supportive relationship, get the relationship fixed. Never, ever set sail on a grand adventure without the support of your spouse. This person must be a portrait of faith and support. Anything short of it will deflate your oomph, drain your energy, and puncture your balloon.

Taking action

Fear is often a mirage arising from your own uncertainties. Take action. Any action is better than standing still. In most cases, if you challenge your fear through action, you’ll find it’s not nearly as formidable as you thought.

Covering your bets

Entrepreneurs are not daredevils. They don’t take long shots. Rather, they reduce fear by covering their bets.

Figure out fallback positions in the event the initial plan falls flat.

Be the best. When you take the high ground and create something of genuine value, you’ll be strengthened. If an idea is true, if it’s not of dubious value, you’ll be more apt to have the courage to see it through. The best ideas are those that bring out the idealist in you.