Finneran: Hope Comes Alive

Friday, December 12, 2014

Tom Finneran, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

It happened two nights ago, after dark. It was dinner time in most homes and I suppose the perps’ intent was to catch as many people home as possible. If so, they had a good plan.

I had just pulled up in my car to drop something off at the home of a friend and client. As I got out of the car one of the two characters on the street peeled away and came straight at me, asking if I was the owner of the home and did I live there. I don’t give ground easily, particularly to ten year olds. And I’m happy to engage people on their own terms be they brusque or friendly.

His approach was middle-of-the-road and quite business-like so I engaged this energetic and conversational young man on those terms, informing him that I was not the owner and asking him why and what he needed to know. His answer was so refreshing that I thought America might yet be saved.

Real Entrepreneurs

This entrepreneurial little guy and his pal were from two streets over and they were canvassing the neighborhood looking for business. Their business was snow shovelling! They had prepared a nice little flyer and in a wonderfully capitalist twist they included a “teaser”, a name-your-price provision. They even had a logo, an image of a penguin holding a snow shovel. For their sake I hope that we get lots of snow this winter!

For years I have bemoaned the loss of America’s legendary work ethic. It’s almost as if young Americans had developed a peculiar allergy to work and sweat. Whether it was mowing lawns, shoveling snow, painting houses, running errands, or cleaning out garages and cellars, America’s youth had always found a way to make a buck. Until recently. In the past twenty years or so it’s become harder and harder to find any neighborhood kids willing to help the little old ladies in that ‘hood. And there’s good money to be made in doing so.

America's Kids

It’s almost as if America’s kids developed an entertainment mentality, an entitlement complex which they see as a birthright. And so my heart leaped while I chatted with this after-dark dinner-hour entrepreneur. This was the pulse of America, strong, encouraging, and engaging.

Of course I came into my friend/client’s house with a song in my heart, not merely content to bring him the good news of the business matter he had asked me to handle, but rather ecstatic to share with him the news that America might yet survive.

Parents

Parents do their kids few favors by letting them just hang out, killing time. Not only are idle hands the devil’s workshop. There’s nothing quite like the dollars you can earn with a lawnmower and a rake. No education surpasses the education of finding and keeping customers. It’s like Harvard Business School for young people. And there’s no better feeling than the feeling of earning trust, of earning one’s way in the world.

There weren’t many lectures in my house while growing up, but there was an unstated expectation of earning one’s spending money, followed later on by the expectation of earning one’s tuition. Perhaps it was out of sheer necessity, for my parents were in no position to meet the needs and the wishes of seven active children. I have no doubt that the principle of helping out the family by earning one’s keep was one of the best takeaway lessons my brothers and sisters ever absorbed.

American Lessons

Fast forward the years and I’m proud to say that my wife and I have passed that principle on to our own children. Here’s what they heard and learned---If you want good grades, go earn them. If you want a new bike, go earn it. If you simply must have that new blouse and sweater, well go earn it.

They learned good lessons in hot dirty fields and they learned good lessons in hectic and demanding restaurants. They learned that sweat and effort, dirt and fatigue were the precursors to achievement, the keys to success. And they learned how to value things, occasionally recognizing that the shiny new bike was really no better than that old one already in the garage or that the great new blouse went quickly out of fashion.

These are American lessons, really life lessons, readily available to all kids in all the nation’s neighborhoods. How heartwarming it was for me to see it and hear it on that dark street at dinnertime.

Hope comes alive. My hope is restored.

Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio.