Daily Mood Quote
Day 197 – November 17, 2011
Bitter experience has taught us how fundamental our values are and how great the mission they represent.
~Jan Peter Balkenende
Yesterday's blog prompted a question. I was pointedly asked, “Where do you come off making these assertions about doing the right thing? Surely, you have not lead a perfect life!” Nothing can be more true, You Bettcha! (thanks Minnesota),” My husband and I have made plenty of mistakes, who hasn’t? But, we have learned some pretty important things from our painful experience. The first is; how important it is to be be honest, candid and forthright and most importantly; always trust that feeling that clearly delineates the difference between what is right and what is wrong (our moral compass). So rather than pointing out other people's mistakes, we thought it was in all fairness, important to reveal a few of our own, to illustrate the point. “Let the chips fall where they may.” Owning up to a mistake seems to be something of a lost art in our time. People seem to go to extraordinary lengths to try to cover up failures of judgment and of ethics, which is in itself a failure of judgment and ethics. Funny how that works out.
Sooo, here we go! Where do we begin, I guess the beginning is always a good place to start. My husband is 52 years old and has 25 years in the advertising industry, about half his life and almost all of his adult life. When he started out in the 1980's he worked for one the largest public relations firms on the planet. We'll let you guess which one. They were an enormous, global organization and very successful. He was a creative (art director) and quite honestly extremely naïve, despite his education. Long story short, the agency took on a massive client, who made their living selling cigarettes. He was assigned to the account. This was something he had a major moral issue with; not a little one, a very big one. My husband had watched smoking and its effects kill members of his own family and friends; lung disease, heart disease and one unfortunate house fire. Yet, he rationalized, after all this was business, wasn't it? But in short order, a matter of months, he couldn't take it anymore. What they were doing, and saying was a complete sham, and he asked to be removed from the account. He states, “I couldn't have killed my career faster with a bullet.” Things spiraled rapidly down hill after that. Ultimately, it lead to him leaving the company by “recommendation” and then the town, because he was blackballed and his reputation was subjected to an unrelenting assault from the same people he had worked with just days earlier. The point is, my husband firmly believes that if he would have refused to work on to the account in the first place, held his head up and moved on, things would most certainly have turned out far better. At least his name would not have been smeared throughout the local ad community. He may have not been liked, because his talent was a threat, but he would have been most certainly respected and he would have maintained his self-respect. That's more important by far. My husband says he will always regret the decision of working on that account in the first place, because he knew it was wrong. He doesn't dwell on it, but he has learned from the experience. You would think...
A few years later in a new town in a different time, we started up our own agency. My husband said point blank to me, “I want to do this right! No cutting corners and I want to incorporate.” Well that didn't last very long. We went to an accountant to have him help us set up our business accounts and the very first thing he said to us was , “You don't want to incorporate, because not incorporating will provide you with “tax advantages.” You would think little red lights would have flashed inside our heads and sirens should have gone off. But no.... Despite our misgivings, we listened to the “expert.” Strike two. We were definitely down in the count, because that decision, easily qualifies as the second biggest mistake we ever made. How were we to know our little company and our family would grow so quickly. To sum it all up, in the long-run, whatever short-term “tax advantage” our “expert” thought we would gain has been supplanted by a long-term tax burden, that will take an undetermined amount of time to resolve and make good on. You would have thought we would have learned our lesson and stuck to our “do it right” position. But, the combined effects of inexperience and misplaced trust, means the story only gets deeper from here.
We switched accounting firms, to one recommended by the Chamber of Commerce, thinking that was a better call and we once again, trusted “expert advice” with our financial fate, as we were both working 17-18 hour days, while raising a family. Do you want to guess what happened? Our trusted accountant, not only didn't pay our taxes as he was supposed to do with the checks we sent through him, he also filed taxes improperly, then cleaned all the money out of our business and personal accounts and skipped town. The disaster that rolled out after that, is a novel in itself. Suffice to say, we were in a financial vise grip that was closing quickly. Still, that was only the tip of the iceberg that was to sink our little enterprise. So, we took on a catalog client; a large client who's business practices were at the very least questionable. The client extended credit to credit challenged customers, at a ridiculously high rate. They preyed on people who wanted “stuff” but lacked the sufficient funds to buy it outright. The projects were big and the money was good; at least we thought. So we worked hard, extended ourselves financially by hiring photographers, freelancers, separators and printers, based on projected income from the project(s). Even though we didn't feel particularly right about, it was a good money decision (Please refer to yesterday's post about money and decisions). This is the severe experience, like Abraham Lincoln spoke about in 1860 in his letter to George Latham, “I know not how to aid you, save in the assurance of one of mature age, and much severe experience, that you cannot fail if you resolutely determine that you will not.” Unfortunately, this says nothing about the client failing and its domino effect.
First, they wanted to cut the contracted invoice by more than 25 percent (kiss any profits goodbye), then they didn't pay the bill and drum roll please, they filed for bankruptcy. Leaving us, I would say, “high and dry” but we were “low and arid.” We had obligations to meet, and our attorney (don't even get me started on attorneys) said, “we may only see a half a cent on the dollar.” It was time to walk away.
Once again my husband said, “It would have been better had we never engaged a client against our better moral judgment and just toughed it out.” Money had made a very bad decision and the lesson here is, this was a blown moral judgment call and it has cost our family everything at that time, including bankruptcy (we think it is important to note, we are not the only people to ever file bankruptcy. We are in some pretty good company, to name a few, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln,, Donald Trump, Henry Ford, Mark Twain, Charles Goodyear...to name a few. For a more extensive list go to: http://www.bankruptcylawnetwork.com/famous-people-who-filed-for-bankruptcy/). Everything that is, except for love. That endures. What made the situation worse was that...(more to follow tomorrow).
Nobody leads perfect lives. If they say they do, most assuredly they are lying... it simply cannot happen here. However, our lives can help us to understand what is truly important and what endures beyond our failures. If you have to choose; better to fail in business and grow in love and moral character, than to deny our better moral judgement and grasp at the fleeting golden calf of profit. My husband has always maintained “Contrary to the popular adage; adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it.” “And that's the ugly truth” as stated by Mike Chadway, (played buy Gerard Butler) to Abby Richter (Katherine Heigel) in The Ugly Truth. The truth may not always be pretty, but it is truly a thing of beauty in the long-run.
Will you heed your “moral compass” today?
Tune in tomorrow to read the daily mood quote
Thank you for reading
