Here's what I ended up submitting. Please tell me if you think it's trash or not. DO NOT be afraid to be brutally honest.

So I’m sitting at my desk having pushed my deadline to the point where I can actually hear it breaking, I’ve gotten input from some of my dealer clients about topics important to them, and I still can’t figure out what to write about. It started while having coffee with my wife this morning as we watched the talking heads deliver the latest barrage of tragedies. They got into my head a little bit as the news got worse. I noticed that my attitude mirrored the downward spiral spewed forth on the tube. (So if you haven’t figured it out yet, I’ll be preaching and not teaching this month. If you don’t read my preachy-er columns go ahead and turn the page now. See you next month.)

An oil spill that nobody is stepping up to fix, a violently chaotic stock market [pronounced: Casino] which stole billions of dollars from shareholders a few weeks ago during a “glitch”, republicans versus democrats versus tea party versus the unions versus… What the heck are we putting up with here?

Have the laws that we’ve allowed our “law makers” to heap on top of other laws to correct what they didn’t like about those laws, which were written to counteract other poorly written (or obsolete) laws, become such a tangled mass of moral spaghetti that we can no longer make intelligent decisions based on just doing the right thing?

So then, after coffee, I read an email from a friend and long time dealer. He’s wondering if he’s going to be able to ride this thing out. He’s done all the responsible things; cut expenses, invested in training, renegotiated every contract he has, kept his inventory moving quickly, etc. His fear is that the sound decision making he’s made for the life of his business will be superseded by the need to keep his business viable. Will he have to sell his soul to stay afloat?

All of this morning’s input got me very introspective. I have a few decisions to make about the projects I’m considering right now. I’m looking at two; one a software development thing, and the other a long term dealership training initiative. Am I going to make my decisions based solely on money? Am I committed to doing the right thing at all costs? Will I have to choose between the two?

So what do I hope to contribute to your business with all this self analyzing psychobabble; this preaching? Who knows; inspiration maybe? Maybe writing this month’s column is just for me. All I know is that by the time you’re reading it, things will have either stabilized or they’ll have gotten worse, but either way they’ll be different than they are today.

I’ve always run my business with this in mind: You must be profitable to operate honorably, and you must also operate honorably if you’re gonna be profitable. If I can’t work within the tension of that paradox, am I left only with one option to keep my business profitable; that of being a thief?

But I don’t think we take back our industry by making decisions that we wouldn’t make if we had all the money we needed. I, for one, will continue to make any such decisions, both personal and business, in which doing the right thing is challenged, by doing the right thing… regardless of the costs.

I’ll quote my friend’s email, “I am taking a stand to make all decisions based on doing the right thing regardless of the financial fallout. If nothing else, whether my business survives or not, it’ll be good practice for the future.”

Me too.