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“I don’t think any madman ever said ‘Why, what an ass am I!’ “

BBC discussion on Hamlet

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Well, fortune favors the brave, sir.”

“I think that last night, fortune was merely inclined to favour the least incompetent.”

Richard Woodman

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Ok.

Success can be a, well, a deceitful sonuvabitch.

Winning can be a, well, a deceitful sonuvabitch.

Oh. As a result. Madmen who have had some success or wins can be, well, real sonuvabitches <asses>.

Regardless. Success and winning can be deceitful because it makes madmen not recognize what asses they are or how incompetent the incompetent are. Suffice it to say I have worked in businesses for over 25 years and I have never heard one of the random madmen I have come across admit they were an ass and I have rarely ever heard an incompetent ‘winner’ suggest they were simply the least incompetent that day <or any day that matter>.

Success has that effect on people.

But maybe the most dangerous effect is, for many people, once you have had some any loss seems like a threat to, well, survival. Or, as Clausewitz said:

…victory leads easily to overextension, which leads to defeat.

Uh oh. Defeat is not an option <to madmen & incompetents>. Business people in survival mode tend to shed themselves of any ability to rationally adapt as well as any ability to navigate the ‘unknowns’ inherent to any business world. Instead, most shift into a more desperate effort to fling themselves into any possible path to the next victory.

Ok. Survival may sound extreme, but I cannot think of a better word. Suffice it to say that winners think it is a life or death scenario and losing is all about a part of them dying. The ‘part of them’ may partially be confidence but, what the hell, that is a pretty significant part.

Anyway. Success or failure I do know one thing. Madmen will never say what an ass they are and incompetent people will always believe fortune favors the brave. Unfortunately, that suggests they are unchangeable.

Look. That alone isn’t so weird <or damning>. In general none of us are particularly good at changing <particularly in their business style & character & skills within business>. And THAT is important because far too many try to change themselves in order to ‘be a winner.’ I am fairly sure it was Peter Drucker who suggested it is significantly more effective to improve upon the way you perform – how you already do what you do <rather than try to fix the bad things you do>.

Uh oh. This means <gulp> madmen become more asshole-ish and the incompetent double down on their incompetence. If the mad and the incompetent seek some solace, I would note that most people do not really know shit about how they actually get things done.

Shit.

Most of us have no clue how other people do their voodoo <get things done>.

Shit. Most of us don’t really know what we are good at.

Shit. Even worse, most of us misjudge our strengths.

Shit. Even worser <I made that word up>, most of us who have had some success are even worse at misjudging their strengths.

Shit. The truth is more people actually know what they suck at <not good at>. Oh shit. But even then most people don’t get that exactly right. Holy shit. Suffice it to say we suck at judging ourselves. With all that self-assessment suckedness what do we do? Well, particularly in today’s world, you go the easy path — you simplistically judge off of outcomes/results <the successes & wins> avoiding any interest in scrutinizing any of the details of how you achieved the outcome.

In fact the details of our success becomes so unimportant in the scheme of things we create a mosh pit of all positive things which COULD have contributed to how good we were in that success. It is a crazy mix of ethics, values & integrity <inextricably tied to the results rather than the process embraced to gain the results> blended with a good amount of curiosity & perseverance & resilience <against the negative tides pushing against our inevitable deserved success> all sprinkled with the necessary “team player” <‘I thrive when I work closely with others’>.

Unfortunately, most of that self-reasoning is bullshit. The truth is this mosh pit simply cloaks incompetence, mistakes, errors in judgement and whatever ‘not-so-good shit’ <being a madman> by painting a positive coat of ‘something’ over them <”we weren’t as efficient because I wanted the team involved” or “we pursued this idea out of planned curiosity only to judge it was not the best path” … crap like that>.

Oh shit. This gets worse. Winning tends to concentrate one on doing more of what they perceived they had done to succeed rather than invest any energy on cultivating any additional skills, needs or improvements.

======================== 

“it takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than  to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.”

Peter Drucker

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What makes that even worse is that translates into madmen concentrating more on ass–like things and incompetents focusing more whatever bumbling they had done.

Anyway. I have found <without any research> people fall into two buckets on this topic – those who focus on the win and those who focus on improvement. I would suggest the madmen and oblivious incompetent fall in the former bucket and the truly sane business people, with a chance of actually being good, fall into the latter bucket.

I say that because any pivot points in progress tend to become more obvious in reflection than in the actual ‘living’ within the moment.

Therefore, if all I do is focus on the win I will reflect with little true critiquing and most likely remain a madman and incompetent <this is actually called ‘objective blindness’>.

Therefore, if all I do is be slightly perpetually dissatisfied with my performance and critique, in a healthy way, I will most likely increase my competency and have progress.

The former says “fortune favors the brave.” Always.

The latter says “fortune was merely inclined to favor the least incompetent.” At least on occasion.

Lastly. I would suggest that madmen and the incompetent have one thing in common — lack of meaningful convictions <beyond success at any cost>.

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“Convictions are not like gloves; one cannot easily change them.” …

General Petr Grigorevich

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Well. “Convictions are not like gloves.” There is a keeper of a thought. Madmen and incompetents are incredibly good at treating convictions like gloves.

Shit. Their convictions are more like chameleons.

I end there because I wish more of us in the business world would keep all of this in mind. Especially the madmen, who are asses, and the incompetent <who win more often than they would like to admit … despite their incompetence>.

Sometimes you can be an ass and it is <generally> okay if you are aware enough to sit back and say “what an ass am I!”

Sometimes you can be an incompetent and its <generally> okay if you are aware enough to sit back and say “fortune was merely inclined to favour the least incompetent this time.”

Who am I kidding? No madman has ever said “what an ass am I!” and no incompetent has ever said “fortune was merely inclined to favour the least incompetent this time.”

That’s only the kind of things we, the normal business people, do. Ponder.

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“I am free and lost in this freedom

Do you know what I mean by that?”

Ingeborg Bachmann

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Freedom, in and of itself, is quite possibly the most valuable privilege one can have in the world.

Freedom, in and of itself, may be one of the most misunderstood and least understood ideas in the world.

Freedom, in and of itself, may be one of the most appealing concepts in the world.

Freedom, in and of itself, once attained may be one of the most difficult concepts, as an individual, to manage in the world.

Freedom, once truly given, can be a scary prospect to wield responsibly and well.

Freedom is one of those things that should make you think long and hard about what, exactly, do you want? But, yet, many of us do not. And we should. We should because, at its core, freedom is about liberty of self and what you want. I believe it was John Stuart Mill who stated that the individual “is the person most interested in his own well-being,” and that the “ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else.”

What this suggests is that, while freedom may have some societal demands and constraints, the real ‘rule of freedom’ comes from within each individual and, well, responsibility.

Within?

No fences. No boundaries. Not even a public compass … just one that resides in yourself. Well. This would suggest it could become easy to get lost.

Look. I am not suggesting society would ever permit all of us to actually decide how we wanted to define freedom for our own lives and live our Life in that self-defined way without any repercussions <and there would have to be as each of us pursued ‘our own wellbeing’ to the possible detriment of the ‘greater we’>.

However. Because you can view from such a personal standpoint and a self interest standpoint, it can become incredibly easy to start seeing your own path as <a> the path everyone else should be walking on and <b> the path which reflects the best definition of how freedom should be viewed. In that, well, it can become incredibly easy to get lost within your own views of what is freedom and how you may choose to use your freedom.

I tend to believe freedom is freeing AND constricting at exactly the same time. In addition. The only way to enjoy freedom is to actually do something with it and not just talk about it or enjoy it.

Yeah.

The secret to not being suffocated by freedom is the ability to use that freedom to create something <not simply being free>. Please note I say ‘create’ not destroy. Anyway. I imagine another way of saying that is you can suffocate by not doing anything <or not choosing to choose to use your freedom>.

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“The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret of outward success.”

Henry Ward Beecher

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Ah. Therein lies the rub. Create from freedom.

Sometimes that can seem like creating something from nothing. Freedom encourages ideas and thinking but then … uh oh … Life kind of demands you convert your access to freedom into ‘something.’ It is within that ‘demand from Life’ where most people abuse freedom — people choose not to choose.

Now. We do this all the time – choose not to choose. Oddly enough, a shitload of people think this is actually exercising your freedom. Go figure. Not doing something is an expression of freedom.

<scratching my head here>

Some people argue this is an excellent way that we exercise our freedom and flex our choice-making muscles. Either we actually do not make a choice at all or we delegate the choice-making to someone else <sometimes an expert – doctor, banker, service provider> or we just delegate the choice making into the “to be done later” file. In general, we have good intentions. We do this because we do not want to invest the energy and  time to make a ‘right decision’ <this actually becomes ‘not choosing’, or using your freedom, because of fear of not making the right choice … or using your freedom properly>. And, yes, it is ‘good intentions’ to intentionally avoid making a bad decision.

Sure. Using the overall excuse of “I am too busy” choosing not to choose can often seem to be the best choice because it can sometimes appear to then free us up to do something else. Personally I call bullshit on this type of thinking.

Freedom kind of has two levers or maybe an “on/off” switch … opt in or opt out. Either use your freedom or don’t use it. You either value your choice or you don’t. There really isn’t a lot of room in-between. And, yeah, people will argue with me on this, but I am stating it this way because while freedom can far too often look abstract, in reality, in practice, it is anything but abstract.

Doing, action, is at the core of freedom itself.

I have traveled the world and seen freedom and no freedom.

I have traveled the world and seen the arguments and debates and fights over freedom itself <my freedom versus your freedom>.

But here is the deal.

The opportunity to choose is not all that matters. I say that because far too many people who actually have the opportunity <a> do not exercise their freedoms or <b> get bogged down on the debate & conflict of my freedom versus your freedom. Choosing is what matters where freedom is concerned.

That said. As I have said before, surprisingly, freedom is tough. And it is even tougher because you may never really know if you have used your freedom well or wisely.

But here is what I do know.

It will be how you use your freedom which will be immortalized. And, yes, everyone is immortalized. Either through your forgetfulness or lack of memorability or lack of choice or doing something or how you cannot be forgotten or memorability through how you used your freedom and the choices you made. I say that because immortality will be the stories that are told about what you did with your freedom. That will be the final judge. Ponder that <because I think it is important>.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm … maybe that is why we get both lost and free within freedom. Given freedom we tend to hug tightly to any boundaries we find for fear of getting lost. But, assuming we actually ‘do shit’ and make choices using our freedom more and more we start to get a feel for those boundaries and begin pushing them out. Simplistically we push them further and further away from ourselves. At some point if we push them far enough it will feel like there are no boundaries and yet we do not feel lost.

I imagine that is what some people would call “freedom.” Seeing boundaries yet pushing against them to stretch what can “be”. And, yes, I also imagine that it feels good. So. Ponder this: If you have freedom, use it wisely.

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“When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody notices, do not be sad.

For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.”

John Lennon

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“What people don’t understand doesn’t exist.”

Jan Carlzon

——–

“Chance favors the connected mind.”

Steven Johnson

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Ok. We chase a lot of things in business in search of ‘advantage’. We sometimes chase them so blindly and relentlessly we don’t even recognize the rabbit hole we have started running down. Differentiation is one of those rabbit holes.

Now. I have a warped perspective <it includes rabbit holes> with regard to differentiation and differentiating in the business world. I think it’s a shit objective. Ok. It CAN be a shithole objective. But suffice it to say I believe chasing differentiation is … well … yes … often a rabbit hole.

To be clear. I don’t dislike differentiation and I believe a well differentiated sustainable idea can dominate a market. But. Chasing differentiation seems to take on some fairly absurd efforts to attain the objective. In addition. I worry about differentiation as an objective because it points people in the wrong direction. If I were to kill this whole differentiation thing, I would begin by saying “define, define, define.” Define yourself with such a clear distinctive thought that permits you stand up and say ‘here is who I am.’

Here is the deal. Sometimes you may look similar to someone else. But more often you will look like ,well, you. And in a sometimes complex fragmented world where everyone is shouting how different they are <and people are becoming more & more cynical> distinctness can win. And more often than not you will also be, well, different. In addition. In today’s world about the only sustainable differentiation isn’t a thing, it is knowledge, thinking & what you have done with what you learn.

Regardless. The meaningless rabbit hole. In our blind pursuit of differentiation we can make some fairly absurd decisions with regard to thoughtless specialization, nuanced differentiation and niche definition. In our blind pursuit of differentiation we can gleefully land on some ‘spot’ and declare differentiation victory only to have it all negated because of lack of alignment throughout all aspects of operations. Attempted, or false/meaningless, differentiation is useless and distracting and a rabbit hole.

Bottom line on differentiation is the reckless pursuit of it encourages us to lie to ourselves, i.e., convince ourselves of ‘true difference’ when it is simply meaningless differentiation. And therein lies the worst of the rabbit hole. Pretending to not see the truth, or maybe <to be kinder>, to pretend it is what it isn’t.

—————

“… the person who pretends to not see the truth is committing something much worse than a mortal sin, which can only ruin one’s soul – but instead committing us all to lifetimes of pain.

The truth is not just something we bring to light to amuse ourselves; the truth is the axis munid, the dead center of the earth. When it’s out of place nothing is right; everyone is in the wrong place; no light can penetrate. Happiness evades us and we spread pain and misery wherever we go. Each person, above all others, has an obligation to recognize the truth and stand by it.”

Jacque Silette

—————-

That last point is semi-important because many business people simply ignore truth as they pursue this elusive <and debatably poor objective> thing called differentiation. Far <far> too many business people embrace acceptable doubt and the possibility that a stupid belief might have something going for it in the pursuit of ‘differentiation’ all the while completely ignoring something that makes you distinct <but possibly not different>, or, let’s call it ‘an obvious and rational truth.’ People ignore it because they believe it will get you nowhere.

Trust me. These are the meetings and discussions in which I often sit dumbfounded and silent and thinking ‘wow … the rabbit hole just gained a whole new crowd of loons.’

—-

“…I was calm on the outside but thinking all the time.”

A Clockwork Orange

———-

Our relentless pursuit of differentiating most often than not leads to an unimportant product feature <not what customers consider valuable>

–——-

“Differentiation is a unique quality, perceived or real, of a good or service that distinguish it from a competing good or service…”

Your Dictionary.com

——–

Look. I fully realize that the need to be distinctive and competitive are the reasons why the company needs to think about differentiation.  However, differentiation can take on so many faces there is no reason you should end up chasing down some rabbit hole for some elusive ‘this is what you MUST seek’ objective as defined by one expert <only to have another expert state unequivocally you need to chase another completely different shiny object>.

Suffice it to say, I can almost guarantee whenever someone brings up differentiation it is more often than not simply code for “please enter this rabbit hole.”

Next. The perfection rabbit hole. On a parallel course is a similar group chasing perfection often ending up in the same rabbit hole as the differentiators <can get awful crowded in that business rabbit hole>. The pursuit of perfection is an insidious rabbit hole. Its stench seeps into the darkest corners of an organization. And while the stench is enough to make anyone’s stomach heave most organizations have people with no real ability and yet strive to maintain an aura of ability under the guise of ‘seeking perfection for the good of the organization.’

More good employees are actually LED into the perfection rabbit hole than employees who actually CHOOSE to dive into the perfection rabbit hole. That said. Organizations are built over this particular rabbit hole. Every organization. It is the unfortunate burden of every organization to deal with the pursuit of perfection.

————–

“Just because you took longer than others doesn’t mean you failed.”

Hassann

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Maybe that is my biggest point about rabbit holes and business. Some of the things we seek most in business, whether it be differentiation or perfection or whatever silly thing you have decided will better your business, always seem to take longer than what you want. We get impatient. And if we get really thoughtful about this whole impatience we would realize that our aggravation is with Life and not any inability within ourselves <or even in assessment the foolish pursuit of this un-real reality objective>.

Note:

we SHOULD be more thoughtful about this more often … mostly because if we do not far too many of the wrong people get fired <the right ones> and too many of the wrong people <the wrong ones> get praised and encouraged to maintain the ‘pursuit’ for the good f the organization.

Regardless. Life does not suffer fools lightly. Life is oblivious to your impatience <and relatively indifferent to you in general>. And Life bleeds into any and every organization.

How does Life deal with the fools and silly impatient people? Rabbit holes. It gives us rabbit holes to chase after silly things and dive into in our relentless pursuit of attaining “it” and waste our lives wandering aimlessly within.

But here is where Business and personal Life diverge.

In personal Life you are responsible for the stupid choices you make. Choose to enter a rabbit hole and the issue is all yours to own. In business you can actually get shoved into a rabbit hole whether you want to or not.

All I can tell you is that when I hear someone leading a discussion about ‘how are we different’ and ‘what’s our differentiation?” I start swiveling my head around scanning for rabbit holes.

All I can tell you is that when I hear someone in the hallway espousing the need to pursue perfection I start swiveling my head around scanning for rabbit holes.

 All I can tell you is that when I am in a meeting and someone is discussing both differentiation and perfection I don’t swivel my head, I just sigh, because I know I am already in a rabbit hole.

That is business … and rabbit holes. Ponder.

==

“Stop looking for happiness in the same place you lost it.”

via creatingaquietmind

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“Well I guess it’s only life,

It’s only natural we all spend a little while going down the rabbit hole. “

The Shins

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“We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay.”

Lynda Barry

==

Ok. We chase a lot of things in Life. We sometimes chase them so blindly and relentlessly we don’t even recognize the rabbit hole we have started running down. Happiness is one of those rabbit holes.

Whoa !

WTF.

Happiness is a rabbit hole?

Well. Suffice it to say happiness is a tricky thing.

Having it is awesome.

Seeking it is … well … a rabbit hole.

The search injects us with most of our everyday stress which means most of our stress has nothing to do with what we have, but rather what we don’t have <seeking what we want in other words>.

And while wanting a new car or some shirt or the cool new phone is a tangible ‘want’ <and not even close to sending you down a rabbit hole>; happiness is much more elusive. In fact. Much more elusive than you would imagine <or want>.

First. Our brains struggle to remember happiness in a realistic way. Semi-happy moments in the past take on a Life of their own and become exponentially happier in the memory. Yeah. Happiness has a wary relationship with reality.

Second. Our brains relentlessly tug at and tease out the minutiae found in unhappy moments. This, ultimately, translates into the fact we cannot seem to forget unhappiness and inevitably, because of that, do anything – include some absolutely absurd things – we can to avoid it.

Therein lies the rabbit hole. Life is not meant to be avoided.

Shit.

Life cannot be avoided <whether you try to or not>.

What do I mean? While we seek to control our own destiny and write our own fates … others grab our Life while we aren’t looking and write whole chapters for us that we can only look at and say “WTF” just before the inevitable ‘not written by us’ happens.

———

“Life is like a library owned by the author.  In it are a few books which he wrote himself, but most of them were written for him.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick

————

And all that ‘not written by us’ stuff keeps on getting in the way of what we want to write about happiness for our Life as well as it gets in the way of erasing the unhappy shit. This particular rabbit hole, this relentless pursuit of happiness, makes Life particularly difficult.

———-

“It hasn’t been easy, and it never will be. After all, every day is also a chance to slide back into the darkness. To live in ourselves and our regrets, instead of this moment. To run away from those that would help us and let self-hatred drive us back into isolation, despair, and destruction.

Nick Spencer

——

Every day is not easy and actively pursuing happiness shoves our happy ass in a slippery sloped rabbit hole faster than you can blink an eye.

Ok. As a corollary to chasing happiness, lets maybe call this the other rail on the tracks down into the frickin’ rabbit hole, is chasing simplicity <often believing this ‘elusive simplicity’ will lead to happiness>.

Is this a paradox in Life? Shit. I don’t know, but I do know the more we seek simplicity the more complex things tend to get and … uhm … the less happy we become.

Whew. Boy oh boy, talk about the slippery slope leading down to the rabbit hole of self-hell. Seeking simplicity is it.

Simplicity entices you day by day and even hour by hour. And each day you do not attain simplicity the more and more you look at it as some type of failure and you try harder and harder for something I am fairly sure you just cannot attain. Or if you can attain it … well … it doesn’t come from a book or some formula or even some sage advice from a friend, it is something more earned by living and attempting and finding.

Simplicity seems so simple and yet it inevitably takes much much longer to master than you feel it is supposed to.

Simplicity seems so damn easy that we, well, get impatient when it doesn’t happen.

Let me state that differently. We get impatient with Life. Uh oh. It’s not like we can dictate the pace & flow of Life <I will come back to this>.

The next problem?

Even if you actually DO attain some simplicity you are aggravated it took so frickin’ long. This is compounded by the fact that simplicity is one of those weird things that as soon as you attain it you start hearing other people say “geez … why did it take you so long to figure THAT out?”

————–

“Just because you took longer than others doesn’t mean you failed.”

Hassann

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<I use this quote to close the rabbit holes business post too>

And maybe that is my biggest point about rabbit holes and Life and reality.

Some of the things we seek most in Life, whether it be happiness or simplicity or whatever silly thing you have decided will better your Life, always seem to take longer than what you want. And we get impatient.

And if we get really thoughtful about this whole impatience … we would realize that our aggravation is with Life and not any inability within ourselves <or even in assessment the foolish pursuit of this non-real reality objective>.

Life does not suffer fools lightly. Life is oblivious to your impatience <and relatively indifferent to you in general>.

How does Life deal with the fools and silly impatient people?

Rabbit holes.

Life gives us rabbit holes to chase after silly things and dive into in our relentless pursuit of attaining “it” and waste our lives wandering aimlessly within this hole with slippery walls and minimal handholds to help us climb out of it.

Well. That summarizes reality … and rabbit holes. Ponder.

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“Ride it to the buzzer.”

a bull rider

====

I love this phrase.

I love it with regard to how to live Life as well as how business should be conducted <projects, initiatives, programs, internal employee & external sales activity>.

In a rodeo there are no results for progress, you simply ride it to the buzzer or you do not.

Even better?

Watch a bull rider ride. The buzzer sounds at 8 seconds, but the ride itself goes on for seconds more, in other words, they ride THROUGH the buzzer.

Now.

I will admit upfront … I am not a milestones guy or a ‘stage goal’ guy. Show me the end zone, tell me how much time I have to get in the end zone and let me get there.

<be aware … I am now officially mixing sports metaphors>

I think I became this was because I viewed some important behavior patterns in business people fairly early in my career:

– A milestone was treated like a touchdown and not a first down.

What I mean by that is a milestone is … well … simply a step toward the ultimate objective. And unlike football this ‘first down’ doesn’t earn you another set of downs, it is simply a false ‘win.’

Okay.

That was harsh.

Maybe it is simply a reflection of progress. But progress in and of itself, in business, is not the objective. The objective is some result. Partial results don’t equal a partial win they simply equate to a failure to reach the objective. And, yet, milestones were treated almost equal to an ‘objective win.’

– The end zone line was treated like a stopping point.

What I mean by that is that everyone ran to the end zone line itself and not thru the line and into the end zone.

This may sound silly or wasted energy, but I could argue that most projects are not discrete. They typically beget something else – another task, project or action. Business, generally speaking, is a continuum of things and rarely is something done just to be done.

I always preferred focusing the project to end on the ‘completion+’. The “+” being an array of “what’s next” type thoughts and tasks.

But, that’s me, what I kept seeing <and still see today> is a weird rush to the finish line with a contradictory slowing down at the same time to insure going no further than the objective. I would be remiss if i didn’t note that this is weird because slowing down as you reach an objective seems counterproductive to what is actually best for a business <which should be maximum speed/velocity at completion>.

All that said. How did I mentally shift to something other than what I was seeing <and did not believe was the best way of doing it>?

Ride it to the buzzer.

Its 8 seconds on a bucking bronco or a beast of a bull. Isn’t that what business is like? And don’t give me the “it’s only 8 seconds and projects in business can take months.” Time is relative and I am actually focusing on finishing.

Sure.

A long project can be energy draining and there are points where you seek to conserve energy to have the energy needed when it is needed. But that’s not really the point. 8 seconds, used wisely, is a lifetime.

A bull rider is the human athlete in the man-versus-beast sport of bull riding.

When a bull rider is still in control of the ride when the eight-second buzzer sounds it is called a Qualified Ride and therefore earns a score.

A qualified ride is 8 seconds. The clock starts when the bull’s shoulder or flank breaks the plane of the gate and stops when the rider’s hand comes out of the rope, the rider touches the ground or the rider’s free arm touches the bull.

I think business needs more of a bull rider mentality.

Heck.

I think living Life needs more of a bull rider mentality.

I think more leaders should lead, and manage, not only with a bull rider mentality, but with a ride it to the buzzer mentality.

Look.

I can guarantee you pretty much one thing if you bring this kind of mentality to your professional life.

You will be successful.

Mostly you will be successful because you will ‘run through’ the objective while others are pacing everything to stop at the objective.

But I could suggest you will be successful because you will not need milestones or stage goals.

Why?

Because you don’t need them. You are riding until the buzzer.

And that’s all that matters.

=====

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard.

Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

I was so preposterously serious in those days.

Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling… “

Aldous Huxley

=====

Life truths.

Hard and lightly.

Haste with patience.

Forward diagonally.

Happy and sad.

Success and failure.

Right and wrong.

Thinking and doing.

Dreams and hard work.

Whew. This means that the truly great things in Life may be a coin you can put in your pocket — a coin made up of two sides and two faces.

Yeah. Life is usually a combination of opposites fighting a tug of war moment to moment. I bet no one told you that when you were growing up.

Far too often we are told the secret to life is one thing.

Far too often someone is not telling is the truth <or maybe they don’t really know the secret to life?>.

Th truth is Life <and business also> is a wonderful, maddening blob of inconsistency.

The only way to survive , and not be totally boring, inept or a hermit, is to steal a little of something from both sides and do your best to proportion it all out in the end.

Proportional?

I need some sadness to recognize true joy <only I certainly don’t want to dwell on sadness nor walk around as Happy the Clown every minute of the day>.

I want a leader who is energetic and demanding and cajoling, pushing, shoving, pulling, inspiring people toward a horizon < but I want the moments of idle strength and compassion intertwined>.

I want to work hard … so hard the muscles, brain and/or physical, are strained and hurt … and get to maybe get a glimpse of one of my dreams on occasion <so I can dream a little when not working hard>.

I want people to play hard and play to win <in any endeavor> … but do so with grace in victory & loss, with sportsmanship & fairness and respect for the game.

I want, well, it doesn’t matter what I want. Pick your ‘hard-lightly’ Life combination. I guarantee you will find the most interesting people, most interesting experiences, most interesting moments, most interesting anythings are a reflection of this ying-yang combination. Life is meant to be lived, and experienced, hard & lightly.

Now. By the way.

Just because Life is meant to be lived this way doesn’t mean it is easy to actually live it that way. Living hard, or living lightly, is not only addictive, but also often generates a sense of ‘lostness’ when shelved for a bit.

Why lostness?

Well. It is mostly fear that we will not refind or regain it therefore we hesitate to ever let it go from the way we currently live our Life.

So what do we do? We ‘take a break.’

We ‘get away from it all.’ In other words instead of seeking some ‘how we actually live’ balance in our lives we just step away from the way we live our Life by simply not going lightly <if we typically go hard> or not going go hard <if we typically go lightly> and we don’t do anything other than how we live our Life so, ultimately, we just choose to do nothing to ‘recharge.’

I would suggest that you don’t need to ‘take a break’ to recharge, but rather if you seek the proportional ‘yang’ to your ‘ying’, well, you will find additional purpose as well as your ‘ying’ takes on an entirely new image n your eyes & mind.

• *** note: proportional versus balance: I purposefully use proportional rather than balance because on an individual, person to person, basis it is rarely a 50/50 split – even over time. everyone customizes their life between hard & lightly as is appropriate to their personality, ambition and life desires. once again, this is rarely 50/50 and everyone should just seek what their optimal proportional mix is.

Regardless, just approaching Life one way means you miss out on what is most interesting in life – going hard & lightly.

Aw shit. Look. All I really know if that if you can figure out how to go hard and tread lightly at the same time, you will most likely be successful in business & in Life. You will most likely be appreciated, respected, sometimes liked and certainly not hated. I know … I know … the ‘tread lightly’ part is really really hard if you like to live Life going hard.

But.

As I just told someone go hard for the things you want and dreams you seek to reach toward and if you continue to do these things for you, knowing that your moral compass is set correctly and that your instincts with regard to ‘what is right’ versus ‘what is wrong’ are good, you will be happier and the people around you will rarely be disappointed.

Ponder.

=================

“No enterprise can exist for itself alone.

It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others…or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.”

Calvin Coolidge

==================

“Let’s be honest. There’s not a business anywhere that is without problems. Business is complicated and imperfect. Every business everywhere is staffed with imperfect human beings and exists by providing a product or service to other imperfect human beings.”

Bob Parsons

=========================

Originally posted in 2017

Let me take a minute and discuss “fraternite” in business.

Just a reminder but “fraternite” is one of the  French values of Liberté, Fraternité and Egalité (“liberty, equality, fraternity/brotherhood” the national motto of France).

Anyway. Business. Inevitably a great organization exhibits both efficient AND effective progress. What typically creates that combination is part discipline, part structure (systems), part leadership, all glued together by “fraternité”. That ‘glue’ is most often discussed in the American business world as ‘a vision’ or maybe ‘a purpose’ or even ‘culture.’ We do so because we Americans hate any kind of lack of specificity. But the truth is that the most common bond of a great organization is a more nebulous concept, i.e., one of “fraternité”.

Or.

“Any man aspires to liberty, to equality, but he cannot achieve it without the assistance of other men, without fraternity.”

Napoleon

Oddly enough, while this sounds like relatively common sense, I kind of feel like business itself needs a revolution to overturn the current thinking to accommodate what should be common sense.

What do I mean? Current business is kind of in a wacky spot. It talks a lot about vision and purpose and culture as if they are “things” — like maybe a lighthouse anyone can see as they bob around the chaotic sea of business life to find a way home. By the way, I would argue that is a very individualistic thought — “I can find my way home” type thought – and not really a team thought <but that could quite easily be debated>.

Regardless. Fraternity is more like “everyone not only knowing what they need to do to keep the ship afloat but actually pitching in whether needed or not because they love the ship itself.” That may sound like some wacky nuance, but I have to warn people that revolutions can kind of gain some momentum off of some fairly wacky things on occasion. By the way, this thought is a more nebulous “I feel this way” aspect of organizational culture and, as noted many times, if it cannot be measured or indexed or scored.

** note: most older leaders into today’s business just don’t like that kind of shit – things they cannot measure or score.

Anyway. Not to beat this metaphor to death, but I do believe we need a semi-revolution in the way business organizations are created and run and managed. I think we may need that revolution because “fraternité” as a core principle just ain’t the way business is run today. And, yes, it should be viewed as a “core” principle because … uhm … when discipline falls apart, when structure falls apart, when leadership falls apart what keeps you on the battlefield and fighting is … yeah … “fraternité.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people talk about a “community” or “company team” or some other nice sounding platitude which sounds a lot like “fraternité”, but its mostly lip service. Its lip service because fraternité is a ‘collective’ thought and most businesses reward and incentivize individuals.

Anyway. On a bigger organizational level I worry about how an idea like this is getting suffocated by generational issues <younger people desire something and older people think they know the best> and maybe an outcome-is-the-only-thing-that-matters worldview versus a belief business should incorporate altruistic aspects. Both of those conflicts are HUGE issues. I have written about in 1200+ word thought pieces on both of these but, on the former, the best piece I can share is from Corporate Rebels “Cut The Crap: The Made-Up Nonsense About Generations At Work” which states all people want meaning at work (regardless of age or generational label).

I actually believe we need some revolutionary thinking on the latter. To me we have a bunch of people who look at business and turn away to non-profit because … well … I fear that they only believe they can change the world through more altruistic pursuits and not traditional business. And, yes, they are important and good pursuits but, from a larger perspective, business drives the world. Business makes shit that makes lives easier and healthier and impacts the home and life in ways that it is difficult to imagine let alone outline in a few words <and the business office/working groups creates behavioral cues which ripple out into culture>.

Somehow … someway … we need to insert the ‘believers of principles and principled behavior’ into the business world with all of their ambition and hope and remind them, empower them and enable them that they can change the world.

That they can make the world a better place. They can make society and people and lives better. And they can do it in and through business, not just altruistic career opportunities. If we do that, and do that well, I tend to believe we will build more organizations driven at its core by a sense of “fraternité” rather than a bunch of documents setting out some guiding or shared values, vision and purpose which everyone says “okay … let’s do that.”

What I do know is that … well … read the following quote:

====================

“I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well.”

Alan Greenspan

===============================

I do believe we need to be drawing some lines in business. And I don’t mean company handbook type lines or even some well-crafted ‘lines’ in “how we conduct our business” or “who we are” but maybe they are more lines with regard to some unwritten principles.

I say that because when you can gather a group of people together who share a strong set of principles they will walk straight into a hail of bullets to not only survive, but to get good shit done.

==========

“Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace.

Oscar Wilde

===========

Now. Business absolutely makes dealing with your principles a constant struggle. It can kind of suffocate your principles in between the pragmatic aspects of getting shit done <discipline & structure> and how that shit is designed to meet specific objectives/results and the faux burden of some vision or grander purpose which “you know is important to us therefore it should be important to you”, i.e., extrinsic importance not intrinsic importance. Frankly, when suffocated by these bookends you don’t have a lot of elbow room for any type of true, intangible, unsolicited camaraderie.

The fraternité is more forced than natural. Obviously, when it is not natural it is not as strong.

In the end.

Fraternité in business. I believe we have forgotten this. And while I do believe many of us have forgotten how to draw lines with regard to our principles I tend to believe business, in general, has simply decided to just draw lines <in a box in fact> and say “there you go”, i.e., there are your principles and rules for camaraderie.

That is kind of whack.

Look. I can honestly tell you that being a senior leader in a business and organization you like <you do not have to love> may be one of the greatest experiences anyone can ever have. What makes that experience truly great is when you are fortunate enough to foster something intangible, something that really cannot be measured, and something which doesn’t earn you some performance bonus at the end of the year … it is when you stumble upon the sense of fraternité.

I am sure some organizational guru will send me a link to “steps to build a fraternité organization” and … well … good for them. I tend to believe this is one of those intangible things that is created less by some “how to” guide or some formula and more by simple good intentions combined with some good discipline, construct and leadership. To steal another word from the motto, by creating a fraternité organization you inevitably create liberté for the organization to be the best version of what it can be.

This is what I thought about today and “liberty, equality, fraternity <brotherhood>”. With that I imagine I should end with where I began … no enterprise can exist for itself alone. That is the foundation for a fraternité organization. Ponder.

===========

“I see a lot of people in unstimulating relationships. If people were a little less scared of ending things they’d get more out of life.  You meet the right person at the right time and they fulfill a certain something in your life. You fulfill something in theirs.

But there’s a time limit to that. “

Laura Marling

=====

“When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.”

Sigmund Freud

=====

So. Unstimulating relationships. This is actually about business and about ‘time limits.’

As a business manager you end up grasping a couple of truths about your employees and their relationship with what they do, their work, their careers and the company.

The first truth is that many of the employees are just doing their job. They are in a relatively unstimulating relationship with their job & career and they are kind of okay with that.

As a manager you genuinely try and make the relationship a little more simulating for them and, if you are truly genuine, while the these employees may never get as passionate or interested as you would like they appreciate you caring enough to try and, on occasion, will try harder for you and the company. This doesn’t mean they don’t care about their work and, in fact, if you highlight the contribution and impact their efforts make, they will care, just not find work particularly stimulating. I mention this as a first truth to acknowledge, which some organizational development people do not, that to some people a job is a job – no more and no less.

The second truth is that there are some employees who are actively seeking stimulated relationship with their jobs, careers and the company. If they are in an unstimulating relationship, suffice it to say, they will make you miserable out of their own miserableness.

As a manager you genuinely try and keep these employees stimulated. If you do it well, these people kill it. They are absolute monster achieving workers/thinkers/doers in the work place. Get it wrong with these employees and … well … most leave to find some stimulating relationship.

Understanding these two truths is surprisingly like getting a pail of cold water thrown in your face.

Well. At least it was for me.

I am not sure it was the same for others, but this may have been one of the most difficult things for me to understand, and deal with, when I moved from managing a group <where you get to hire everyone and try to have them match your attitude> to managing a company, multiple groups, departments and a bunch of people you do not hire yourself.

I, personally, struggled to understand how anyone could come into work each day, be relatively unstimulated and not only do good work, but actually want to come in and do good work every day.

But a lot of people do just that.

It took me awhile.

But I got it. At the same time I also understood that you never really let the unstimulated group of employees remain completely unstimulated.

You kind of never really let them completely start doing their work by rote or like robots. Mostly you just try to give them some positive stimulation on occasion like, as I noted earlier, encourage them to see how they contribute and their impact <this is different than incentivizing or trying to ‘game’ their behavior>.

Anyway.

The reality is that being an employee is a dance. You have a dance partner and sometimes there is a song you hate and do not dance, sometimes there is a song you hate and you are asked <or told> to dance and sometimes there is a good song and you will dance no matter what.

That is a fairly metaphoric example of a stimulating workplace.

But I will point out something I purposefully did. I suggested the bad song is playing in two of the three scenarios.

Yeah.

And that is still a stimulating relationship.

Go figure.

For some reason we seem to think people need to love their jobs all the time <or the significant majority of the time> or inject passion into what we do.

That is, frankly, a little nuts.

Mostly we should be seeking to have employees be proud of what they do <even if they don’t actually love what they do> and, as a manager, be wise enough to know what to overlook.

=================

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”

William James

===========

Work is called work, and not ‘play, for a reason.

It’s work.

And sometimes work takes some … well … work.

I could actually argue that the ‘working at work’ can be stimulating if you view it correctly.

But that really doesn’t sound logical enough to invest energy in.

And maybe that is the key to understanding this whole ‘unstimulating relationship” thing – logic.

I can truthfully say that behind closed doors senior managers talk far too much about “logical” ways to stimulate employees and tap into some mysterious passion muscle we absurdly believe every employee has within <to be focused on our business and their work within our business>.

Once again … that is kind of nuts.

To be clear. I do believe everyone has a passion muscle within, but to think it can randomly be directed toward ‘work’ <which, I will remind everyone, is called ‘work’ because it is work … and not play or relaxation or ‘fun’> is the nuts part.

Logically we should just accept the fact that many employees have mentally come to grips with a job in which they are not in an overly stimulated relationship with.

That doesn’t mean they don’t want to do a good job nor does it mean they will not care it just means that their job is more a paycheck and not a career.

All that said, let me close with where I started … “time limits.”

All employees have limits in an unstimulating relationship – all: the ones who live with being unstimulated and the ones who actively seek stimulation. I am fairly sure most employees don’t create tangible definable limits they more often probably fall into the “I will know when it is time.” 

All business managers should recognize that all employees have ‘time limits’ when it comes to anything unstimulating. What that means is you cannot get away with being an uninvolved, uninterested, un-energy creating manager for too long. I don’t mean to imply many managers do that, but I will note that creating stimulation and seeking to energize a stimulating relationship between your employees and your business is hard work.

It isn’t about some motto or slogan.

It isn’t about donuts in the mornings and fun team meetings on Fridays.

It is about finding ways to show employees that their work is respected, their contributions are valued and that there are opportunities to grow as a person <intellectually, skills or responsibilities>. Yeah. I just offered that up as a solution to stimulate relationships and nowhere in that was any activity or initiative. All I outlined was possible destinations – mind, body or leadership.

Nothing stimulates an employee business relationship more than being a business that suggest they will enable an individual to ‘be more than they are today’ if they have the time and interest. In my mind businesses with an unstimulated relationship with their employees may be doing ‘things’ but they are just going through the motions , maybe using too much logic, to create some false stimulation.

Here is the truth. Show people where they can go and tell them you believe in them and a shitload will be stimulated, all on their own, to engage in the relationship with their job and work. Ponder.

=============

obfuscate

This is the word to use when evasion is achieved by clouding the issue.

Creating a smoke-screen.

prevaricate, evade, dodge

==================

“When shrouded meanings and grim intentions are nicely polished up and pokerfaced personae are generously palming off their fantasy constructs, caution is the watchword, since rimpling water on the well of truth swiftly obscures our vision and perception.

(“Trompe le pied/wrong foot.”)”

Erik Pevernagie

===============

So. There is possibly nothing more aggravating in business than someone not answering “the” question. To be clear on what I am speaking about. The person answers a question just not the one you asked.

I am not going to argue that some questions are not easy to answer. I won’t even argue that we get asked questions we don’t know the answers to, but the situation dictates we make something up <yes … that happens in business>. But abandoning the question completely is complete bullshit.

But you know what?

I think the main reason it is so aggravating is because it is truly a reflection of intentions. There is even a book called The Anthropology of Intentions by a professor, Alessandro Duranti, who kind of tackles this whole discussion of intentions and words. He offers us the thought of ‘intentional discourse’ wherein an individual filters words through their beliefs & desires and their plans & goals to guide the discourse <regardless of whether the rest of the people want it guided that way>. In other words, using another phrase he offers us, by engaging in an intentional continuum people ponder their use of words through self-interest motivations <some good & some bad>.

By the way I am fairly sure I mangled his academic masterpiece, but you get the point.

Ah. “You get the point.” I share that again because while we sit there aggravated at someone who completely avoided answering the question asked we almost always also sit there wanting to invest a little of our own energy trying to assess why they did it. Because, in our aggravated minds, in its most simplistic viewing, avoiding the question is solely about shifting attention – away from something and toward something else.

…………… question deflection …………

Sure. It could be something as simple as steering you away from their lack of knowledge and steering you toward something they may actually know. But, in most cases, a full abandonment of a specific question is complete & utter deflection.

In the intelligence community they call this effort to shift attention as deflection or misdirection. Magicians do something similar getting people to focus on one thing and away from the trick itself. Completely avoiding the question is the business version of a distract-the-audience approach. It is this weird moment in which someone pretends to answer the question by actually answering some other question that magically appeared to replace the question really asked. It’s almost like entering an alternative universe for a while.

Sadly, aggravated or not, the more practiced the deception <the more practiced the business magician is> the more likely you hesitate to step in <and the more you get aggravated as you hesitate> and correspondingly … the more many of these people actually believe deception works.

It is maddening.

Worse? If they are good at it, when someone responds to a question by not addressing the points of the question, thereby avoiding the issue itself, it doesn’t create unrelated discussion to the issue … it simply avoids the issue in totality.

Well. I am fairly sure we have all sat there in a meeting and watched something like this unfolding right before our eyes. The visceral response, the aggravation, we have to this ‘answer evasion’ situation is most likely found in the revelation it is occurring (watching it unfold before our eyes). Philosophically, we can see that through some internal conviction to retain something they feel like they should own <their reputation, their title, their perceived intelligence, their whatever> they justify evading the question.

Conviction. Yeah. I just used ‘internal conviction.’ This means their intentions reflect they are more important than not only the question itself … but you. You are not even dignified with an answer.

It is irksome <at its least worst>.

It is loathsome <at its most worst>.

Look. I give a partial pass to the asshats you can see who have some answer they want to give everyone, regardless of what question is asked, and blurt it out when given the opportunity. They haven’t deflected the question they just ignored it as unimportant to what they want to say and have been planning to say no matter what has been said up to that point. It’s the ones you know heard the question and just ignored it. Or avoided it. Or just didn’t answer it despite the fact they heard every word, every syllable and every intention from the question giver. In other words, they intentionally do not answer the question.

<envision a deep sigh here>

I want people to face questions head on. And what makes this even more aggravating is that you know these people are quite capable of taking things head on.

How do I know that? These are the same people who will attack, or ‘aggressively question’, the intentions of the question giver themselves. It is a common tactic for the answer avoiders. The natural instinct is to ‘defend’; to answer the attack. Fuck that. I want to say “just answer the fucking question asked.”

How else do I know these people are quite capable of taking questions head on? These are the same people who will attack, or ‘aggressively question’, the question itself. This is not a deflection tactic. This is a ‘turn the question back on itself’ tactic. And, once again, your natural instinct is to defend or, well, answer the question you are asked.  Aggravating. I want to say “just answer the fucking question asked, you shithead.”

And maybe what makes this ‘not answering the question asked’ so maddening is that we, most sane pragmatic business people, tend to sit back <after saying “WTF”> and try and unravel why it happened and what the hell just happened. Unless you are in an interview scenario <in which you always have an opportunity, one-to-one, to hunker down and hammer out a clear answer> you are most likely in a room with other people and the non-answer has sent at least some of the people careening down a completely different road.

That makes it even MORE aggravating.

One intentional non answer to a question can completely derail a meeting or a discussion. That is intentional discourse. Or how about the other phrase from that academic’s book: engaging in an intentional continuum.

Oh. One last way you know these asshats are intentionally not answering the question is when they cleverly decline to answer the question with the infamous head fake answer: “I don’t know the answer to that question. I’ll work on finding the information for you and then get back to you with an answer” <and they have no intention of ever getting back to you>.

Yeah. You know … sure as shit … they have no plans to work on it and will never ‘get back to you’ unless you call them on it. They are intentionally refusing to answer the question assuming the conversation will move on and, in a laundry list of other shit to do, that this one will either never make the list or be so low on the list they can stiff arm you on answering based on “working on things more important.”

Its bullshit. You know its bullshit. They know its bullshit.

Well.

Fuck you.

Fuck you and the non-answering horse you rode in on.

In my mind a good well-articulated question demands some accountability. The one given the question is now accountable for the answer. They may try and deflect and they may just answer a completely different question, but a question asked exists, it does not disappear. You cannot get away from it.

Let me share a graphic example of why accountability remains whether the question dodger likes it or not.

You open your front door in the morning and there is a nice pile of dog shit squarely in the middle of your front door opening. You either clean it up or you avoid it. The question dodger never acknowledges the pile and steps over it moving on to something else. The shit stays at the front door and over time the smell increases and the flies crowd around. A good question unanswered is just like that. And a question dodger cannot avoid the smell in the end.

All that said. My message to the asshats who completely do not answer the question asked:  You will be accountable to the question and to cleaning up the mess … now … or later <and quit aggravating me by not answering the question, you shithead>.

====

Author note:

When I reread this, which took me less than a ½ hour to write, I was a little surprised by how … well … aggravated the tone was.

Some ‘fucks’ and ‘asshats’.

I left it as is because as a 50something business guy who has always attempted to take on what needs to be taken on regardless of how painful it may have been <and career wise possibly less than prudent> I get a little angry about how the business world has become incredibly unkind to the risk takers & truth tellers and seems to reward the less-than-competent and ‘political maneuverers’ more often than it should. That’s my excuse for why I let this one stand as it does.

=======================

———————————

“How passionately they explain the numbers and how much they emphasize the deck is stacked against athletes varies between institutions. It is a message that a lot of coaches don’t want to send.  And it’s a message, frankly, that a lot of athletes don’t want to hear at this stage in their lives.”

=

Mark Nagel

———————-

Lloyd Christmas: What do you think the chances are of a guy like you and a girl like me … ending up together?

Mary Swanson: Well, Lloyd, that’s difficult to say. I mean, we don’t really…

Lloyd Christmas: Hit me with it! Just give it to me straight! I came a long way just to see you, Mary.

The least you can do is level with me. What are my chances?

Mary Swanson: Not good.

Lloyd Christmas: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?

Mary Swanson: I’d say more like one out of a million.

–

[pause]

Lloyd Christmas: So you’re telling me there’s a chance … YEAH!

==

Dumb and Dumber

——————-

We are in the middle of a pandemic, we do not know the long term effects of actually having the Covid virus, and, yet, college football season has now begin. I think its time we all had a candid conversation about college athletics because these young men are not getting paid now, most of them will not get paid for doing what they are doing now and the universities are getting paid a lot of money. Maybe we should get a grip on the truth – these are not ‘student-athletes’, these are ‘athletes universities make a lot of money on.’ Yes. Its about the money, not the education. With that said, let’s talk about the future of these college athletes who are making money for someone else now.

First. Let me be clear in using a dumb & dumber quote upfront I am not going to be suggesting college athletes are dumb. If anything, I believe people would be surprised at how worldly and smart and hard working 90+% of college athletes are.

Second. I am actually going to use college basketball to talk about the link, or the lack thereof, between playing college sports and playing professionally.

During the NBA bubble, as we watched some foreign players be quite successful, I was asked how many college players move on to the NBA. I guessed maybe 5%.

I was wrong.

Just using Division 1 it is 1.2%

There are about 350 Division I college basketball teams. Each team offers 13 scholarships. That’s about 4,510 Division I college basketball players in a year. In addition. 265 teams in Division II, 325 teams in Division III and 259 teams in NAIA. That’s about another 11,000 players. Using Division 1 alone … only 1.2% of college basketball players will be drafted by a National Basketball Association team. Less will end up actually playing.

Uhm.

This means less than ½ of 1% of total college basketball players will play in the NBA.

Ok. Sure. “Professional” doesn’t have to mean the NBA because there are a lot of other options around the world, especially in Europe, Israel, Turkey, etc. And, to be clear, there are not a lot of Division III student-athletes who think, or know, they are going to play in the NBA. Overseas professional leagues are pretty numerous <even if they don’t pay as well as the NBA> and the idea of spending at least a year playing in and getting to see another part of the world while getting paid is pretty attractive especially to students focus more on their studies than many Division I athletes – especially those who want to play in the NBA.

All the caveats aside this means 98+% of college athletes never play professionally.

So while we typically watch elite teams play incredibly high level of basketball on TV every week, 98% of them will not play professionally.

Ok. That was a semi stunning thing to write.

You watch these incredibly talented young athletes and assume it will be a given they play professionally.

Yikes. Not so much. Sure. So maybe the elite of the elite may send a small number from one team in one given year and then maybe half of those end up being professional career worthy, but that is the best of the best and over a 5 year span the % drops significantly.

Playing professionally, in any sport not just basketball, is … well … a pretty long shot. Several years ago a guy named Jake New tackled this topic.

==

College athletes vastly overestimate their chances of playing professional sports.  The problem is so pervasive that Mark Emmert, the NCAA’s president, devoted significant space to the issue during his most recent state of the association address, saying that “athletes often have incredibly unrealistic perceptions of their professional prospects.”

According to NCAA surveys, more than 60% of Division I college men’s ice hockey players think it’s likely they’ll play professionally, but less than 1 percent ever go on to the National Hockey League.

About 45% of Division I women’s basketball players think they have a chance to play professional basketball, but only 0.9% of players are drafted by a Women’s National Basketball Association team.

<The NCAA said that it is currently procuring data on a player’s chances of joining other professional leagues, such as those in Europe, but the information is not yet available>

Men’s hoops players are the most unrealistic. More than three-quarters of men’s basketball players in Division I say they believe it is at least “somewhat likely” they will play professionally. More than half of Division II players say the same, as do 21 percent of Division III players. Only 1.2 percent of college basketball players will be drafted by an National Basketball Association team.

==

Now. We <colleges and adult influencers in general> don’t help. While the NCAA actually does a pretty good job marketing the fact that athletes should have realistic expectations and that ‘the majority of college athletes go on to do something better’.

Colleges kind of derail the message by promoting their successes <by the way, not in percentages but rather by individuals>.

For example some colleges list the individuals who have attended the university and gone on to fame and professional playing <not noting that these are actually exceptions and not the rule>.

For example on its recruiting website, UCLA is described as “#1 in Olympic Gold Medals from 1984 to 2008″ and “#1 in professional athletes.” And UCLA is very open in saying that for athletes who do dream of going professional the information can be helpful when choosing a program <note … I used UCLA and some dated information, but I could have used any big time college sports program and maybe not used #1 but some marketing of program success as an example>.

In addition parents and adults and gobs of books promote “if you work hard enough you can attain it” or even “believing you can do it is the path to actually doing it.”

This means that colleges simply feed into what has already been planted in an athlete’s head. Some guy named Gershon Tenenbaum, a sports psychology professor at Florida State University, calls it the “self-bias phenomenon.” And adults clearly exacerbate the situation with some relatively absurd levels of adulation with successful athletes.

I actually believe most young athletes are aware the %’s associated with professional sports is very low <even though they may not be aware of the NCAA research or specific numbers>, but young people are hard to convince — not only do they want to be seen as some statistic but we actually encourage them to be the exception.

Personally I know I have a love/hate relationship with regard to how my own parents managed my love of sports and whatever ability I may have had. They constantly stressed the low likelihood of being good enough to play professionally and were relentless with regard to me not ‘wasting my time’ on sports and focusing on other things therefore I always had a pretty good perspective on my abilities and ‘chances’, all the while I had coaches tugging at me to play and practice and ‘maximize’ the ability I did have.

I am not sure the tug-of-war was the best thing for my esteem, but it certainly gave me a realistic point of view when the time came to hang up my cleats & glove.

But it is not easy.

By the time you reach college level of sports you know you are ‘good’ and have attained at least a higher level on the athletic pyramid. For years an athlete moves on to higher and higher levels of competition and by getting to a college level an athlete actually gets to a level that is maybe 95%+ higher level than your peers.

In basketball a little over 3% of high school men’s and women’s basketball players make it to the college level.

In football maybe 6% of high school football players make it to the college level.

Success breeds some confidence, but the research also suggests it also breeds some delusional thinking with regard to what is possible.

What the hell.

(in your mind): You made it this far, so, why not all the way?

And in today’s world <which is NOTHING like when I grew up> we have elevated youth sports to such a level we almost create a celebrity status to not only successful teams <which inflates the egos of the individuals even if they are not stars> as well as the actual stars themselves.

We, adults, do this because we tend to believe confidence can elevate talent or that a higher level of confidence can help overcome any real odds of ‘yikes, we should lose this one.’

Breeding confidence in a young person is a delicate balance and we adults are anything but delicate with regard to the young & sports. This actually creates the “athlete student” problem <note: I did not say student athlete>. We have created a breed of young athlete that considers academics beneath them because they are “going to play professional sports.”

Yes. This is a delusion for most.

But those who could actually judge talent the best, coaches, have no real incentive to create a work ethic in academics <or social skills, emotional maturity and improving their reading, writing, and analytical skills beyond elementary school in order to “win” at something bigger> unless it is associated with ‘eligibility.’

Sure. We can find some coach exceptions (note: and i actually believe big time coaches have got better at this). But then there are we adults — who fuck everything up.

The head of the NCAA has clearly stated: “explaining to athletes that their passion — and years of hard work — is not likely to lead to a career is an uncomfortable but necessary conversation to have.”

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“How can we help them understand the realities of what that looks like? What can we change to give them a more realistic sense of it? How do we get a handle on that? How can we provide them with a greater sense of the realities and what that looks like?”

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The NCAA clearly advertises: “there are 400,000 NCAA student-athletes, and almost all of them will go pro in something other than sports.”

Let’s be honest. Young athletes don’t always absorb the message. But that is mostly because we adults haven’t learned the delicate balance of managing reality, dreams and confidence.

Reality is tough. Reality is often captured in some harsh truth.

I could simply suggest at the end of the weekend that 50% of the teams will go home as a loser. It would be harsher to suggest that of the 100’s of young men who walk onto the field most likely 90% of them, the elite players on the elite teams, will leave the field and do something other than play professionally.

Has anybody told them that?

Would they play the game a little bit harder or with a little more passion or a little more ‘this is it’?

Shit.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I watch the games and be amazed by the talent and skill and sheer joy of the game and know that most of them will have to figure out a way of making a living doing something other than playing basketball. And. At exactly the same time I will be thinking that we are in the middle of a pandemic, not really knowing the longer term physical affects on each of these superb athletes (even the ones who are more likely to have possible professional sports careers) and know that the universities aren’t doing this because they seem them as students, they see them as money makers.

I love sports and I love watching college sports and, yes, I will watch even in a pandemic. But. Let’s not lie to ourselves. The young athletes we are watching for the most part will be doing something other than the sport they are playing and all of them are playing not because they are students or even ‘student-athletes’ but because they are making money for their schools.