Ronald Kern's Personal Blog

Ahhhh New Orleans.  Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street, Canal Street.  My first trip to New Orleans was powerful, impactful, and in other ways sad.  I  traveled to meet with Beth and Ivan Misner, the founders of BNI International , to assist with some of the most high risked schools and at risk youth in the country.  New Orleans has incredible history, art, food, music, and culture that is known worldwide.  Unfortunately, I did not experience these good things as this wasn't a vacation for me.   I can tell you there is darkness that blankets the city, you can see it, and feel it.  It has  remnants of Hurricane Katrina still present after 9 years, crime is rampant, and corruption is everywhere.   Clearly, we weren't visiting Disneyland and it wasn't very safe.  We were not only going to be in the thick of it, but our itinerary included the toughest part of it.  Yes, being a white man from Idaho, I would be lying if I said I wa...

If you live in the United States, the word slavery probably takes you back to your history days in school, picturing a large plantation mansion, where African Americans, then called Negros, worked the cotton fields in the south so the owners of them didn't have to.  That portion of our history is horrific and slavery as we knew it then, has been desolated. However, there is a current form of slavery called human trafficking, which is as sickening and disgusting as the 1800's in early America.  Human trafficking doesn't receive a lot of media attention, although it's finally gaining some momentum now that celebrities and other well-known figures are speaking out on the topic.  This needs to happen more. What is human trafficking?  By definition, it's  the illegal movement of people, typically for the purposes of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation.  In short, human beings are being forced into having sex with others, and working ...

When your passion and interests change (and they will over time), it's important to take inventory of what is really important to you and what your future is going to look like, and make changes as needed. There are different levels of change, ranging from easy and of barely any consequence, to life-changing events that will completely reshape your future.  If you need new passion and have the faith in God to make such changes, then you should do so when possible.  In practicing what I preach, both Lisa and I have taken our second leap of faith recently, and wanted to relay that news here. We started the largest of our companies on a folding table in the basement of my parents house, 21 years ago.  With a lot of hard work, a little luck, and God guiding us, it soon became a full-time job and eventually we quit our "real" jobs.   There were very few people who thought it would work, and doubters quickly provided ample reasons on why it wouldn't work.  Sadl...