Creating a “Can-Do” Mindset
Essential to getting Atascadero back on an upward trajectory is adjusting our attitude. Regaining a positive self-image about our city is a necessary first step in creating the can-do confidence required to turn things around. Though the mood and image of our community have suffered recently from the various divisive challenges that we have been facing on an economic level, Atascadero is a healthy community filled with hopeful residents. Our situation, while ripe with challenge, is still one that most communities outside our region would envy. An objective assessment of what we have going for us in Atascadero provides cause for optimism about our long-term prospects. We just need to work with our advantages and focus on our opportunities with a “can-do” mindset.
Many local communities have faced economic challenges similar to ours in the past and have taken the necessary steps to achieve success. Many of you probably remember how Paso Robles transformed its image from dusty cow town to charming wine-country village and thriving business center. I can think of dozens of other cities, and many neighborhoods within cities, which also achieved dramatic turnarounds. While each of those successes was unique, what they all had in common was a desire to turn things around and a belief that it could happen-they had a can-do mindset.
An interesting can-do success story is the city of Philadelphia. By the mid-1970s it was declining, overshadowed by the neighboring power centers of New York, 90 miles to the north, and Washington, D.C., 120 miles to the south. Philadelphia’s image fell so low that it became best known for being the butt of a lifelong series of cruel jokes by W.C. Fields, who famously said that his tombstone should bear the inscription “I’d rather be in Philadelphia.” Despite that image, Philadelphia always had fundamental advantages as a historic, graceful, European-paced, large city, with a diverse economic base. In addition, its location, close to America’s two greatest power centers was an important asset rather than a liability, especially for those institutions and individuals wanting easy access to those centers without having to be based in the midst of their hectic atmospheres.
When more effective, can-do government took over, Philadelphia’s rock-solid advantages reclaimed the recognition that they deserved. By the late 1980s, its negative image was gone and Philadelphia was seen to be one of America’s most livable, diverse, interesting and friendly big cities. Its business community also recovered, successfully negotiating the transition from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy. Philly’s success wasn’t an accident. There was a turnaround built on a realistic recognition of the problems it was facing and a can-do attitude about overcoming those problems and bringing the city’s fundamental qualities back to the fore.
Atascadero has nowhere near the problems that Philadelphia once had. With our advantages and some can-do optimism about our potential and prospects, we will find it much easier than Philadelphia did to turn things around in the years ahead. In that regard, we will do well to remember that we have significant advantages which, if leveraged for the future and not just for the present, can help us achieve long term:
o We have residential areas that are world-class in terms of their topography, vistas, lot-sizes and high-quality, custom-home development;
o We have a climate that is unsurpassed, with mild temperatures, sunshine almost 300 days a year and just the right amount of marine influence;
o We have ready access to one of the world’s great coastal areas, fantastic nature preserves and vistas in all directions, two interesting neighboring cities, some of the best wine country anywhere, and clean air and minimal traffic;
o We are less than four hours away from two of America’s largest urban areas, providing easy access in both directions, yet leaving us remote enough to preserve a superior quality of life;
o Lastly, we have a distinctive historical legacy, as a planned city founded on a Utopian ideal in cattle and farm country, built alongside a picturesque creek, around a beautiful town square with architectural gems in our midst.
In the almost four years since my wife and I relocated here, a lot of people have reacted with curiosity that we would move from Manhattan to Atascadero. It never seemed at all strange to us. But we soon became practiced in explaining that, while we enjoyed our career-centered, fast-paced, city lives, we also spent a lot of time in beautiful rural communities in upstate New York and New England that have much in common with Atascadero. As time went on, we realized that we wanted to make a transition, while we still could, to a lifestyle that would give greater emphasis to savoring life’s finer things in the decades ahead.
When we decided to relocate, we felt free to go anywhere we wanted. Because most of our current business can be conducted remotely, by phone and internet, we had the choice to live anywhere in the United States. We both felt that the Central Coast of California offered more of what we wanted than anyplace else. On our initial visit to Atascadero, upon seeing the home that we eventually bought, our minds were made up immediately. Atascadero’s residential areas, with their large lots, oak- studded hills and stunning views, were some of the most beautiful we had ever seen. We felt privileged to be able to move to such a place, and so we joined the many others before us who were drawn to Atascadero by its unique beauty and lifestyle.
With the abundant natural assets and the amazing quality of life we all agree exists in Atascadero, we have great advantages favoring us in tackling our economic challenges. With those advantages, combined with a can-do attitude, we will get over the hurdles that we have to clear. I grew up in a family of modest means and learned that a can-do attitude and hard work are cornerstones to achievement. So when I have heard, all too often, in too many city meetings, the words “we can’t,” it has caused me to cringe. If we believe we can’t, we can be sure of one thing: we won’t, because we will have quit before we started. That has been happening in Atascadero lately to an extent that is unacceptable. It is time to throw off that kind of thinking and adopt the kind of can-do philosophy that recognizes what we can achieve if we put our minds to it and stop worrying about falling short. Personally, I can tell you that the achievements that I have recorded in my life-in scholarship, in building a successful law practice in the most competitive legal market in the world, in delivering results for my clients in complex transactions and hard cases-were all built on the aspiration to succeed at the highest level, combined with the confidence that by determined effort I could accomplish my goals. Similarly, our community can achieve its full potential by adopting high expectations, along with the can-do mindset that our efforts will enable us to realize those expectations.
All in all, we have the ingredients for another success story still to be written. Let us take stock of our advantages and not shortchange ourselves in estimating what we are capable of. Whatever the current image of Atascadero might be, the underlying realities are extremely positive. Let’s go forward with those positive realities uppermost in our minds. Our city’s turnaround in its government and commercial sectors will start in earnest when, as a community, we replace the negativity of today with the kind of optimistic, can-do attitude that our circumstances warrant. There is a lot to be done, but it will go a lot easier when we approach it with the confidence that comes from recognizing that Atascadero is capable and deserving of all the best that the world has to offer.