“Tell us about the American miracle,” someone yelled breaking the crowd’s silence.
It was 1981. The event was an international economic summit in Canada, and America was firing on all cylinders. The country was entering one of the most prosperous decades of its history including a record-setting stretch for multifamily construction, the launch of new businesses and suppliers to support this growth and good times for all of housing in general.
This, on the heals of some of the nation’s darkest economic days—also historic. Skyrocketing inflation, bone-crushing interest rates, and the Misery Index. Dark days, indeed.
And yet we didn’t die.
We persevered better and stronger. Fighting the good fight as if we had no other choice, because really there was no other choice. It’s in our DNA. It’s our obligation to those who blazed the path before us, and those before them. And most assuredly, self agency, entrepreneurialism and free markets do not form a nation of followers.
“There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts,” said Ronald Regan.
“I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. In my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city that hummed with commerce and creativity.”
And so we are. A nation of creators, of business owners, and inventors. Deep believers in free markets, hard work and building a way forward. We work from metrics, pay-off models and returns. This nation—99.9 percent small business owners and operators who lead in enterprise, ingenuity, innovation—and because creation is a common precursor of success, we also lead in GDP and we’re near the top for GDP per capita.
Nearly half of all U.S. employees are employed by small business and many of them work inside multifamily or for one of the hundreds of supplier-enterprises working to keep multifamily businesses at peak performance.
Changes are ahead and the nimble, as through history, will prosper.
In my other life as an marketing executive, the agency has worked through a number of crisis management events through the years—from major catastrophic fires and massive hurricanes that wiped out entire apartment communities in a matter of minutes, to court battles, C-suite ethics violations, and public relations challenges that threatened to level a company, shareholders and all.
In times of turmoil, perhaps such as now, I’m reminded of the three pivotal basics of success: truth, leadership and communication.
Truth. “Truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.” (Augustine of Hippo)
Honesty sets the tone. Lack of candor may work for a minute, but truth follows natural law, which is the basis of human psychology, which is the basis of supply and demand.
Leadership. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” John Quincy Adams
Set a plan. Garner input from stakeholders, but act according to reason.
Communication. “If you just communicate, you can get by. But if you communicate skillfully, you can work miracles.” (Jim Rohn)
Tough spells come with the game. Character is forged by working through to the other side. Here’s to the other side and the next American miracle.
