Why Me? Why Should I be Tasked with Building and Running Such an Enterprise?

 

In a backhanded compliment of Google, whose founders wrote a simple mission statement. One that admittedly sets a very low bar.  But its lesson is in its simplicity of the message which astonishingly, as I am not a super follower of Google, I cannot even say if they have stayed true to this mission statement:

 

        “At Google, We Shall Do No Evil.”

 

So let’s call that the ticket to admission.

 

Pape-Family Enterprises Mission Statement

 

Pape-Family Enterprises will succeed in it’s goals where others have failed because:

1. Our employees will get it right the first time.  We will emphasize Quality over Quantity.

2. We will treat every client just as we would a guest in own homes.  We will treat each other even better than our honored guests.

3. We believe the human race is screaming for honesty, integrity, and transparency from the very people it entrusts with its safety and freedom.   For this reason, (barring some company trade secrets), our employees will act in such a transparent, and honest manner that they will conduct themselves as if their actions and thinking behind key decisions is printed on the front page of the New York Times, Daily.

4. In short our philosophy is simple: Do onto others as you would have done onto yourself.  The Golden Rule.

 

Did you know that the middle word in Life, is “if?”   The following is taken from a Poem by that title; and are values we respect and admire:

 

IF you can keep your head; when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

IF you can trust yourself; when all men doubt you; but take allowance for the doubters too,

Or being lied about.  Don’t Deal in Lies, Or being Hated!  Don’t give-in to Hatred!  Yet . . . Don’t talk too good or look too wise. 

IF you can Dream, but not make dreams your master,

IF you can think, but not make thoughts your end,

IF you can meet with Triumph, and Disaster; then you just treat these two imposters just the same.

IF you can make One Heap of All Your Winnings, and Risk it all in one game of Coin Toss . . . and lose; Just Walk away.  We got you.  We will help you start again at your beginnings, – never breathe a word of your loss.

IF you can talk with crowds; and keep your virtue, or walk with Kings, but never lose the common touch,

IF neither foes, nor loving friends can hurt you,

IF ALL men count with you, but none too much,

IF you can fill the unforgiving minute, with 60 seconds of all out sprint, then we want to talk with you about joining our team. 

 

Why Me? Why Anthony Pape:

Taken almost verbatim again from a man I respect and admire his philosophies and outlook on the human condition very much, Alan Watts brings us the curious case of the most exceptional among us.  The so called “Chosen Ones”.  Finding themselves, so often, walking all alone. 

By chosen ones, I do not mean elected by divine bureaucracy, or some celestial committee.  No the chosen ones are not marked by robes and rituals.  Nor are they followed by trumpets and angels.  The chosen ones are simply those individuals, that awaken to something that most people never dare to see.  They are not chosen by anyone in particular.  Rather they chose themselves.  By daring to ask the questions society prays they never do.  Who am I really?  What is this life? Why am I here?

And when they begin to ask, when they begin to peel back the layers of illusion, of identity, conformity, expectation, they find themselves no longer part of the dream. 

They begin to see the world for what it is.  Not a place of linear order and rational justice.  But a divine dance of chaos, illusion, and profound beauty.

And in that exact moment. . . they step apart. 

The solitude of awakening is a feature not a bug.  It cannot be a group activity.  It’s not something that can be done is a weekend seminar, with snacks.  Awakening happens, usually, in a moment of silence.  It happens when you’ve been battered by life long and hard enough to stop pretending.  When you are no longer able to carry on with the performance of who you are “supposed” to be. 

You begin to feel that life is not a mystery to be solved, or a problem to be fixed, but rather a song to be danced to, a game to be played and enjoyed.

And most people, although they may sense it. . . are terrified of it.  Because to live that way means to drop the charade.  In other words drop the world that you have built for yourself and the values you hold dear.  Who wouldn’t be frightened to suddenly have to challenge everything they thought they knew. 

There is a quote by my Mark Twain that I’ve always liked.  I think I like it so much be because the corporate talking heads at my old job would say such obvious and dumb statements to try to sound smart that they ended up just looking even dumber.  So a favorite around the Cox Automotive workplace was: “You don’t know what you don’t know.”  Well no crap.  How could you. The better, more apropos quote is: “It’s not what you don’t know that can hurt you, it’s what you know 100% for sure to be the truth, when it just isn’t so.”-Mark Twain.  Now that can get you in trouble!

So the chosen ones so often find themselves walking and pursuing their plans alone, not out of choice.  We do not choose to be alone.  We like people, we like company, but the issue is that most people are not ready to be with them.  Not really. 

We live in a culture addicted to belonging.  Belong to a group, a country, a state, a team, a tribe, a trade.  We believe that to be alone is to somehow be deficient or failing. But the irony is that most people are not truly connected, they are merely bound by shared delusions.  True belonging arises when you no longer need to belong.  The chosen ones see this, they recognize that most social interactions are fake, masks worn to hide the terror of authenticity.  In seeing through this they no longer wish to participate.  They walk away, not out of arrogance or contempt, but out of reverence for what is real.  To walk alone then is not a punishment, it is an honor.

Have you ever tried to explain a dream to someone else.  No matter how vivid it was to you the story never quite lands does it.  The colors fade, the meaning is harder to see.  This is how the chosen ones feel when trying to explain their vision.  Not because they are better than the next person.  Not a bit.  It’s is only because they are ready. 

 

But there is an even easier way to answer this question.  It comes from us by way of a teacher of mythology that has touched so many lives, Joseph Campbell, with his keen observation that the hero task, the hero motif is essentially the same story in every part of the world, under different skies, and under different times, from people that have never met. 

Consequently we need only follow his “hero path” of whom all hero’s that have come before have followed to the letter.  Moreover the solutions that I will be outlining to mans greatest challenges also have solutions that have already been thought up.  So why don’t we do them?  One could say inertia.  One could say: money.  The rich and powerful have a vested interest in keeping things just the way they are.  The only problem is that although the system they have put in place has served us so well and given us so many advancements that these hero’s certainly deserve our praise, they had no way of knowing that their inventions and advancements would one day threaten the viability of human life and certainly quality of life of Earth would come into question.  And not just human life but possibly all life.

Before he died, Joseph Campbell did a series of interviews on PBS with Bill Moyer that introduced the philosophies to millions of people all over the world.  Despite being an accomplished writer, his masterpiece, “The Hero of One Thousand Faces,” considered an instant success and classic was after all, written in 1949, and is no easy read.  Joseph Campbell was not James Joyce, but he was also no Ernest Hemingway.  He was difficult to read with a sophisticated vocabulary and casual references to books that you would have to go back and explore to get the point.  With lines such as “This is the way from Oedipus to Hamlet.”  Well heck, I never read Hamlet so I had to go back and get the cliff notes on Hamlet to continue reading his book for example. 

In Campbells interview with Bill Moyer, Bill asks with all of these amazing mythologies from the past, with heroes like the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, what will the next hero story be about.  Campbell without hesitation states that although the formula will remail unchanged, and although he cannot predict the next hero or story any more than he can predict tonight’s dream, as this whole this is being worked out on a different level of human consciousness, that in his opinion, the next hero and hero deed will involve the entire planet and all the life that inhabits it. 

To end with one of my favorite Campbell quotes:

“We have not even to risk the adventure alone.  For the hero’s of all time have gone before us.  The labyrinth is thoroughly known.  We need only follow the thread of the hero path. 

And where we had once thought to find an abomination, we shall find a God,

And where we had once thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves,

Where we had once thought to travel outward over vast distances, we shall come the center of our own existence,

Where we had once thought to be alone; we shall be with all the world.

 

Resume

 

Anthony Pape
3019 Ocean Park Blvd Unit 745
Santa Monica, CA  90405
cell: (773) 410-2993
email: anthonypape37@gmail.com             

 

I know I can be of tremendous value to tackling these challenges despite my experience, including nearly 30 years exclusively in the automotive industry.  But in my time in the car business, I got to learn from the one company that I truly respect in my professional career.  And that company is Toyota Motor Corporation.  You can divide business philosophies in many different ways.  But the way I think is most effective in getting to the details of their character, their morality, their integrity, and ultimately their value as a partner to all of humanity is: Does the company have a short-term focus or a long-term focus.   And Toyota has the longest term focus than I could ever imagine.  Strategic Long-Term Planning Division at Toyota plans thousands of years out.  Thus the Prius. 

1998 – 2004: Toyota Motor Sales USA: District Service Manager and Sales Manager for the Lexus Central Area Office (Chicago).  Helped my dealers to increase their share of area allocation and sales.  Achieved 100% Elite Lexus for my district every year.  Awarded District Service Manager and then Sales Manager of the Year Award.

2004 – 2009: McGrath Lexus of Chicago: New and Used Car Sales, New Car Sales Manager.  Still hold the record for most cars sold in one month at this store at 30.  Most cars sold in one year at 202.  Highest grossing deal ever at $54,000.  As sales manager increased dealers % of area sales through strong sales recruitment, training, and employee retaining process implemented.  Have a STRONG understanding of the Lexus Allocation and BOS change system.  Achieved 100% take on Boss changes.  There is a trick to this.

2010 to 2014: 5% Owner and Managing Partner at Toyota on Nicholasville.  Through relationships as a district rep for Lexus made a strong enough impression on the owners of the Toyota and Lexus Store of Lexington KY to be gifted 5% and to run their store. Store owned by M.A.P.  Jamal Mashburn, Rick Avare, Rick Pitino. 

2014 to Present: Performance Manager for vAuto and promoted to the #2 spot, “The Save Role.”  Achieved zero cancellations my second year as a performance manager.  Helped 10% of my 100 dealers double their used car sales!  Helped about 50% increase sales, and the others were not quite ready to change but were satisfied with my performance.