(Part 1:) A Real Recipe for Financial Wealth

[Photo by PHGCOM. Details at the end of this post.]

Usually in the “On the Mark” blog, I consider issues of meaning, the higher values, good and evil, honor and duty.

But sometimes you just need cash.

Contrary to popular opinion, the scriptures do not say that ‘money is the root of all evil.’ Rather, as the ancient apostle Paul wrote, “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10, emphasis added), and I agree. (Although there are certainly other roots to evil, I get his point.) But if one can transcend the selfish love of money and wealth, money can allow one to do great things. In the Latter-day Saint scriptures, one reads that certain believers “will seek [riches] for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted” (The Book of Mormon, Jacob 2:19). A comprehensive solution to any one of these problems would require billions of dollars. If those are your ambitions—how do you generate that kind of cash? Good question; one might want to look at what people with billions of dollars do.

Beyond that, even for the task of providing for oneself and one’s family, it is fair to wonder whether there is anything to be learned from the hyper-wealthy. If you’re looking for financial inspiration in these difficult times—why not dream big?

Consequently, today I will consider some advice that a major American financial magazine has given regarding financial wealth. I find their advice at best useless, and at worst quite harmful. In this series, I critique this article, point out some potential landmines, and make my own observations about wealth and its creation. I hope that readers will find something here that they can use to create wealth for themselves, and advice that they can pass on to their children and grandchildren.

If you find that what I have to share works for you, then, when your riches come in, I ask that you remember the poor, the naked, the homeless, the hungry, the captive, the sick and the afflicted. In a big way.

The online edition of Forbes magazine on September 30, 2009, published an article, “A Recipe for Riches,” regarding the characteristics of billionaires. (I read it first in a version of October 9 appearing on Yahoo! Finance.) The article opens by asking such questions as, “What are the common attributes among the über-wealthy? Are there any true secrets of the self-made?” Let’s consider what the article has to say—and what it fails to say.

The Basic Secret to Wealth: Create Value for Others

Somewhat stunningly, the article ignores the single most important common attribute among the very wealthy. A large proportion of them are involved in the creation of value for others. Many of them invented new ways to create value for others. This is clear for many of those on the Forbes 400 List of Richest Americans.

Perhaps the most spectacular examples are in the areas of computer software (and, to a lesser extent, hardware). Bill Gates of Microsoft (#1 on the list), and Steve Jobs of Apple (#43), between them invented the desktop computing industry. Michael Dell of Dell Computers (#13) invented methods to get computers to people cheaper. Larry Ellison of Oracle (#3) invented an important software application for business. Sergey Brin and Larry Page (both tied for #11) created value for others through inventing Google, Jeffrey Bezos (#28) through inventing Amazon, Pierre Omidyar through inventing Ebay, David Filo (#tied for 296) and Jerry Yang (tied for #317) through inventing Web portal Yahoo, and 25-year-old Mark Zuckerberg (tied for #158) through inventing Facebook—all software applications that it would be difficult to imagine modern life without. Michael Bloomberg (#8) invented a way to get investment information to investors quickly. Charles Schwab (#50) invented a way to help people invest more easily.

However, it is not just in the area of software applications that wealth is to be made through creating value for others in innovative ways. The same principle applies in other industries, some very old indeed. Several of the Forbes 400 (starting at #4) are related to Sam Walton, who invented a different way to manage retail sales, one of the oldest businesses there is.

Few things are as basic to human life as food. One might think that there was not much room for wealth from innovation in this area—but one would be wrong. Several on the list (starting at #19) are members of the Mars family who inherited wealth generated by an innovator in candy and pet food, the latter also being the domain of Clayton Mathile’s success (tied for #204: Iams); William Wrigley, Jr. (tied for #154) is on the list for chewing gum, James Leprino (tied for #141) is there for cheese, and Christopher “Kit” Goldsbury (tied for #347) for salsa. People important in the Subway sandwich shop chain (Peter Buck and Fred DeLuca, both tied for #236) and S. Truett Cathy (ditto), the founder of the Chick-fil-A chain, are on the list.

Innovation in responding to other basic human needs has created billionaires, as well. Philip Knight (#24) and Jim Davis (tied for #204) made their fortunes from innovations in shoes—yes, Nike and New Balance, respectively, but still shoes. Ralph Lauren (#61) made his billions from innovations in clothing and its marketing. Ty Warner is on the list (#94) from one of the oldest types of consumer goods in history: toys. (He’s the Beanie Baby man. And anyone who does not think that “toys” are a basic human need has never been around four preschool children as the winter holidays approach.)

Bradley Wayne Hughes and his family are on the list (#85) for one of the most low-tech industries imaginable: he developed Public Storage. (And I’m glad he did: half my stuff is still in units in Orlando.)

Wealth can come through innovation in the creakiest and seemingly most boring of industries. Take package delivery. Frederick Smith (#212) wrote up his senior thesis in college on the subject of a system for delivering packages, efficiently and cheaply. Word is, he did not get a great grade on this paper. But Mr. Smith took his Yale thesis, built an integrated network of planes and trucks, and founded FedEx in 1971. Now he’s worth over $1.6 billion—personally. All this, through creating value for others.

I’ll tell you whom I do not see on this list: stage entertainers, musicians, and professional athletes. Yes, Oprah Winfrey is on the list (tied for #141), but Oprah is not really in the category of “stage entertainer.” Oprah is more “infotainment” than entertainment; in addition, she runs a slew of businesses: her show, a magazine, a TV production company, and, soon, her own cable network.

My point? Mega-wealth is developed by innovation in creating value for other people. Yet, our popular culture does not celebrate this kind of achievement. Instead, the culture lionizes stage entertainers and professional athletes. Those of us who do not consider ourselves stage or sports field material might benefit by realizing that we can still think outside the box, that we can still innovate, that we can create value for others in ways that have not been done before. In addition, we can encourage our children to think in innovative ways, to think about improving how things are done, to think in terms of how to create value for other people. They’re not going to be getting these thoughts from popular culture, to be sure.

Creating value for other people in innovative ways is most definitely On The Mark.

As always, your comments and "follower"-ship are welcome.

[The photo shows a 250 kg (about 550 lb) gold bar, reportedly the largest manufactured pure gold bar in the world, currently in the Toi Gold Museum in Toi, Shizuoka, Japan. The photo is dated 2007, and its author is PHGCOM. The photo was obtained from Wikipedia and appears here under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License.]

(Copyright 2009 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

Does President Obama Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

The awarding today of the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Obama raises a simple question: What has he done to deserve it? This question has a very straightforward answer: He has changed the course of a nation, and, in a real sense, the world, for the better.

Within less than nine months as President, Obama has taken America out of the role of loose cannon, rolling about wildly on the deck of the global ship of state, and into the role of a leader among cooperating nations. He has advanced the cause of nuclear disarmament, which has languished for years, even as the threat of nuclear war has hung like the sword of Damocles over the world for nearly two-thirds of a century. (Read an earlier post about nuclear disarmament here.) He has reversed U.S. policy on the use of torture, a policy that had actually promoted terrorism. He has reversed the direction of the United States on global warming, which has the potential to incite war in the long term through its effect on population centers and agriculture.

The function of the Nobel Prize is not merely to reward someone, but to hold that someone up as an example for others to follow. Although some of Obama’s efforts have yet to bear fruit, the mere fact of his undertaking these efforts, and the very real results that have been obtained so far, are a much-needed inspiration for everyone from schoolchildren to statespersons. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama makes his message of hope, and the value of working hard in the cause of peace, that much stronger.

There are those who criticize the Nobel Peace Prize Committee because they have not, in this case, followed the example of the committees regarding awards in the sciences, where Nobel Prizes are awarded years after some achievement. This is a foolish comparison. We are living in a crucial moment of world history, when the potential for catastrophe—nuclear, environmental, biological—is very great. The time to act is now. Consequently, the time for inspiration is now.

It is written that a very small rudder can move a very large ship. The efforts of President Obama, although in some cases still in their early stages, are what the world needs to achieve peace now, on multiple fronts. It is not only that those efforts deserve this award, although they do. However, in addition to that, the people of America and the world need the inspiration to follow the President’s example. Faced with an unprecedented level of challenge and risk, the entire world needs to think, “Yes—we can!” And the world needs to think this now, not twenty years from now.

In the matter of this award, the Nobel Committee, and especially President Barack Obama himself, are On The Mark.

(This post expands on a comment of mine on a news item in The Huffington Post. The original news article is available here. An archive of all my comments on The Huffington Post is available here. Readers are welcome to become what The Huffington Post calls “fans” of mine on HuffPost.)

[The photo of the 1933 Nobel Peace Prize medal awarded to Norman Angell, on exhibit to the public at the Imperial War Museum in London, was taken on August 26, 2005 by Anubis3. The image was obtained through Wikipedia, and is in the public domain in the United States.]

(Copyright 2009 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights Reserved.)

Should Roman Polanski Be Extradited to the United States? Hell, Yes!

(Photo of Roman Polanski, on the right in the photo, by Rita Molnar.)

Recently, the worlds of auteur cinema and Franco-American relations have been rocked by the arrest of famous 76-year-old film director Roman Polanski in Switzerland. Polanski faces extradition to the United States for having sexual intercourse with a then-13-year-old girl in 1977; one may read an Associated Press (AP) story, one of the many media accounts of this incident, here. (Polanski pled guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, but fled the U.S. in 1978 before being formally sentenced.)

In France, where Polanski is a citizen, various government officials are up in arms about Polanski's arrest. The AP story quotes the French Foreign Minister (the equivalent of the U.S. Secretary of State) as saying, "A man of such talent, recognized in the entire world ... all this just isn't nice." The French Culture Minister, Frederic Mitterand, is quoted as saying, "To see him like that, thrown to the lions because of ancient history, really doesn't make sense." Polanski's victim, Ms. Samantha Geimer, identified herself years ago; having reached a settlement with Polanski in years past, Ms. Geimer joins the call for a dismissal of charges against Polanski, saying she wants the case to be over.

Are these people simply insane?

Consider this my memo to the French national cabinet and Ms. Geimer: You are so wrong in so many ways, it will be difficult to respond to you within the bounds of even my epically long posts. Yet, logic, reason, and justice all demand that I try.

Let us keep one fact in mind that is disputed by no one: Roman Polanski had sex with a 13-year-old child--a minor who was in eighth or ninth grade--when he was 44 years old. With this fact firmly in mind, let us consider several arguments that have been advanced as to why Polanski should not be extradited to the United States to pay for this crime:

"All this happened a long time ago."

What possible relevance could this have? Certainly the matter of a statute of limitations does not enter into the discussion. The crime was prosecuted within a year of its occurrence; the only reason a long time has passed is because Polanski ran away, a fugitive from justice. Do we reward runaways from justice by dismissing their convictions, after a certain period has passed? That is exactly what we would be doing by dismissing Polanski's case on this basis.

Beyond that, what does it matter how much time has passed? The man had sex with a child when he was in his forties, for heaven's sake. The fact that it happened a long time ago is completely irrelevant from a moral point of view.

One is reminded in this respect of a terrible incident in which Mr. Polanski's own wife was the victim. In 1969, Mr. Polanski's second wife, the actress Sharon Tate, eight months pregnant, was brutally murdered by the followers of Charles Manson. (The person specifically responsible for murdering Ms. Tate was released from prison a little while ago with inoperable brain cancer, and died last week.) All of that was a good eight years farther in the past than Mr. Polanski's sexual episode with the child; do the French ministers want to make the case that Charlie Manson should be let out of prison? After all, the Sharon Tate murder is even more 'ancient' an incident, don't you think?

I mean no disrespect to the deceased Ms. Tate or her memory by making this grotesque comparison. However, I felt it necessary to mention the heinous crime of her murder to expose the wild logic of the argument that the passage of time somehow makes a difference here.

"The man is an internationally famous, highly talented artist."

The lack of logic here is astonishing, as well. Intellect and talent do not entitle one to a "Get Out of Jail Free" card in the Monopoly game of life. It would not matter if Polanski had the intellect of Einstein, the artistic sensibility of Da Vinci, the fame of Julius Caesar, and the humanitarian record of Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi, and Mother Teresa combined. There is only one standard of justice in an equitable society: You do the crime, you do the time--regardless of your status in society. In large part, this is what the rule of law is about.

Any standard other than this leads to social madness. The intelligentsia of society, the talented elite, must not be given moral freedoms beyond what ordinary people have; this would establish a two-tiered system of morality that is morally intolerable. We have enough problems with inequity in society on the basis of income, gender, social status, race and ethnicity, religion, and so forth; we should be eliminating such inequity, not encouraging it.

I have a right to talk about the rights of the intelligentsia. I'm one of them.

Folks, I'll tell you something that I wouldn't ordinarily reveal. I have a measured IQ in excess of 150; yes, by some measures, I am a certified genius. I am an elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and have received awards from three Divisions of that august learned society. Despite these distinctions, despite the certified strength of my intellect, I consider myself to be under the same legal and moral strictures as anyone else.

It must be that way, for a just and equitable society to survive. Indeed, it can and should be argued that I--and Mr. Polanski--have a responsibility to work harder than others for the advancement of a moral and just society, that we have a responsibility to provide a better example of moral behavior. Where much is given, much is expected. (I have made this argument elsewhere, and doubtless shall again.)

Yes, of course, there are different versions of morality in different cultures. However, no reputable form of morality allows a man in his forties to have sex with a child.

If we followed the logic of the French ministers, then we would have to allow someone more brilliant or talented than Mr. Polanski the right to cause him harm. Let's have the brilliant physicist, Stephen Hawking, maim Mr. Polanski--oh, can't do anything about that; Mr. Hawking is just so very brilliant, you see. (Of course, I strongly suspect that Stephen Hawking would be the very first to deny that he has any special rights because of his stupendous intellect, astonishing as it is.)

"This man has already suffered so much in his life."

No one disputes that Roman Polanski has suffered a good deal. His mother died at the Auschitz concentration camp during the Holocaust. His second wife was murdered along with their unborn child, as I mentioned above. This is terrible; this is more than one would wish on one's worst enemy; I deeply sympathize with Mr. Polanski for his unbearable losses.

And none of that means a thing.

One does not earn 'suffering points' that allow one to commit crimes. In that direction, too, madness lies in wait.

Shall we establish a hierarchy of suffering, then? Perhaps someone who was tortured or maimed in some incident of ethnic cleansing, someone who lost their entire family, should be permitted to run roughshod over Mr. Polanski. Wouldn't that make sense, by the pretzel logic used by the French cabinet ministers?

"The victim herself calls for Polanski to be released."

Here I must tread delicately. Mr. Polanski's victim, Ms. Samantha Geimer, has suffered a great deal, no doubt, because of this case and its publicity.

All that being said, I must point out that Ms. Geimer's opinion on this issue means nothing at all.

Mr. Polaski's crime was not just a crime against Ms. Geimer. It was a crime against society, which is why it was prosecuted as a criminal matter, not a civil one.

Let me put it this way. There will always be 13-year-old girls, and there will always be 40-something-year-old Hollywood stars of one sort or another. What kind of message are we sending out if we just let Roman Polanski walk? What kind of behavior are we rewarding?

On the other hand, if we do not let Roman Polanski walk, perhaps it will give some Hollywood stars some pause before they sexually exploit some minor, in the future.

When it comes to forming society, it's largely about what you reward. My suggestion is that we do not reward either sexual exploitation of minors, or skipping out on the United States justice system.

I am sorry that Ms. Geimer will be discomfitted by the publicity involved in this case. On the other hand, Ms. Geimer is in her forties. There are minor children to be protected here, and their concerns take priority.

Conclusion

None of the grounds advanced in favor of dropping Roman Polanski's extradition have any logical or moral bearing on the matter. To the contrary, extraditing him is a statement in favor of an equitable society, the rule of law, and the safety of sexually exploitable minor children. I appeal to the Swiss authorities to hasten his extradition. And I appeal to the French governmental ministers, and Ms. Geimer, to rethink their position, for the good of society and the safety of children.

Roman Polanski, and his supporters in the French government, are most definitely not On the Mark.

[The image of Roman Polanski at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival is from a photo by Rita Molnar. Obtained through Wikimedia Commons, the image appears here under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license.]

A Shout Out for Help to My Audience

As the video I have just uploaded to YouTube notes, I could use some help in finding a literary agent and someone connected with cable TV. Any information forwarded to me would be greatly appreciated.

Beliefnet Article: "New Dan Brown Novel Means Extra Scrutiny for Masons"

Over the next two weeks, you may be assured that you will hear more and more about the forthcoming Dan Brown novel, The Lost Symbol, which will be published on September 15. As author Dan Burstein notes on his new blog, Matt Lauer of the Today show will be reporting on the novel from sites around Washington, DC, from September 8 to 15.

I was recently quoted in a BeliefnetNews article regarding the impact that the Brown novel will have on public perceptions of Freemasonry; you may read the article here.

I won't let The Lost Symbol take over this blog; I have another blog for that particularly obsession. However, the publication of a new Dan Brown novel is legitimately something of a cultural event, worthy of comment in a blog of social commentary. Thus, from time to time I may have something to say about Dan Brown, his novel, and what relevance this has for spirituality in our day.

Ted Kennedy: A Lesson From the Presidency That Could Have Been

As I write these words, the world has just learned that Senator Ted Kennedy has died. Whatever one thinks of the late Senator's politics, all will agree that he was a major figure in American politics over the last half-century, and that his passing is a moment to show respect for a great public servant.

I'll go along with all of that. As it happens, I agree with much of Senator Kennedy's politics, so his passing means that much more to me. However, I bring up his passing here for another reason, a reason that is every bit as much personally relevant to you, the reader, as it is to me.

We'll read a lot over the next few days about the great Senator that Ted Kennedy was. However, we should also consider the great President that he might have been. Kennedy's Presidency­-that-wasn­'t, and the personal choices that derailed that Presidency, carry an important lesson for each of us.

I was a very young man in the summer of 1969. It was an almost surreal summer, with its constellation of watershed events of cultural and even cosmic significance, all of which I followed eagerly as I read the Rocky Mountain News and watched Walter Cronkite on television while visiting with my uncle's family in Denver. This was the summer of the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, the summer of the Charles Manson murder spree, the summer of Woodstock--and the summer of Chappaquiddick.

The broad details of the Chappaquiddick incident are well known. Senator (yes, even then, Senator) Kennedy was attending a reunion party for some of the female workers on his late brother's presidential campaign. (Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated over a year earlier, during this campaign.) Other men were in attendance at the party as well. As Kennedy later reported it, shortly before midnight, one of the women, Mary Jo Kopechne, asked him to drive her back to her hotel. On the way, Kennedy drove off a bridge; he escaped the car, while she did not. Kennedy did not report the incident until Ms. Kopechne's body was discovered, late the next morning.

There have been unanswered questions for many years about many aspects of this incident--but this is not the place to go into them. I would rather dwell on another aspect of this tragic incident. In doing this, I mean no slight to Ms. Kopechne or her memory. However, there are other issues to consider here, issues usually ignored.

Most commentators agree that the incident at Chappaquiddick ended Ted Kennedy's presidential ambitions. At the very least, Kennedy made a monumental error in judgment in not contacting the authorities immediately after he drove off the bridge into the water.

But what if he hadn't?

What if he had known better than to even put himself, a 37-year-old married man, in a car alone, late at night, with a 29-year-old single woman?

Beyond that, what if he'd reported the accident immediately--thereby possibly saving Ms. Kopechne's life, and definitely showing his willingness to risk his reputation to try to do so?

We just might have had a President Ted Kennedy in 1972, instead of the second presidential term of Richard Nixon. A Kennedy presidency at this time might have ended the Vietnam War years sooner, saving hundreds or thousands of American lives. A President Ted Kennedy might have given us an enlightened energy policy back in the Seventies, when the oil embargo of 1973 demonstrated conclusively the dangers of America depending on foreign-supplied fossil fuels.

Perhaps even more intriguing, we might have elected a President Ted Kennedy in 1980. (In real life, Ted Kennedy lost the Democratic nomination to Jimmy Carter in 1980.) We might have avoided the Reagan years and the first Bush Presidency altogether, along with the legacy of those years: the disastrous consequences for education, the environment, civil rights, foreign policy, the rule of law, and the national deficit (remember 'Star Wars'? and I don't mean the movie).

But we didn't get that. Instead, a few seemingly minor personal choices affected the course of American history, and arguably the history of the world.

The poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote that

For of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these:
"It might have been."

And so it is. Both the Rocky Mountain News and Walter Cronkite have passed into history, and now so has Senator Ted Kennedy. We shall never know what a Ted Kennedy Presidency would have accomplished. However, we can know this:

At some time, each of us will face what I will forever after call "Kennedy's choice": a seemingly minor personal choice where a lapse of good judgment can have far-reaching consequences, consequences that can change one's life--maybe many lives.

What if everyone behaved as if their choices could affect history? Sure, we might have some interesting stories disappear from our lives. However, overall, we would avoid oceans of heartbreak and missed opportunity. Beyond that, our power to contribute to our own success, to the prosperity and well-being of our communities, even to our nation and world, would be vastly increased.

We need to have the perspective that our lives are not our own. Some in the world would have us believe that our life is nothing but an opportunity for personal pleasure, personal enjoyment. We need a higher perspective here. I would submit to you that each of us has received our life in stewardship, an opportunity to do the most possible to improve the world in which we are placed. From this perspective, we just don't do things that could impede our ability to be useful, to ourselves, to our families, to our communities, to our world, to all the people who do or could depend on us--now or some day--to help them, even if that help is just to give them a good example.

So that's the lesson that I propose we consider taking within ourselves on this sad day. Do the right thing. Act with integrity, in things large and small. Act in private with the same values we would have if our behavior were broadcast to the Jumbotron in Times Square. Be the same person when we are alone that we are in public. Avoid even the appearance of impropriety. It's about integrity; it's about character.

I will miss Senator Kennedy. I mourn his passing; I admire him for the kind of man he ultimately became. But I cannot help but be haunted by what might have been. That's a lesson I want to apply to my own life for a long, long time.

The post is an elaboration of a comment that I made on The Huffington Post today. Read the Article at HuffingtonPost.

[The image of the late Senator Kennedy is in the public domain, and was obtained from Wikipedia.]

Annals of Well-Used Lives, I: Michelle Kwan Chooses Grad School Over Olympics

Michelle Kwan, nine times U. S. Figure Skating champion, twice an Olympic medalist (silver and bronze), announced on Friday, July 31, that she was passing on preparing this fall for the Winter Olympics, and instead would enter graduate school. (Read about it here and here.) Nancy Armour's article for the Associated Press quoted Kwan as stating the following:

Skating will always be a part of me .... But in the bigger picture of my life, I have always wanted to find a career that will allow me to make a positive contribution and difference in the world.

Kwan begins a masters degree in international affairs at Tufts University in the Fall. For the last three years, she has served as a U.S. public diplomacy envoy on the behalf of the State Department, and this experience seems to have encouraged her to move in this direction.

Yes, I know that the cynics out there will say that Kwan, who has suffered injuries in recent years and is now 29 years old, might have looked at her Olympic chances and considered them a long shot anyway. I prefer to take her at her word. Either way, though, let's give some thought to this act and its meaning, not for Kwan, but for America.

As a society, American culture is obsessed with professional sports (and, make no mistake about it, the Olympics are essentially professional sports under certain restrictions). To judge from the media, it has occured to very few people to point out that very little of any lasting value has resulted from the world of professional sports.

Oh, sure, the people who participate in professional sports can become fabulously wealthy, and some of those who've done so have done good and charitable things with their wealth--more power to them. However, truth be told, Americans aren't remotely as concerned with sports figures' charitable activities as they are with their athletic performance.

And we so love to watch those performances, don't we?

Whether it's the weekly ball games, or national or world competitions, or the weeks of Olympic competition, we love to watch those performances. We identify with the athletes; their victories are our victories, their pain our own.

But what difference does any of this make, at all?

Is one sick child made well by a goal or a block? Is our community any closer to fixing poverty because someone did the breaststroke in record time? Does even the most breathtaking, run-up-the-wall-and-jump catch, deep in the outfield, do a thing to better education or literacy, anywhere in the world?

Of course not. It's not supposed to. It's essentially entertainment for the spectators, and a massive paycheck plus the achievement of a personal goal for the athlete. And that's it.

Few have been better at their sport than Michelle Kwan is at hers. But now she wants her life to make a difference. Implicitly, she is stating that her athletic pursuits really were not making a difference in the world. And they weren't!

The spotlight will be off Michelle Kwan now. Nobody gives endorsement money for international relations. There's no standing on the podium while they play your national anthem and give you a medal, no matter how well you handle a diplomatic crisis. There's no stadium watching as you try to achieve peace and prosperity in a troubled world.

But somewhere, inside, I think she'll experience the satisfaction that comes of knowing that you've tried to leave the world a better place than when you found it. Years from now, when she is an accomplished diplomat with some achievements under her belt, I hope that she tours the schools of America and tells the story of how the athletic hero walked away from it all, to really make a difference. Directing your life to a greater purpose: it's a lesson that a lot of children need to hear.

A lot of adults, too.

Michelle Kwan's choice to make a difference is definitely On the Mark.

[The image of Michelle Kwan performing her signature spiral at a practice session of the 2002 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Los Angeles was taken on January 8, 2002 by Kevin Rushforth, who has made it available for use here through the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. The image was obtained through Wikipedia.]