Tuesday, June 25, 2013

QUANTIFIABLE RESPONSIBILITY

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist


I don’t speak or write very often about the subject of fear. It is not that I am such a brave fellow . . . it is just that all the nooks and crannies of my Scotch/Irish disposition seem to be filled up with happy stuff. I try to choose “happy” over “scared.” In the past thirty years of international travel, however, there have been some occasions when I probably should have been more afraid.

In 2004, I had just returned to Denver from a physically exhausting trip to Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and India, and was headed that July morning for Montenegro. I experienced a situation that shook me to my emotional core. It was a fear I had never known before.

In order for me to catch my international flight, our alarm clock sounded at 4:30 Saturday morning. As I was headed to the shower I was nearly overwhelmed by a most unusual and austere sense. An intruding and powerful temptation was hammering me: “You have absolutely no need to head off to the Balkans this morning. You are exhausted. Go back to bed and sleep. There is really no quantitative measure of responsibility to what you are doing. No one can say, ’Jim Jackson did not go to old Yugoslavia today, so forty-two people died.’ Since it can’t be measured or quantified, there can be no measurable responsibility, either. You are justified in staying home!”

Indeed, it was a strange confrontation that had taken place on the way from my bed to the shower. The implications of the incident frightened me. It was true: I was not observably responsible for goodness that might or might not come as a result of my going to old Yugoslavia early on that Saturday morning. No other person on the outside of me was forcing me to get up and catch that flight. My responsibility ran along a different line.

I knew I needed to get on that airplane. The simplicity of responding to what I knew I needed to do was the real issue of responsibility. The rest would flow as a consequence of my obedience. I somehow knew that the compelling temptation to compromise—to lie down and go back to sleep—would have neutralized my clear imperative. I also intuitively knew that the neutralization would be contagious and affect my focus and dedication to what I was ultimately trying to accomplish. Exhaustion could not even compare to what it would have felt like to quit.

For the next few weeks I could not get the incident of temptation out of my mind: There is really no quantitative measure of responsibility to what you are doing. No one can say, “Jim Jackson did not go to old Yugoslavia today, so forty-two people died.” Since it can’t be measured or quantified, there can be no measurable responsibility, either. You are justified in staying home! It scared me every time I thought about it!

Six months earlier, while traveling in Zambia, I had performed a needs assessment at the Mwandi hospital. It was beautifully situated on a wide bend of the river that flowed into the great Zambezi River. I had already asked most of my needs assessment questions to Dr. Kaonga Wezi, who was the director of the hospital, when he related to me some tragic news. His wife was also a doctor in the pediatrics and community health departments. Dr. Wezi told me that he and his doctor- wife were getting ready to leave Zambia. Recently, their 2½ year old son had contracted pneumonia. That shouldn’t have been too difficult for mom and dad to handle, since they were both well-trained doctors, and mom was an experienced pediatrician.
Without warning, however, the little child died with both of them there. The complicated grief was unbearable. They had succumbed to the overwhelming and paralyzing temptation of concluding that, “If we are both doctors and cannot even save our own baby boy from pneumonia, then we should not be accepting the responsibility of trying to save the children of other people.” The mother had already moved out of Mwandi, having declared that she would never again practice in the field of pediatrics.

My heart broke for them. It appeared they were accepting the quantifiable results of the failure of one situation to define their future responsibilities.

In contrast to that sad situation of perceived responsibility in Zambia, I was reminded of my good friend Dr. Kunar who ran a free clinic in Rajahmundry, a city of nearly a half-million people in eastern India. He belonged to a family of the high Brahmin caste, but had specifically felt the need to take medical attention and help to the untouchables, the lowest ranking of the people of India. That was not a very politically correct decision. “You see, Dr. Jackson, it was a miracle that I am a doctor in India. I was the first person to graduate from the medical school with that stated commitment. I finished second in my class, even though they did everything they could to turn me out and keep me from passing my exams. The governments of India had not addressed the severe needs of the poor and powerless. But I was supposed to be a doctor to the poorest people in this area, and it is now happening.”

That was the same attitude that had made the endeavors of Mother Teresa such a startling phenomenon in India. As she had admitted, “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” Mother Teresa and my friend Dr. Kunar had each met face to face with insurmountable oppression and resistance in India. Others had demanded that their dedication to the task and their devotion to the hurting people were really quite foolish, unnecessary, and out of sync with the reality of the culture.

Neither Mother Teresa nor Dr. Kunar yielded to the idea that you have absolutely no need to get involved in helping the untouchables in Calcutta or Rajahmundry. No one can possibly hold it against you if you never showed up to help, and thousands of people died because you were not there. Since the results can’t be measured or quantified, there can be no measurable responsibility, either. Each patently rejected that line of reasoning.

Mother Teresa and Dr. Kunar were each dedicated to the understanding that even though they would never live to see the full results of their efforts, their simple and positive response to what they knew they should be doing was the real issue of responsibility. Over the years I have tried to keep track of the work of my friend Dr. Kunar in Rajahmundry. No one else really cared about the untouchable rock breakers, who earned the equivalent of four dollars a week, and on average lived to be only twenty-seven years old.

I am also eternally grateful that I got up, showered, and caught my flight to Montenegro that Saturday morning in July. The thought of justifiably rationalizing out of what I know I ought to do still frightens me. I want my life to be defined by instant and complete obedience to what I intuitively know I ought to do, rather than cleverly justifying a defense that might ultimately neutralize the intended good.

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

A MATTER OF ECONOMICS

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist


It is an economic virtue to be frugal corporately as well as personally. A strategy of waste reduction, pursuit of efficiency, and suppression of instant gratification just makes good business sense. There is, however, another subtle aspect of responsible economics that is sometimes less obvious: don’t let things go to waste just because they are in the wrong place.

Prior to the founding of Project C.U.R.E., I was involved in economic consulting in lesser developed countries. While working in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), I was taken out and shown that the grain storage facilities in Zimbabwe were full and running over with maize. For three years they had experienced bumper crops, and they had run out of room to store the grain. I was shown stacks and stacks of burlap bags filled with maize and covered with black plastic. The stacks were the size of very large buildings. But the rain was getting in from the top, and the rodents were getting in from the bottom. And all the while, the tribes across the Zambezi River in Zambia were starving. The irony was that Zambia was rich in copper production. The price of copper, however, had plummeted, and no one was buying Zambia’s copper, so they had no money to buy the maize.

There was nothing wrong with having the maize, and there was nothing wrong with having the copper. The commodities were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and they were not being utilized. It took a third party who was not involved in their tribal problems who could help them structure an exchange whereby Zambia could receive the needed maize for their hungry people, and Zimbabwe could take Zambia’s copper and put it in warehouses in London until the copper prices returned to normal. Everyone then came out better off!

Adam Smith, sometimes referred to as the father of modern economics, sought to explain that markets emerge out of the division of labor. When people divide up the labor and perform only certain specialized jobs as occupations, instead of trying to do everything for themselves, it is necessary for them to depend on others for fulfilling most of their needs. An efficient market will make those services and goods more readily available to meet those needs.

The word entrepreneur is sometimes a difficult word to pronounce and even harder to spell. The function of the entrepreneur is simple. It is to help the economy’s markets run more efficiently. The entrepreneur will see an opportunity to make the market run more smoothly by taking something from a position of “lower value” out of the economy and re-entering it back into the economy at a “higher value.” The idea is that the services or goods were simply in the wrong place in the economy.

For example, Jackson Brothers Investments (JBI), during the 1960s and 1970s, was our company that developed real estate in the ski areas of Colorado. We would purchase large, economically struggling ranch sites and develop them in accordance with the state and county regulations. We would provide roads, electricity, water and sewer districts, and approved tracts of land overlooking the ski slopes. The completed projects brought happiness to a lot of new owners, provided jobs, generated handsome profits, and greatly increased the tax base for the counties and the state.

The best example, perhaps, that I can think of regarding the economic principle of don’t let things go to waste just because they are in the wrong place, can be found in the phenomenon of Project C.U.R.E. Since its inception in 1987, it has aggressively collected, managed, and distributed over one billion dollars’ worth of goods and services to the neediest people around the world.

All of those goods and services, at the beginning, were in the wrong place. They were all subject to waste. Millions of tons of medical supplies, and countless numbers of pieces of medical equipment were vigorously pursued, secured, managed, and distributed. At one time those items took up space in someone’s warehouse with no plan for utilization. Countless hours of some of the most talented and devoted volunteers in the U.S.—medical nurses, doctors, physician’s assistants, and paramedics— have been focused on making well the sick and afflicted in the right places in over 130 countries around the world.

Of all people, I have been most fortunate, having been on the scene in university teaching institutions, hospitals, surgical centers, and clinics where those medical goods and services arrived at just the right time to save the life of some precious mom, dad, or child who would have died without the needles, syringes, sutures, IV apparatuses and solutions, scopes, monitors, and anesthesia machines.

I am, in another respect, one of the most fortunate persons on earth. The economic principle, don’t let things go to waste just because they are in the wrong place works in a spiritual realm. I clearly recall when I was personally in the wrong place and headed for the nearest dumpster, but the Eternal Economist graciously gave me another chance for recycle.

I have a faithful friend by the name of Paul Harris, who worked for JBI back in the 1970s. We made lots of money together in those heady days. Today, Paul takes his entrepreneurial skills every day to the offices of Project C.U.R.E. He knows well the economic concept don’t let things go to waste just because they are in the wrong place. He also knows the eternal value of saving a hurting life. His job is to vigorously go after medical things that are in the wrong place and save them from going to waste. In just the past few weeks he has located and procured through donations over a million and a half dollars’ worth of pieces of coveted medical equipment. Who can say how many precious families’ lives will be affected by just those pieces of equipment alone?

Whether you use this tested economic principle at your next garage sale, or to save the lives of thousands of hurting people around the world, never ignore the admonition, don’t let things go to waste just because they are in the wrong place!

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

INSATIABLE, PERPETUAL, AND UNIVERSAL

Founder, Project C.U.R.E.
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist


I had been traveling in and out of Cuba since the very early 1990s, and held the first shipping license allowing Project C.U.R.E. to ship donated medical supplies and pieces of medical equipment directly from Miami into Havana. That had been quite an accomplishment, since the borders of the island compound were tightly closed by Fidel Castro, and the U.S. continued a very strict embargo against the Communist regime.

No regularly scheduled flights were allowed between the U.S. and Cuba in those early days because of those economic and political sanctions. The only way to travel into Cuba from the U.S. was by a very unreliable airplane charter service. At the Miami airport the rag-tag ticketing process was absolutely crazy. It took nearly half a day, starting at 4:30 a.m., to negotiate for the tickets and finally board the plane.

When the plane dropped down low enough for the landing procedure, I could see the green countryside surrounding Havana. Everything was so grown over and run down! The runway landing lights were wired on either side of the runway with extension cord wires running on top of the runway. When the planes came across the runway, they had to run over the top of the heavy black extension cords.

By 1999, I was quite comfortable in traveling in and out of Cuba. By then I had discovered a more convenient routine for entering Cuba. My contacts had shown me how to travel to the Casuarinas Hotel on Cable Beach on West Bay Street in Nassau in the Bahamas. At the hotel would be waiting for me an official letter of invitation from Cuba’s minister of health. I would take the invitation letter to the Havanatur’s desk at the Nassau airport, show them my passport and board a prop-driven Aerocaribbean plane to Havana. Upon arriving, I would be met by special VIP services, issued a Cuban visa, and hustled through Cuban immigrations and customs.

On my 1999 trip, I was picked up at the airport by Julian, a Cuban gentleman in his Russian Lada car, and taken to the Hemmingway Marina area of Havana. It was an area of Havana I had never seen before. The marina was surprisingly filled with international sail boats, fancy yachts, and interesting tourists. My hosts had secured a small hotel room for me to stay for two nights near the activity.

Before we went to dinner my hosts introduced me to a fellow from the U.S. who had just sailed his yacht around the world and had dropped anchor in Havana. He invited me on board his breathtaking vessel, and I thought I was once again a little boy on his first trip to a candy store. It had taken the owner twenty-two years to design and build his spectacular blue water yacht. He had commissioned the Royal Huisman Shipyard in Vollenhove, Holland, to create the vessel under the watchful eye of master shipbuilder Wolter Huisman. World renowned co-designers Ron Holland and Pieter Boeldsnijder implemented the inception from what was virtually nothing but a dream into probably the world’s most magnificent piece of floating art and technology.

The magnificent yacht was 145 feet long, its main mast was 160 feet tall (the height of a 16-story building) and it weighed well over a half million pounds. During construction, no corners were cut in the design or creation of the finest and most technical floating vessel of the 20th century. When not under sail, it was propelled by three Mercedes industrial diesel marine engines. The cost of the yacht to the owner was far in excess of 100 million dollars. I asked and found that the owner had acquired his money, in part, by building and selling a very prestigious shoe company.

I tried to express to my new friend my appreciation for his quest for uncompromising excellence. Indeed, it inspired me. He was very curious about Project C.U.R.E., and he invited us to sit down at their dinner table and share with him and his dinner guests about Project C.U.R.E. Before we left, the owner slipped away from the table and invited me to take a complete tour with him below deck. It was a thrill of a lifetime for me. He stopped at one desk and pulled out a 200-page memorial picture and textbook entitled, The Creation of a Masterpiece. Only a few of the books were published. The text and photos documented the entire story of the designing and building of the yacht. I thanked him deeply for the gift and the opportunity to experience his work of art. The book was a very valuable gift to me.

The following night included the sheer joy of returning to the prodigious yacht. The owner had invited us to have some dessert with him. I was sure to take the coffee table picture book back with me for my new friend to autograph. I had stayed up until 1:30 a.m. the night before reading the book and discovered he had chosen anonymity throughout the book, and had requested that he be referred to as “the client” or “the owner.” However, he did include a lovely picture of his 80- year-old mother in the book on the day of the christening.

I asked him about his reason for never having his name mentioned or his photo included. He said, “Jim, people just don’t understand the inconvenience and burden there is attached to being rich … it’s really hard.” We talked about how the things we accumulate always have a way of spinning webs around us until we are nearly totally possessed by the possessions we have accumulated. We mused at how we only add more care and concern to our lives as we add the “stuff” to our lives. “It seems that when we really need to be adding peace and quiet we only attract more anxiety and dissonance to our lives.”

I asked my new friend to please do me the personal favor of at least autographing my personal copy. The following is what he inscribed:

             Jim,
             The greatest joy of living and traveling on the yacht has been the wonderful new                  friends we have made along the way.  Your dedication and work with all the;                        needy of the world is  a real inspiration. For all those whose lives you've                     touched,  a thousand thanks.
             Your friend,

After I had thanked him again for his example to me of excellence, I shared with him about my brother and I having owned the old steam locomotive and train, the “GW 75,” which had been in the different movies with Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, and others. He then asked about what business I had been in before Project C.U.R.E. that would include owning an entire steam train.

I went back and told him of how I had decided at an early age that I wanted to be a millionaire by the time I was twenty-five. He interrupted and said he had the same dream to become a millionaire by age thirty-five. I went on to tell him about getting involved in real estate developing, and how I had greatly surpassed my goal of wealth, but discovered that even so, I was not a happy man. Then I told him how God had radically changed my life and I had vowed to give away my wealth, start over again, and never use my talents and abilities to accumulate wealth again for myself.

I confided in him that I believed God had given me a chance to move from success to significance, and Project C.U.R.E. was only a symbol of what had really happened inside me. “I really respect you, my friend, for who you are and what you have accomplished in your life. But at some point, as you are sailing, I wish you would think about the excitement of moving from obvious success to the adventurous phenomenon of significance. There is a difference. I know you are a man of character and would respond to such a concept.”

The two of us hugged each other on the deck of his masterpiece, and I walked down the ladder to where my shoes were and waved goodbye to my new friend.

The old philosopher and economist, David Hume, once said, “This avidity alone, of acquiring goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends, is insatiable, perpetual, and universal.”

It just might be insatiable, perpetual, and universal . . . but it doesn’t necessarily need to be unchangeable.

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson. 

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com