Whenever participating in a health fair, business expo or trade show, one of the greatest rewards beyond new business and touching lives is the opportunity to let your hair down and just talk to folks. A recent foray into the mid-Hudson Valley at the Poughkeepsie Mall was a great day for us, e.g., new business for our wellness company, trading perspectives with other professionals, sharing 911 experiences with American Red Cross staff and volunteers. It was also a disheartening and disturbing glimpse into the dark side, meeting people who have given up, have no hope for changing or improv-ing their lives, and are just existing and waiting to die.

The most depressing conversation early of the day was with a young man, about 18 or 19, who literally has no hope, no expectation of being able to do better, or to change his future. He dropped out of school after ninth grade. Had a brief incarceration after a minor trouble. He now works at a local Stop & Shop and believes that is where he will work until he dies. He sincerely believes he is incapable of doing anything to change his lot in life. We talked. I proffered some thoughts and examples of success, such as an associate who went from car wash manager with a less than high school education to successful businessman. I suggested Carl get a copy of The Magic of Thinking Big, read it cover to cover, and if he didnt get anything from it, I would buy it back from him. He said he would do so. Heres hoping!

My second lost soul was at the opposite end of the spectrum: 54 instead of 18 or 19, a marvelous conversationalist. She is a Mom three times over and a Grandmother to five. Now, those are blessings and she knows it. She is also living hand to mouth after working for 30-35 years and cannot see over the top of her rut. She is in the trenches, afraid to go over the top and do battle, unable to let go of the proverbial nut in a bottle. She works pay check to pay check knowing deep in her soul that there must be a better way.

It causes us to wonder how it is that so many Americans living in the shining city on the hill have lost the American Dream. We do not hear about Horatio Alger and rags to riches. Both of my parents had an avocation, education, teaching children and adults. Howard Flierl turned down a $10,000 a year sales job after World War II to pursue his dream of a doctorate in geography at Syracuse University and continuing his teaching career. He taught at what was then Albany State Teachers College, the State University of New York at Albany today, and taught there for 38 years until his retirement. Nina Flierl was a remedial reading specialist, first at Albany Academy for girls where I attended nursery school (dont ask or laugh) and then for 30+ years in six elementary schools in he Bethlehem Central School District (not dissimilar to Greenwich), plus teaching undergraduate and graduate courses at Russel Sage, serving on community boards, and earning her Masters at age 40.

The example for doing what is your passion, following your dream, was set from my birth. What was not seen by me or suggested by either Howard or Nina was being in business to pay for the luxury of a modestly paying dream. They changed their lives and fortune, as well as those of my older brother, Howard, and my younger sister, Margaret, when they took a roll of the dice, gambled all of the money they did not have, and opened a highly successful summer reading school on Grindstone Neck in Winter Harbor, Maine. They also changed the lives of hundreds of teenagers, who spent six weeks experiencing academic success, participating in a weekly chore day, developing a sense of personal responsibility, reading for fun daily, and learning the skills required to do well both academically and in life.

I also missed the message in my first year out of graduate school in 1972. I had a good boss, which for me today in hindsight is an oxymoron. His name was Jack Edwards. We were colleagues and good friends. We worked together for the State of Louisiana on a project to upgrade the entire emergency medical services system statewide from the ambulances (often hearses, nice conflict of interest) and personnel in the field to the emergency rooms of every hospital in that unique, intriguing state. After some time working with me, Jack was exhorting me to get another degree, preferably an MBA, at least an MPH. What he never said, despite being among the best mentors I ever had, was start a business, any business, to be my own boss, to create my own life and lifestyle on my terms, not those of an employer. Hindsight is 20/20. Jack and I often drive together and frequently stopped at the successful laundry and dry cleaning business he and his wife, Fran, owned and managed in Baton Rouge. I did not see or understand the model he was setting, nor did he have the insight to suggest it.

Years later, I finally saw the light and began like my parents to freelance and develop a business of my own. Like them, I have a business that is in part my passion, but it is also lifestyle, security, freedom, choices, and so much more. And I found men and women who are successful in their own businesses, who also apply the principles of success in all aspects of their lives, whether in their marriages, or how they raise their children.

Despite the Blue states, and despite Democrats wanting to take my money and yours to give away to someone else, to have us be a socialist country, we are the greatest capitalist country in the world and the greatest democracy in the world. People stream across our borders. They come here, not to Viet Nam, not to North Korea, not to China, not to Cuba. They do not come for Social Security. They do not come for benefits provided by an employer at the cost of a living wage. They come here to open a business and build it. Guess what? They do so, every day, day in and day out. It is time to reclaim the shining city on a hill. It is time to reclaim the American Dream by those of us who have been here for so many generations. We have forgotten the core values. Catch the magic of a dream and faith, faith in yourself and faith in the future.