I am proud to be an American, a naturalized one but nevertheless one that is writing a book about precisely the spirit of this great country of ours. It is a big one and so it has big problems, but it still offers the liberty of choice and that is a gift that motivates foreigners to risk their lives in some cases.

There is truth in all that has been written above. The point is INTEGRITY must be inherent as a conscious choice. When that wavers, then the motivation ceases to be honorable.

Thank Anth for this perspective; it has merit and it is thought provoking.

Much Aloha.

People like leighsah complain - but at least now we have construction people and decorators who want to work instead of having countless tea breaks. Competition is good for us the consumers becuase it makes all the locals stamd up and try to raise the bar

in addition to having more hard working plumbers and decorators we have doubled the number of really cute woman. (have you see these polish woman!)

And you americans have those cute mexican woman so no complaints Leighsah!

1. If you can’t handle the heat, get out of kitchen. i.e. if you want the rewards of self employment, you got to deal with the competition (in whatever size or shape) or get out.

2. Instead of spending time and energy writing an ‘essay’ about your problem in the comments box of a blog, invest that time and energy dreaming up ways to be so remarkable that clients will pay top dollar for your services rather than the mexicans.

3. As an Amrican you should never complain about other people going into your country and exploiting. You Americans have made a sport out of entering countries ilegally and making tax free wealth

The cream always floats to the top - that is as long as it doesn’t go sour whlst waiting to rise….

Thank you for reminding me how lucky I am to have the opportunities I do and for the “wake up call” on my goals

Leighsah, I agree that illegals are not something to be inspired by and we need to defend our rights and liberties. If the difficulties you describe are the result of illegal activity then they should be stopped with the full force of the law! Not only to defend businesses like yours but also to show what is acceptable behavior in our country.

I can’t help thinking that this is a different issue to recognising the sacrifices and efforts of economic migrants, after all our United States was built on their sacrifices and the sweat of their brow! I’ve always found that inspirational!

Thanks,

Gabbie

I work in construction in Florida. The Mexicans and South and Central Americans, mainly Guatemalans, Ecuadorians and the Hondurans, come here illegally. They live in homes that violate code, with 10 or 15 people to a house. Then they work for cash, never paying taxes and at below market rates. They drive on roads without drivers licenses and insurance, in cars with invalid registrations, send their children to schools while paying no taxes, and use the emergency rooms as their medical care. Did you know the average wait for an emergency room visit here in Orlando is 8 hours?

I work for a legitimate construction company. All of our employees are legal. We must pay them at least minimum wage. We also have to cover workers compensation insurance, provide matching payroll taxes and the overhead that entails. We are subject to OSHA safety inspections because we are a legitimate and licensed roofing and construction company, registered with the State of Florida. We have required education to maintain our license and insurance. We have quarterly audits to stay in compliance with our liability insurance.

We compete against these illegals with required costs of about 42% more because we follow the law.

Motivated? I am not motivated by people who break the law or don’t follow the rules.

Lets say Empirical Coaching woke up one morning and found five coaching firms in your building next Monday. All five were manned by illegals. Now you didn’t wake up one morning and hang a shingle to be a coach. You went to school, read hundreds of books, studied thousand of hours, joined and volunteered at professional organizations. You are a professional coach charging professional rates for your services.

But the illegals say they are professionals too. I mean they’re in the same professional building you are. (In a few months you’ll discover they aren’t really tenants in the building, but are squatters and don’t pay rent.) They have similar literature as you do. (Actually they just took your brochure to the printer and asked the printer to print their name rather than yours on it.) They say they offer the same services you do. BUT, they charge $150 a month rather than the $500 a month you charge. They also don’t belong to the Professional Coaching Association, don’t maintain any professional affiliations, and you discover that website and blog you work so hard at updating everyday is being mirrored by these same five illegals on another site they set up. Or even worse, but they have framed your blog and site and claim all the information is theirs and all your contact information is blocked. And you are paying for their bandwidth.

Fast forward three months. You still get coaching clients, but you have to work three times as hard to get the same amount of clients, but because you have to complete with five other “coaching” firms in your building, you have to lower your prices to $300 a month just to land some clients. Some of your existing clients switch to these fake coaches, because after all, there is a $150 a month difference. You try to explain to these customers that the new coaches aren’t really coaches and could give them bad advice, but again, $150 is $150. You have to work harder to get new clients and keep your existing clients, but you have to charge less to each of these clients because these illegals are still charging $150. Granted they aren’t paying rent (stealing from the landlord), don’t belong to any professional organizations, and have taken credit for all you work on the website, but they are only charging $150 a month.

Sure, some of your clients will come back when they see the service the illegals give, but quite a few folks won’t be back. Instead you have to continue to compete against the illegals. You hear that numerous legitimate coaches are going out of business because they just can’t compete against the illegals charging $150 a month. You complain to the Professional Coaching Association, but because there are fewer and fewer coaches in the business, the PCA has less and less membership money to combat the illegals.

In a year you are exhausted. You have been competing against people who steal from you and think nothing of it (Mexicans have very different views on ownership than we do), don’t follow the code of the Professional Coaching Association, don’t pay rent, electricity nor phone service (all stolen from the mechanical room of the office building you are in) and your bandwidth bill has tripled from $80 a month to $250 because all five of the illegal coaches are using your website as their own.

Illegals are not something to be inspired by. If they are unhappy in their own country, they can change their own country. If they want to come to the US, apply for a visa, learn the language and stop breaking the laws. I am happy to compete against other legitimate business, but when I am forced to play by different and much, much tougher rules than illegals, the fun and motivation go right out the window.

To make a significant change, you need to become a different person -with a new mindset, new habits, new outlook, new friends and quite often a new ‘look’. And that requires some b*alls!

That’s the one of the thing I notice about the Eastern europeans in the UK they have made big sacrifices in pursuit of a better life - given up homes, jobs, families, friends and their way of life in pursuit of a bigger future.

I know there are various social and political implications around immigration - but at an individual level, I have nothing but admiration for these people. Their courage, hard work and tanacity is something we can all learn from.