Jim Blasingame

Business futurist, award-winning author, speaker and columnist

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Work-Life / Balance

America celebrates liberty and the world is the beneficiary

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Seven score and seventeen years ago, in his inspired speech at the 1863 dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery, President Lincoln delivered these immortal words: “…our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Four score and seven years earlier, one of those “fathers,” an inspired Thomas Jefferson (with suggestions from no less an able editor than Ben Franklin), authored what is arguably the most momentous secular document in history. The second paragraph of America’s Declaration of Independence begins with this passionate passage:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

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Why a father’s tough love is the harder job

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As the father of an adult daughter and son, plus the grandfather of four knucklehead boys (Hurricane, Tornado, Crash, and Train Wreck), I’ve learned some things about love. 

All the hours logged as Dad and Poppy have often caused me to contemplate how different are the roles of mother and father, especially in the overt demonstration of parental love. It’s fascinating how the manifestation of this love differs between mother and father – biologically, emotionally, and experientially. 

A mother’s love, at once sweet and fierce, is observed in almost all animals, not just humans. No doubt you’ve heard this simile: “… as sweet as a mother’s love,” and this warning: “Never get between a momma bear and her cub.” I’ve witnessed and have been the happy recipient of this kind of love, and there truly is no other force like it in nature

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Defunding police will hurt America’s small businesses

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No other single group does more to benefit America than Main Street businesses. And no other has a greater stake in the stability of their communities.

Small business owners anchor thousands of communities by producing half of the U.S. economy, creating jobs and signing millions of paychecks every week, building things you can hold, delivering customized service you can see, and leading with class. President Kennedy had something to say about that last thing: “Class is grace under pressure.”

Surely, JFK was thinking of a small business owner, because no one scratched their head when Gallup reported public admiration for small business owners as number two out of 15 groups. They were right under the armed forces, immediately followed in third place by – the police. By the way, the “media” and Congress are on the bottom – 14 and 15 respectively. Just saying …

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We interrupt this pandemic to bring you a Memorial Day message

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This is my Memorial Day column with a coronavirus pandemic component, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Reasonable people disagree on the exact origins of what is now called Memorial Day. But most accept that the practice of decorating the graves of Americans who died defending their country began in earnest by women of the South during and following the Civil War.

On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, National Commander of the Army of the Republic, was the first to make Memorial Day official. With General Order No. 11, he stated in part that “the 30th day of May 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.”

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Keeping the coronavirus pandemic – and our response – in perspective

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Perspective: The capacity to view things in terms of their true and relative importance.

Four stock market crashes, seven recessions, three wars, three pandemics, one global financial collapse, one Y2K – and 9-11. This scary list identifies the varied major crises which have taken place during my long career. In the aggregate, they’ve ground a perspective lens through which I view momentous moments, like the pandemic of COVID-19 disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Of all the things on my list, we’re likely to agree that the two most frightening and destructive are the 9-11 attacks and the 2008 financial crisis. But you might be surprised to learn that the challenge providing me with the best perspective on the coronavirus pandemic is the Y2K event. Not for what happened, but because of what didn’t happen.

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In defense of the misunderstood scrooge

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This is Jim’s traditional Christmas column.

Some say I’m a scrooge. They might be right.

Here are three exhibits (some say excuses) in my defense of this indictment:

1. The early part of my career was spent in retail. Retailers know what that job does to your holiday spirit. There’s a syndrome for everything else; why not one for retail survivors? Let’s call it RPTHSS: Retail Post-Traumatic Holiday Shock Syndrome.

2. Since I don’t wait until the holidays to give someone a gift, I just don’t get all worked up about holiday giving. Not that the ladies mind getting stuff all year (let’s not lose our heads!). It’s just that they want me to be giddy about giving at Christmas-time. Giddy? Bah! Humbug!

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