I’m sure I am one of the few (tens of millions) special people to receive this letter from President Obama:

Mark –

Last night, I addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time.

To confront the serious economic challenges our nation faces, I called for a new era of responsibility and cooperation. We need to look beyond short term political calculations and make vital investments in health care, energy, and education that will make America stronger and more prosperous well into the future.

A little more than a month into my administration, we’ve already taken bold steps to address our urgent economic problems.

Through the Recovery Act, the Stability Plan, and the Housing Plan, we’re taking the immediate necessary measures to halt our economic downturn and provide much-needed assistance to working people and their families.

But to set our country on a new course of stability and prosperity, we must reject the old ways of doing business in Washington. We can no longer tolerate fiscal deficits and runaway spending while deferring the consequences to future generations.

That’s why I pledged last night to cut our deficit in half by the end of my term. Achieving that goal will require making sacrifices and hard decisions, as well as an honest budgeting process that is straight with taxpayers about where their dollars are going.

Central to this plan will be a renewed commitment to honesty and transparency in government. Restoring our country’s economic health will only happen when ordinary citizens are given the opportunity to hold their representatives fully accountable for the decisions they make.

I look forward to continuing to work with you as we bring about the change you made possible.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

 
Dear President Obama,

A skeptic is someone who is reluctant to believe; 
a cynic is someone who refuses to believe. 
A skeptic is someone who once believed and was disappointed and hurt; 
a cynic is someone who once believed and was deceived and devastated. 
Deep inside ALL skeptics and most cynics is a deep abiding ache to believe again, 
but to do so without the fear of being disappointed, hurt, deceived or devastated.

Thank you for your letter of February 24 following your address to the joint session of Congress.

Like many Americans I loved your speech and am rooting for you to succeed with all my bipartisan heart.

But judging by the 80 point drop in the Dow today - and I suspect more of the same in the next few days -you will need to do more to gain “buy in” that will lead to our “trying” then “doing” then “living” what you’re asking us to do.

I think I may speak for many Americans that before I “buy in” to your lofty message it needs to feel right (which it did), make sense (which it did) and seem doable (which it doesn’t…yet).

For it to seem doable to me and I suspect many Americans, three things will need to be present.

1. Mindset - I need to go from “can’t do” and therefore “won’t do” to “can do” and then “will do.” To achieve this change I need the next two requirements to be satisfied. 

2. Skillset - Jack Welch said: “I avoided the Internet because I couldn’t type.” Americans don’t try to do things they are not skilled to do. Sadly they will even look for excuses to not have to do things if it requires learning new skills. You say that we are hard working. I am not sure what your evidence is for that. Furthermore, I challenge you to give me your evidence for our children being as hard working as the “slumdogs” of the world. As a country we are behind the rest of the world in embracing new technology, despite being the inventor of most of it. The real challenge - and this also crosses back to Mindset - is that America has lost its curiosity, its desire to read, its love of learning and replaced it with a love of having. This will need to change or else we will never learn the skills needed to fulfill your pledges. A friend of mine Tim Gallwey has a quote that is very much in keeping with what we need to do. It may sound familiar, but read carefully:

Give a child a fish and you feed him for a day; 
Teach a child to fish and you feed him for a lifetime, 
But…teach a child to learn and you feed him for a lifetime 
And he doesn’t have to eat just fish.

Thus one of the very basic skills we need to learn is the ability to learn which will not happen as long as we are reading and thinking phobic.

3. Capacity - This is having the ample time and space and manpower to do what is needed.

With all the layoffs and people spinning their wheels, we have the time, space and manpower available, but unless those men and women and children have the skills, desire (or at least willingness) to learn and do things out of their comfort zone (and not just temporarily, but permanently), your wondrous vision will never be seen.

All that said, “Count me in!”

Yours truly,

Mark Goulston