Are Fraternities Just Gangs with Scholarships?

At what point does a pledge we make to a fraternity outweigh the pledge we make to ourselves? It’s the exact point that we stop thinking as individuals and adopt the ideals or logic of a group. Please note that the group’s stance doesn’t have to be ethical, moral, or right. The only criteria for action is that everybody is in unison. This mob or gang mentality exists within our politics, relationships, and even families. It is “us” against “them” or “right versus “wrong.” It’s this political party versus that political party. Or, it is this side of the family versus that side of the family. The conflict could even be between this class of people against the other class of people. The sides or stance doesn’t matter. What does matter is that people are often unwilling and incapable of following their hearts once they’ve given their heart to the group.

I still give my heart to the fraternity I pledged over 13 years ago; Alpha Phi Alpha, Fraternity Incorporated. I adopted the distinguished principles and colors of Black and Old gold. I still proudly wear my Black and Old Gold to every appropriate step show, party, district meeting, and fraternity business event. The difference is that I now wear those colors as David James Mack IV. I’m an individual that brings my ideas to the group; rather than a dependent spoke on a bicycle…just waiting to be wheeled and turned in any direction.

The turning point was when I received an e-mail from my fraternity brother about a month ago. The e-mail explained that our rival fraternity was not only present on Emory’s campus, but they were thriving. They currently have a good chapter GPA, they are respected on campus, and they just won their fraternity’s National chapter of the year award. It gets even deeper. My fraternity, the mighty Black and Old Gold, was suspended from Emory’s campus for hazing and won’t be allowed back until 2015. Huh?

I should have been happy for our rival fraternity, but something didn’t sit well with me. What was the problem? I was always brought up to be a nice person. Furthermore, I was taught to respect all people, love all mankind, and not to judge people based on their culture or ethnicity. I reflected on what I thought versus what I felt. How could I teach lessons of tolerance and acceptance to my children if I couldn’t handle the success of my rival fraternity? How could I campaign for change and global equality if I wasn’t able to accept the “guys in red?” How could white people ever accept a black president if I couldn’t accept a guy who’s the same race as me, but in a different fraternity? I wasn’t upset because of the fraternal situation. It bothered me that I had become a hypocritical coward that was hiding behind my own fraternal colors.

I fell victim to my own fraternal colors by succumbing to a gang mentality. I adopted the ideals and thoughts of the group without asking questions as an individual. I didn’t see the person…just the color red. I made blanket assessments, mass generalizations, and preconceived assumptions about their group. I actually lost my identity as an intelligent Alpha man by prejudging and categorizing people in other fraternities. I should have felt excited instead of shocked to hear their good news. I should have felt motivated to do more with my chapter instead of feeling threatened by the fraternity in red.

The truth of the matter is that those guys in red have a name. They are members of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated. They have a strong and steadily flourishing chapter on Emory’s campus. I not only recognize them, but I congratulate them for their accomplishments. I don’t know any of the guys in the current Kappa chapter, but I applaud their success. I always thought that the Kappas at Emory cold have learned a thing or two from the Alphas. Now, I humbly admit that we may be able to learn some things from them. We all might be aligned with different fraternal colors, but we have the same mission. We all cherish our respective fraternities and the opportunity to get a great education. We actually cause more harm than good when we create walls of division and separation. It does the school, Greek-life, and alumni harm when we pigeon hole ourselves into believing false ideologies and personas. We hamper ourselves from growing and evolving into better people and more productive organizations. Being in a specific fraternity might help you with a connection or get a job. But, you have to network and be comfortable with everybody to truly make it in this world. Success knows no color; including fraternities.

The overall impact of fraternal life doesn’t have to be negative for the group or individual. The positive achievements of ALL fraternities and sororities far outweigh the negative stereotypes that we read and hear about in the news. For example; a historic monument for Martin Luther King Jr. was erected in Washington a few weeks ago. This man will be celebrated forever because of the hard work and dedication he put into creating better lives for millions of people. Martin Luther King Jr. won’t be remembered because he was a black man or because he pledged Alpha Phi Alpha. He’ll be remembered because he thought and acted way above the divisive gang mentality that still divides our nation. He sacrificed his life so that people of all races, creeds, and religions could enjoy a life of equality and civil dignity. Who am I to smear his legacy (and the legacy of our parents) by accepting the same narrow-minded beliefs that caused segregation and oppression? Skin color, political party colors, and fraternal colors are all manifestations of the same thing. They can be very positive and natural if handled with responsibility, honesty, and personal integrity. Or, they can be nothing more than high level gangs. Let’s not allow the individual pursuit of money, popularity, or status overcome the merits of the group. We should allow for the individuals to influence the group instead of permitting the gang to influence the individual.

Why Your Business Idea Sucks

Oh, you’ve got a brilliant idea that is guaranteed to make millions?  Let me stop you right there.  I think I’ve heard this one before.

You have an idea.  Only you have no means to actually make it happen.  In fact, you have no ability to produce the product without the help of lots of other skilled people.  Or your idea is perfect, except it just requires that someone else come up with some technology like a new magnet that makes skateboards levitate or a tablet that turns water into beer.

Oh yes, the all-new Ale-Raiser pills will be a hit! Only you don’t know how to brew beer, failed high school chemistry, have no connections in the beer industry, don’t know how to market, haven’t researched alcohol sales laws, don’t know how to package/market/distribute products, or even know if your idea is possible.  But that’s just details, right?

You basically want to get paid for an idea you came up with while you were driving/sleeping/getting stoned.  Do you really think that is how people get rich?  You think people get paid by coming up with an idea, get other people to design it, buy the raw materials, create it, market it, package it, ship it, sell it?  Meanwhile, all you produce is an idea and a clever name?  Maybe you bought the domain name and came up with what you think is a catchy slogan and you want to sit back and watch the money roll in?  Please lay the crackpipe down.

Sometimes people think they have a business idea that is so brilliant that they’re reluctant to even tell you the idea in case you “steal” it.  Or they want you to sign a non-disclosure agreement.  No thanks – keep your brilliant idea to yourself.  I could make more money betting that you’ll never actually do it.  If you have done so little work on your brilliant idea that someone else could come along and produce the end product before you, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll never get it off the ground.  Worse, you don’t possess the skills to get it from brain-fart to reality.  Deep down you know that the only way you’ll ever make money off your idea is if you convince everyone to sign contracts saying you get the money when someone else makes the product – you know you bring nothing else to the table.

What’s really offensive is that you actually think that someone else would be stealing the idea if they went out and built the product that you’re sitting around talking about.  Do you not realize that you would be the one stealing?  Someone else puts their sweat and tears into designing the product, getting the materials, building it, testing it, doing all of the physical and mental labor around it for months or years until the product gets to market, and you get paid for the 10 seconds of “brilliance” that came up with the idea?  It’s like that famous line from The Social Network – “If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.”  You are nothing but a bunch of Winklevos twins – empire-founder-wannabes wondering why you’re not billionaires off of your frat house musings.

New rule: you don’t get to say anything to me about the marketing campaign, or your business card design, or the clever name of whatever it is you want to sell, until you actually build the thing it is you want to sell.  New rule #2: you don’t get to complain about how you could have gotten rich if you’d only have built the Snuggie/Ebay/George Foreman grill when you first thought of it.

Your idea is nowhere near as original as you think.  Ideas like yours are as common as people who sit around thinking that they can get rich off of their idea.

You want to get paid for your brilliant idea to build the next George Foreman grille?  Fine.  Get up from the bar and go sit in your basement for the next decade learning engineering and build it yourself.  That’s how people actually get rich.  They take the idea from the very beginning to the end.  They do the research, they learn everything about the field, and they build the product themselves.  And yes, it takes a long time.  That’s why few people do it.  The rest of you sit around talking about how you could have invented something, or tell yourself that you can become a millionaire just by coming up with a good plan.  The money is in the execution.  Your idea is worthless.

Next time you come up with a great business plan or product, run it past a couple reality checks.  Can you do it yourself? If you can’t, you can learn how to do it yourself.  Will it take you a long time? If yes, good.  That means that other people are unlikely to do it.  Get started.  The lazy shortcut to riches doesn’t exist.  No one is going to pay you for your imagination.  You can talk about how you could have invented the next Snuggie, or you can actually get to work and invent it.

 

The Schizophrenic In You

You can be horrible sometimes.  Downright evil.  If you followed through on half of the terrible things you’ve imagined doing, we’d lock you away for life.  Who are you really?  Are you kind? Happy? Angry? Jealous?  Forgiving?  Optimistic?  Pessimistic?  You are all of those things and more.  Even the kindest of us has evil thoughts from time to time.  The most depraved person you know has shown someone compassion.  All of these emotions are deep down within all of us.  Depending on the day, someone could think you’re Ted Bundy or Mother Teresa.

We think other people are simple and that we’re complicated.  We categorize other people while thinking that we are beyond category.  When someone else does something that doesn’t match our expectations of them, we say that the action was “very unlike them.” When we do something that others see as “unlike us,” our reaction is to respond that they don’t know everything about us.

The truth is that we are all icebergs. We have the small visible part that we allow others to see, but have multiple layers and complexities lying far below the surface.  There are an unlimited number of “you.”  We are all capable of both great and horrible things.  This is because “you” is not just this one monolithic being, but more like a committee of people where different you’s win out arguments and decide which action gets taken.

The idea that there are many yous is why you can laugh at yourself, or get angry with yourself, or wonder why you did something.  It’s why we sometimes feel like we’re not ourselves.  Or when after you do something impressive, your mother says you always had it in you.

There is the lazy you.  The you that pushes you to skip the gym today or to watch TV rather than get up and go for a run.  There is the productive you, the you that gets on a streak and gets a ton of stuff done on a Saturday that could otherwise go by unused.  There’s the callous you, the thoughtful you, and dozens, maybe hundreds more.  And not all of you are equal.  When one you starts winning more of the battles for the actions that You end up taking, that you grows stronger and becomes the you other people judge You by.

You’ve listened in on the arguments in your head, so you know it’s true.  The personality that you have allowed to be dominant in your brain’s team of rivals is shown through your habits.

You choose which of your multiple personalities gets to represent you to the rest of the world.  How can you use this knowledge to your advantage?

Here’s how it’s done: Ask people you trust to tell you the worst quality you are known for.  If one thing comes up more than a couple times, you can bet it’s true.  Warning: you may not like what you hear.

Choose one thing that you would prefer to be known (or not known) for. Be aware of the times when you might exhibit that trait.  For example, if you are known for always waking up late, you could learn how to wake up early.  If you are known for gluttony you could start showing up to lunch with salads.

Before I became a courtroom lawyer, I used to show up for things when I felt like showing up.  Call it fashionably late for life.  Didn’t matter too much for class.  Helped at parties.  My first job out of school didn’t have a time that you had to arrive at work, so long as you got your job done.  I had never been required to be that on time.  Then I got assigned to a courtroom in my job as a public defender.  Court appearances start at a specific time.  Not showing up on time meant the judge was waiting on me = not good.  It only took being locked out of the courtroom one time.  From that point on, I was all of a sudden an early person.  7:00 meant 6:55.  And not just in court – I could be counted on to be the person on time for everything – client meetings, dinner engagements, intramural softball.

Most bad habits can be unlearned by practice and effort. You can go from deficient in an area to being a star.  You can go from someone who has to drag yourself out of bed to a morning person.  You can go from a slob to notoriously neat.  You can be Mrs. Reliable rather than have your friends call you flaky behind your back.  You could go from obese to Jared from Subway (not saying you would want to, but you could).

You do not have to accept the undesirable personalities in your head that are bullying the more awesome you into submission.  You must intervene in the arguments inside your mind to support the you that reflects who you really want to be.  It’s making a conscious decision to not just operate on autopilot. Become a participant in those arguments in your head; back the great person inside you that keeps getting drowned out by the less desirable you.

You choose the attributes that make up who you will be to the rest of the world.  Will you take advantage?  If you don’t, you have no one to blame… but You.

Are You Ready for a Fight?

“Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off. ” Tyler Durden, Fight Club (1999)

Fight Club is one of my all-time favorite movies. For a quick synopsis for those who haven’t seen it, Edward Norton, the narrator, is an insomniac who ultimately discovers that he has created an alter ego of himself, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). They create an underground network of fight clubs, which ultimately try to bring down the civilized world as we know it. Tyler is brash, aggressive and free from the constraints of everyday life. The movie takes few crazy turns, but it has some of the most memorable quotes in movie history, like the one above. While Tyler wasn’t “real” in the classic sense in the movie, he represented the narrator’s real outlet for frustration. Tyler Durden was the narrator saying “I’m pissed about my life…and I’m ready to fight to change it.”

For most, pissed off is the understatement of the century right now. Last Friday, this country stood firm at 9.1% unemployment. It will take over 200,000 jobs created in a month to move the rate lower (we created only half that, 103,000) in the last month. We are debating whether higher education is a “good investment” now more than ever. People are protesting all over the country, while companies are touting the right to make a profit. Healthcare for all is being looked at as the enemy of the economy, and Democrats and the Republicans are but a hair’s length away from resembling a Bloods and Crips feud in South Central L.A. Every man, woman and child is in a fight for their homes, their jobs, their health and their future.

So yes, people are pissed. But like Tyler, I see the strongest and smartest people who ever lived. To live in this current time, is to be steeled and fortified like no other generation before us. But the stark realization for us all is that we have to fight. We all have to tap the inner Tyler Durden inside us all. While we could be a millionaire, a movie god or a rock star, those things are not the main driver for most. Changing the world to make it a better place, raising great kids or pursuing a hobby or interest full-time are what I hear most often. So why the difficulty? Because most of us have never really fought. We’ve put on gloves, danced around the ring of life, but never been in a no- holds- barred scrap.

We have to fight against our neighbor’s dreams being superimposed onto ours. We have to fight against allowing talk news, unemployment reports or a paycheck keeping us from our dreams. We have to fight for our marriages, relationships, families and friendships. And yes, it is going to be bloody and it is going to hurt. Failures in business, in love and in life are the scars of our fights. So rather than risk injury, we accept what we are given.

I say now is the perfect time to fight. If there is a dream that is passing you by or a life you are not living, it time to get to scrapping. Its time to bite, punch, kick, wrestle your way to your dreams. And if we are fortunate enough to be fighting for what we truly want, we can win. I know many of us have not been in a fight for our dreams before and that is ok. Tyler had the best quote about never being in a fight. When the narrator mentioned not being in a fight being a good thing, Tyler replied “No, man it’s not. How much can you know yourself if you’ve never been in a fight? I don’t wanna die with out any scars.”

Neither do I. Scars earned fighting for your dreams are just joyful reminders of success. Know yourself. Pick a fight and win. I am Tyler Durden and my dreams are my Fight Club.

The Myth Of Following Your Passion

People everywhere, from Jonathan Mead to Oprah tell you that you should find a way to get paid for what you love to do.  Follow your “passion” and that the money will come.  This is dangerous advice.

Following your passion might work if your passion makes money.  But what if your passion is juggling, or hula-hooping?  There are only so many jugglers and hula-hoopers needed in an economy.  It is possible to be passionate about something that doesn’t make money.

Following your passion might also work if you are amazing at something.  If you have watched the American Idol auditions, you know that many of the rejects do not lack passion about singing – they’re just not very good.  You can love something to death and not be good enough at it to make it a career.

And don’t give me the line about you could always try to find another job in the industry you love.  That’s redefining the meaning of passion.  If you are passionate about singing, you’re not following your passion by becoming a mic operator.

The advice of making your passion your job seems to always come from someone who has already made it.  It’s easy for Oprah to tell you to only do work you love.  She hasn’t had a crappy job in decades.  It’s easy to be righteous about the labor you perform when you’re rich enough to not work.

Folks get successful and forget what work was like before they were successful.  Most often these people took a less glamorous, more traditional route: working for years in passionless jobs to earn enough money to do what they want.  Sean Penn is picky about the scripts he’ll read now, but he didn’t always have that luxury.  Go look at his IMDB.  Between “Fast Times at Ridgmont High” and “Dead Man Walking” there was plenty of garbage.

Most people just aren’t in a position to drop everything and pursue their passion.  Most people are years away financially from being able to afford that risk.  Most people are years away from being good enough at something they are passionate about to make it profitable.  Most people don’t know what the hell they are doing.

If we could ask Oprah, I’m sure she would agree you should pay off your credit card debt before quitting your job to bake cupcakes.  But “Make your passion your job after you eliminate consumer debt and save 12 months of expenses” doesn’t have the same ring to it.  We like quick solutions.  We’d rather believe we can start our dream life any moment we decide.  It sounds nice, but you never take the leap, because subconsciously you know something isn’t right.

Flexo at Consumerism Commentary spills the beans on the “passion as your job” fable.  There are prerequisites to doing what you love for a living.  Flexo makes a living as a blogger.  He recognizes that a fortunate childhood let him explore a variety of activities and get a good education.  He concedes that a fat salary at a corporate job allowed him to pay off his debt and support a family while he took a chance writing full-time. Even after his blog took off and he was earning decent coin, he kept at his day job for years. There were safety nets, some that take a lifetime to build, that Flexo had in place before he even considered following his passion full time.

Flexo refers to the five levels in Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:“Following your passion is related most to the top of the pyramid, self-actualization.  All the issues pertaining to the levels below self-actualization must be met before a quest to reach one’s full potential can be moderately successful.”

Do you have enough financial reserves to not worry about cash for the foreseeable future?  If no, you’re not ready to follow your passion full time.

Is your health top notch?  Are you sleeping the proper amount?  Do you have a stable support network?  Are you accomplished at what it is you plan to do? If no, you’re nowhere near ready to make the leap to passion as occupation.

This is why we write about addressing our health and our finances before all else.  The foundation of your pyramid must be solid before you climb to the peak of passion mountain.

The best route for most people is not quitting their job tomorrow to sell cupcakes to the masses.  This is not to suggest that you shouldn’t start pursuing things you’re interested in.  You also need the time to get amazing at something.  Get your bedtime and emergency fund in order, but also start getting good at something.

Figure out where your time is going and find two or three hours to reallocate to something you like – doesn’t necessarily have to be a “passion.” Keep experimenting. Spend time doing stuff you enjoy.  If there comes a point where your new passions allow you to quit your job, you’ll know it.  If not, all that happens is you get to be amazing at something you enjoy. Some might even call that passion.