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“Its much more important to be interested than to be interesting“

Jane Fonda.

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Let me begin by saying Jane Fonda has been irrelevant to me my entire life. Okay.  Maybe better said she has been on the periphery of what I truly care about.

Let me begin by saying I have bashed celebrities as much and as often as anyone for semi-stupid involvement in things they do not seem particularly knowledgeable about.

That said.

I read this quote and all of a sudden she became relevant to me.  She said something that not only made sense, but was also thought provoking. And that was big in my relationship with good ole Jane. Shit. It was big in my relationship with celebrities overall.

To be clear.

Have I always agreed with what she has said or done throughout her life? Nope.

Have I always agreed with what anyone has said or done throughout their Life? Nope.

But when Jane Fonda says something like this, well, I admit I think about what I think about celebrities who get involved. And rethink her actions. And rethink her words. And absolutely sit back and rethink, in general, about anyone in the public <celebrity like> and their actions & words.

Because I admit.

It typically drives me a little nuts when some celebrity makes a big stink about something – and it feels naïve and slightly out of touch. But with this quote from Jane it really made me rethink a lot of things. And a lot of thoughts I have had about celebrities and maybe all of the seemingly naïve things I have heard and just shook my head over.

Why do I invest any energy rethinking?

Well … they were interested.

Take a moment and ponder that <and even compare it to your own life and involvement>. They took time out of their wacky world and paid attention to something and said something.

Does it sometimes seem misdirected and maybe slightly out of touch to every day people and our lives?  Absolutely.

But. Maybe it shouldn’t be judged that way. Maybe it should be better judged in that they were interested.

That is Jane’s point. And it is a fucking good point.

For, like it or not, they said or did something.  It may have been odd or good or misdirected or right on target, but it doesn’t really matter in the end as I think about it because they chose to do something.

They have a podium <I believe all celebrities in their heart of hearts know that>. They stood up. They spoke out. And they chose to get involved. Shit. They were interested. And they did so knowing full well a shitload of people will scoff, a shitload of people will give them shit and a shitload of people would disregard what they said as “out of touch.”

That said. Jane really made me think. Really think.

“They were interested.”

You know something?.

It makes me begin thinking maybe I was the naïve one. That I was the one who had the wrong perspective. That maybe I have been missing the real point all along.

Why do I say that?

Well.

Don’t I continuously suggest people should step up for what they care about? <Yup>. So why should I think differently about this simply because some person does something for a living? <I shouldn’t>.

It is better to be interested than interesting.

That, my friends, is a big thought. And, yeah, I have elected to ignore the whole listening and selflessness aspect of that quote to focus on “stepping up” because that is the truly enlightening part. Because in the end it comes down to several things.

Jane has always been a lightning rod for issues.

And, admittedly, some people are more so than others and some of them are more comfortable being so than others.

And we may disagree with them.

And we may think they are misguided idiots.

But <and this is a BIG but>.

We should all recognize that no matter what … that they are interested.

Interested in ‘whatever.’

And you know what? That counts for something.

And, in fact, I think it counts for a lot.

Ponder.

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“The world’s thy ship and not thy home.”

Thérèse de Lisieux

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“All of life is a coming home.

Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers, all of us.  All the restless hearts of the world, all trying to find a way home.”

Patch Adams 

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Well. I had all these quotes and I didn’t know what to do with them until I saw the image at the opening of this post: “They say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. Maybe I’m not leaving maybe I’m going home.”

I have often wondered why many of us are so restless. We seek things, and travel places looking for ‘something’ and dream dreams. This doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy what we have nor does it mean we don’t accept reality. It just means that there is always an undercurrent of change or “what ifs” or “what could be’s” underneath the surface of our Life. At the same time we are sailing through Life seeking some place we can land which we can not only call home, but actually feels like home.

And maybe that is where the line “home is where you hang your hat’ comes into play. In its simplicity it is actually suggesting that it really isn’t your hat that matters it is when you accept that you can be who you are and that ‘who’ is all you can be that you have found home. And while Thérèse was really suggesting that the material world was simply your journey and heaven, or God, is your destination, the overall thought is truer than true.

Whether you believe in something bigger than you or simply believe there is something bigger within you, you should seek the stars within you to guide you to it all — not some external place or location which may appear to fulfill some aspect of ‘home.’

Your dreams, wishes and … yes … the starlight to guide you in the darkness of not knowing what to do, where to go and how to get thru whatever it is you are going thru is all within you.

Your home resides within you.

You are simply looking for a place to, well, place your home that feels right and true.

That place is unseen.

That place is not really one place <it can actually be many places>.

Here comes the hard part.

Life will not give you any signposts and most of Life will constantly change your direction unseen in the undercurrents of Life.

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“In the short voyage of a lifetime, we can see the eddies and ripples on the surface, but not the undercurrents changing the main channel of the stream. “

Thomas Mellon

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This all suggests you are in control and you are not in control.

Just ponder the fact we often stand upon the deck of our ship admiring the horizon and enjoying the travel & journey only to have some Life undercurrent disrupt our complacency and some version of ‘living Life laziness’ <i.e., if you’re not careful and become actively involved in Life, Life will actively involve itself in your Life>.

This simply reminds us that circumstances beyond our control often disrupt the illusion of what we have, who we are and where we are.

The unseen undercurrent constantly nudges our mind with questions:

What is our purpose?

How can we take control of so many things out of our control?

How do we reconcile the vastness Life offers us … reconcile the bigness that can often appear within reach … and reconcile our desire to be worthy of Life … reconcile it all against the smallness that is us in the roiling sea on which our ship sails?

Will we ever satisfy our dreams for what could be & what we could be?

Meaningful or meaningless?

We struggle with these questions. And all the while we avoid the questions under the guise of “seeking home.’

Ah. Shit.

Suffice it to say, home is not anything physical, it actually resides in the infinite. As a corollary, this would presume if you accept its infiniteness you should be able to see it also has the potential to be infinitely good.

I believe we inherently know this and inherently know that only ‘home’ will truly satisfy us. And that search, that journey, is the satisfaction. I imagine the unfortunate, uncomfortable, truth is the odds are we will never truly find some ‘home’ in which we can live our entire lives.

The world is our ship.

Life is our ship.

Our home, our stars, reside within us.

Ponder.

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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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“Was this not what you wanted?”

—

remnant-thoughts

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I saw this quote/question posted on tumblr site and I had to stop and think. And, ultimately, the phrase got stuck in my head like a bad 70’s song with a catchy beat. Ok. Even worse than a bad song I associate this phrase with a typical incredibly stomach churning feeling. The words “was this not what you wanted?” more often than not creates an angst driven internal churning. Needless to say … not many good feelings get tied to this phrase.

That said. My thoughts crisscrossed between business and Life.

This is the business version of “was this not what you wanted?”

Ok. I don’t care if you are just starting out in business and are sitting in your manager’s office handing them something or you are the most senior of senior managers, if you are faced with a situation where you find the words “was this not what you wanted?” coming out of your mouth it is, well, not good. It generates a sinking feeling which is a combination of real tangible <I wasted my time and will now have to work on this more> and real intangible <I didn’t meet expectations>.

This all may sound oddly surprisingly – the fact that doing what someone wants is a perilous path in business. You would think that following orders could never be perilous. But, yet, it indeed often is.

First. The main peril resides in the fact many people do not really know what they want <hence the stunningly tortuous “I will know it when I see it”>.

Secondly. Sometimes, well, the initial ‘here is what I want’ is very wrong, in fact, sometimes even frightfully wrong. And I say that on even the most basic tasks you are tasked with. Managers are humans too <although they sometimes act like aliens> and many times they unthinkingly <or less than thinkingly> want some specific task checked off a to do list and set you off on your merry way to ‘do what I want you to do.”

Now. All that said. It would be incredibly easy for me to suggest that giving people what they want is a business career destined for failure. I will not. And I cannot.

Consistent delivery at work is most likely the most valued attribute an employee can offer. Without it you provide less tangible value as well as maybe the most important failure – your manager has less trust and therefore knows they have to invest more energy & focus on you. That is the kiss of death for an employee.

While doing what is wanted taskwise can be a surprisingly movable target, if you can master it, you become an extremely valuable employee or business partner. Yeah. Valuable <do not ever completely commoditize or devalue the importance of consistency>. However. Consistent delivery can also be a negative to an employee <insert a mental “yikes” here>. That is because it does have a nasty habit of nearing ‘commodity-like’ behavior. The implication being “anyone can do that.” And while that is more often than not a wrong perception, it is a perception nonetheless. What all this means in what I just shared is this is a very very fine line you walk – doing what is wanted consistently and, yet, avoiding the horrible ‘was this not what you wanted’ scenario.

There is a bunch of advice, some good and some bad, with regard to how to avoid the ‘was this not what you wanted’ scenario, but that’s not really the point. The point is, no matter how good the advice, you are stuck in the wretched hollow in between need and want. And in that wretched hollow you are guessing. You have received specific direction on what is wanted tangibly <uh oh … is that just the ‘basic delivery’ – and I want more – or is this the ‘desired actual delivery’?> in addition you have most likely also received some open ended “don’t just do … I want you to think about what you are doing” thereby creating some nebulous ‘want’ objective.

To be clear on the latter. Some managers cop out on that by saying “I didn’t need you to think on this one I just needed you to do what I told you to do on this.” It is a cop out. And if they are honest with themselves, it is a lie. If you have said once, at any time and any place and within any project scenario, “I want you to think an offer some additional thinking” that creates an unsaid halo over everything else that comes after. And, frankly, managers grab this halo and shove it in your face whenever they choose.

Anyway. Unlike in Life <where this can be fairly resolvable because it is internally driven discussion> in business this is not resolvable despite what experts may suggest. There will always be a wretched hollow in between need & want. In business terms that is most likely called “added value.” In business you are constantly navigating value provided. And that value is always partially need and partially want driven.

What I can tell you unequivocally if all you do is give someone what they ‘want’, more often than not you will end up far too frequently delivering stupid shit that doesn’t help the situation. It would be simplistic to suggest that success in business resides solely in giving others the things they need, and not the things they want because, as noted earlier, business truth typically lies somewhere in between.

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“Don’t give them what you think they want.

Give them what they never thought was possible.”

Orson Welles

—

Not knowing exactly what you want is actually typical. Most of the time business people don’t know what they want. And while that may sound like they are stupid, it is not driven <most of the time> by stupidity. It is more often than not driven by an inherent belief that everything can be better. It is also driven by an inherent belief that ‘better’ is something they have either not thought of or have not had time t think of <hence the desire to have you think because somehow you have the time to think when they don’t>.

Not knowing exactly what you want is actually typical. This is because … well … there is a bigger picture and a smaller picture. Some business people have a grasp of the bigger vision but are sketchy on the details of how to attain the bigger picture. Some business people have a grasp of the littler vision but are sketchy on how to attain the more nebulous panoramic bigger picture.

Not knowing exactly what you want is actually typical. That is because most business people are not particularly good at navigating big and small at the same time. and by “most” I mean junior, middle and senior business people.

This is not to suggest you should simply accept “was this not what you wanted?” as standard operating procedure. This is also not to suggest that you shouldn’t feel the sinking feeling every time you say it in business <because that feeling NEVER goes away … and I kinda think it shouldn’t because it is a reflection of meeting expectations which is a good measure for a good business relationship as well as personal assessment>.

This is to suggest the phrase is a reflection of the constant line you walk between the head and the wallet in business. I will also suggest that walking the fine line between need and want, sometimes this is the line between strategy <future value> and execution <present value>, means you are constantly teetering between good performance and bad performance.

And that is, frankly, harrowing. It is harrowing not just personally, but in the larger picture. You cannot have a long term strategy without delivering on a short term strategy. And you cannot be successful long term if all you do is deliver day in and day out focused on a short term strategy. This is true of a larger business as well as personal career.

I do not have any simple trite expert advice to offer today <unlike some of the tripe you will find online from so called experts>. Personally I have always focused on “what they need” without sacrificing “what they want”. I feel I can do so because in my experience most business people rarely are 100% wrong in stating what they want because most times they know more than I do about what they are in the business of doing.

Even that said, I have sat in hundreds of offices and businesses and said “was this not what you wanted?” — painfully I may add. I may have figured out a way to say it differently but in the end it is all just the same.

And it sucks. But its gonna happen.

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“Debate is great for sharpening the mind, but I worry that really skilled debaters might internalize the idea that the point of discussion and debate is victory, rather than truth. In debate, if you encounter a compelling counterargument, you just try to find a way around it.

But you should argue for truth, not for victory.

Really good debaters run the risk of ignoring valid counterarguments.”

———

professor Robert George: constitutional-law professor

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falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus

<false in one, false in all>

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I am a self-proclaimed contrarian  and … well … contrarians end up debating … a lot. Let me be clear. If you suck at debating, you will be a sucky contrarian.

If you cannot debate, you simply are an opinionated person with a non-mainstream point of view sitting angry in some office or at some desk thinking everyone is just not smart enough, and as smart as you, because they just can’t see what you see.

That said. I have never had a desire to be angry nor staring at my own non-mainstream point of views piling up on my desk unused.

Next.

I am a self-proclaimed contrarian and … well … contrarians use truth … a lot.

Let me be clear. If you suck at telling the truth, clearly & concisely & unequivocally, you will be a sucky contrarian. Truth is at the core of being a successful contrarian. Contrarians, simply by offering a contrary thought, find themselves constantly on the defensive defending the thought. This happens even if you go on the offensive.  This happens because contrary ideas & thoughts feel a little less comfortable, less familiar and more risky therefore people will inherently want to pick it apart. There is where ‘false’ haunts a contrarian. One falsehood is not just one falsehood. One falsehood implies others are there only yet to be found.  If you cannot be an unequivocal truth teller you are simply a peddler of possibilities and, well, true contrarians thrive on making possibilities realities.

I have never had a desire to be angry nor staring at my own non-mainstream hopeful possibilities piling up on my desk unused.

All that said. When I saw the quote I opened with I had to sit back a little and think — think about how, as a contrarian, debate is used or not used.

Many contrarians focus on what I would call ‘the bookends’ — what their idea/thinking is and the ultimate outcomes — and judge themselves on that <and far too often dismiss counter thinking offered that changes the contrary thought>.

It is quite possible we contrarians <as well as many other people> should focus on ‘how they play the game’ or how they debate, because I frankly don’t give a shit what you preach nor whether you eventually benefit from what you preach as long as what you preach is grounded in integrity & fair play & truth, what you actually do and how you behave is grounded in integrity & fair play & truth and what you preach isn’t just preaching but rather a thought which inspires additional thinking <which means the original thought will most likely look pretty different at the outcome than it did at the onset>.

If you do it right, if you debate it right, then you, and the idea itself, will benefit in that if the idea & thinking gets adopted in some form or fashion you will have done so as an outcome of what you preached, what you debated and how you behaved during the debate.

That seems like a good thing.

But here is where the opening quote really made me think — contrarianism is like a drug. When you have a contrarian idea and it is actually a good idea <note: not all contrarians can tell if their idea is actually a good idea when being contrary> you can get caught up in the debate. You can start getting what I sometimes call “horizon blindness.” Horizon blindness is when you are so focused on the end destination and getting to the end destination you treat almost anything said, and any objection, as simply an obstacle to getting to the horizon … possibly ignoring any of the value being offered within the debate.

Even the best contrarians can get horizon blindness. Suffice it to say the best contrarians can be aware of what is at exactly the same time as where they want to be. iI permits some ‘cooperative arguments’ which <a> help build a better idea at the conclusion and <b> some ownership within all involved at the conclusion.

Anyway.

Here is what I think about being a great contrarian <maybe this is my wish list of what I could be>.

• Scrupulously fair.

Contrarians have to walk a fine line. They rarely are flippant with a contrarian idea therefore can be dogged in its defense. Yet, they must be fair to the idea, the beauty of thinking itself and what others think & say.

In fact, you have to almost relentlessly be fair to everything else around you … scrupulously fair as a matter of fact.

• Not domineering with beliefs.

This is a fine line to a contrarian. Frankly, any contrarian idea cannot step lightly into the fray. If it does, it gets suffocated by the familiar, the status quo & the easier path. But the key word in what I suggested is “beliefs.” Any contrarian idea is constructed with a number of beliefs.  The truth is that all beliefs reserve the right to not only be challenged but also changed. Therefore, dominating with a belief, in the contrarian world, is just asking for trouble, in addition, it is the wrong thing to do if you truly want the best idea at the end.

• Cooperative argumentative dialogue.

The Socratic method <Socratic debate is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions>. Every truly good contrarian I have ever met has been a master at the ongoing cooperative argument. They have been adaptive in debate, flexible in the flow and adept at finding seemingly irrelevant factoids and making them relevant at the appropriate moment.

• Thinking tutor.

I want to be careful here because this is not to suggest contrarians are better thinkers or smarter thinkers and that they, and only they, can be the professors of thinking. What I am suggesting is that contrarians, in general, do think differently and they see things slightly differently. This means when you do it right, when you debate well & fairly & cooperatively, other people seem to walk away thinking about things in a slightly different way.

• Relentless truth teller

One lie, one half truth, one ‘truthful hyperbole, and the whole house of cards tumbles down. Great contrarians are great pivoters away from what they do not know. what I mean is that instead of offering a ‘lie’ <falsehood> when faced with not knowing something they typically place an “I don’t know” on the table and pivot to a “but here is what I do know” and place a truth on the table where the “I don’t know” used to be. Key to what I just shared is a slavish attachment to truth … even at the expense of an “I don’t know.” contrarians realize the game being played is chess and you will sacrifice a piece rather than imperil the entire board.

That’s it. When I saw the quote I opened with I loved the nuance in the description of debate and made me think that maybe we, in business, misuse the concept. We may really debate in business … and maybe we shouldn’t be debating. Maybe we should be arguing for truth, not for victory.

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“But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else.”

—–

Divergent

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

Well. I encountered a neat thing called the “20 Things” which is a little assignment this small consulting company sometimes uses with people they are considering adding to staff:  “What are the 20 things that have defined you – experiences, books, movies, people, travel, challenges, etc.”  When a friend told me about it I immediately began scribbling down ‘things.’ It was surprising how fast the important ones are noted and how easy it is to “fill in” to get to 20.

That said … and me being quite comfortable not following rules … I ended up with 15. They show up in no real order except number 1 and number 15.

I purposefully bookended the list with the two most impactful in terms of immediate and ongoing impact. 2 thru 14 can be juggled any way you want.

–          my grandfather

The greatest man I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. A simple kind man who honored integrity, kindness and truth above all. He taught me more about me, life and how to live Life <without overtly teaching> than anyone I have ever known. He remains my North Star for my life. I can only hope to be half the man he ever was … but at least he gave me something to aim for.

–          the pulled foul ball

Sports always came quite easily to me. And then I pulled a foul ball off a Tom Seaver fastball <before I struck out swinging on a slider which disappeared just before I was sure I had the fat part of my bat on it … hey, c’mon, the guy did win 3 Cy Youngs>. Regardless. I realized this was as good as it was going to get with me & sports. It didn’t mean I stopped sports, it just meant that I realized I needed to get going on the rest of my life.

–          The Hobbit

The first “real” book I remember. I devoured Hardy Boys & Nancy Drew until there were no more, but when I heard The Hobbit read to me during reading period in elementary school I entered a world of words & imagery & imagination — and thinking of ‘what if.’  It hooked me on books and reading and thinking. The first time I read The Hobbit myself I was still too young to see anything but goblins & elves. I have read it maybe 10 times <probably more> and I still see new things every time I read it.

–          Diplomacy <by Henry Kissinger>

I wish I had found this book earlier in my life. On the other hand, I may not have understood it earlier. Kissinger writes about diplomacy, but he is really discussing problem solving. He gave me one thing: “studying history is not analogous but contextual.” More people should heed this lesson. I certainly have learned this lesson.

–          Supertramp <my first concert, and more specifically, their encore song “crime of the century”>

I grew up in a house with music, but it all changed at my first concert and especially the encore. The encore was maybe 10 plus minutes of music and film with a growing image of hands on prison bars in space and I walked out of there in a thoughtful excited daze. I had words & notes & imagery imprinted in my brain from that point on as a powerful tool to inspire me to think in different & creative ways. Music has never left my life <and I have forgiven Supertramp for doing Breakfast in America>. Music and imagery is at the core of how I think and like to express myself <when it is possible and relevant to do so>.

–          Spike Lee

I was in my early 30’s in the audience when I heard Spike Lee say these words about his films: “I recognize everything I do impacts how people think … and even what they do … I have a responsibility every time I create anything.” It changed how I viewed what I did and actually how I did it moving forward. Basically I began assuming responsibility for everything I created. I have never stopped assuming that responsibility.

–          unstuck

I was a young manager with far to much responsibility doing the best I could and after one meeting my boss looked at me and said “nice job, they’ve been stuck on that for years, but you got them past it.” It was when I realized it appeared like my skill, or ability, was to “unstuck” people, businesses & situations. The truth is from that point on I actively began seeking things to ‘unstuck’. Maybe an odd version of ‘finding my passion’ or ‘doing what I love to do’, but I preferred thinking of it as making things unstuck.

–          St. Chappelle

I grew up in a home where we were expected to understand religious choices, but was, in general, ambivalent to religion. I was always indifferently interested in religion. I imagine I just took a pragmatic view on life in which God didn’t really enter into the equation. And then I visited St. Chappelle in Paris <across the street from Notre Dame>. As I entered the petit chapel and the sunlight filtered through the floor to ceiling stained glass it is the closest I have ever felt to not only believing in God, but actually believing I was in the presence of God. I am still not religious, but I respect religion and I imagine, in some small way, I better understand how God can positively affect someone’s life.

–          Madman Across the Water

The first time I heard Elton John’s Madman Across the Water album I think I immediately stole the lyrics from the album sleeve. The words made me think. The words made me create images in my head. The words inspired me to try and create words of my own that made others think & create images. That album made me a “words guy.” Plus. Every song on that album was just darn good.

–          suicide

I believe anyone who has been impacted by someone close to them committing suicide is never the same again. She was beautiful, kind and a friend. And she left with an entire life ahead of her. I imagine I felt like I did not do my part to show her what great things lay ahead of her. I vowed to never make that mistake again.

–          “I do not really care”

Graduate school. Case study discussion

“Mr. McTague … what would you do?” Me? “Well … I do not really care.”

Flippant careless response. It ended up on the front board for the remainder of the semester. And I should have been hung out to dry. I was technically correct that the point <of which I seemed to have grasped fairly early in business life> is that there are several ‘right’ or even ‘best’ solutions to a challenge, but I should have realized that words and how you articulate an idea & thought are almost as important as the idea itself. I vowed to never make that mistake ever again. A good thought can die if it is not articulated well.

–          “do not go gentle into that good night”

I have a love/hate relationship with poetry. I am fascinated with how words can be put together in ways that make you feel something inside, but all the rules of ‘effective and proper’ poetry drove me nuts. It was so constricting for something that should be so free. And then I came across Dylan Thomas’ “do not go gentle.” Whew. I found my anthem. Some call it ‘bull in a china shop living’ I simply point to ‘do not go gentle into the good night.’ It isn’t about dying it is about living. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. It was a great lesson.

–          Polly

My first boss. A woman in a man’s industry <advertising> who was in a senior position and did it her way, but with the flexibility to permit the next generation to flourish. She didn’t know shit about these new fangled computers that all the young people were talking about <this was in the 80’s>, but she put one on every one of our desks. She could do the same thing by hand faster than we could do it on the computer, but she kept sending us back to our computers. She mentored the youngest, guided the more experienced and managed everyone. She permitted individuality and built a team. Oh. And she set me up with her daughter. Anyway. She taught me how to be a boss and I was straight out of school. Most importantly, she taught me women were essential to progress & productivity in business. Simplistically, I owe everything in my career to a woman.

–          Kiev war museum <although I could have put the Holocaust Museum here>

Perspective. Nothing provides perspective in life than viewing the kind of death inflicted by one human on another human. And not just ordinary death but death in the extreme. I cried in both of these places. I could pound out some horrible numbers on my keyboard that would make your head hurt to express this learning tangibly … but why?

Simply. I cried. Humans can be very cruel if they are not careful.

–          To Kill a Mockingbird

My bookshelves are strewn with books I value and love. It is tempting to list the best of the best because they all made a positive impact and have been reread time and time again. But when one book is simply ‘the one’ why invest energy overthinking. To Kill a Mockingbird is my ‘one.’ I fell in love with Scout – her words and thoughts and questions. I still ask the same questions looking at today’s world and think of Scout’s thoughts daily. Harper Lee showed us that sometimes a child can see clearer than the most brilliant adults in the world. Listening to the young reminds us of things we have forgotten and they can actually teach us many things through the simplicity of youth. Regardless. Everyone should read this book.

That’s it. I had a bunch of other ‘things’ fighting for the 16 thru 20 slots but, frankly, they were just at a different level than 1 thru 15. I believe lists like this should be about quality and not quantity.

This is a worthwhile exercise for everyone. Everyone’s list will look different and some people may actually have 20 worthwhile events/learning moments instead of just 15, but who cares. It isn’t a competition. It is simply reflecting upon who you are as a person. This exercise reminded me we are all architects of our own Life. While many things are out of our control, many things are ours to do … or not do.

Is my list done? Gosh. I hope not. “This I am today … that I will be tomorrow.“

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“In the long term we are all dead.”

———-

John Maynard Keynes

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“Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”

―

Kenneth E. Boulding 

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Well.

This is about business and how there is a constant short term measurement hammer pounding on you, yet, if you want to be successful long term you have to, well, master the long term view at the same time.  That said. Let me begin with economics and the fact as an undergraduate economics major I was bludgeoned with economic theory.

Invisible hands slapped me around with stimulus, growth, recessions and an odd mix of causal theory <which was, frankly, anything but cause & effect>. What they never told me was that once I got into the business world I would be simultaneously bludgeoned with a short term hammer and a long term hammer.

Yes. I mean bludgeoned.

Fairly early in one’s career you get hammered over and over and over again with regard to attention to details and meeting project objectives and making sure deadlines are met <short term hammer> only to find you get hammered with “you shouldn’t just do what is told we want you to think about the overall objective” <long term hammer>. This is your first taste of the short term/long term bludgeoning.

It only gets worse once you have to start reporting results and effectiveness. Suffice it to say business has an unhealthy relationship with, well, “term.” I don’t care if it is short term or long term, “term” is often the looming scythe in the daily, monthly & annual business pit & pendulum.

Despite all the silly “long term planning & plans” rhetoric, reality shows that we constantly think only about the short term … well … until the next term. This chafes with my economist learning as I was always taught economic theory always has to consider the long term.  This conflict is not new or one of the things that has recently surfaced in the business world. It has been there <although it may be exacerbated by current financial reporting milestone methodology> since the dawn of business.

Worse? The conflict even slides into silly trite rhetoric. There is a constant bludgeoning of “if we do what is right today everything will be fine tomorrow” <focus on NOW>.

Well.That tripe ignores that “tomorrow” isn’t 24 hours away <which would prove this thoughtless thoughtful thought correct>  but rather tomorrow in a business sense is 24 months away.

Looking thru that lens short term affect is more often than not, well, not the same as the desired long term affect. It may kind of look like it but over time the little differences become big differences.

Anyway.

This isn’t about economic theory this is more about business and managing short term versus long term. To begin that discussion let’s start with the premise that you kind of have your shit together and know what you want long term <vision stuff: where you want the business to be and what you want the business to stand for>. Because if you are in that position than I would suggest that becomes what I would call “our struggle to relax.”

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“Relax.

You will become an adult. You will figure out your career. You have a whole lifetime; time takes time.”

Johanna de Silentio

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The whole concept of being able to relax in business is grounded in a belief that there is  time. A lifetime in fact. But. In a competitive business world it is difficult to believe, let alone accept, you actually have a whole lifetime. In fact. The numbers suggest you do not. More businesses fail than succeed.

However. I would ask all business people: is this a failure of imagination & belief or is this a failure to shed short term pressures? That just may be the eternal unanswerable business question. And while you sit there trying to answer that question <with the good intentions to actually do the right thing> the business world will be bludgeoning you with “short term, short term, short term” like Chinese water torture until you succumb to the short term.

It is hard to relax through all of this.

The business world does everything in its power to make you do anything but relax. Day in and day out it demand you do, do, do & go, go, go. And that in itself makes it damn easy to not think long term.

In fact.

If you fell into this trap you could quite easily believe you are doing all the right things, i.e.,  meeting the demands of the day & the week, all the while assuming that long term this insures success.

Trust me. This is incredibly easy to do.

Here is a business truth.

While short term seems like a necessary survival tool … time takes time. What I mean is that “relax” doesn’t mean completely stopping what you are doing nor does it mean ignoring the truly urgent … what it does mean is not making everything urgent and not stopping completely for every perceived ‘crisis’ that occurs. What it does mean is actually incorporating some thinking into all doing. I would also note that nor does relax mean investing lots of time to making plans. While plans are quite helpful in providing construct relax is actually about consciously addressing decisions without unnecessary haste.

Anyway. I think business has this incredibly uncomfortable relationship with “term” because it is uncomfortable with the “un-permanence” of everything good that pervades the business world.

Here is what I mean.

While we tend to embrace the need to be flexible and adaptive <but … in truth … may not actually do so in practice> we also tend to ignore that the need to be flexible is actually driven by the state of things – this is a state of un-permanence. Sounds uncomfortable, doesn’t it?

A business truth and a foundational business principle, which most of us purposefully ignore, is most things truly good in business, and many of the things that actually make a business successful, have an extremely high degree of ‘temporary.’ Wow. That sure does explain why no one can frickin’ relax, huh?

We seek perfection in all tasks as well as some permanence to that perfection and yet … perfection, at best, is temporary.

We seek to make effective plans to follow and yet … plans, at best, are temporary.

We seek to reach long term objectives thru short term steps and yet … the future is dependent upon decisions and not a plan <which is most likely temporary in true effectiveness anyway>.

Yeah. I struggle to find “relax” anywhere in what I just typed.

———————-

“The world moves into the future as a result of decisions, not as a result of plans. Plans are significant only insofar as they affect decisions.”

Kenneth E. Boulding

—————–

In the end I would suggest that business will always struggle with the “tension of the terms.” And most likely we will sit in offices bitching & moaning about which ‘term’ <short or long> is more important or how to balance the two or how to develop some silver-lined plan to manage the ‘terms balance.’ But most importantly … we will continue to ignore the real issue … the ‘un-permanence’ of all things that are business.

Why does this matter?

Well. If you actually believe that navigating the short term & long term aspects guarantees permanent growth,well, don’t forget all things business are un-permanent.

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“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”

―

Peter Drucker

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

Disruption. New!. Radical innovation. Hardly a day goes by where someone isn’t claiming the newest, best, different-est, whizbang idea the word had ever seen. Everyone believes they have something to sell you, or the world, which will “disrupt” the way everything is currently done.

Typically, maybe 80+% of the rhetoric is misguided <but often well intended>.

Truth: Success, more often than not, is not creating something new forcing people to do something different, but rather fitting in <in a new way> what they are currently doing. New is not good in and of itself. As I have noted before everyone should always seek “optimal newness.”

Regardless.

Fitting in leads to a discussion on persuasion versus accepting. Persuading someone that they should do, or try, something versus having someone accept something as part of the natural flow of Life & what they do.

This leads to a discussion on Clotaire Rapaille versus Ernest Richter.

Clotaire Rapaille was all about ‘fitting in’ by encouraging marketers & businesses to seek codes & cultural cues so people could see themselves in not only what you say, but in the products/services being offered.

Ernest Dichter was known as the father of focus groups. If you are cynical you could suggest he was the master of persuasion techniques <to manipulate emotional & rational triggers>.

Simplistically I believe this is about leading people to things they want, as opposed to persuading people they want something. This may appear to be semantics but trying to get people to try things often pivots on semantics & nuance. If you want success Innovations, and selling things, is about watching behavior and creating products that people aspire to have <even if they don’t know they truly aspire to it or not>. In fact. I think it was Ford who said that if he asked consumers what they wanted, they’d say a faster horse and carriage. People only have the capacity to tell you what they know.

This leads me to what I call “the unlearning process”. Fitting in, in part, is asking some people to let go of conventional wisdom and, yet, not actually asking anyone to think unconventionally with regard to what they like & want.

When you approach change <or asking someone to do something> this way you begin to find things you often think are really important just aren’t that important. When you start seeing consumers as people <instead of persuasion cues>, you realize you’re not a very big part of their world in the scheme of things and , yet, you CAN become an essential part of the weave of their Life. Looking at it that way suggests you begin by saying “ok, how can I fit?”

This is why I have always hesitated to embrace Richter-like research & persuasion because I believe it’s more important to learn about what people feel than what they think. There’s been enough psychological and biological research done to demonstrate how decision-making really happens. It largely happens in a part of the brain that doesn’t have a capacity for language <people struggle to find words to describe what they feel>, yet, the vast majority of market research requires consumers to use language to describe what are really emotional responses. I call it malpractice, because you’re going to get an answer, and you’re going to get data, and you’re going to feel like you’ve heard from consumers, but you’re asking them questions that they almost can’t give a right response to. They’ll rummage around for rational reasons while the truth is your searching for some gut reasons.

That is where codes, cues and Clotaire become important.

Brands really only exist because of emotion. If products were all commodities, it would just be a rational computation. If salt was really just salt you’d just buy the cheapest. I can’t really tell you why Morton’s is better but I just know it is.

And when you rummage around for reasons, no matter how good a researcher you are, I would suggest reason vary by situation & context <ponder: do you decide where to go for lunch exactly the same way every day?>.

This is where I get a little sideways with most research. Most times we want to talk about us, our product or service or even <sadly> our brand. Yeah. we go thru the motions of talking & asking about them but do so with what we want in mind … not who they are, what they do and what hey want ><regardless of my product or service>. We don’t seek to ‘fit in’ but rather persuade or sell.

You need to sit down with people in the target audience and understand their “codes” – their mental imprints. If you do you begin thinking about how to share your offering to fit into their lives. The better I understand your general codes, the easier it is for me to fit my product into your life. People can’t always give you a reason for why they do what they do, but you’ll see body language, a shrug or the roll of an eye. There’s something in their behavior that begins to tell you what the feeling is.

This all gets me to stories. In general I think we get a lot of shit wrong with regard to storytelling.

Yes. People are attracted to stories. Using tension, using conflict <hero, maybe even a villain, conflict, resolution> is almost necessary to create a story worth paying attention to.

No.

Stories about your product, or even your customer, in and of themselves run the risk of maybe being relevant but miss the bullseye of “fitting in.”

Yes.

There is a difference between relevance & fitting in.

A story can be relevant but without the right codes/cues someone may think “doesn’t fit in with my view of life.” I also believe if you focus on fitting in instead of some uncomfortable persuading your story will naturally access components of life to make it more relatable.

In the end.

I believe we don’t have this discussion – fitting in versus persuading – often enough. I think there would be a lot less misguided, off the mark (and bad) content & less useless (or failed) innovations.

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All are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time;

Some with massive deeds and great,

Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low

——-

Architects of Fate

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

I don’t really believe in fate. And it appears good ole HW Longfellow didn’t believe in it either. He wrote a beautiful poem called The Builders (see below) suggesting that we, the people, are architects of fate.

In fact.

The beauty of what he writes (and this is a truly awesome thought) is that everyone does something, no matter how small or how large, that builds the structure of life. Yes. Every one of us, each and every one, plays some role in constructing the great construct of Life we all live in. That is a really nice thought. And a nice reminder that no matter how inconsequential we may feel or the things we do we play a part in the tapestry of life.

Now.

This is also true in business. I say that as a business guy with a long history in the service side of the business world.

The side of the world that you often feel helpless, often having to react, and often being forced to move about at the whim of someone else, and often feeling like you are not really doing anything important (because it is hard to see how what you are doing really matters).

Having said that and knowing that a lot of people really do feel this way I pull Architects of Fate out of my backpack.  I use this poem several times with companies to remind us, employees, that all our actions have consequences. Yes. Even the smallest actions.

Longfellow’s  words should encourage everyone to believe each action contributes to the structure of who we are as a company and what we do. Now THAT is a valuable thought in every organizational behavior or culture sense. It is an even more important valuable thought a leader should have (because if they do they will inevitably encourage all employee to feel that way).

And when everything is aligned. When everyone believes they can be an architect. It becomes a valuable thought in encouraging each employee to understand that their actions contribute to the architecture of the fate of the organization (no matter how inconsequential they may actually feel buried down in the mailroom or the bottomless pit of account receivables department or the office manager ordering heavy stock paper for the copier because someone is bitching).

I would also point out the practical side – productivity & output. It was my good friend Luke Sullivan who pointed this out in his book “hey whipple squeeze this” – thinking & creating matters but if there is no output there is no satisfaction. Real work. Actual things we do for customers or actions we take in front of customers. Each of these actions is a part of the overall tapestry of the architecture of the company. He also points out that each action often begets another action (in that once you have done something once it begins to feel more ‘okay’ to do it again … I would call that a slippery slope discussion).

Anyway.

As we hustle our way through each day trying to make sure we cross off everything on our to do lists and make our bosses happy and answer customer’s questions and requests it is good to remind ourselves we are truly architects of fate. It is good to remind people tht everything they do contributes to the grater architecture of what is and, maybe most importantly, what will be.

This pertains to your job, personal lie and the greater Life in general.

My advice? Be an architect. Go build.

The Builders

All are architects of Fate,

Working in these walls of Time;

Some with massive deeds and great,

Some with ornaments of rhyme.

Nothing useless is, or low;

Each thing in its place is best;

And what seems but idle show

Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,

Time is with materials filled;

Our to-days and yesterdays

Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;

Leave no yawning gaps between;

Think not, because no man sees,

Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care

Each minute and unseen part;

For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do out work as well,

Both the unseen and the seen;

Make the house, where Gods may dwell,

Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,

Standing in these walls of Time,

Broken stairways, where the feet

Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,

With a firm and ample base;

And ascending and secure

Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain

To those turrets, where the eye

Sees the world as one vast plain,

And one boundless reach of sky.

–          Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Alvin Toffler wrote in 1990:

——

“Anyone who believes that we’re just going to leap into some sort of glorious new age is very unrealistic … far-reaching turmoil can be expected, as individuals and institutions either adapt to, or resist, change.”

=========

So.

Leadership is a tricky thing. It is walking a fine line of truth (grounded in what is real as well as ‘not lying’) and aspirational (giving people a glimpse of what they can be).

And, as with anything, this is about some functional practical things and emotional soul searching things.

Oh.

And connecting them.  It is the connection aspect that great leaders do well. But, ultimately, those leaders who figure it out end up leading high energy, high performance organizations. I tend to believe when you see an organization that ‘thinks small’ (or acts small) it is because their leaders do.

Regardless.

Just as I wrote recently about the fact we are in the ‘selling hope’ business I tend to believe great organizational cultures are also grounded on hope. Hope for being better.  Being a better person.  Being better at what you may do daily (even the smallest task). Being part of something that betters the world. Great organizations, at their core, feed their people’s hope. And great leaders figure out a way of showing them that hope.

In practical terms and aspirational terms.

All that said … leads to me to some words that made me think about this.

Sam Meek. Sam was the CEO of of the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson in the 50’s/60’s. And the words below were delivered in a 1965 speech. Within the following words there are little scraps of hope littered throughout for people to pick and choose from.

Scraps of the practical.

Scraps of aspirational.

Scraps of lessons that can be implemented daily in actions.

All littered on a ground of a solid attitude focused on the horizon.

These are words that make you feel good about being part of the organization and yet words to challenge every one to be better and work harder (“we are a permanently dissatisfied company”). I am not above stealing great words and reapplying them.  I use these words all the time and, frankly, I seek to work within organizations that like these words:

===

When I talk of this company, I am not thinking just of a legal or business entity. I am using the word in the older sense, as in a company of scholars, as a company of adventurers, or a company of voyagers. I think our companionship partakes of all these things.

There had to be something special about this enterprise to attract the talented and venturesome people who have come together to exercise their considerable talents and to derive from it the things that make for full and satisfying life.

Our relationships are subtle and highly sensitive relationships …. 

Our job must be to share authority without losing it …

The whole staff must have a proprietary feeling about the company’s work.

We are a permanently dissatisfied company and so far as I can see, we shall not run out of things to be dissatisfied about. I think our work, in most instances, is the best of its kind in the world – and yet not good enough. Not as good as it is going to be. There has not been and there should never be a year when it is not better than the year before.

Our audience is getting more demanding all the time – it is not a question of talking down to them. The problem, the opportunity, is to talk far enough up to them.

===

 Lastly.

I use one line from what Meeks said over and over again. I am not sure I have ever seen nor heard words from a leader that captured the essence of both functional practical and aspirational better than these:

“We must be dynamic for purposes bigger than ourselves.“

I admit. I absolutely hate when an organization “thinks small.” That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t think practical but they should think about impact.  What kind of impact, or imprint, do they truly want to make.  And I don’t necessarily mean making people’s lives better.  I mean ‘doing good or great shit.’ Making an impact through what they do and who they are as an organization.  Impacting whatever world they affect. It doesn’t have to be global (like a JWT) but it can be local or even within their own circle of friends & business relationships.

Creating a great organization, a company of adventures, needs leaders who say, who mean, who live, these types of words.

And all words that are said within a truth that it isn’t rhetoric but rather it is the soul of the organization.

Be dynamic.

Whew.

That alone is a great thought. A great thought for an individual, a leader and even an organization. I admit I often struggle with the current focus on “purpose driven” organizations but I never struggle with “dynamic.”

So … go be dynamic.