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“Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.”

Unknown

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“You can’t be who you’re going to be and who you used to be at the same time …”

TD Jakes

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Today is the first day of Fall.

……………………………. first day of fall 2016 google ……………….

It is kind of a reminder to everyone that everything is temporary. On another note. I do also sometimes find it slightly strange that death and dying can contain so much beauty.

Anyway.

I kind of find it nice that Life, in the form of seasons, forces us to let go of things. And while we even go kicking and screaming with regard to seasons, Life ignores us … moves on … lets go of the last season … offers us a new season, and once we get over it we are once again shown how beautiful it can be to let shit go.

I kind of find it nice that Life, in the form of seasons, forces us to distinguish what often looks the same from one day to the next. as we keep our heads down to the Life grindstone and each day dawns without any major incident, other than  the same aggravating everyday incidents which inevitably occur, Life ignores our obliviousness … moves on … let’s go of another season … offers a new season … and we get over the fact we actually have to lift our heads up and pay attention for a little, but, we are once again shown how beautiful it is to let some shit go.

“Between the end of that strange summer and the approach of winter, my life went on without change. Each day would dawn without incident and end as it had begun. It rained a lot in September. October had several warm, sweaty days. Aside from the weather, there was hardly anything to distinguish one day from the next.”

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I kind of find it nice that Life, in the form of seasons, forces us to think a little bit about who we want to be … who we are … and provides some real life aspects to show us how difficult it is to be who you used to be and who you are going to be at the exact same time.

Look. I am not a huge Fall person. I am more of a spring person. Heck. I have even suggested we move New Year’s Day to the 1^st day of spring  because I think it would make new year’s less depressing and more hopeful.

But I admit that Fall, even more so than Spring, forces us to face our feelings, thoughts, doubts, dreams and fears with a fairly discerning eye. An eye that views ‘what could be’ with a little more sense of urgency.

Sigh.

Falling leaves can do that to you.

Better seems a little bit harder.

Better seems to have more of a deadline.

I think we all seek a great perhaps of “what I know can be”.

I think we all know what a better world really looks like.

I think we all want to see the beauty that can be found in what is better in everyone.

And maybe it is within Fall and the falling leaves I think we all better grasp that failed plans and failed dreams can beget new plans and new dreams.

Maybe it is within Fall that we are able to see that new realities can lead to needed life changes.

Maybe it is Fall that reminds us even in times of ‘things slipping away’ you can still find abundance.

Maybe it is Fall that reminds us that Life is a healthy mix of duality — life & death and the ebb & flow of growth and regress.

Maybe Fall reminds those who have a view that a happy and fulfilling life should consist only of highs <or, maybe better said, a significantly higher % of highs than lows> and that a positive life should consist only of certainty <shelving fear and doubt to be successful> that happiness & fulfillment also embraces the ebbs in seasons as well as the flows of seasons.

Maybe Fall reminds us that no matter how you plan your day, year, or life, it will have times of … the best, the worst, wisdom, foolishness, belief, incredulity, light, darkness, hope, despair, everything and nothing.

Maybe Fall simply reminds us that time goes on, things come & go and we always have an opportunity to begin again … arise anew after the Fall as it were.

In the end.

Maybe Fall exists just to remind us to think a little.

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“It is pretty to be in love. It’s magical, I’m sure. But it’s also wonderful to stop for ice cream in your prom dress with six other girls. It’s also wonderful to go visit the world with nothing but a bunch of buddies who are really excited about learning. The problem is: we’ve made everything about “the one”.

But maybe “the one” is just you, loving yourself, having fun, and being happy. Maybe instead of looking for our other halves, we should be piecing ourselves together.

Maybe I wasn’t born unfinished. Maybe I am the one who makes myself better.”

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This piece today isn’t about love, it about:

“maybe I wasn’t born unfinished”

When I read that line I stopped. Reread it. And challenged almost everything I have ever written and said about self and sense of self.

I love the thought.

I do think far far too often we find ourselves through others. It is kind of natural because comparisons tend to offer some outlines. It’s not that we shouldn’t look around us and find things we like, and dislike, and assess, but emulate? Yikes. I hesitate. At least a little.

I would much rather we see, think and assess and rather than simply emulate we evaluate who and what we are already. Maybe use the external to invigorate and energize the internal.

And maybe I suggest this because far far too often we think we are a reflection of our experiences rather than a reflection of who we are simply coming to life.

Is this a chicken or egg discussion? Maybe. But in one aspect you can suggest you are built by the external and in another aspect you can be suggesting you are simply blooming as you weather life.

Semantics? Sure. But an important one in my eyes.

Look.

I don’t want this to sound like it is an either or discussion. But I do love the thought of believing you are not born unfinished. I love the thought that everything you need resides within and all you need to do is figure out how to let it out, and shine, and grow.   It is kind of like the latin thought of “luctor et emergo” <I struggle and emerge>.

I do love the thought that maybe it is not who you are that could hold you back from what you could be ,but more often than not the challenge is who you think you are not. Ponder that for a second or two.

I say that because if you focus on the ‘think’ aspect you end up seeking external to validate, or as a corollary the external invalidates <voids, annuls>, that which resides within you and who you are.

That is a very very dangerous Life game.

It is dangerous because instead of piecing yourself together you steal or borrow pieces from others to shape yourself and you become, well, a Frankenstein <maybe not that bad but you get the point>. Or maybe you end up sacrificing parts of yourself to please the external.

All that said. I am sure the reality of a healthy self is somewhere in between. Sometimes uncovering that which exists within and sometimes finding a piece you see and borrowing it as you piece yourself together <although I could argue that any piece you see, and borrow, more often than not is something you already have within and that external piece simply brought your own finished, but unseen, piece to the forefront>.

Anyway.

I am a huge hope guy. I believe the biggest hope of all is the one we all carry within us, a hope we are born with, the one which is a hope to be the best person we can be.

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“I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation.”

Stanislaw Lem

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It is a hope of all that can be and, yet, ‘nothing’ in that it has yet to be.

It is a hopeful contradiction — to live in expectation of something and yet tempered with aspects of nothing. I love the hope found in the thought of being born finished and we don’t need others to piece us together and that each of us is strong enough, and born good enough. The thought that all we have is within us.

I certainly believe, and know, Life is significantly better not lived alone. But what an incredibly empowering thought … “maybe I wasn’t born unfinished and I am the one who makes me better.”

But maybe “the one” is just you.

What a fucking beautiful thought.

I wish I had written it.

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“Her sentences were icebergs, with just the tip of her thought coming out of her mouth, and the rest kept up in her head.”

Gregory Galloway

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“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Ok. I can honestly say that I have few friends who I know the full thinking, i.e., everything they truly think, about a thought.

Very few.

This includes even my best friends.

Uhm.

I don’t think this is unusual.

More often we only see the tip of the iceberg.

Some words to open a thought.

A sentence or two which offer a preface to a bigger story.

The rest is kept up in their heads.

The ones we know the best may give us some cues, assuming we are paying attention enough, as to where to go next.

The ones we know the least may give us only the tip of the iceberg thinking we may not deserve the rest or maybe the rest is none of our business.

Not to mix metaphors <but I will> but people are like books we peruse at a bookstore. We scan the covers, maybe read the back and sometimes even open it up and read the inside sleeve to get a sense of what is inside. 90% of the time that is what we end up knowing about the book.

<kind of the same as an iceberg … just inside instead>

Now.

In business this is a little different.

In business, assuming you ever want to get some decisions and get something done, far more often you are exposed to a full iceberg, with regard to a thought, because business demands it. About the only way you can ever get an idea from insight to real action is to figure out a way to lift the bottom of the iceberg up & out from the ocean of ignorance and into the conference room light. And even then the business world does everything it can to encourage you to only show “what is important” … as in … “just show me the tops of the icebergs … that is all I have time for”. The misguided assumption being (1) that is all that really matters & (2) if you are good enough you will show the tip of the iceberg well enough we will get a sense of what is under the water>.

That last thought is kind of bullshit and why this iceberg metaphor is so appropriate. The majority of any idea and thought is found below water, not above, and 99% of the time what is above water gives very little indication of what is truly below the water.

Compounding this issue is, well, more often than not if you bring an iceberg into a meeting you will have to discuss the fact there are a bunch of other icebergs, also with tips people can see and bottoms one can only imagine, floating around the iceberg you are discussing.

The shallowest of people in the room will scan the tips floating around and assess that way.

The more thoughtful want to know at least something about the parts they cannot obviously see.

The most thoughtful are interested in everything they cannot see even if it takes a lot of time and it is less than simple.

All that said.

I could argue that in Life or in business what is important is the part most often not seen or heard.

I could argue that in Life or in business what we actually do is spend a shitload of time focused solely on the tips of icebergs.

I could argue that the latter point is the foolish consistency of the hobgoblin of foolish little minds.

To be clear, you cannot chase all icebergs. Attitudinally you would benefit by always being curious with regard to what you can’t see, but behaviorally there is just not enough time to chase down everything beneath the surface if you ever want to get anything done. All this to say chasing icebergs is not easy.

Look.

I could conclude my thought today pounding away on the importance of using curiosity to avoid bad business decisions, but I will not.

Instead I will use a personal thought to make a business point.

If you think about the moments you took a moment and stopped after hearing a sentence from a friend, the tip of an iceberg as it were, and followed up with some curiosity with regard the rest of the thought that you assume was kept in the mind and how much you were rewarded in terms of enlightenment by doing so, well, I kind of think that makes my point. It is typically a rewarding effort in terms of your friendship and connection.

We can spend our lives skating along the icy surface of irrelevance focused on the tips of icebergs or we can decide to dive down and see the larger portions of thoughts, ideas and minds hidden from sight.

That is your choice. Choose wisely.

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“The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.”

Thomas Merton

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“At any given point you have the power to say, this is not how the story is going to end.”

Anonymous

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Well. I sometimes believe one of the toughest games we play in life is the tug of war between reaching and settling.

Ponder. We do it in business all the time.

“What is our reach goal? … okay … let’s make it a little more realistic.”

Uhm. Is that a reach goal … or a settling goal?

Every day and in almost every situation not only are you mentally, as an individual, assessing ‘reach’ versus ‘more certain attainment’ <which is an evil version of settling>, but everyone around you is sending conflicting signals – “we want to reach a little farther than we think we are capable of … oh … but not too far“.

WTF. This is enough to confuse anyone.

You either reach far or you don’t.

You either set a settling goal or you don’t.

But, for fuck’s sake, don’t make my head hurt more than it has to on some decisions and choices because you want to feel like ‘we have pushed the limits’ in some false way.

Look. I’m not suggesting this is easy. Our natural temptation is to settle for a little less than a true reach because then we are more likely to meet expectations and less likely to be disappointed. I would guess <no research to back this up> we settle in some form or fashion 90% of the time. I really cannot argue with doing shit this way.

It is simply a tactic to maintain our sanity as we attempt, in reaching our desires & dreams, to limit the roll of the dice between chance & choice. We do so because we know disappointment lurks around every corner of every choice we ever make. And, let’s be honest, the disappointment can show up in so many frickin’ ways it almost seems like meeting a reach expectation comes only in black & white … while disappointments can show up in a myriad of colors <a reverse of how it should and actually is>.

I would like to note here that it really doesn’t help that we constantly get crap advice like this: ‘I encourage people to create something that ONLY you understand. That ONLY you get, because that can make you feel like you have some sort of purpose.’ Look. I absolutely buy the fact a reach goal should be personal or at least contain some aspect of personal so that it just isn’t some bland milestone objective someone else has pointed you at.

But. Well. If you are gonna reach for something, truly reach, part of the prize at the end of the reaching isn’t holding something that only you ‘get’, but rather something you gain that others also see value in. In poetic terms, you want something that covers you in colors that others can see. 

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“And now I’m covered in the colors”

Halsey

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And maybe that is where settling really screws us.

We don’t reach far enough to access the true colors to cover our achievements in to make it worth looking at over and over again.

Regardless. We live in a black & white achievement and outcomes world, not a color world.

While we talk a good game with regard to good character and humanity and ‘purpose driven’ passions almost within the first 5 minutes of any discussion you are gonna get “what do you do” and “what have you done.” If all you can do is talk about “reaching shit” then … well … you are useless as a non-achieving dreamer.

But.

If you can point out a string of specific outcomes and achievements most people don’t ask or wonder if they were easily attainable or the fact you attained them was because you had ‘settled for something less than a reach’, all they do is think of you as a useful achieving productive person.

And therein lies the horrible fate of ‘reaching.’ While we hate the fact that meeting the expectations of others means something, well, it means something. We can try to live a Life not worrying about other people and their expectations but unless our ‘doing compass’ miraculously always points us in the right direction and unless our ‘reach’ is impeccably judged correctly every time and unless the cat’s cradle web of choice & chance happens to fall into perfect symmetry we are doomed to have to face someone’s expectations at some point.

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“It’s time for you to live your own life without worrying about the expectations of others.”

Unknown

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Every day we get tugged side to side … reach or settle.

Every.

Frickin.

Day.

Here is what I know. If you settle for everything, your story will be illustrated in the blacks & whites of certainties, achievements and outcomes. You will try and color the black & whites in some odd colors to spruce them up, but (sigh), they are black & white.

If you never reach for anything, you will end you story with chapters of regrets and ‘’what ifs.’ You will have touched only grays and your access to ‘colors’ will be limited. If you reach for something and fall short, your story will have two key chapters:

the first is one filled with the failure to reach & the disappointments

the second is written by how you react to the reach disappointment – avoid future disappointment or seek to try & do better.

If you reach for something, and get it, you will never be the same again. You will have touched colors and seen that life is much more than black and white.

Please. Don’t anyone read anything too much into the ‘what I know’ portion because while the last one I wrote sounds exactly like what everyone wants, there are no guarantees in Life.

Reaching comes with a cost.

Settling comes with a cost.

And sometimes the cost is not dictated by you but rather by some choice & chance metric <which you have little control over>. And sometimes the prize, the benefit, can only be seen by you <a different version of cost>.

I imagine all I really know for sure is that, in general, we settle for far too little far too often. Ponder.

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“For our own success to be real, it must contribute to the success of others.”

–

Eleanor Roosevelt

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“The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first.”

Iyanla Vanzant

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Business, as businesses should, think about how to improve their business. The good ones balance effectiveness and efficiency, the poor ones triple down on efficiency. But. 95% (I made that # up) of businesses focus on customers, service, process, systems and “best practices” — in their pursuit of efficiency (with head nods to effectiveness). This means 95% typically think of people as interchangeable pieces who can deliver all the service, process and outputs. All the systems are designed to ‘output’ and people simply make the systems ‘go.’

I would argue this is at the root of why organizations begrudgingly train employees. I would argue this is not only a bad ‘grudge’ if you really want to improve your business, but it is also stupid.

I always made a promise to anyone who ever worked for me – “if you ever leave this job I promise you will be well prepared to do well at your next job.” I’m not sure I was particularly good at preparing people for life, but I always said if you had a title/job responsibility with me you would be able to do that title/job responsibility wherever you went.

3 reasons:

• I knew people outgrew jobs & organizations and often organizations sucked at meeting peoples ‘grow’ needs. In other words, there is an incredibly high likelihood a current employee would become an ex-employee. I felt a responsibility to prepare them for their next job believing I/we would benefit for as long as they stayed where they were.
• Word of mouth is the most powerful recruiter. If you give, you get. The more people I sent out to build successful careers of their own, the more people recommended new employees to me or past co-workers sent people to me.
• I didn’t care about training per se, I cared about preparation to do jobs well. That may sound like semantics, but I think its important semantics. I believe businesses get hung up on “training people and receiving benefit.” And they may be right because, if you view training as simply training, you will most likely will not reap any meaningful benefits. On the other hand. If you look at maximizing an individual and enabling someone to do their job well, you will not only build individual strengths & potential, but also receive the direct benefit of them doing the job well. Choose wisely.

Regardless of your own view on this topic, the bottom line is a decision to invest in a person. Not some nebulous, often vapid, “invest in your people”, but rather ‘a person.’

I, honestly, can’t figure out why this is so difficult for businesses to grasp.

Is it lack of trust in people?

Is it a leadership ego thing?

Is it simply a misunderstanding of culture as a ‘we’ thing .. that you can enable & empower individuals and still be a ‘we’ culture?

I don’t know, but I do know any lasting change or effect in a business is not organizational or on systems or even on some broader cultural narrative. People leave, therefore, if your modus operandi is to enforce or impose (this includes ‘best practices’) systems, I can guarantee you that enforcing or imposing is not motivating nor long term effective (nor even optimizing short term effectiveness).

Truly lasting change & organization effect is within people themselves. Effectiveness is emergent. And because it is emergent it is something they not only embody when within the business, but also take with them outside the business (in life, family, community and other jobs). Therefore. To effectively lead people you actually need to view people beyond the limits of the organizational boundaries. This may sound odd, even inefficient. Its not. It doesn’t ignore the job that existing responsibilities demand, but it also enables individual potential to cross and bridge normal divides & barriers. Or, as Peter Drucker said, ‘business is of the community and the community is of the business.” And that is where true benefits reside. We far too often discuss ‘getting out of your comfort zone’ when instead we should suggest there is no zone or even if there is you should just push out on the limits and boundaries and give people the freedom to grow (and the business will grow). When a person is engaged as part of who & what they are they have the ability to engage to their fullest potential.

“Why do you, or they, or anyone get to determine my limits?”

Veronica Roth

Simplistically this is investing in people, not an organization. This leads me to the eternal question in business: “why train employees (people) if all they are going to do is leave? (and someone else will benefit by my investment).”

This is a valid, and important, topic.

At its core is, well, business’s decision to make business better. It’s like believing if you plant healthy seeds they will bloom here, there and everywhere and the entire forest grows.

Believing this demands we view a business in a non traditional way – you don’t ‘push down’ beliefs, behavior, responsibilities, etc. because, honestly, any time anything is ‘pushed down’ the world shudders to a halt as the people who are actually doing the work take the round peg senior leadership has created and try to figure out how to put it in the square hole of reality. In order to do so, most times, instead of convincing leadership they actually need a square peg, the teams design a mish mash version of a round peg that will fit into the square hole.

“In our consumer culture, we are encouraged to assume roles that aren’t truly authentic to who we are. In a way, this culture is its own kind of simulation, one that requires us to make more and more purchases to maintain the integrity of the illusion.”

Stowe Boyd

To be clear. I am not suggesting a ‘bossless’ organization. And while I do believe business has become more complex than in the past, I have always believed maximizing an individual maximizes the business. What was true then is exponentially true as business becomes more complex.

Stowe Boyd said “We’re in a time of rapidly expanding insights about human motivation and connection, but meanwhile our companies continue to be run with a perspective on human psychology and sociology circa 1970.” I slightly disagree. While, as a generalization, it may be true, I would suggest some people have always known this is the best way to maximize an organization — its just that leadership doesn’t trust it to be done that way.

Of course I believe discussing new organizational models is important and, in some cases, a business should have a new business model. But at the core of any organizational discussion it really isn’t about models but rather “how do you think about individuals?”

Because until you answer that question autonomy, empowerment, self management, is all irrelevant. If you do not believe in people, than you do believe in control. Period. Full stop.

If you do believe in people, than you will stop talking about leaders, and what makes great leaders, but instead talk about resource management – how can we get the proper resources into the proper hands at the proper times to maximize each individual and group of individuals.

This expands the business by expanding the individual. Therefore leadership isn’t about direction or control, but rather managing/optimizing expansion. Ponder.

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“If you don’t know history, you don’t know anything. You’re a leaf that doesn’t know it’s part of a tree.” – Michael Crichton

—-

“History is not, of course, a cookbook offering pretested recipes. It teaches by analogy, not by maxims.” – Henry Kissinger

—–

So. Studying history, and using what you have learned, is a tricky challenge. Often we study history, and the past, so that we can “not make the same mistakes.” Well. The attempt is one of valor <and good intentions>, but most actions using historical learning are misused <as they are misguided>.

Henry Kissinger actually said it the best:

“The study of history offers no manual of instructions that can be applied automatically: history teaches by analogy, shedding light on likely consequences of comparable situations. But each generation must determine for itself which circumstances are in fact comparable.”

Let me be clear. Studying history is always good <that is a Bruce postulate>. It is how you use what you learned studying history that is the issue.

Too often people want to use historical “learning” as a literal guide for what to do now or in the future.

You cannot.

Sorry.

But you can’t.

I do not care if we are talking about business, life or economics.

You cannot <I apologize for repeating myself>.

Hank Kissinger, discussing Foreign Policy, actually walks us through a nice way to think about this.

Intellectuals analyze systems & situations while statesmen build them.

And therein lays a vast difference between the analyst and the statesman. The analyst can choose what problem he wishes to study whereas the statesman’s problems are imposed upon him. The analyst can allot whatever time is necessary to come to a clear conclusion while the overwhelming challenge of a statesman is time. The analysts runs no, or little, risk. If the conclusions prove wrong he can rewrite and reanalyze. The statesman is permitted only one guess and his mistakes are irretrievable.

Sure. Typically the future is simply a version of the past. But what makes it challenging is that what appear to be superficial changes, that sometimes make it easily recognizable, are the things that transform situations into unrecognizable changed situations. Yeah. Not all variations are created equal. In addition, we tend to ignore the ‘collection of people’ variable <I will explain later>.

In the end? We use the past, we implement something, and invariably wonder what the hell happened <and why we didn’t learn from history> when it didn’t turn out as planned.

Well. Reminder. History teaches by analogy, not identity.

Unfortunately this means that the lessons of history are never automatically replicable.

This is mostly because the lessons are apprehended only by a standard which admits the significance of a range of experience, that the answers we obtain will never be better than the questions we pose.

Now. I do believe no significant decisions are possible without at least an awareness of the historical context.

For everything exists in time more than they do in a moment in time. What I mean by that is an explanation of ‘context.’ You may not be able to completely replicate the exact time, place, situation and experiences of any & all affecting what you are studying <or even replicate a majority of those variables/variations> however you can gain a sense of choices that were available and choices made. This is contextual learning or what some people call ‘sensemaking.’

Because people forget that what they are studying is a given moment which is simply a situation where it is not only a reflection of a collection of individuals <and their experiences>, but that situation also achieves a unique identity through the consciousness of a common history <those individuals are studying that particular moment colored by,or driven, by perceptions of beliefs of that time. or, the universe shapes us as much as we shape the universe>.

It is not often that we actually learn something ‘to use’ from the past and it is even rarer that we draw the correct conclusions from it.

Why?

The lessons of history <and Life experiences also> are contingent.

That means they teach the consequences of certain actions, but they cannot force a recognition of comparable situations.

Well. That is a BIG thought right there. One that many of us should think about more often.

Let me translate <for my own pea like brain>.

History is contingent upon a series of factors and to make it exponentially more difficult it is contingent upon a continuum <horizontally> as well as simultaneously <vertically>. In other words, patterns move across various layers as well as within a layer.

Yikes.

That means exactly replicating the situation in which you are ‘learning from’ is, well, dubious. The variations and variables almost seem limitless <try pointing that out in your next business meeting when someone says “what did we learn from past experience”>. Oh. Gosh. Doesn’t that kind of make you rethink every business book you have ever read?

Regardless.

History is just that — history. A series of factors & variables all aligned for one moment in time <vertically & horizontally>. Therefore change is not only the constant, but it also possibly represents the only legitimate path to progress. I say that to suggest that change may actually freedom from the past.

And to suggest that history, when one decides to live it and not learn from it, can cage you.

I know.

Learning to break free from the history that holds no value <or decreases value> is difficult. It is easier to simply use it as a handbook of ‘what to do.’ But if we truly seek to learn <and teach> we cannot be subjugated to history. If we truly seek to be better than what we already are, we cannot do simply as history ‘dictates.’

This makes ‘better’ a but tough because most people feel most comfortable mostly remaking things in the image of historical learning.

The corollary to that thought is in order to remake things better we have to be uncomfortable.

I believe what I just wrote will make a boatload of people very uncomfortable. Why? Well. This kind of thinking can drive you crazy particularly if you want to simply study and create conclusions <rather than hypotheses>.

So. The how do most people, and businesses, get around this type of thinking?

They suggest that they have isolated the most important variables and can draw a correlation to the current situation, draw some conclusive conclusions, and isolate the best plan of action <and offer predictive results>.

Well. They are nuts <if not crackpots or liars>. I do not doubt 99% of the intent of these people, but they are still wrong. History provides context not analogy. Now people <in general> do not like that. It makes them feel uncomfortable. They want to know unequivocally that they will not be ‘making the mistakes of the past.’ Sorry. Can’t happen. You may be able to reduce the odds, but cannot unequivocally guarantee it. Oops. Big trouble in the working world if you say shit like that.

But it is Truth. Truth in a business world. Truth in Life.

Another truth? <and something that most people will also feel uncomfortable with>

Studying history will make the in-the-moment decision better. I did not say “using history to make the decision”, but rather “people who have studied history will better be able to CREATE a unique decision in the moment.” Yup. I used the dreaded ‘unique’ word. Most decisions are discreet <unique to the moment>. That makes people feel very very <very> uncomfortable.

** note: “unique” does not have to be in totality but rather the decision will have some unique aspects/features to make it more malleable to the context within which it must exist and thrive.

Regardless. It is a Life truth.

In the end?

“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.”

Basho

Well.

That is a nice uncomfortable thought to end on. Ponder.

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originally posted March 2013

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“The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.”

Lee Iacocca

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

“I have found that hollow, which even I had relied on for solid.”

Henry David Thoreau

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Ok. Let’s get the harsh truth out upfront. I am a 60something and I believe the older generation, mostly old white men, hollowed out business to the shithole soul-less point we face today. I also believe we are facing the dying rattle of these old white men’s grasp on how business is conducted.

That said. Let me spend a minute on old white men <my generation> to explain why I believe this.

While a generalization, because there are exceptions, old white men have hollowed out the business world in their quest for “winning at any cost”, “efficiency”, and maximize “converting that win-to-cash <making $>” ratio. These men hollowed out business primarily thru extraction and exploitation <of value, values, and resources>. These men have guided business to a level of so-called, self proclaimed, “greatness” through a variety of ‘great’ business acumen thoughts & business culture attitudes which, in reality, were non-great hollow attitudes, were wins which in reality a reflection of hollow behaviors & techniques, and, ultimately, created fantastic looking hollow outcomes and achievements.

In doing so they successfully hollowed out business. I could argue, and will, “hollowing” has been the guiding light into this dark world of money grubbers with questionable moral compasses who deemed resources as infinite and people as finite machines they could plug ‘n play into their money creating machines. You want some specifics? Here you go. This is how they have hollowed out business:

Capitalism

Capitalism is not inherently bad. In fact it is an incredible engine for growth, innovation and increased wealth & standard of living for any and all.

But old white men hollowed capitalism. They took out all the good and added all the greed. I could partially defend old white men and suggest that they were simply participants in the arc of business history, but I will not. Peter Drucker pointed out the beginning of the arc in 1989, as I noted in Salvation by Society, and we old white men could have eyed the arc and, well, stopped it. Instead old white men viewed the arc as an opportunity to not be burdened by morality & soul, but rather an opportunity to build personal wealth.

     Humans

Humans are amazing things. Irrational, unexpected, inconsistent, bundles of untapped potential. Old white men hollowed humans as well as humanity in their total embrace of people as machines of productivity – scientific management was their religion. We cannot blame Frederick Taylor for this because it was these men who made Taylorism into a cult of business. they were creative in their scientific management slotting their little people productivity machines into thinkers and doers, stars and worker bees, right brain versus left brainers. They first wielded carrots & sticks to manipulate desired results and then fully embraced gamification. The intent was always to squeeze out productivity rather than let people potential emerge. It is within that last point in which old white men propagated their most insidious myth – humans are lazy and left to their own devices will do nothing. This became the underpinning to everything with regard to their treatment of humans as machines. Needless to say, business without humans and humanity is simply a machine. Old white men got exactly what they wanted to the detriment of business and humans, hollow widgets producing exactly what they are told to produce.

Branding

Brands are fabulous creatures and not inherently bad. They offer us every day schmucks a nice heuristic way to make decisions and isolate differentiation in which we can make true choices.

Old white men hollowed brands. The easiest way to point this out is that we stopped talking about brands and started talking about branding. Old white men started looking at brands as vehicles of wealth and not vehicles of differentiation. Brands should evolve and not be constructed or built like some building of cold steel and cheap Styrofoam ceiling tiles. Focusing on brands permitted old white men to hollow out the substantive work of creating products & services of substance. The whole concept of ‘building a brand’ is one of the most insidious concepts to infiltrate good and meaningful marketing and communications.

Profit

Profit is not inherently bad. Used wisely it contributes not only to personal, or individual wealth, but spurs on business growth in terms of innovation and employee development AND social involvement. But old white men hollowed the soul out of each dollar as they squeezed every cent of profit it of it. Profit is good only if it is not tainted by <a> greed or  <b> created at the expense of giving back <in terms of true societal salvation type things>. Businesses represent an important weave in the fabric of society and the moment a business ignores that weave and focuses solely on the profits of the entity itself the opportunity arises to let the soul of each dollar made bleed out into the ether. And, yes, dollars can have a soul. Making money shouldn’t feed stock holders, it should a business that feeds society.

Wealth dispersion

Making money and creating wealth is inherently a double positive: proof of the value for your efforts and increased standard of living <not just in materialistic comforts but in real living>. This is a good thing for individuals, society and the world.

Old white men hollowed out the middle and carved out the good aspects.. This is more a byproduct of their business acumen more than anything else because I cannot really point out any specific behavior they consciously took to do this, but, suffice it to say that more went to the old white men and less to the ones who actually made the money for them. Possibly worse is that crafty old white men crafted a tier of wealth creation in which they had to do nothing, but use other people’s wealth to, exponentially, create their own wealth. Basically, they hollowed out the value in wealth.

Communication

Effective communication has been, and always will be, complex and complicated. Effective communication inevitably feeds into the minds and enlightenment of the listeners. If you dumb down communication, inevitably you dumb down the listeners.

Old white men hollowed out communication. I imagine as they hollowed out everything else they found it inherently more productive to gain their objectives by also hollowing out communication. Everything became soundbites, powerpoint bullet points and ‘elevator speeches.’ Effectively communicating complexity took on less importance than a quick sharp stab of “here is all you need to know” <and then walking away>. Old white men mastered the art of emptying communication to a point where businesses end up walking on the slippery surface of irrelevance <cloaked in a beautiful robe called “what is important for you to know.”> Heinously, they hollowed out the value of words all the while replacing them with bullshit buzzwords <hollow shells of words> all under the guise of “simplicity.”

ROI

ROI <return on investment> is a fabulous tool. It offers us every day unimaginative pragmatic schmucks an almost heuristic way to judge some fairly complex and complicated things in business.

Old white men hollowed ROI of anything intangible and along the way scraped away some of the most meaningful things associated with investment in their desire for simplistic “this led to that.” Certainly some investments have linear outcomes and results. But not all. And these hollow men in their black & white pursuit of profit, efficiency and outcomes became color blind.  Old white men started looking at people as equal to numbers & dollars and not organic organisms of less than linear productivity <in terms of Life actualization as well as business actualization>. These hollow men fell in love with cause & effect, numbers and began diminishing the value of humanity and complexity <dynamics of business & Life>. They saw people as investments, like manufacturing robots, rather than, well, people.

Racism

Racism in the workplace is a stealthy virus invading the organism in ways that can create an unhealthy organism which sometimes seems to never attain its full potential despite producing results.

Old white men enable this virus to exist by hollowing out the meaning in any racism discussion, and real substantive actions, in business.

These old white men rose through the ranks of business surrounded by other white people, & few minorities, simply believing it was so because it was a reflection of those “who deserved to be here” (assuming everyone COULD be here if they worked hard enough). When in leadership positions & told about racism issues they didn’t really believe it, reluctantly doing things they were told they should do all the while thinking “it’s just political correctness”. The times old white men got trapped in diversity meetings & shared 5 things they did & were told were racist, in their heads they said “they can’t handle truth, they are too sensitive.” What this all led to was hollow efforts at addressing racism. They grudgingly implemented some initiatives, while publicly espousing their enlightenment, but privately thinking it was a waste of time, energy & monies. Underlying this purposeful ignorance was an ongoing belief white people never got any more breaks than anyone else or that there was never any inherent ‘privileges’ bestowed upon white skinned people.

What the business world ended up with was a generation of old white men who are the worst of racism ,and some real racists> – racism convinced it isn’t racism and racists convinced they are not racist. Ultimately, any substantive efforts to address racism in business were hollowed out by old white men who didn’t really believe in them.

Behavior

I hesitated to call this “the hollowing out of morality” mostly because that sounded a little harsh and I tend to believe the reality within this particular hollowness is more pragmatic. That said … it doesn’t make it any better just that I didn’t really want to get into a morality & ethical finger pointing game.

Leadership is a complex mix of personal, professional and pragmatic. When wielded well it is a beautiful tapestry of effectiveness, however, beauty is often in the eyes of the beholder when actual effectiveness becomes the measuring stick. As a reminder, old white men leadership grew up in a business of dictatorship leadership behavior or, at its best, benevolent dictatorship.

Old white men grew up in the hallowed halls of hollowed leadership management. This means that their ‘management twitch muscles’ inevitably provide reflexive business decision making based on this.

The easiest way to point this out is that businesses have developed a myriad of cultural initiatives and, yet, old white men leadership tends to simply treat them as “feel good politically correct” initiatives. They view them as “society dictated” thinking and not “business dictated” thinking. Therefore, a hollowness was inherent in the organization between how the old white men leaders attitudinally approached the business, how they viewed behavior and how the organization actually behaved. In other words, a hollow mindset affected expectations of attitudes and behaviors.

Old white men began talking longingly of straight talk, when people knew their place in business and ‘carrot & sticks.’  Old white men started looking at businesses in disdain as vehicles of political correctness and not stark effectiveness. The truth is that many of the old white men simply didn’t buy in to a better way of doing business and, therefore, when put in a corner & challenged revert back to the hollow management style of “do what I tell you to do and shut up.”

To be fair, old white men did not create this hollowness, they simply propagated it.

Pretty damning evidence of their hollowing, no?

All that said. These old white men, in their heart of hearts, inherently do not care about a ‘better world’ or even “a better way of conducting business” from a soul perspective nor do they care about any aspect of ‘being a better person’. Despite the fact we read headlines about business people embracing “Purpose” or creating panels to create a better business, it’s all words, no actions. Or maybe better said, there are actions but they are hollow actions. The truth is that for the most part they are indifferent to the bigger, more important, issues and solely attach ‘better’ with wealth, importance and wins and their own interests.

I get angry. I get angry because I do not believe ‘hollowness’ is the path to a better business world and society <let alone the world>. It certainly has not helped us reach greatness up to this point. And I am angry because I have believed this, and known this, for decades.

Look. This can be solved. And it can be solved by, well, old guys/people like me.

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

“At any other time it’s better. You can do the things you feel you should; you’re an expert at going through the motions. Your handshakes with strangers are firm and your gaze never wavers; you think of steel and diamonds when you stare. In monotone you repeat the legendary words of long-dead lovers to those you claim to love; you take them into bed with you, and you mimic the rhythmic motions you’ve read of in manuals. When protocol demands it you dutifully drop to your knees and pray to a god who no longer exists. But in this hour you must admit to yourself that this is not enough, that you are not good enough. And when you knock your fist against your chest you hear a hollow ringing echo, and all your thoughts are accompanied by the ticks of clockwork spinning behind your eyes, and everything you eat and drink has the aftertaste of rust.”

Dexter Palmer

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

Old white men created the problems and as so well said in the movie The Return of the Pink Panther: “you set a thief to catch a thief.”

Older people can reverse the hollowness problem in one fell swoop. I could do it with a small merry band of contrarian older people (women & men), who have chafed in this hollow existence, and could bring some good healthy substance back into this wretched hollowness. To be clear, to fix this it isn’t about attacking one of these issues and working on it, it is coming up with a business model, and a way of doing business, that resolves all these issues. In systems thinking vernacular, the system in its entirety needs to regain robustness and substance because a substantive non-hollow part, alone, will not improve the system.

This is a unique time in history in which business, country and politics have intersected. This is a unique time for older business people to right the wrongs of all they have wrought up to this point. I certainly hope this happens, as an old white man myself, simply for the sake of redemption for all of us old white men. Ponder.

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

“What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.”

John Green

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“Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal.

 When you’re good, bad things can still happen.

And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.”

Barbara Kingsolver

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

Whew.

We score everything.

People.

Games.

Performance.

Life.

We almost treat Life as a balance sheet.

Heck.

We almost treat people as a balance sheet.

We most certainly attempt to make life, a specific event or time, a mathematical problem. And we then proceed to analyze that Life or event or time with some unequivocal mathematical solution in mind with the intent to measure it.  In addition, we have a nasty habit of doing this in particular when we want to discuss “improving”, i..e, wanting a person to be more than a person <or the person gthey are today>.

That said.

Ponder this Life math conundrum.

• Balance sheets are assessed by zeroing it out. Pluses equal minuses.
• Scoring usually goes 1 to 10. 10 being the best.

Uhm.

If the best people are the ones who balance out <they would then be a zero … oops … or are they then a 10?>, then wouldn’t they, uh oh, they don’t even show up as being worthwhile on the 1 to 10 scale.

Or how about this <if you want to ignore the balance sheet idea>.

What happens if someone’s 10 version is an 8?

What a treacherous thing to demand a 10 on an 8 score when they are truly a 10 as is.

What a treacherous thing to demand that a person be more than the person they are simply because you have a formula to attach to that person.

Unfortunately, society almost seems to encourage us to not only make Life mathematical, not only to label mathematically, but also to judge mathematically.

And, to be clear, the whole positive and encouragement and “think good things” industry certainly ain’t helping us in accepting a person as a person.

Yeah.

The whole “Secret” & positive thing can far too quickly translate into some wacky life mathematical problem people can solve in making a ‘better Life.’

You can do better!

If you are at 7 you should always be striving for 8!

Personally I believe we have bastardized real encouragement in combination with ‘numberizing’ people <a bad combination>.

People are not numbers, nor should they be assessed as numbers and, surely, they cannot simplistically be represented as something as simple as a number.

And what makes this even more treacherous?

There is rarely such a thing as a good or bad person in isolation.

What I mean by that is what may be good at one moment is bad at another. And what that means is, well, a number can trap someone in the past or being measured for but a moment. Therefore, not only does it become treacherous to believe a person is more than a person, but treacherous to believe a person is less than a person.

And, yeah, I know about 360degree reviews and measuring shit by tracking over time, but inevitably the math works out one of two ways:

• • An average of highs and lows <which diminishes true learning on how high is up and how low is low>

  • A snapshot in time <in which the person gets screwed if they are having a bad time and benefit if it is their one truly good time>

When I took a moment and really thought about this, I kind of thought this was related to the whole ‘perfect person and imperfections’ thing. We have a nasty habit of looking at the people who we dislike and immediately assess, judge what could and should be improved, and think “they could be a 10 if only …”

We have an even nastier habit of looking at the people we like, yes, actually like, judge how close they are to a ‘perfect person’ and think “gosh, they would be absolutely perfect <a 10> if only …”

That’s silly.

No.

That’s unhealthy.

No.

It’s just fucking stupid.

People are people.

On their best day and at their best they are … well … their best. And judging someone as if they can be, and should be, their best – or a “10” – every day is just fucking stupid.

A person is no more than a person.

And no matter how much we want to make a person a number and make Life a mathematical formula or equation we cannot.

And because we cannot we actually should not.

Yeah.

It is a treacherous thing to believe a person is more than a person.

Just as it is treacherous thing to believe a person is less than a person.

Don’t try and make life, or a person, a mathematical equation.

People are not numbers, they are people. And the risk we run is, well, this:

“We should always bear in mind that numbers represent a simplification of reality.”

Kenneth E. Boulding

“Most agencies are in the same boat — from big ones to two man shops. They’re in it for the money and they’re scared. Scared the client’s going to walk. And because they are afraid they compromise their principles. They are so scared of losing the business they give the customer what they think they want rather than what they know he needs. And sometimes it works — for a while. But in the end it always backfires. You lose the business anyway and you wake up one day to find you’re a prostitute. So, in the end, stick to your principles. ‘to thine ownself be true.’ 0ver 200 years old but still good advice.”

Stephen Hawley Martin (founder of The Martin Agency)

======

Well. The opening quote is some delightfully uncomfortable candor from a business person. That said. Choosing what to do and choosing what not to do is a shitload more difficult than you may think – in business and in Life.

I will say if you are in the service industry you will read this and understand exactly what Mr. Martin is saying especially in a business world in which customer-centric is the ideology tied to ‘make the customer happy’ attitudes.  Yeah. When in service business you are always seemingly trapped by “doing whatever it takes to make the customer happy” (which seems to be an insane mantra seeping through business these days) versus “what is going to make me happy” (as a business, business person, business owner).

Here’s the truth. This is not an easy answer. Yeah. You would think it is and we can say it is, but it is not.

Look. I am certainly not suggesting ignoring customers (although I do believe the tired “customer is king/queen” mantra is going a little bit too far), but at some point you have to draw a line. I could suggest if you don’t draw a line you will have simply entered a race to the bottom (because you are not the only one trying to make that customer king/queen so you are competing with everyone and most likely not increasing price – so your value equation is becoming of less value if not less profitable).

But instead of the business case I will suggest that you need to draw a line or you will go nuts.

Or.

Become a prostitute.

Look.

Sometimes lines can fence you in, but sometimes lines can neaten life.

I will suggest someone who draws a great line yet is focused on the customer. Ritz Carlton.

“Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentleman.”

You see that everywhere in the back rooms and over back-to-front entryways at Ritz Carltons. It is their culture and their attitude and their mantra.

So.

What is the line? The moment a Ritz guest no longer acts like a ‘ladies or gentleman.’  That is their line.

Anyway.

I imagine drawing a line is about making boundaries. I will suggest that setting boundaries does more to define us rather than define behavior. I will also suggest it is probably one of the hardest things in the world to do. With anything I may add.

In business?

Yikes.

I have been in those meetings.

Especially now with the internet where one ‘declined’ customer (they don’t even have to be mistreated in any way) can reach out and impact hundreds because they weren’t allowed to join the club. Those discussions are painful and often driven by knee jerk reactions <to a minority of one>. I understand that this is about growing your business <or maybe … stopping it from declining> and at almost any time in business, good or bad, passing on a dollar in hand is tough. But at some point you have to step back and say “what does keeping this customer say about us, me, and the business?

Lines.

It is about drawing a line in the sand about what is acceptable or not acceptable – to us, our character and how we want to be defined.

Think about government. Regardless of whether it is government policy on dealing with terrorists or rules of warfare.

What is acceptable and what isn’t? Tough tough questions.

Personal?

Personal time off in a business. Your kids and their activities. Job searches and type of job you want. Time commitments. Personal behavior.

Anyway.

Where do you draw the line?

I know I struggle with people who want it all spelled out upfront (or maybe people who live only by ‘rules’). Mostly because you invest a lot of energy and time thinking about every possibility (which could be time doing more productive things) and then lo and behold something you couldn’t have foreseen pops up. And you start discussing ‘exceptions’ (which really aren’t exceptions other than the fact someone demanded you draw a line … or a boundary). And then there are the ongoing situations where you have to think about where does it fall on the line you have drawn.

Some things are black and white, but they seem to be far and few between. Most often I don’t even like getting close to a boundary and do not feel comfortable with people who do like to wander on lines.As Mike Walsh said “your legal team will never get you to the best ethical decision.”

That said.

The one thing that remains black & white?

Being true to thineself.

Draw the line somewhere where you can sleep well at night.

That’s the line. Ponder.

=========

“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”

Jean de La Fontaine

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

“But I live elsewhere; it is only that the attraction of the human world is so immense, in an instant it can make one forget everything. Yet the attraction of my world too is strong.”

Franz Kafka

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

So. We talk a lot about the fact you cannot run away from things and far less about avoiding.

Yeah.

We talk about procrastination, which is a version of avoiding, but avoiding, in this piece’s case, is more along the lines of ‘ignoring’. Ignoring meant by that you see the world that you want to live in and conduct yourself in and go about ignoring the rest of the world doing your own thing. That is simply a different version of ignoring the real world. Simplistically you are assuming that the world & Life, in general, is indifferent to you therefore you will go unnoticed and just be able to do what you want to do <in  a less unfettered way than if you actually remained engaged in the ‘other world’>.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

I will say that avoiding some of the more undesirable aspects of Life and the world is pretty appealing. I would also suggest that avoiding some of the more undesirable aspects of Life and the world is pretty unrealistic.

There are a number of reasons I say that, but suffice it to say the overwhelming amount of information, even within the narrower walls of a business, is stunning. In the good old days even the worst of things worth avoiding <lies, conspiracies & implications> needed a little time to grow to some size that they became unavoidable. In today’s world those same things need seconds to gain some traction and minutes to grow to some size that they are unavoidable.

Today Google processes 61,000+ search queries a second. That’s something like over 5 billion+ queries a day. This means information is everywhere — regardless whether it is good information or bad information.

Today 99% of all employees in business are online and nearly 50% of the entire world is online and with 5.27 billion people have a mobile device <which, depressingly, means more people have a mobile device than have running water>.

My point here is not about the challenges of being interconnected with so much information driven by technology, but rather avoiding the world is just not a viable option <no matter how attractive it may seem>.

But please do not focus on technology. Technology is simply a means. Without people technology is simply an unused ancient aqueduct. It is people which make avoiding impossible <technology just enables their ability to not be avoided more>.

My version of this is office politics. I hate office politics. Ok. Not just hate … I believe it is people wasting energy and all I want to do is to focus on getting the good shit done.

In a perfect world you can decide to avoid the real world of the office intrigue and just do what you believe is the right thing to do for the business and ‘do.’

It isn’t avoiding by ignoring it is more like avoiding by deciding to ride the parallel rail on a train track.

Unfortunately the business world, and the world in general, doesn’t work that way. No matter how much I may have wished to run on a parallel track it actually works more like an atom in which we all circle the business at some maddening speed in which you crisscross with even the shit you want to avoid.

This gets compounded in several ways … two of which would be:

• Someone will always make what you are doing political even if it is not.

Office politics always contain people who play politics to meet their own ends. That is their means to do so. I believe these people can only see the world through the eyes of palace intrigue and political maneuvering therefore they filter everything done by everyone through a filter of “what do they have to gain by doing that.” That is their first filter level. Yeah. Eventually they may get to the more important “what does the business have to gain by doing that”, but they almost always judge everything being done on a ‘who is a winner and loser’ scale.

• Someone will always find something nefarious in what you are doing.

I will not call this conspiracy thinking but, in general, a business culture more often than not breeds a sense that <a> everyone is out for themselves and <b> there is no such thing as a truly altruistic business motivation.

And while it would be naïve of me to suggest that avoiding those two thoughts as ‘stupid & untrue’ it is a little sad that those beliefs pretty much are somewhere in every organization.

Please note, once again, the people aspect in everything I have noted. You may want to avoid things, but you will find your destiny along the path you have chosen strewn with a shitload of people crossing your path — many uninvited and many unwelcome.

I would suggest that Life is best lived by not ignoring shit and avoiding shit, but rather stepping into the world and deal with it. Sometimes that may mean side stepping some of the shit you don’t want to deal with and sometimes that may mean bludgeoning your way over and through some of the shit you don’t want to deal with, but if you do this you actually have some control over your own destiny. I say that because the problem with trying to maintain your Life on a parallel track, and knowing that inevitably it will be crossed by people & shit you had been purposefully avoiding, is that you will always be reacting to the bullshit rather than proactively facing it.

Look.

While you may not care about business or business politics my point is my point — you cannot avoid the world to conduct yourself in the ways & means you want to conduct yourself. You are stuck with the world, and in the world, whether you like it or not.

Oh.

The other thing you are stuck with is the fact whether you stay on the road engaged with the world or take another road to try and avoid it, well, you will meet your destiny no matter which way you go. Ponder that.