Scarface and the Passion of New Immigrants to the United States

Scarface is a 1983 movie about a man who comes over as an immigrant from Cuba to Miami in the 1980s. Between approximately April and October of 1980, there was a mass exodus of Cubans to Miami from Cuba. During this short period of time, over 125,000 Cubans made the boat journey between the United States and Cuba. This movement occurred due to a massive downturn in the Cuban economy. The boat lift quickly began to have negative implications for President Carter when it was discovered that many of the exiles were people who had been released from [Read more]

Consistency and Commitment Beat Brilliance and Talent

When I was growing up in Detroit, I went to school with kids whose parents were the Chief Executive Officers of major auto companies and were in other high level roles. Sometimes I would turn on the television and see the same men I’d eaten dinner with at a friend’s house on the nightly news giving a press conference in Washington, or speaking about an issue of national importance. Another one of my friend’s fathers was the CEO of a major national bank and, by the time I was 13 or 14, I was smart enough to realize I could learn a lot from these men. I figured they must all be enormously gifted intellectually and have other skills which I could learn. In my spare time I read books such as Iacocca, about Lee Iacocca, and when the Publisher’s Clearing House mail came to my mother’s house I ordered Forbes, Business Week and a ton of other business magazines so I could impress these nationally important men and talk to them about their careers and [Read more]