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“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
Henry Brooks Adams

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So. This may sound wacky in today’s world, but I believe we are all teachers . Yes. Not just those with a title of ‘teacher’ who is standing up in front of our young people day in and day out <beginning at some miserable pre-dawn hour> working with them to fine tune their minds into working, thinking machines.

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”

William Arthur Ward

Here’s the deal. If you are an adult reading this, either accept the fact you are a teacher or … well … you are cheating someone — a someone who is waiting to be taught something or a someone who EXPECTS to be taught something.

That certain someone <let’s call them young people> is waiting to be inspired. I just wanted to clear up the despicable thought that despite what we adults say about the lazy game playing youth they are actually big hyperactive brains waiting to be inspired to do something.

We, adults, inspire or make their lives uninspired. It is our choice.

It drives me nuts the way so many people want to delegate teaching to “teachers” <educators>. Absolutely. Frickin’. nuts. And I am not just talking about ‘readin’, writin’, ‘rithmetic’ type stuff <although that can certainly be included>. Any teaching.

Because I go even more crazy because so many people ignore the fact that despite all their energy invested to avoid any type of teaching … they are actually frickin’ teaching. Youth learns not only in the classroom, but also through observation. Yup. Those little bastards <I use that term fondly> are watching everything we adults are doing and saying … including <but not exclusive of>:

Bad habits.

Good habits.

How to ‘do things.’

Whatever.

They are observing … and well … learning. <insert a big fat grown up “uh oh” … or “oh shit” … here>

Accept the responsibility. What you do around a child teaches. Period.

If you do not accept the responsibility, trust me, kids are thinking you are being responsible. And, possibly, you are responsible for their souls <at least the development of their souls>.

China suggests teachers are “engineers of human souls.” In China they say that a good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.

Now. I am not going to ask every grown up to do the last part because that suggests giving so much of yourself to teaching you are consumed for the benefit of others <by the way, it is a good legacy to have if you actually do elect that path>. And while teaching can be like being an engineer <a science>, imparting knowledge effectively to others, especially children, is an art. A great teacher embraces <ok … accepts> the engineering aspect and teaches in ways that makes someone want to learn.

He or she inspires you to go beyond the standard lesson <Life lesson or education lesson>. They inspire students to think and strive and experiment.

This matters because it is a Life truth that teaching always lives on in all of us who has been taught. That thought alone should remind all adults that they are teachers.

It seems kind of obvious to me that you <an adult> have to believe you are a teacher because you really cannot guess how far reaching your influence will be. That’s the thing about being an adult <oops … teacher>. You never know whose life you are changing <or impacting>.

‘My teacher is in all people – but not all people are my teacher’

Oh. Just a side note so no one thinks this is just personal opinion.

A study by the University of Kansas recorded the number of words parents from 42 families in various socio-economic groups spoke to their 4-year-old children. Children from professional families heard on average 45 million words before kindergarten. Children from poor families heard on average 13 million words <educational level of achievement followed accordingly>. This is the beginning of the achievement gap and the cold calculus of poverty.

Some of those missed words not only were about real learning some were about hope <and dreams>.

“You should never tell a child their dreams are unlikely or outlandish. Few things are more humiliating, and what a tragedy it would be if they believed it.”

Dee Cantrell

I am not suggesting accepting responsibility for being a teacher is easy. It is not <ask any school teacher>. The trouble often occurs when priorities become misdirected or misguided. Life gets busy for us grown ups. And then we segment responsibilities so that we can manage our own ‘to-do’ lists. One segmentation is ‘teaching is for teachers.’

Well. I imagine sometimes we forget that Life just cannot be segmented that easily. It is easy to overlook the fact that even something as random as algebra logic blurs into everyday life logic and the discussion of that logic can sometimes lead anywhere but algebra itself. The sometimes seemingly senseless shit being taught in school <only seemingly to those adults who do not use the information in every day life and have actually forgotten things like algebraic logic> creates ripples of learning outside the school. So why should it all remain at school? Isn’t the best teaching actually a combination of experience and ‘in-the-moment’ reflection? <yes>

Anyway. I can guarantee you one thing unequivocally – everything is connected with everything and it all leads to Life lessons.

All that said, the responsibility an adult holds for the well being of young people is paramount. I would suggest of greater importance than just about anything else. You may feel this, and believe this, more as a parent, but being a parent is irrelevant on this issue — it is the responsibility of all adults.

If you do not agree? Shame on you.

I understand that sometimes people lose sight of what is right and what is wrong but with children and teaching it is paramount you recognize and take steps to rectify your beliefs <and actions>. And you know what? While I am ranting about how it is a responsibility, which implies you aren’t doing anything but what you should be doing by doing it, you deserve credit when you accept the responsibility.

Teaching is difficult. Montaigne reminded us of several things about being a teacher:

In truth, all I understand as to that particular is only this, that the greatest and most important difficulty of human science is the education of children. For as in agriculture, the husbandry that is to precede planting, as also planting itself, is certain, plain, and well known; but after that which is planted comes to life, there is a great deal more to be done, more art to be used, more care to be taken, and much more difficulty to cultivate and bring it to perfection so it is with men; it is no hard matter to get children; but after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly to train, principle, and bring them up. The symptoms of their inclinations in that tender age are so obscure, and the promises so uncertain and fallacious, that it is very hard to establish any solid judgment or conjecture upon them. ’Tis the custom of pedagogues to be eternally thundering in their pupil’s ears, as they were pouring into a funnel, whilst the business of the pupil is only to repeat what the others have said: now I would have a tutor to correct this error, and, that at the very first, he should according to the capacity he has to deal with, put it to the test, permitting his pupil himself to taste things, and of himself to discern and choose them, sometimes opening the way to him, and sometimes leaving him to open it for himself; that is, I would not have him alone to invent and speak, but that he should also hear his pupil speak in turn. Let the master not only examine him about the grammatical construction of the bare words of his lesson, but about the sense and let him judge of the profit he has made, not by the testimony of his memory, but by that of his life. Let him make him put what he has learned into a hundred several forms, and accommodate it to so many several subjects, to see if he yet rightly comprehends it, and has made it his own.

To know by rote, is no knowledge, and signifies no more but only to retain what one has intrusted to our memory. That which a man rightly knows and understands, he is the free disposer of at his own full liberty, without any regard to the author from whence he had it, or fumbling over the leaves of his book. A mere bookish learning is a poor, paltry learning; it may serve for ornament, but there is yet no foundation for any superstructure to be built upon it.

Ok. Enough of that.

<although part 1 .. “A mere bookish learning is a poor, paltry learning; it may serve for ornament, but there is yet no foundation for any superstructure to be built upon it” … and althouth part 2 .… ‘That which a man rightly knows and understands, he is the free disposer of at his own full liberty’ are  big thoughts we should all be very thoughtful of>

In the end. Just accept you are a teacher. And accept the fact, whether you are actually good or bad at it, that when you DO get it right there is always a way in which teaching invokes curiosity and interest no matter the subject.

Great teachers make learning feel good.

Great teachers actually feel good when it all works.

Great teachers effect living as well as just the mind.

Great teachers beget great responsible thinking adults.

Montaigne also offered the reciprocal thought that “Learning is living, and living is learning”.

If we grownups are truly honest with ourselves, we are not just interested in merely filling a child with knowledge or content, but rather with guiding the child to discover activities that help the child to become “well-formed.” That guidance not only helps to provoke, make them think <sometimes think hard>, and introduce new ways of looking at the world for many years, but it also helps guide them through Life. Because <just as  reminder> success in Life is rarely a straight line. And what you teach today may help guide when Life redirects to some unknown destination.

Anyway. Just be a teacher.

Oh. And remember these words, I often use, because they seem relevant to this topic … “37 seconds used wisely … is a lifetime.” 37 seconds of teaching, done well, may last a lifetime.

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“To understand another human being you must gain some insight into the conditions which make him/her who they are.”

Margaret Bourke-White

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Theme:

The pandemic is different than the financial driven recessions. In those people simply came out of it clearly in one of 2 groups (the haves and the have nots) and this crisis while the institutions may come under responsibility, or structural, scrutiny this will have more of an attitudinal or ‘out of any human control’ halo effect. That said. It would be a mistake to assume an even dispersion of impact (there will be haves and have-nots as well as winners & losers).

** note: This is a political/societal issue, not a brand issue. Brands/businesses should focus on their specific segments within people impacted.

The Narrative Collapse:

In this case all we learned was the fragility of life – in totality. This creates an overarching impact (a structural aspect to 100% of people) that we are now living within which could be described as a Narrative Collapse. We have conceptually lost the plot.

“During narrative collapse, everyone temporarily abandons attempts to reach narrative consensus even within their smallest default groups, such as family. It’s not that we don’t trust narrative sources when we lose the plot. That’s a simpler problem for normal times. It’s that the narrative sources are temporarily at a loss and don’t know what to say.”

Venkatesh Rao

The larger global narrative all the way down to the individual narrative has collapsed. Not unlike shaking an etch a sketch, the narratives have been derailed and a new narrative has yet to take shape. This deconstructs a variety of myths – we have it better than we think, systems protect us, personal responsibility, self reliance is the key to success – and doesn’t really offer us a cohesive narrative to take its place yet. As society, globally, faces the collapse of the narrative during the Covid phase the pieces of the narrative to come, the post Covid phase, are assembling. This will most likely not appear as some totally original narrative but rather an adaptation of what was before – a morphing of practices, systems, attitudes, beliefs & old with new.

The new narrative will carry the same theme – ‘meaningful progress is that which brings us closer to future relevance/success’, yet, will be framed in a different context and environment in which to progress. People will subconsciously, and sometimes consciously, recognize the relationship between antifragility/fragile systems & life and the importance of an overarching narrative (even with dissonant aspects) are inextricably linked.

It would also appear that a narrative collapse creates a sense of ‘flattening’ in which the haves mean less than the have nots if but for a period of time.

** note: power dynamics will certainly shape the what remains of the old and what is created anew in the post-Covid era

When the larger narrative collapses the traditional ‘have-nots’, the people who we see as working-class people, like the FedEx guy, the server in the restaurant, the check-in person at the hotel and even the person who cleans the rooms, will actually know more than anyone else on what the real ongoing narrative is. It will be these people who will see the patterns that remain within the collapse as well as the pieces/parts which will help craft the future narrative.

** the fragile dissonant narrative

The patterns of an aligned narrative are complex, not linear. In an infinite loop of accepted truths, accepted fragility, accepted imperfections balanced by needs, desires, aspirations in which different individuals create a coherence without consistency between segments. In its imbalance there is a fragile balance.  In fact, it is within the dissonance in which can be found the ongoing progress necessary to improve upon the narrative. The larger narrative has to have enough common elements among the larger public in order to permit individuals to live their own narratives within the larger narrative.

Environmental Contextual shift- Sociological dynamics post-Covid:

The effect of the pandemic on individual attitudes and behavior will arise in a complex mix of self, interdependence, control and impact.

A pandemic doesn’t necessarily destroy the underlying construct of how life is conducted (economically, infrastructure, essential services, etc) but it does shift the contextual view of how life is lived within that construct. In other words, people will view the environment in which their lives, successes, progress and future resides within. The pandemic has amplified interconnectedness, need for social (proximity to people), importance of communication, sheer randomness/uncertainty of life (even if you work hard and do what’s right) and, from a 30000 foot view – made people reflect upon what they can, and cannot control.

While, pragmatically, many people will come out of this with less money – individuals who had nothing will most likely have even less, young people who have struggled to gain traction will have been set back even more, retirements will look farther away and governments (who spent lavishly to fortify a business world that most likely, in hindsight, will show didn’t need it) will have no money to invest in future initiatives (climate change, infrastructure, arts, etc).

** note: contrary to perception the working class people may actually come out of this phase relatively unchanged financially because they don’t have 401ks & they have remained working.

Control

Simplistically, even if someone comes out of the Covid phase unscathed personally they will recognize that it is partially because of a simple luck of the draw. It will not undermine the belief if you work hard and focus on doing the right things that you increase the likelihood of success but it will increase the belief that Life is, at best, a gambler’s game.

Ultimately it will make people reassess control – what they can, and cannot, control. This will most likely bifurcate along lines of “extreme self-interest” (a zero-sum game mentality) and “high recognition of interdependence” (mutual dependency). While this attitude currently exists, the pandemic will most likely shift the proportional mix, I.e., more segments (each of which will assume their own identity) will view the importance of interdependence on their individual interest as more important than sole self-interest. This most likely will translate into “coherent communities can control things better than just me doing what I can.”

** note: this increases the importance of self to community dialogue alignment.

We will most likely find that ‘control’ will have to be through individual action connected to a likeminded community because we will find the money to take control difficult to find.

The money

Setting aside the questioning of effectiveness of capitalism and globalization, government has mortgaged addressing future issues by spending money to address the current issue. In other words, there is no money. This has always been a subconscious default to absolve one of aspects of personal responsibility.  Post Covid attitudes will partially be shaped by there is no place to hide from the responsibilities that impact our future (big & small).

** note: this will vary among the haves and the have nots and those who worked while others didn’t work

Money has always been as aspect of our individual sense of control. If I have enough money I can ‘control’ my own destiny (needs & happiness). If government has enough money, they should be able to ‘do’ certain things to insure a better future. This may not all be actually true but it framed attitudes. With no governmental safety net incremental monies and individuals more protective of their own money, individuals will seek to do things that don’t cost (directly). Maybe said another way, money outlays will consider making a statement at the same time (e.g., if I buy a car, I will most likely think a bit more about what it says about me and what statement it makes). The lack of money actually increases the larger sense of self and interdependence.

Independence/interconnectedness

It sounds trite to say “we live in a global world now” and “we’re in this together”, but the pandemic will buttress up understanding of that and, more importantly, attitudinally imprint the fact ‘everything is connected with everything’.

The evolution of human ethics and personal responsibility can be seen as the expansion of a sense of identification with an ever-widening scope: individual, between two individuals, community/organization, between two nations, global. As the narrative holds, even within wax & waning, our concerns include the needs and interests of a larger group. We recognize the survival and wellbeing, of people and the narrative, is linked to our own.

This generates a sense of interdependence where all progress is not a burden but rather an expansion of who and what you are. We are not responsible for coronavirus but we can be responsible in the way we act moving forward. This all leads to ‘individual meaning’ as part of mutually assured development. we neared an edge (no one actually thought it would lead to extinction) where we saw a world situation beyond our capacity to affect the arc and the outcome. We lost any semblance of control of our own fate. Yet. At the exact same time in doing so we also near the edge of any breakthrough – an idea of how we, as individuals, can affect outcome. There is actually an individual/self empowerment found within the recognition of interdependence.

Self

1. Social

Self-isolation, the behavior that is now required of us, is reminding everyone how much they actually like being with other people. While in social environments we tended to focus on the dissonant, and dysfunctional, aspects of it and now extricated from that environment we have the ability to view that dysfunctionality as functional dissonance with positive impact on our well being. We have a deeper sense of the co-relationship between self-choices and greater consequences. We have a deeper sense that humans are not meant to be alone (there is a general craving for ‘social’). Even introverts, while not becoming extroverted, seek the random social interaction of the proximity of other human beings.

2. Meaning

Maybe more importantly is people will seek to self identify some ‘meaning’ or a relevance realization (the cognitive machinery of a person in dynamic relationship with its environment). As the larger narrative collapses individuals struggle to understand how they fit (they lose context) and therefore start seeking better understating of their own narrative (meaning and realization of relevance). This will most likely arise in terms of tying themselves to visceral choices to frame their own personal choice (a search for ‘relevance realization’ which will most likely be embodied through personal statements – purchases which reflect personal relevance) tied to some smaller behavioral choices. People will seek to find their ‘fit’ within the larger narrative as it is reestablished. Psychologically the individual will be faced with an uncomfortable paradox – a period in time when without a larger narrative they will seek to identify their own narrative to find traction toward controlling their own fate/destiny during a period of time in which they have recognized much of what Life contains is out of their control.

** note: relevance realization is purposeful decision-making, choice making, to embrace statements reflective of ‘meaningfulness’ to a larger world

Impact

This will split between have and have nots. I don’t believe the haves will veer too far from a pursuit of “things”, but the have nots (those who lost things in this crisis) will veer toward a pursuit of impact.

While we cannot control the future we can create, and co-create, the conditions of the future we want. This demands an artful balance of self-interest and public good (self interest cannot be separated in the long run from the interests of the world).  Someone once called this ‘mutually assured development.’

People, finally freed from the grip of a global pandemic, will never forget the difficult period that made them see the precariousness of the human condition. We have learned there is no place to hide from responsibility to our own fate.

For the most part people, even within tighter budgets, will seek to address issues that can no longer be ignored (including environmental/social issues). Thousands of people will eye everyday life with a newfound respect and seek, sometimes creatively, to create some resilience to their lives (just in case planning) as well as seek, sometimes creatively, to embrace some futuristic-like aspects.

Where do we go from here – rebuilding the narrative:

Its not a negative view of reality nor positive, but rather a grasp of a pragmatic view in which personal statements become more important. That each personal statement embodies an identity aspect (in viewing a larger societal/global issue).

** note part 1: this can translate into positioning brands as a personal statement. A reflection of self identification. People are creatures who seek meaning and in the aftermath of a crisis in which many people reflected upon their meaning they will most likely see that meaning does not come by chasing anything but rather dedicating themselves, or a part of their identity, to  something larger than just their narrow concerns.

Once through the Covid phase the larger global narrative will most likely take shape in quite a similar fashion to what the narrative was before. The frame and framing may look similar, but it will now take on a stronger sense of fragility – people will accept the narrative in a looser way. Within that ‘looseness’ the individual will build stronger personal narratives WITHIN the larger narrative. With a dimension of acceptance that there are some things out of one’s control people will seek to make stronger personal statements on what they feel like what they CAN control – their identity tied to beliefs. If we had appeared to shift away from brands as personal statements events have moved people closer back to wearing, buying and investing in things that stand for what they believe in.

There will be a higher level of dissonance as individuals struggle to find a reestablished narrative. We should not confuse this with ‘change’ or ‘things will never go back to the way they are’ it is simply the mechanics of creating a new narrative within a new attitudinal context.

Conclusion.

It is difficult to judge the meaning of events in our lives until we come to understand the outcome, or consequences. The answer awaits the unfolding of future historical events and human responses. Whether we judge this event, or phase in time, as fortunate or unfortunate is a function of how the human race, people, responds to the pressure of the moment and challenge that this threat exerted upon our life, lives and narrative construct. Peace, calm or dissonant, resides in the restructuring of a narrative in which we can all fall into a rhythm again.

“Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the Earth. Continue to contaminate the bed you sleep in and you will one day suffocate in it.”

Chief Seattle, Nez Perce – 1850’s to President Pierce

From an individual perspective I just don’t see large-scale change, i.e., ‘things will never be the same’ shifts. The current Covid crisis amplified beliefs in the fragility of systems and attitudinal dissonance (all the things I wasn’t happy with). Any ‘change’ in individual behavior will most likely be tied to attitudes/beliefs and not due to ‘large scale change.’

From a larger systemic “how we do business” perspective (including businesses), I just don’t see large scale, i.e., future of work will never be the same, shifts. It is more likely:

• Self isolation reminds business how much social interaction matters (the randomness of connectivity)
• Remote working highlights selective distant interactions yet limitations on a larger scale.
• Systemic failures will be seen as poor planning of existing systems rather than old ineffective systems (scenario planning may increase, supply chain/JIT inventory will be reassessed, agile aspects of an organization will be explored).

It is more likely people, as individuals, will not make radical changes, but rather morph attitudes and behavior to a revised context.

It is more likely any business changes will not be reflective of “learning that improves the way we do business” but rather “selective learnings that make our business less fragile/more resilient.

Look.

I’ve been arguing with futuristic pontificators and ‘this is going to change everything’ & ‘no normal’ people for weeks. I am not a futurist nor a predictor, but try this prediction. This pandemic will not completely change the ‘world order’ or even people attitude & behavior etch a sketch. Yes. it will have an underlying attitude effect mostly because it has made most people realize control is an illusion.

But. The narrative construct will remain intact.

On the ‘power deck’ (the captains & owners) the seating order may shift a bit. But. This was already happening because of populist/isolation leadership. The world ‘order’ was already shifting. power holds on with ragged claws.

On the engine deck some parts may be replaced, pieces updated, but the same engines will remain in place. Yes. Some new ships, with new engines, will seek to enter the market. But the old engines & ships will not go away.

On the passenger deck I think it’s a mistake to see systemic change, everyone still wants to go on a cruise of Life. But. We should seek to see *segments* change attitudes/behaviors & maybe some ‘lily pads’ of change (selective change). recognizing those lily pads is key.

And in the bilge (the people who have been screwed forever) they will laugh at the concerns of the passengers & captains as the musings of indulged people who fear losing what they have because if you have nothing you don’t fear losing things, you only fear losing hope.

I imagine what I am suggesting is that the narrative didn’t really collapse, we just have lost the plot. And that is not the same.

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“Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.”

Audrey Hepburn

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Well. Audrey Hepburn, who died at 63, would be celebrating a birthday today <born may 4^th 1929 in Belgium>. I decided to talk about Ms. Hepburn because, well, people are complex yet we like to view them in simple ways. Most people know Hepburn for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but after her movie career she was an active ambassador for UNICEF. Regardless of her career, and life, or age, Hepburn exuded elegance.

Anyway. I am writing today never having known the woman. I didn’t particularly like any of her movies, but yet I know that every time I see a picture of her I stop, not just to look at her, but because she makes me think. Saying that you’ll have to forgive me because whatever it is about her that makes me think it is something I struggle to put a thought or finger on.

Its there, and it is always there, just on the tip of my tongue or the edge of my mind or sometimes even something that seems to slip in and out of the side of my vision.

Part of it is, I imagine, she seemed beautifully imperfect.

She is an amalgamation of imperfections and flaws wrapped up in what appeared to be a sincerely relentless strength of character.

I can honestly say she is one of the few people from the past who I think I would have liked to have met. I think I would have not only liked her, but I think I would have respected her. I think she would have lived up to the bar of expectations — the sometimes absurd level of hope & expectations we place on famous people.

“She had everything I was looking for: charm, innocence, and talent. She also was very funny. She was absolutely enchanting.”

producer for the play GiGi

She seemed lovely, adorable, sweet and charming and spoke multiple languages (English, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and German). And if a true test of character is what a child says about their parents … you should read or hear whatever her son says about her.

Ah. Character. Which leads me to Breakfast at Tiffany’s and my favorite Hepburn story. Apparently Truman Capote <whose writings Breakfast is based on> thought that Hepburn was ‘grossly miscast’ as Holly Golightly <he was correct because the Hepburn’s portrayal of Holly Golightly was adapted from the original>.

Why?

“Because I can’t play a hooker” she admitted to the producer of the film.

But her character bled into her appearance. If you look closely, she was stunningly attractive – in an imperfect way.

In fact, in her own words, “a good mixture of defects”.

Hepburn’s iconic look was what she thought of as “a good mixture of defects.” She thought she had a big nose and big feet, and she was too skinny and not enough breast. She would look in the mirror and say, ‘I don’t understand why people see me as beautiful.’

Audrey Hepburn’s son Luca Dotti

I think it should remind us that imperfections, well embraced, exude character.

Imperfections well used exude character and elegance <not awkwardness>.

Imperfections well accepted become perfections.

I’d also note that within all of this imperfect perfectness she also somehow exuded humanness. Maybe the better word is some sense of being relatable. She never seemed to step down from the unattainable clouds to bless us with her presence, somehow she seemed to be already among us.

Maybe she was able to do this because she didn’t live a perfect life … but never dwelled on the imperfections Life dealt her.

In one interview Hepburn spoke about growing up during World War 2:

“I have memories. More than once I was at the station seeing trainloads of Jews being transported, seeing all these faces over the top of the wagon. I remember, very sharply, one little boy standing with his parents on the platform, very pale, very blond, wearing a coat that was much too big for him, and he stepped on to the train. I was a child observing a child.”

She also occasionally acted as a courier for the resistance delivering messages and packages. And during the war Hepburn, who was a talented ballet dancer, secretly danced for groups of people to collect money for the Dutch resistance.

“The best audience I ever had made not a single sound at the end of my performances.”

Audrey Hepburn

Well. This is from a woman who at the pinnacle of her fame was applauded on the streets. Ladies & gentlemen readers — this is called ‘perspective.’

Fame has a tendency to warp perspective. It didn’t seem like it did for her.

She said she lived life unconditionally. And she did and didn’t. Her love life certainly wasn’t perfect and through her own admission her own self esteem seemed to wander into some dark places on occasion.

But. She worked hard to be the best she could be and she never talked about how hard she worked.

She just did it. My sense is she always showed up, she always did things, always did what she thought was right and let the chips fall as they may.

Anyway.

I apologize because I typically try and make some point when I share my thoughts. But even though I am writing about things that I think should matter to us I still haven’t figured out the elusive ‘thought’ that Audrey Hepburn seems to capture.

I admit I loved her attitude toward life:

“I decided, very early on, just to accept life unconditionally; I never expected it to do anything special for me, yet I seemed to accomplish far more than I had ever hoped. Most of the time it just happened to me without my ever seeking it.”

Audrey Hepburn

I admit I loved the blend of her style and her demeanor.

I admit I loved her attitude with regard to appearance because she embraced a fantastic sense of tomboyishness lady elegance <yikes … figure out how to do that ladies>.

I admit that I loved what I perceived she had, which seems lacking in the world today, a combination of classy accessibleness. Maybe it all comes down to this – she felt above us and yet among us.

I admit I loved the fact she found a worthy career outside the glamor of the movie business.

I admit that whatever it was … whatever she ‘had’ … she exuded it.

I struggle to believe we ever <and on this I truly mean ever> see the likes of the tomboyishly elegantly lovely Audrey Hepburn again. And that is surely our loss.

Happy birthday Ms. Hepburn.

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After her death … Gregory Peck went on camera and recited her favorite poem “Unending Love” by Rabindranath Tagore. It is a truly perfectly lovely poem for an imperfectly lovely lady.

“If my world were to cave in tomorrow, I would look back on all the pleasures, excitements and worthwhilenesses I have been lucky enough to have had. Not the sadness, not my miscarriages or my father leaving home, but the joy of everything else. It will have been enough.”

Audrey Hepburn

The Poem:

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,

That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,

In life after life, in age after age, forever.

 

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,

Its ancient tale of being apart or together.

As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,

Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:

You become an image of what is remembered forever.

 

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.

At the heart of time, love of one for another.

We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same

Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-

Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

 

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you

The love of all man’s days both past and forever:

Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.

The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –

And the songs of every poet past and forever.

 

Rabindranath Tagore

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“If you dig deep enough, you’re going to find that everyone’s a sinner.”

Logan Echolls

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This about the fact people are imperfect, rarely 100% good, and the fact we all may be a sinner but still good.

** note: I am not using sinner in a religious framed way.

I agree with Logan (who was a character on Veronica Mars) that if you work hard enough you will find something bad, dubious, possibly unethical, in everyone’s past or even present. But you know what? It doesn’t really have to do with ‘sinning’ or being a sinner.  It is just that we all have flaws. Just to be clear. It is most likely if you dig deep enough you will also find everyone is basically the same and we all have hopes & dreams & insecurities. That said. If we accept the fact everyone is a sinner, our past is flawed in some way in which the standard human being would judge it is ‘guilty of something’ then you have to accept the fact no one is innocent.

“No one is innocent … Life is more about how you bear the guilt.”

Jacques Silette

Uhm.

No one is innocent.

Ponder that.

That means every one of us sinners carry some burden of ‘not innocent’. This seems relevant as:

• more and more people in today’s world are meticulously rummaging through other people’s pasts to find moments in which they were ‘guilty’ of something
• more and more people in today’s society appear to investing a lot of energy suggesting they are guilty of little, if not anything

Well. That is kind of bullshit. No one is innocent. We are all guilty of small, medium and even some large things. Therefore. It within that last sentence of the quote in which resides the larger Life thought.

Your life can be defined by how you bear that guilt.

It is the larger Life thought because “defined by” is actually “choices”. All the choices we make everyday in the little and the small as well as in how we judge ourselves, and our actions, and other’s actions. So we make all of these choices, one by one, dozens & hundreds over time, all the while accumulating some aspects of non-innocence.’ From that point on it becomes how we define it:

Do you ignore it?

Do you make excuses?

Do you deny it?

Do you worry about it?

Do you keep it secret?

Do you use it to motivate?

These are questions that reside within each of us <whether we elect to admit that they exist or not>. These are the questions that define how people bear the guilt.

Oh.

The one that is probably most important?

Do you even recognize you are not innocent?

I think in today’s world where we seem to rush to blame people and judge them guilty of something <often justly> we tend to push our own lack of innocence, in whatever degree it may exist, into some dusty corner of our mind. But I also believe there is an even more dangerous thing many people do and that is justifying their own past behavior & actions as ‘not so bad’ which is basically assuming, well, innocence.

What that means is, I imagine, there are many more people who don’t even know they are ‘not innocent’ of something than there are those who bear the guilt. I imagine this because bearing some guilt is a burden. A burden not just as a weight, but it also can bear some emotional erosion aspects if you are not careful.

While those who bear the guilt can sometimes be eaten away from the inside as they think about it, I would suggest there are many more minds being eroded by the unseen, unrecognized & unaccepted shadow of guilt which dogs each step one takes.

This comes to Life in a variety of ways.

It erodes in a way that when shit happens to them <because the guilt actually affects their behavior in some seemingly small ways> they scratch their head and wonder why.

Some of these people think fate is against them.

Many of these people think Life isn’t fair.

Many of these people never look at themselves, or to themselves, as the issue … just everything else.

Many of these people just look at others as ones who should be guilty <“I never did anything that bad”>.

All of that is sad to me. Mostly because people’s burden of guilt is most likely something manageable if the person would only take the time to face it — face the guilt and eliminate that weightless, but diminishing, shadow following them and choose to carry it instead. I honestly do not know if people ignore their ‘lack of innocence’ or place their sin in a third person way <region does this> because they don’t like the thought of it or they don’t know how to explain it or maybe its simple embarrassment or it could even be they DO see the burden and do not want to accept it.

Look.

We all have guilt for something. None of us are innocent. The something could be big or it could be very small. But that is the funny thing about ‘not innocent’ — its size doesn’t matter.

Normal laws of space & weight do not apply to ‘not innocent’. A sliver of ‘not innocent’ can bear the same weight as a mountain of ‘not innocent’.

We should all take a moment, every day in fact, and remind ourselves, especially before we jump to judging others, that if you ignore the degrees & dimensions of the guilty — none of us are innocent.

But, most importantly, once you accept no one is innocent <self included> what truly matters is how one chooses to bear that weight.

“Learn to be what you are, and learn to resign with good grace all that you are not.”

Henry Frederick Emile

In the end. One of the hardest things in the world for anyone is to embrace their flaws, their sin. Each of us ‘are not’ a lot of things. Recognizing those things is actually pretty easy. We notice them all the time. I guess the difficult part is accepting them. and resigning yourself to ‘not being something’ with grace. Being able to do that is a full measure of one’s character. And maybe that is what ‘being a sinner’ or ‘no one is innocent’ is all about – character. To accept our flaws means to accept some burden possibly demands character. I do wish more people would accept we are all not innocent and begin judging people more on how they carry they bear the guilt of their sin.

While I dislike giving interviews I’ll admit this experience with Rob Estreitinho and his newsletter, The Salmon Theory, was kind of fun. Enjoy. More importantly, subscribe to Rob’s newsletter. Its a quirky intellectually philosophical shortish thought-provoking weekly read.

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Hello!

Welcome to Salmon Theory, a (for now, daily, because of *waves at all the things*) newsletter about philosophy, strategy and hope, now trusted by ~2,400 of you.

One of the greatest joys of this newsletter is the replies I get. And over time, some people become more active and more engaged, to the point where we have actual deep conversations about all things business, life, strategy, philosophy, and so on.

Bruce McTague is one of those people. For 90% of the things I’ve written, he has his own version of that thought on his blog, and I always steal something from his writing because, well, he’s pretty good at stealing from elsewhere too. Gentleman thief.

So I decided that now was a good time to interview Bruce. He’s a business and marketing consultant, has a giant brain for principled thinking, and… look, just read the interview below. I promise it will be worth your time.

I am Rob. You are here. Sit back. Relax. Let’s do this.

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Bruce, thanks for doing this. How did you get to where you are?

It was a winding road. After getting an MBA, my father had a swanky job lined up at a big bank therefore I, of course, wrangled a job at the first non-NYC advertising agency to win agency of the year in Greenville, SC. It was in media on P&G. I got an indoctrination in spot media (from Benton & Bowles), network media (from Compton), P&G branding, technology (I was one of five people given a computer – mostly to run onerous crosstabs and analyse data for insights and learning) and female leadership (my first boss was an amazing woman, Polly Goodrich-Reese, who could do a reach/frequency by hand faster than we could on a computer, and yet knew technology was the future).

I spent 50%+ of my days in account management offices picking their brains and 50% of my off hours getting my job done. From there it was into account management (Bloom/Publicis Mid-America, Bozell, JWT). I became (they claimed) the youngest VP Bozell/NY ever had (heady stuff for a 29 year old) then proceeded to quit to go to JWT.

JWT is where I honed my brand planning skills (or whatever skills I have there). Unlike England, the US was slow to embrace brand planning, so if you were a savvy account director who embraced brand planning, and had a good research director in your hip pocket, you could have a hybrid brand planning/account management role. So that’s what I did. Even became a corporate “Thompson Way” trainer.

I eventually was a New Business Director at a $350mm shop, but I’ve also been a brand planning director, COO of a small agency (trying a virtual creative department) and now, having embraced the fact I am more a generalist than I am an advertising person, consult with businesses on, well, everything. I have found that, while businesses think they have one problem, in a complex business world it is actually a multi-faceted problem (or opportunity). And a lot of business people like someone who sees complexity as expansive, not a problem.

Anyway.

What I found was I was always chasing more. More knowledge, more experience, more experiences, more responsibility, ways of looking at things, more books, more. Not more things, just an insatiable interest in learning things. Paradoxically, it has given me more than I have ever dreamed while also giving me less of some fairly important things (never married, don’t really have a place I call home – I’m more of a nomad).

I will also admit chasing more included chasing a space in which there was no politics. Agency politics are a sonuvabitch. All I ever chased was doing the right thing and doing good shit and, well, politics isn’t really conducive to that. I was actually pretty good at navigating client politics, able to weave my way through landmines and bludgeon my way through the Peter Principle management, but was never good at agency politics. That particular chasing did not serve me well the farther I got into my advertising career. On reflection, I am not sure if my stubbornness on this made me reject the advertising world, or if the advertising world rejected me because of my stubbornness.

While I love what I do now, I would be lying if I didn’t say that walking into an advertising agency, any one, feels like coming home.

Why do you do what you do?

Thinking is breathing to me. I’d die if I weren’t thinking.

I imagine the corollary to this is that many of the people around me want me to die because it can make me a pain in the ass.

Regardless. I like turning thinking into a specific type of doing. I imagine, if I am honest, I like to fix things. I like to fine tune things. I always believe something can be better than it is. I believe there is nothing that cannot be fixed. That, by the way, is a path fraught with peril (because some things defy fixing).

I do what I do because I don’t know how to do anything else other than what I am doing. Wow. That last sentence sounds pitiful. But it’s not. I love being ‘in the game.’ I love thinking and learning and, well, ‘the agony of defeat and thrill of victory.’

How do you speed your brain up?

I don’t. It always is running. It may not be fast, but it’s always running. It’s always collecting things. I am a collector of ideas, people, experiences, whatever. I don’t care. I have hundreds of notes scribbled on random pieces of paper which, as Dave Snowden point out in a fabulous video, looks chaotic but I know where almost everything can be found. I like my brain to collect things. On a separate note, this makes me a wonderful conversationalist at parties if anyone wants to invite me.

All that said. If I want to force clarity, I don’t speed it up, I actually do something like going for a run, or listening to music. And, all of a sudden, the pieces I have collected rearrange, get pulled off of dusty brain shelves, and fall into place on something I am thinking about.

How do you slow your brain down?

This question made me think. When I was younger, everyone kept on telling me to slow down, take a break, find other things to do. And I tried. I really did try. But I never got it. I couldn’t understand why anyone would ever want to slow their brain down. So I eventually stopped listening to everyone and I actually cram it with things.

What I found was if I keep putting things into it, all of a sudden things fall into place (an intersection of multiple pieces of crap I threw into it). Is that ‘slowing down’? Shit. I don’t know. It may actually be a weird version of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow (a book which I loved) but I imagine a part of ‘slowing it down’ is simply encountering an existing idea, thought or group of words that centre a number of random thoughts that are swirling around in my brain. Maybe I consider ‘slowing down’ as simply clarity.

I will say that I am not sure I recommend this attitude to anyone. It works for me but that may be partially what makes me mad.

Which two fields should talk more to one another? What should they talk about?

I, personally, believe everyone should picture the most opposite of what they do or how they see themselves and then go and spend a week with them. I will make a sweeping ‘talk more’ wish – people should talk more with everyone. The best of the best philosophers have a knack for communicating the abstract in a way that, well, seems tangibly useful. I would note ‘tangibly useful’ is, well, an incredibly useful skill for brand planners, strategists or anyone in the advertising business.

That said. My two fields.

The thinkers should take more to the unseen workers. The janitors, garbage collectors, the landscapers, the maids. They should talk about hopes, dreams and daily fears, wants and needs. They will find they have more in common than in differences. As the new documentary play about West Virginia coal mine country says, “they (people in NYC) think we are stupid, we’re not. We’re just from West Virginia.”

It’s all about perspective. It’s all about context.

I spend a lot of time observing people and always have but it’s a specific type of observing. This may sound odd, but while I always believe everyone has a story (trite I know), more importantly is I believe everyone has a certain gravity. Maybe it’s kind of like carrying a weight. Traditional brand planners may call this ‘a problem to be solved.’ That always seemed to simplify a personal aspect too much to me.

I always felt like if I could identify that weight, that burden, me – as a fixer – could seek to get them unstuck or fixed. The tricky part is many people only give you the superficial weight and it’s up to you to find the gravity.

That may all sound esoteric but, getting back to the question, I believe if the ‘thinkers’, the futurists, the brand planners, the behavioural science wonks, could talk more with the people who truly aren’t unhappy with their life, but are still trying to figure out how to get through each day, maybe we would stop trying to sell people ‘up’ on a way of life, but connect people in ways maybe even they haven’t thought about – and, of course, sell shit as a marketer/advertiser along the way.

On a separate note. That’s why Zach Mercurio’s work with janitors and car wash employees are so interesting to me.

What’s something everyone could do with a bit more of?

Read. Anything. And talk about what they read.

It was Arturo Perez-Revarte, whose first four books are spectacular, who wrote “Everything has to do with everything else. Life is a succession of events that link with each other whether we want them to or not.” If you read a story to your child, there is a moral. If you read someone’s Twitter thread, there is an opinion. If you read Michener, there is perspective. If you read this newsletter, there is intellectual twisting (what I call bending the mind’s perspective). And if you read anything, there are words and combinations of words which always seem to capture your mind’s attention.

I don’t have to agree with everything I read and, yet, love the words that speak to me. So maybe what I am suggesting isn’t really we need a bit more of reading, maybe it’s just we all need to inhale more words. How about that?

In general, I dislike business books and the advertising books are few and far between. Ogilvy, Book of Gossage, a 1915 book How Advertising Pays, Disruption (Dru), loved The Choice Factory, Grant’s Brand Innovation Manifesto and New Marketing Manifesto are essentials, Decoded and my St. Luke’s book is dog eared (but mostly for business consulting thinking) and Hugh McLeod’s How to be Creative/Hughtrain Manifesto are all must reading.

The business books I think advertising folk should read is Tom Peters Thriving on Chaos (his best book by far), Toffler’s books will all make you wonder why we think anything we talk about today as ‘new’, Cluetrain Manifesto and a new book – Mike Walsh’s The Algorithmic Leader. Oh. And Calvin & Hobbes. Perspective.

What’s something everyone could do with a bit less of?

Whining. Complaining seems to be a default these days. This is probably a reflection of the fixer in me. For example, I never understood why an agency said “I don’t want to be measured on sales because I am not responsible for everything that contributes to sales.’ Jesus. What a copout. In for a penny, in for a pound. I would look around the conference room table and say ‘quit making excuses and let’s make some business.’

Complaining, to me, seems to have an unhealthy underbelly – fear of risk, fear of failure, fear of, well, fear. I will never control everything. Shit. Control is an illusion. Get on with getting on and be accountable to what you do. Complaining is wasted energy. Maybe worse, complaining is really fear of doing what is right.

What’s the last thing you changed your mind on?

I chuckled. I bet I just changed my mind as I wrote this. Because I am permanently collecting ideas, words and thoughts, I constantly renovate ideas and my thoughts. I imagine I have some unchanging laws, axioms, postulates (I get them all mixed up) but, in general, the only unchanging belief I have is with regard to gravity, thoughts and attitudes.

I believe most things have a natural arc (a sense of gravity) and while some ideas fight that gravity for a bit, over time things will progress in a better way. I think thoughts and attitudes work the same way. The Cluetrain Manifesto, Herd, Toffler’s 3 books (Future Shock, Third Wave, Powershift) all are about gravity and how to fight gravity (or change its formula) if you want to view trends and societal waves.

I imagine, thinking about this, this could appear like I have no gravity. I do. Integrity, dignity, doing what’s right, optimal risk. My gravity bends my behaviour and thoughts (for good or for bad). Maybe those are my unchanging laws. I tend to believe people should (seriously) think about that shit maybe more than they do.

Everyone’s a bit mad. How are you mad?

I’m perpetually dissatisfied with what I know.

It’s odd. Years ago, I wrote a white paper about early age learning where I pointed that the education system needs to be careful because if they do education properly young people, students, will constantly be frustrated (because the more you learn the more you learn how much you don’t know). My madness possibly resides in my embrace of always being ignorant.

I deal with it in a variety of ways. It’s like Taleb said: “clever people become more clever by being with people cleverer than they are.” I constantly, and have always, sought out the smartest, most skilled/qualified, people and placed myself as close to them as possible. I want to be at the same table as these people.

Oddly, some people have seen this as arrogance that I see myself ‘as smart as they’ or I belong in their sphere worthy of debating/discussing things with them. It’s odd to me because all it ever does is showcase, to me, how ignorant or how ‘lesser than’ I am. I imagine I am slightly mad to always seek to be in situations where you never know the most or constantly feel behind intellectually, but I salve my madness by judging myself on “better today than I was yesterday, better tomorrow than I am today.”

Yeah. I’ll die mad, but happy.

What gives you hope?

Well. People. Mostly the everyday people who have little (the ‘have nots’ if you want to label them). Despite being a privileged white male with two college degrees, I was lucky enough early in my career to, through work, visit rural West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Texas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Minnesota and more. Inner cities in a number of cities. I’ve also visited rural France, Ukraine, and seen and heard the same.

There is no ‘give’ or ‘give up’ in these people. They have the same hopes and dreams for their families and children. They aren’t stupid. They just live in different places doing different things. This is true in any business you work at or with. There is a person working in the shipping department, accounting, cleaning crew, and so on, who know shit I will never know, see things in ways I will never see, and, yet, have similar hopes and dreams as I do.

I owe them listening because sometimes I can make things happen, and they cannot. And sometimes I cannot do things and, yet, they give me hope I can the next time.

Anyway. Personally, I don’t understand the whole ‘people don’t change their minds’ rhetoric. I have only seen people, addressed respectfully with well-articulated thoughts, who listen closely, are curious, and hungry for a better way of not only thinking about things but doing things. These people give me hope.

Just to note. I am a hope guy. I believe taking people’s hope away from them is one of the most heinous crimes one could commit. On the other hand, I also believe hope is one of the most resilient characteristics in existence. It’s like a super Kevlar to a world constantly trying to dent people.

One final thought.

I feel like I was one of the luckiest people in business. I was never the smartest nor the most ambitious, but I was always surrounded by incredibly smart mentors who saw that the more freedom they gave me the better I would be. Throughout my career I found ‘herders’ not dictators. That was lucky.

When people ask me my favourite boss, I cannot answer one. From the account director who laid on his back on the floor under his desk, with a world map taped to it, who said “I just want to see the world differently”, to Polly, a woman in a man’s world, who tirelessly explained why things mattered. I had dozens, all of whom taught me something a little bit different, and I have ended up an accumulation of all of them.

When people ask me about my best job, I cannot answer one. My first agency was a cauldron brimming with Burnett, JWT, Bates, Dancer, BBDO, Benton & Bowles trained talent. Bloom in Dallas (then Publicis Mid America) was a place where talent jostled each other everyday and then played together at night. JWT was, well, JWT and the office I was at spawned numerous independent agencies. Even the agency with a world class brand consulting group intersected me with some of the smartest business consultants I have ever run across.

I have hated leaving almost every place I worked. It’s the people, not the work. I think everyone should remember that.

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“Of all the things created and built by humankind, nothing in my mind is better or worthier than bridges.

They belong to all and treat all alike; they are useful, always built for purpose, at a spot where most human needs entwine.”

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Ivo Andric

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Well. When I saw this quote I thought “wow, I have the companion piece to my Liminal space post”.

Liminal spaces tend to make people feel uncomfortable as places of transition <neither here nor there>. They are kind of the fascinating, interesting, but oft wretched, spots where you have left what was but have not entered into what will be. It is the intangible that create the niggling discomfort or unease <or anticipation>. You are kind of disconnected from any of your real comfort zones.

Bridges make people feel comfortable. They are tangible. They show the clear path from where you are to where you can go. With a bridge you know you can always be connected with a comfort zone <even if you never go back>.

Regardless.

These two things are companions in crime.

Liminal spaces, voids as it were, tend to serve to refocus and remind people of what is at stake and what is really important.

Bridges offer a place to focus. They offer us … well … some pragmatic hope that you can actually get somewhere <even if where you are is kind of unclear>.

Connecting spaces, which is really what bridges are, are invaluable to us physically and mentally.

Almost everyone’s minds excitedly explore uncertain forays into interesting things and, at exactly the same time, get lost as they get snagged on the edge of unexplored thoughts or even those mischievously evil second guesses that are inevitably associated with the uncertainty in much of our lives, thoughts and growth.

And this can make us feel uncomfortable and our mind wrestles with this discomfort as well as dealing with the uncertainty of, well, this liminal space.

Here is some truth.

Ignorance is boundless.

Knowledge is limited <only in terms of time>.

Learning, and unlearning, often contains more uncertainty than it does certainty.

This means our minds are always grappling with the hollow spaces of our lives, i.e., the empty spaces in which we know we have to cross, but just aren’t sure we can see how to cross.

That, in a nutshell, is why we love bridges.

Look. I am a strategy guy or maybe I could be called a “here to there” thinker guy. I like liminal spaces AND I like bridges. While I like navigating liminal spaces I don’t like going back again and again to the same, therefore, I also like to build a bridge in ever liminal space I visit in business.

Not all strategy type people do that.

Some like (just) the theory – the larger ‘trend.’ They are called futurists. I tend to call them relatively worthless <or maybe just misguided in their self title>.

Some like navigating the liminal space, seeing the web of the trend itself and doing the mental gymnastics to weave your way through, leaving some bread crumbs for others to follow.

Some like the practical step-by-step plan of getting from one place to another <the places are less relevant the bridge is all that matters>. I would argue they weren’t traditional strategists but rather strategy implementers, but, call them what you may they play an incredibly important role in getting people from here to there and what is to what could be.

Me? I am a pragmatic strategy person.

Identifying “what could be” is all about navigating liminal spaces and deciding which door to open and walk through … what path to choose and what rivers to cross. It gets the heart pumping, is not for the faint of heart, and is fraught with peril.

I say that because building a bridge seems to help not only tangibly show the ‘rightness’ in deciding the ‘right what could be’ but it also gives people a path. A path in which they have less uncertainty and can focus on … well … getting from here to there.

To me not building a bridge just seems like leaving something incomplete. Like maybe offering someone a map while I could have shared a map AND built a road.

Let me say I don’t think the world needs more of me <god no>, but I do believe we need to appreciate the pragmatic bridge builders in our midst.

Bridges are not typically built willy nilly in some random place. More often they are placed in useful places constructed with connection of those in one place and those in another.

What was and what will be <as it were>.

I am a business guy. But, I admit, I stop and admire well-built bridges all the time. I admire the bridges with character and wear & tear as trains rumble across them.

I do so because they remind me that a well-built bridge may be one of the worthiest things in the world.

While I wish more business thinkers, and strategy people, would think about this kind of shit more often I will lower my wishes and just say everyone should stop and admire a bridge on occasion.

They may be one of the worthiest, least appreciated, things we encounter.

Plus. In a world that seem increasingly uncertain where the intangibles & unknowns seem to outnumber the tangible & certain, well, bridges can be quite tangible, quite certain … and quite comforting. Great reminders that we humans have always been quite good at figuring out how to connect here to there.

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“Something special exists in everyone, it just needs uncovering.”

Lee Grunnell

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“I have so much I want to tell you, and nowhere to begin.”

J.D. Salinger

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Ideas, language, products. All are connected and all are essential.

Yes. You need a well functioning product or service, but you also need a well functioning idea with a language that functionally communicates it if you want to have a successful business product.

Note: I would argue that every good product has a special idea that exists within it and if you don’t articulate it well you simply have a commodity and will careen around your category in a bumper car race of similarity (albeit with different colors).

That said. Conceptually, I want to sell an idea so people buy a product (not sell a product so they buy into some idea of what it offers). To me, within that twist of words, and wording, resides success.

Let me share thoughts on each aspect.

Ideas.

Nassim Taleb suggested “loyalty to an idea is not a good thing for anyone.” I disagree. In fact, I would argue discerning what idea to be loyal to versus which ideas should be ‘loosely held’ may be one of the most important aspects of success.

** note: this may be what Taleb meant but it’s fun to disagree with him.

Ideas don’t need to be uncovered. Most are simply submerged or buried under bias, discomfort, political correctness and general societal bullshit.

Once they arise from all that muck some really important conversations can happen where people realize that people are people and ideas can connect them.

We can accept that there is more in common then different between people so an idea, well articulated, can gather people.

We can accept that hopes and dreams are fairly equal even among what seems like in unequal dispersion of their hopes & dreams.

If you accept this, even embrace this, you stop restricting possibilities and stop viewing conversations around ideas in a restrictive way, but rather the fact a belief an idea offers a center on which other ideas can collect around. This is an important thought because if you viewed this same concept through the lens of ‘I sell products, not ideas’ you would actually have to be in the product line extension/innovation business because that’s what collects around a product-centric view. Products have value, but ideas with products attached is multiplicative value.

Now. I will unequivocally state that ideas are a dime a dozen (albeit not all are created equal) and multiple products can actually serve the same idea, therefore, how you articulate the idea, and what language gets ‘coded’ to that idea/product combination matters – a lot.

Language.

Language, or words, are the oxygen (or carbon monoxide) to ideas. Languages and words tap into the attitudes, influences behavior and shapes culture. The right word, or combination of words, shapes what we pay attention to as well as HOW we pay attention to what is being said and who is saying it.

** two better books discussing words, diametrically opposed in terms of style and how things are discussed, are How to Speak Human/Jackson & Jackson & The Symbolic Species/Terrence Deacon.

Words then establish some expectations, or cultural ‘permissions’, tapping into biases and experiences (either locking them or unlocking them). And, ultimately, words shape culture. While they certainly can amplify differences, they can also foster a shared sense of identity – at best bridging perceived differences and establishing commonalities (unearthing what has been unseen or ignored). I will say that the most effective words are words typically derived from established stories or narratives.

“The story you attach to something is just as important to creating the value as the product itself.”

Rory Sutherland

Therefore, for a product to be grounded in an idea that idea needs words, language and stories to craft its place in culture. This is often called “linguistics influence” (language plays a role in guiding thoughts, attitudes and perceptions).

**note: people should not confuse this with ‘perception is reality.’ Perceptions shape the value of reality. That distinction is important because the moment there is misalignment between perceptions and reality (the product or experience) then there is dissonance in the mental structure which makes it unavailable to distinction.

Words influence how we think about things conceptually. That means if we can articulate an idea in the right way, the words (embodying an idea) can frame, or reframe, the entire conversation. It is here we should think of words, and conversations, as an expansive tool not a restrictive tool. This is important because words influence focus (which is tied to attention) highlighting some information, yet, opens us up to additional information. All this to say for an idea to not only exist, but prosper, it must have a language and words.

Products.

Truly meaningful differentiated products are anomaly – they are in fact like unicorns (okay, how about like protected species). That doesn’t mean we don’t bend ourselves into pretzels trying to convince ourselves we have differentiated our product in some meaningful way. I often call this the ‘differentiation rabbit hole.’ I would argue, and have, make your product functionally great against a specific need (or want) and then articulate your idea in a distinct way and you will not only sell a viable product, but create a value proposition so it can be healthy in the marketplace.

Let me be clear. If you do not have a functional, preferably functionally good, offering, no matter what language you use, no matter what story you create, you will fail. It may not be today, or even tomorrow, but inevitably your business will crumble under the weight of failed expectations.

Let me be clear. If you do not understand the difference between need and want, you have a 50/50 chance your idea will crumble under the weight of your wrong choice of what it is you offer.

Lastly.

A quick thought on the relationship between people and ideas.

People.

The universe can be confusing in that we can see distribution connections (the internet, globalized shipping, technology, mail, etc) as the creator of what is successful and what is not. The truth is that it is humans who disseminate and distribute ideas. This is important because this eliminates biological spread as a way of growth or death. Instead we should be viewing the relationship in a mental way. There are too many studies to source that have dealt with the question of what causes a particular idea to engage and spread. It is difficult to characterize which ideas gain success, and which don’t, because, well, ideas are used by humans to spread & be distributed. The idea has no control of its own survival. Its survival resides in the imperfections of humans. Maybe said another way – it is important to understand despite our illusion humans are in control of the development and implementation of ideas; they don’t work for us, we work for them – we serve as machines or distribution widgets/system for spreading ideas.

Which leads me to amplification (or speed) and ideas. We far too often speak of engagement as the key to ideas when we should actually be assessing the interaction of humans and ideas with velocity in mind. If humans control ideas then they also have the opportunity to not only dictate their survival but also an ideas ability to thrive – an idea can survive in a small corner of the world or dominate the world (not all survival is created equal).

All that said.

Ideas are dependent upon people. In other words, if no human cares about your idea, it does not exist.

Ok. Let me share an example of a neat little startup I have had the privilege of assisting. It’s a company called Dope Coffee. Yes. It’s a coffee business and brand, but its actually an idea for which the coffee products are simply a means to sharing the idea. the brand idea has principled aspects all of which insure a cohesive in messaging and a coherence in ideas it collects, strategies it pursues and tactics it implements.

About Dope Coffee. Dope coffee, dope culture, a dope society, a dope conversation.

A company of creatives who use coffee as a medium to tell black culture’s story one cup of coffee at a time.

Sometimes a product is a means to an end. Sometimes a product is created not to solve a problem, but rather to not fail the moment & the idea. In fact. Sometimes a product is created to insure it is crafted to INSURE the moment happens. That is Dope Coffee. As a product the coffee has been crafted to linger on the taste buds so the drinker wants to linger in the moment and linger on the conversations that occur over a cup of coffee. And within the moment, and moments, resides the Dope Coffee idea.

Dope Coffee is an idea captured in products people can use.

The idea.

Society according to Dope.

Exclusion is easy. It’s easy because society thrives on binaries. It’s us versus them, black versus white, good versus bad. Its also wrong. The strength of society resides in inclusion not “versus.” The strength of society is a better world in which we all get to maintain our individuality without sacrificing community. That means someone can be black and be true to a black community AND seamlessly thrive within the larger community. Yes. We believe black people can be uncompromisingly black without being exclusive, in fact, through black culture society can see inclusivity through fresh eyes. Conversely we believe white people (or any race) can be uncompromisingly white without being exclusive.

Culture according to Dope.

Being black is inclusive, not exclusive. There are more things in common than uncommon. In fact, I’d point out the language of black America, the culture of black America, is part of the weave that unites America. Just as words can divide, they can unite. In fact, words, commonly understood, may be one of the greatest bonding ‘tools’ in existence. Dope is a way of speaking, way of thinking and way of Life. Its black culture, captured in cultural language, capturing a multi-colored world in a common narrative.

Coffee according to Dope.

A cup of coffee is a connection to a conversation between people, thoughts & ideas – either self reflectively or in engaging with others. It creates an intersection in which we can linger upon the important things. We have crafted a coffee with this intention in mind – texture, tone, taste – to reflect upon what connects us, not divides us. We see our coffee as, well, dope. Dope in that in its excellence it permits people to reflect upon what good the world offers rather than dwell on the bad.

Black coffee using black culture to create a brighter world view one conversation at a time.

Dope Coffee is an idea which collects ideas. Therein lies the power of being an idea and not just a product. The core idea, always revolving around a product which tends to be an energy source for connecting, is a collection of ideas (whatever makes up the individuals’ conversations & thinking of that moment).

This makes idea selling a little tricky, but expansive in its potential. The larger idea is simple, in and of itself, and coffee is simple in and of itself, yet, the conversation is complex in its variety of depths and dimensions. But that’s how we navigate complex ideas and a complex world – by offering a lily pad of certainty people can settle on (if but for a moment) so that complexity can be faced well.

Ideas, language and products.

Far too often we parse these out or choose that one is more important than another when, instead, we should embrace the ‘weave’ which binds a good brand positioning in the market place. It is most likely when you do weave them all together the ‘package’ will be distributed and used by humans (people).

Just ponder.

Drink a cup of coffee, think about the Dope idea (or any dope idea), and see where it takes you. This type of thinking, about ideas, is expansive in a good way. Its complexity in a good way.

Mea Culpa:

There are a few sentence/phrases in this piece which I pulled from little scribbled notes I made over time. There is a possibility I am using, verbatim, something that someone else crafted. I apologize and would be happy to source if I knew the source. As Rob Estreitinho has pointed out – I am a gentleman thief.

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“We’re just a bubble in a boiling pot.”

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Jack Johnson

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“There’s an inherent limit to the stress that any material can bear. Water has its boiling point, metals their melting points. The elements of the spirit behave the same way. “

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Stefan Zweig

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Every once in awhile you find that someone has articulated an idea in such a simple wonderful way you have to stand and applaud. 212 is an example. While 212 is a marketing agency’s name it is the actual number and what it means that speaks volumes.

212 degrees is water’s boiling point.

The agency creative director (one of my best friends) of the agency I referenced earlier states it perfectly:

“we can be the difference between 211 degrees, when all you’ve got is water, and 212,or between something happening or not happening.”

That, my friends, says it all. Not just for a business, but pretty much frickin’ everything. This also has everything to do with the difference between speed & velocity.

You can spend your time and life sitting around somewhere between 0 and 211 degrees.  And it doesn’t really matter if you are freezing your ass off at 3 degrees or be hotter than shit at 198 degrees — nothing is happening (other than you are uncomfortable or maybe fooling yourself into believing something is happening). Shit ain’t happening until you reach out and figure out a way of getting to 212.

That, in a nutshell, is speed.

Then something truly happens.

Life boils. Action happens.

That, in a nutshell, is Velocity. A real change happens in that you have shifted from speed activity to velocity activity. All in one measly little degree.

Couple points:

Between 0 & 211.

Don’t fool yourself into believing that something is truly happening in your life simply because you feel something (cold or hot). You may be running hard (speed) but, for the most part, you are still just water in the pot. Real change happens when it boils (velocity). The tricky part is somewhere above 120 degrees or so you start feeling comfortable. In that comfort zone you can easily be speeding along or just be comfortably stagnant. Be aware. They can look & feel very similar.

Anyway. I purposefully use heat as the indicator for 2 reasons.

Uncomfortable. While velocity itself is exciting & challenging the shift from non boiling to boiling CAN be uncomfortable. Its a shift. Some people feel the discomfort as “uh oh bad” and some feel it as “yeah, now the action occurs.”

Action. Placid water to boiling water. That is when you know something is truly happening in your life. You shift from just water in a pot that is something someone could take & drink from to something that people approach warily & can actually use to cook something up. Speed makes you feel like you’re cooking, but velocity actually permits the action of cooking. In my terms, you have achieved the velocity tipping point.

One degree.

Life is tricky. Heck. Velocity is tricky. How tricky? The difference between speed & velocity is often one degree. Its not really a tipping point its more along the lines of applying heat properly for the appropriate amount of time. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out you can be speeding along at 205degrees for a long time and it will feel hot but you will not be able to boil diddleyshit. Speed can feel like Velocity. Oh. And. My real point is one degree can make a helluva difference.

About that difference.

There is no “about to boil” sign. The shift from speed to velocity just happens. There is no warning sign. There is no dopamine hit just prior. Nothing. It just happens. I point that out to remind everyone you are never really sure if you are 183degrees or 205degrees. It boils when it boils.

Not all velocity is good. Unfortunately we don’t always make the best decisions and best choices. Therefore, you can shift from speed to velocity and vector quickly into the bad or the good. I point that out because velocity, in & of itself, feels great so you have to be careful the velocity feeling doesn’t mask the truth you are speeding off on a bad tangent. 

Anyway. 212degrees. Ponder. Ponder because it is the difference between speed & velocity.

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“There is no problem so bad that you cannot make it worse.”

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Chris Hadfield

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Far too often businesses overemphasize speed. They confuse speed with quality, value and, most importantly, agility. This confusion typically leads one to making the most obvious or most popular or the most expedient <speediest> decision rather than the best decision <the one which creates velocity>.

We should always remember that at its core agility is not speed, but rather making haste patiently or festina lente <make haste slowly or patiently>.

Decision making is all about the combination of recognizing the resources at hand, patience and timely haste. Unfortunately, today’s business world is infamous for the efficiently hasty ‘close’ <most expedient choice> and not the patient hunt <for the right choice>.

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“Strategy is turning the resources you have into the power you need, to win the change you want.”

Marshall Ganz

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This infatuation with speed far too often forces us to make decisions based on limited or ambiguous information. The truth is, when done well, decision making and consequences is actually a patient methodical process where at the beginning of the process, when the finer details have yet to be clarified, there is a need to be bolder in our decision-making – particularly because these early decisions have the most far-reaching consequences. With more resources, and knowledge, and have fewer doubts about what to do, there are less fundamental things to decide. This is called the Consequences Model created by the Danish organization theorists Kristian Kreiner and Søren Christensen.

Philosophically, this means the most important question is how we can bridge the chasm between doubt and decision.  This shouldn’t be done just by ‘feel’ or ‘gut’ but rather incorporating in some patient assessment. Here is the paradoxical quandary business is in.

Faster good choices are better, i.e., fast AND good.

The problem is there are very few good “choicers” <people who can do the first thought well> available. Yes. Many within an organization believe they are good ‘choicers’ despite more often implementing less than optima choices <and permitting them to make choices has a paradox effect of building additional personal self-esteem as ‘good choicers’ thereby encouraging poor choice making>.

Organizations, to be more efficient & effective, should drive choices <all> to the select few good ‘choicers’ AND incorporate some selective patience amid its haste.

Look. All I am suggesting is that some people are really good at making ‘hastier choices.’ They have that mental clarity that actually improves in hasty moments and the maturity to slow down the moment and say ‘let’s not be so quick to make haste’ <and actually be right about it>. But not everyone is like this.

And, in fact, they are a minority. I imagine the optimal world would be to funnel all choices through this minority. Imagine being the key word because that is an imaginary world. We couldn’t do it.

** note: organizations also need to cultivate people with ‘good choicer’ characteristics because experience actually improves their effectiveness (effectiveness being breadth of experience as well as #’s of trails & errors).

If your life, or your business, has one or two of these people use them, preserve them, foster them and trust them <you will go farther faster than you ever imagined>.

If you do not have the luxury of having one of them around <which by the way you have to learn to manage speed & patience, i.e., master festina lente>.

Look. I don’t like hasty decisions. And decision making has no formula with regard to hasty patience decision making because errors can result from deciding too quickly or by delaying too long.

Too quickly and … well … a decision can be killed in so many ways your head can spin.

Too slowly <too patient> … well … at least by delaying you can watch everything unfold as you watch the decision’s life slowly unravel in the form of lost opportunities or lost <or reduced> benefit from a quicker decision.

Making decisions is difficult, okay, making good decisions is difficult <because anyone can make a decision>. And it does take some experience to become more adept at making decisions especially in a time constrained situation.

Experience is important, and necessary in my view, because effective hasty patience is all about sifting through all the choices available.

Too fast and you die.

Too slow and you die.

That said. Here is what we do know. No one will get this right all the time, therefore, having a distinct brand with a bold, vivid stance in the marketplace creates bridges. Bridges which can keep you from falling into a crevasse on a bad decision and speed you across a crevasse with a good decision. It guarantees velocity as well as increases the odds of survival to have velocity another day.

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“Impatience kills quickly.”

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Katerina Stoykova Klemer

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Velocity, at its core, is about decision utility, i.e., which decision will create the greatest return. I call it Return on Choice (ROC).  In business you face a relentless onslaught of decisions to be made. Jackson & Jackson (How to Speak Human) suggest its over 30,000 decisions each day. Given the sheer quantity, success is often dictated by how well you choose what is important versus what is not as important versus what is not important at all.

Well. Let’s face it. No matter how good you are you will not always get this right.

Well. Let’s face it. We could all become more adept at making choices because, let’s face it, if anything, we seem to have become worse at making thoughtful choices.

There is a direct relationship between ROC and impatience: too impatient poorer ROC & just enough patience higher ROC.

Now. I am all for, and a huge proponent of not dicking around <the technical term for ‘wasting time overthinking’> when a choice needs to be made. But there is a difference between making speedy decisions and making a decision because speed is the main criteria. The latter encourages impatient decision making which lessens decision utility.

This happens for two reasons:

• Impatience exacerbates our typically poor prioritization skills
• Impatience emphasizes Personal bias

Prioritization skills

Since we live in a world of infinite possibilities, it’s incredibly hard to figure out what to do, when, and where.

If you start thinking this way, well, you begin living in a world strewn with hypotheticals.

If I do A, then this will happen.  But what if I do B?  Will it be better?  Will I get back more? Will everyone around me be more satisfied? Or what about C? That looks good. Oh. But someone suggested D.

You get it. There are 26 letters in the alphabet and while most of us stop way before Z even getting to D can be maddening. It seems like the world is your oyster … everything is possible … but you don’t take advantage of any opportunities because you’re not sure of what’s best.

This is where I remind everyone what US President Dwight D. Eisenhower supposedly said: ‘The most urgent decisions are rarely the most important ones’.

Misreading the urgent from the non-urgent and the important from the unimportant may create impatience at the wrong time and waste energy & focus. Smart Business patience at its most simplest is grounded in the The Eisenhower Matrix. While Stephen Covey is often credited with the decision making matrix it was actually Dwight Eisenhower, considered a master of time management, who developed the matrix.

Decision utility is often driven by effective prioritization what to do do and what not to do.

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“Mental clarity ain’t for the faint of heart.”–

Katerina Stoykova Klemer

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Personal bias.

Decision utility has to navigate the ‘personal bias’ maze.

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“Being aware of our own biases doesn’t mean we aren’t still susceptible to them.”

Faris Yakob

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It is natural we depend on defaults or ‘decision heuristics.’ They are times savers and actually assist ius in more efficiently navigating the 30,000+ decisions we have to make and getting shit done. But. When impatient we get, well, a little lazier. We lean in on our bias which is unfortunate because thinking takes hard work and every choice has opportunity costs. Unfortunately, most of us are not good at assessing ROC <return on choice> when viewing things thru a bias.

Especially when impatient people need to invest in working to eliminate bias.

Invest in developing the choices <and however many we need to feel like we have enough to assess assuming that is a finite number>.

Invest in actually assessing the choices <better, betterest & best assuming a best can be actually identified>.

Invest in the actual choice.

I imagine we are talking about the proper investment in time because organizational impatience leads to the permitting of poor choices <and a quicker death of a thousand cuts>. Maybe even more important is impatience without good investment equals ‘lost velocity.’ Or maybe even worse? Missed velocity.

Dealing with impatience and balancing impatience & patience ain’t for the faint of heart.

Managing decisions is all about a thorough understanding of the decision’s hierarchy of needs, navigating bias & understanding the attributes in a span of time that generates the most rewarding outcome. Being impatient doesn’t mean you ignore this thinking, but rather you incorporate it into your impatience <and it can dictate how patient you are in your impatience>.

I will suggest successful impatient decision making is about having, well, a rigid policy of flexibility.

Ok. Translation. Effective impatient patience is all about mental clarity – creating mental space to see things, feel things, absorb things and make those things into a decision or choice.

When you are facing a choice, making that decision <yes or no, do it or don’t do it>, you go through a cost-benefit check that may last anywhere from a split second to days, weeks, or even months <and yes even months can be an impatient patient choice>.

Such choices come up many times a day and time is a factor in virtually all of them.

It is a constant stream of choices. And each choice can mean the difference between speed & velocity.

It is easy to see how impatience can be abused if we regard life in today’s world as an almost unbroken fast moving river of choices/decisions of which they only represent different paths versus crossroads.

It is easy to see how with everything moving so fast all the time you can actually feel like you are speeding along even without making any good ROC choices. But 99 times out of a 100 there is little velocity, just movement.

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Note:

Velocity is 2 dimensional in what you leverage from and then the choices you make to create a higher decision utility (ROC: Return on Choice). We believe having a distinct vivid brand, and bold brand message, insures your highest ROC .