199 Great Quotes

and <img src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2008%2f12%2fMillionaire's+Secret%2cbookthumbnail.jpg" alt="" width="70" height="110" />are both fine reads.&nbsp;
Make it Plain and The Millionaire's Secret are&nbsp;great reminders of what mighty things come from humble beginnings.

2 Brief Book Reviews: "Make it Plain" and "The Millionaire's Secret"

Strolling thru Barnes &amp; Noble the other day with my wife and daughter, I stumbled across a biography by Blake Bailey entitled Cheever: A Life.&nbsp; Reading the jacket, I bought the 770-pages brick and am consumed by it in the margins of night time and pre-flight checks.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cheever">John Cheever</a>, the highly acclaimed and prolific author of Falconer, The Wapshot Chronicle, and dozens of The New Yorker short stories was one miserable soul.&nbsp; He said it himself, and I agree.
<div><img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://johngushue.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451f25369e201156f5945ac970c-800wi" alt="" width="500" height="428" /></div>
I&rsquo;m in 'Chapter 1960' (he lived from 1912 to 1982), and his life remains a dark, overcast sky of alcoholism, loneliness, identity confusion, and depression.
It is heart wrenching&nbsp;yet&nbsp;engrossing to read as he fights, fails, and rises again, only to be consumed by disparaging thoughts, self-doubt, worry, feelings of inadequacy, and so much more.&nbsp; His life is&nbsp;a proverbial yo-yo caught in the downward position.
I remain hopeful that &ndash; as his alcoholism lifts &ndash; the clouds&nbsp;may part.&nbsp;
But I am doubtful; the omens indicate otherwise and I suspect that my hopefulness for him will be dashed by reality.
But I will learn nonetheless and, perhaps, come to appreciate all the more what so many of us take for granted.&nbsp; Namely, a belief that many if not all things work for good, that tomorrow might be better than yesterday and that, as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl">Viktor Frankl</a> wrote, there is meaningfulness in hope itself.

A Candle in a Mineshaft

A&nbsp;business associate forwarded this to me, and I found it worth sharing.


I remain amazed at the treasure trove that is the world wide web.


If you are an entrepreneur, you should check this site regularly.&nbsp; You never know what great ideas may stimulate your brain:


<a href="http://springwise.com/">http://springwise.com/</a>

A Daily Source for Entrepreneurial Ideas

What a difference seven months make.
In October, as the unwinding of our world's economy became crystal clear, so many perceived it as 'temporary.' "The prey must make its way through the python, then all will be well in the end," they seemed to say.
And perhaps that is entirely true. 2010, 2011, 2012... I suppose things could return to 'normal' by then.
But I think not.
I think what's done is done, what was was, and we've entered a New World Order. I believe the 'unwinding' was, in fact, a re-calibrating.&nbsp;
I believe the waterline of the former market was, for all intents and purposes... former.&nbsp;And we may not see Dow Jones at 14,000+ for another generation. Call me a heretic, an idiot, or a doomsday-sourpuss-naysayer; I've been called worse. But I believe the snake oil salesmen who are selling fiction disguised as hope are unrealistically optimistic or altogether deceptive. (I see the difference as their 'knowledge' x their 'intent.')
I attended an economic conference several weeks ago, and ALL the economists were prophesying, "This will blow over in a few months. Q3 2009 will see a return to business as usual," guess-hypothesis-theory-lie. I'm sorry; I just don't buy it. While I fully understand FDR's lamentations about 'fear itself' and the need for positive psychology to lead the market, I believe it's time to come to terms with reality and adapt rather than hope for stable sand castles found primarily in Utopia.&nbsp;
I imagine the market as we knew it before --&nbsp;with easy loans,&nbsp;bottomless debt, and raging home sales --&nbsp;is a thing of the past.&nbsp;
Is the bottom near? Perhaps, though I agree with Warren Buffett's sentiment that we probably won't experience it until the Government stops reaching in and tweaking the knobs. At some point, probably where 'rescue' and 'reality' intersect, we will indeed experience a legitimate transition, but I don't think 'bottoming, leveling out, and climbing' are synomymous with 'back to business as usual.' (At least, not for everyone. One of the great ironies of this current economy is the disparity between the haves and have-nots. While many people and clients and states I interact with are STARVING, many others are THRIVING. On the one extreme I hear, "The sky is falling!" while on the other extreme I hear, "Crisis, what crisis? We have so much money we don't know where to spend it all!")
Some might argue that I am sounding a bit like Chicken Little, but I believe that history and conventional wisdom will reveal that I am among an unintentional chorus of Shepherd Boys who would rather be wrong. And by unintentional, I mean to say, "non-economic types" who wind up being in the majority and on the side of right, not because of knowledge, but because of intuition.&nbsp;
I believe we're entering an era of Business as Unusual or, said another way, The 'New' Economy is The Economy.
2,600 years ago, the Greek slave, Aesop, wrote well over 200 brief fables, and many of them specifically for children (though they apply to most everyone). Among them is The Shepherd Boy &amp; the Wolf, more commonly remembered as The Boy Who Cried Wolf.&nbsp;The theme of the story is best recalled in the final line of the fable: "Even when liars tell the truth, they are never believed. The liar will lie once, twice, and then perish when he tells the truth."
Only time will reveal whether the 'renowned and expert economists' are right (and Q3 2009 will reveal a miraculous, magical,&nbsp;and unheralded 'market bounce' that eventually leads us back to earlier Dow Jones health, employment, and worldwide productivity as before) or&nbsp;if those who said once and twice (without&nbsp;knowing why), "the world is changed for a generation" will be deemed right.
Again, I would&nbsp;prefer to be wrong.
At this point in life, most of us have endured one sort of surgery or another. I equate today's Shepherd Boys as those who scratch at our scar tissue. What was once sensitive and irritated (October 2008) is slowly becoming thick and numb (May 2009). The 'jump' in our step has faded a bit, we've ignored the alarms for too long, and many are awakening and coming to grips with a potentially new reality. A sense of, "Okay. Um. So, this REALLY isn't going away next month? It wasn't just a drill? All righty then, let's see... what shall I do now?"
History has an enviable way of efficiently and accurately sorting the misfits and malcontents from the rest. I know most of us would LOVE to see a return to a pre-9/11 or pre-2009 economic world order, but the hairs on the back of my neck just don't sense that coming anytime soon. Do yours?&nbsp;
Meanwhile, whether it's only a few years or an entire generation plus, I suppose we should return to our work, reprioritize, rebalance, and find ways to survive through and thrive within a minor economic winter. There is plenty of work to be done, there are many fields still lacking qualified applicants, and as Nature reminds us, life is binary. It's either 'find a way to Grow' time, or 'embrace the slumber that has no end' (e.g., die).&nbsp;
I elect to fight, as I'm sure you do, too. It's buckle-down time. Not for an illusory and fabled 'comeback' of lore, but in pursuit of creating a more sustainable future for our children, our customers, our constituents, and all those we hope will follow.
Onward. Perge. Semper fidelis. It's on. Let's roll. Bring it. Go time. All that jazz.

Aesop & Scar Tissue Times

Though I perceive it&rsquo;s somewhat unusual for siblings to see eye-to-eye on many issues, it has long been my understanding that Tracy and I agree on most hot-potatoes like religion, politics and pop-culture, our one brief kerfuffle regarding Tom Cruise notwithstanding because I subsequently joined her boycott.&nbsp; Chief among our important agreements, I shall add, is the view that when it comes to dads, we undeservedly won a lottery.
The fact that parental identity is both &ldquo;out of our hands&rdquo; yet &ldquo;immeasurably influential on our being&rdquo; is a top tier paradox, if you ask me.&nbsp; We choose neither our parents nor our genes and, whether it was good or bad, are mightily influenced by our upbringing.&nbsp; Matters of nature and nurture&mdash;biology and behavior&mdash;pre-date our volition, happen unto us, and cast bright lights or long shadows across the stages upon which we will perform our entire lives.&nbsp; For the goodness, we can take no credit.&nbsp; For the darkness, we must bear no blame.&nbsp; From whence we come and whether because of it or in spite of it, what is true now is that today&rsquo;s decisions are our decisions.&nbsp; An eternal architect precedes and succeeds our entire lineage, so regardless the temporary software, great or glitchy, our source code (&ldquo;under-ware,&rdquo; let&rsquo;s say) can guide us forward if we&rsquo;ll let it.
Volumes have and are and will forever be written about such existential and ontological matters, but for this particular Father&rsquo;s Day, I would simply like to pause and give thanks to my own precious pop because, in a bad and broken world where memories fade and life is short, it&rsquo;s both the least and the most I can do.
Olfactory being a primal sense, it should come as no surprise that the earliest memories I summon about Dad always involve the way he smelled.&nbsp; It would seem that he has worn the same cologne my entire life and, to this day, when he enters the room I am immediately transported four decades back in time.&nbsp; Shaving cream, sawdust, gasoline and gun smoke have similar effects.&nbsp; In equal measure, I remember watching him shave and being fascinated that his face didn&rsquo;t come clean-off with the razor, padding around beside him while he wielded his hammer and saw on countless projects, studying with great curiosity as he maneuvered that weed-eater and topped off our push-mower with a guzzling, gulping, burping tin can that accordioned in and out like a gasping lung, and standing in awe as he worked his 30-30 lever action rifle or various 12 and 20-gauge shotguns.
From our first lily pads in Dallas on Purdue and Harvard, we&rsquo;d make the rounds shoveling sand at his fixer-upper jobsites in the &rsquo;hood.&nbsp; As able, he would relieve my mom and lead Tracy and me first to the public pool and then onward to the pharmacy where we&rsquo;d plop down at the old-timey counter for chocolate malts and grilled cheese sandwiches.&nbsp; Back in our kitchen, we&rsquo;d set up obstacles for Evel Knievel&rsquo;s stunt cycle or rescue small fictitiously stranded objects from around the house with a joysticked and whizzy battery-powered helicopter that was tethered to a plastic aircraft carrier.&nbsp; Out in the street after heavy torrential rains, we&rsquo;d race red wigglers vs. grubs down curbs&rsquo; rushing currents in six-inch-long magnolia leaf skiffs or halved walnut shell boats replete with toothpick masts and postage stamp sails, the winner being the first worm into the nearest gutter.&nbsp; We&rsquo;d catch a peek of the Dallas Tornado practicing on campus or playing at Ownby, &ldquo;all American&rdquo; in their red, white and blue.&nbsp; Weeknights, we might find ourselves at The Rib and, Sundays after church, at Sing&rsquo;s for mandarin chicken with bean sprouts and steamed rice.&nbsp; He took us to see &ldquo;Jaws&rdquo; and we hunkered down weekly to learn what bullied and unsuspecting town &ldquo;Kung Fu&rsquo;s&rdquo; Kwai Chang Caine would liberate through his misty flashbacks, fortune cookie advice and slow-mo chop-socky moves.
We irretrievably flew a styrofoam airplane with a 3&rsquo; wingspan from the top of a parking structure clear into the heavens and palmed whirlygigs toward blue skies on long afternoons.&nbsp; Once, to my great amusement, he allowed me to stand on the hood of his car, tie the loose end of a spool of thread around the legs of an immeasurably annoying and obnoxious cicada that grunted and groaned and buzzed and heaved and rose and circled high into the air like a kite in a cyclone before an uninvited and opportunistic bird swooped down and devoured the buggy-eyed B-52, resulting in a slack thread that rapidly descended toward earth.&nbsp; To my father&rsquo;s chagrin, I idiotically dove from the car to catch the floating noose, landing on my forehead in the street.&nbsp; I treasure the prized scar that reminds me&mdash;every time I look in the mirror&mdash;of our mischievous mayhem that day.
Subsequently migrating north to the undeveloped wilds of late 1970s Flower Mound, Texas, Dad outfitted me with a yellow fiberglass Fred Bear bow for target practice and a Daisy pellet gun for plinking.&nbsp; On Tuesday nights, we&rsquo;d head ravenously to Mama&rsquo;s Pizza and, on Saturdays, eagerly to see era blasts that included &ldquo;Rocky,&rdquo; &ldquo;Star Wars,&rdquo; &ldquo;ET,&rdquo; every Chuck Norris movie, and &ldquo;The Deep.&rdquo;&nbsp; The fun continued at home with jumpy classics like &ldquo;The Legend of Boggy Creek&rdquo; and the inimitable &ldquo;Incredible Hulk&rdquo; in which Dr. David Banner picked-up where Caine left off, journeying from town to town and participating in convenient contrivances that now began with a mysterious stranger turning green, then back again, then slinging his jacket over his shoulder and heading up the road accompanied only by the spare &ldquo;Lonely Man&rdquo; piano tinklings.
Side by side, my father and I raked heavy leaves every autumn, forming piles bigger than cars and encircling them with tree-stump seating before roaring bonfires with friends, Young Lifers, Fellowships of Christian Athletes, and the First United Methodist and First Baptist Churches of Lewisville.&nbsp; We played games of HORSE on our basketball court, the same court upon which I later tried to smash one of my lost baby teeth with a hammer (interesting fact: teeth are strong; way stronger than concrete and hammers).&nbsp; We erected a volleyball/badminton net in the back yard.&nbsp; I cleaned and swam in the Penguin Pool he commissioned.&nbsp; We knobbed our behemoth gold Marantz receiver over to 96.3 KSCS, threaded a pair of 2&rsquo; tall speakers through a wide front window, jammed to Twitty, Gayle, Mandrell, Rabbit, Jones, Milsap and Rogers while we drank tea, ate warm egg salad sandwiches prepared by Mom, and constructed a wrap-around wood deck that began in the front and concluded 270&deg; clear on the third side that was weeks in the making and is surely visible from space.&nbsp; We piered deep into concrete a 25&rsquo; tall hollow steel pipe T-bar structure from which we suspended a whooshing disc-swing that became the most insanely exhilarating and popular ride on Timbercreek Trail.&nbsp; We gleefully dune-buggied at 40 mph with mechanically gifted neighbors adorned in wild motorcycle helmets and goofy ski goggles across adjoining fields and forded muddy creek beds together, the very creek beds we zip-lined over and would, every spring, unloaded box after box of shotgun shells upon, performing our small civic duty to eliminate the writhing and twisted masses of moccasin and copperhead snake-balls that emerged alongside the receding river banks after sustained rains and flooding.
In the midst of these myriad chores and shenanigans, our family could be found&mdash;religiously, if you will&mdash;serving, periodically revivaling, and attending church two to three times a week, Dad always in his real McCoy and me in my clip-on tie.
For Christmas, he manufactured a go-cart with a co-worker so I&rsquo;d have my first set of wheels and, when I became sufficiently responsible, built a large stall for a beautiful black quarter-horse named Sugar who was my beloved companion for several years, carrying me adventurously and full-throated across the eighty acres behind our few before the land gave way to three-hundred houses and Marcus High School.&nbsp; In subsequent years, my friends and I would see FloMo&rsquo;s Founding Fathers and key stakeholders (the Trietsch, Feagins, McGee, McMakin, Gerault, Morriss, Kirkpatrick, Huffines, Marcus, Nasher and Rheudasil families among them) do their darnedest like Tolkien&rsquo;s Ents to forestall and then navigate the slow but inevitable tractored cavalcade of modernity as it marched across utopia, all but consuming the entirety of our idyllic Hundred Acre Wood.&nbsp; Before that eventuality, however, and perhaps with a wince, Dad got me a mini-bike upon which I pretended to be Evel Knievel incarnate, performing stunts with Quinten Witherspoon, Lisa Durham, Tim and Grant Rocket, and Wally Berryman.&nbsp; I relished the sound, shape and smell of that clangy, sputtery, gassy forked ride that carried me along rural trails, crunchy gravel roads, and steaming and sizzling cracked asphalt to visit friends&rsquo; houses and their refreshingly chlorinated swimming holes for hourless games of Marco Polo, diving competitions and elaborate underwater fight scene choreographies.
As an adult, I left Flower Mound for twelve years to begin a new life with my wife and would, upon my return, discover that the many signposts and landmarks of my youth existed now mostly in memory, virtually every notable pasture, homestead, ranch, farm and prior hunting ground eclipsed by &lsquo;progress&rsquo; and replaced with gas stations, grocery stores, churches, banks, restaurants and fast food joints, schools, medical complexes, neighborhoods or apartments, and strip malls comprised disproportionately of nail salons and donut shops.&nbsp; As if in amber, the third street of my childhood&mdash;the one that so prominently figures in the sweep of my jubilant adolescence&mdash;has become a shadowy ribbon of archaeological pavement, still preserved, but what began with Morriss Road to the east, then houses and MHS to the north nears its lamentable conclusion with the now begun &ldquo;River Walk at Central Park&rdquo; to the south.&nbsp; It is true what they say, &ldquo;There is no going home.&rdquo;
But I shall not forget the time Dad took me pheasant hunting in Kansas with several of his friends or, in 1981, drove me to Deer Valley Resort the first week it opened.&nbsp; I remember the new carpet smell, gleaming interiors and brass handrails as if we experienced them yesterday.&nbsp;
Year after year, Dad taught me to play pool and ping-pong and golf, many times over again and then some more for extra measure and, while none of it stuck, the memories and mechanics themselves are super-glued to my gray matter.
We tubed the Schlitterbahn, swam at Padre and Mustang Island, and he canoed our sunscreen-slathered family of four down the clearest, coldest river in Hot Springs, Arkansas where I recall his uncanny ability to spot teensy sunning turtles and dangling vipers a half-mile away.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ve watched him waterski backwards, do twisty somersaulting acrobatics off diving boards, whistle louder than a braying donkey, and scare an unsuspecting trailer-full of Halloween kids astride hay bales when he leapt from the deep, dark woods in full-blown werewolf costume, armed with a just-fired and still smokin&rsquo; shotgun for good measure.&nbsp; He faithfully attended every football game, every track and taekwondo meet, and drove me to and from SMU for my SAT, calming my nerves along the way.&nbsp;
He now paints owls and more, but has always drawn crazy cartoons and clever caricatures for family, friends and neighbors for reasons no more complicated than the &ldquo;just thinking of you today&rdquo; variety.&nbsp; Like still waters running deep, his steadfastness and love have always abided, often through his hands and their work, but equally in the small or entirely unspoken gestures.&nbsp; As a boy, I inadvertently flooded our home on two occasions, once because I turned the shut-off valve at the street in the wrong direction before he performed repairs, and once because I clogged the toilet.&nbsp; On each occasion he said nothing&mdash;simply fixed it all (which took days and cost untold fortunes), overlooked the accident, and moved on.&nbsp; As is the case with many sons, I surmise, I lacked the frictionless ease with which one might articulate Sorry and Thank You and I Love You and Can We Just Move On, so Dad never needed me to, always sensing my innards and scooping me up and over to the other side by way of some handy distraction for which I am incalculably grateful.&nbsp;
I&rsquo;ve observed him carefully, peacefully, solitarily sharpen knife after knife to whittle seahorses, tortoises or ornate nativity scenes from raw blocks of wood, engrave figurines atop gnarly tree branches reborn as slick walking sticks, and carve four-inch-long bows &amp; arrows from ordinary shrubs that lined the sidewalk of his childhood home.&nbsp;
In conversations with friends and strangers from here to Timbuktu, I&rsquo;ve watched him channel, with equal measure and to great effect, the broad affectations of knowingly sly and aw-shucks orators like Samuel Clemens and Will Rogers, sharing fascinating facts, sweet jokes about frogs and the duck&rsquo;s bill, and meandering stories about this, that, the other thing, everything, important things, the most important thing, and nothing in particular.
Though his gait is somewhat wobblier than before, rarely a week has passed during any given year that he has not held a weed-eater, knife or golf club in his hands, which themselves remain virtually unchanged: tawny and tan, equally strong and gentle, as capable of lifting a heavy load as tying a knot in thread.&nbsp; At 77, he drove two days to organize my garage and install an overhead light he made for above our office conference table that is the wonder of all guests.&nbsp;
Perhaps most importantly, he shows me what it is to be a husband and father, always using &ldquo;Darling&rdquo; when speaking to my mom.
Nearly sixty years ago he left his home, studying architecture, psychology and religion at Kilgore College, the University of Houston, and Baylor.&nbsp; He has always enjoyed the outdoors and frequently shoots better than his age on the course, recording another 70 for the record books on the dewy morning of June 6, 2015.&nbsp; Twenty-three years ago, at age 55 and possessing a 2-handicap, he began golfing competitively, culminating in five club championships and qualifying for and playing twice in the Texas State Amateur as well as the U.S. Senior Amateur.&nbsp; In October of this year, he will golf in the North Carolina Senior Games (where he took Gold last year), preceded in September by ping-pong (in which he last took Silver).
Still vigorous and vibrant at 78 years of age, Dad lives with his bride of fifty years in the mountains of North Carolina, &ldquo;Near where they filmed &lsquo;The Last of the Mohicans,&rsquo;&rdquo; as the Leaths like to say, seemingly demarcating everything with a movie reference.&nbsp; The setting is wistfully apropos, because he is very nearly the last.&nbsp;
Their current home, a modest mountain cottage, is quaint and colorful with a warm and welcoming entry porch that proudly flies the American flag and is buttressed in the rear by two tidy wood decks, each of which is festooned with bright flowers, drippy hanging baskets, lots of seating, a menagerie of red and brown bird feeders, and a couple nifty wasp traps (the old fashioned kind: water-filled mason jars screwed below tiny wood coffins barely bigger than a Rubik&rsquo;s cube, designed as if by God&rsquo;s undertaker&mdash;with a narrow pitched entrance and no way out).&nbsp; Dad can frequently be found around back, Shenandoah, John Gary, or The Tenors&rsquo; &ldquo;Angels Calling&rdquo; blaring from a speaker.
He remains my finest example of manhood, fatherhood, marriage.&nbsp; He loves the Lord and knows His promises, treasures Mom, and treats his children tenderly, always preferring to be the sermon than to give one.&nbsp;
I accepted long ago that his example was far more than I could ever hope to replicate in my own life; his knowledge too vast, his skills too great, his bridge too far, his watermark too high.&nbsp; I agree very much with the notion that one&rsquo;s reach should exceed his grasp, so I strive valiantly for the knight of my childhood but mostly just count myself fortunate to have accompanied one portion of a life so extraordinary, to bear this scar on my forehead, and to possess hands that are similar to and had the great fortune of being held by his.
###
&nbsp;

A Father’s Day Tribute

"If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect." 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Benjamin Franklin 
&nbsp;
Despite the slew of obvious and &lsquo;loud challenges&rsquo; facing 2010 organizations, there remains an often overlooked challenge, a more fundamental flaw in many organizations&rsquo; fabric, and something so seemingly pedestrian that it attracts much less attention in today&rsquo;s media-marketplace. The problem is a thread so pervasive that its absence lays waste to any organization&rsquo;s best intentions to resolve any other issues.
Is the problem Debt? Declining Sales? Cash Flow? Leadership? Marketplace Positioning? Uncertainty? Although each of these orbit near the same sun, they are not remotely as foundational as the problem that binds them together. The problem circling the drain in too many organizations today is strategy, and specifically, the strategist.
Why does the strategist matter so much? Indulge me for a moment and visualize a home or an office building. As a resident or an employee in either of these structures, I can change the paint color. I can lay new carpet. I can rearrange the furniture and hang various art on the walls. I can swap out appliances, order specific lights, or replace brass bathroom fixtures with chrome. But without remodeling altogether, I cannot readily move the bathroom. I cannot readily create additional levels above. I cannot readily tack-on a basement. Why? Because the bones of the house were pre-determined long before the sheetrock went up. Long before the electricity was run. Long before the framing went up and the plumbing was plumbed. Simply put&ndash;the structure and much of its functionality, efficiency, and potential were determined long before the foundation itself was poured. Indeed, the form and function and essence of the structure were determined way back at the origin: in the envisioning and designing stages with the architect.&nbsp;
This is the realm of the strategist, and while disparate issues like cash management&nbsp;and leadership and legal compliance are equally&nbsp;vital and obligatory chromosomes in the DNA of any organization,&nbsp;they&nbsp;are not the same as strategy itself, and&nbsp;they alone&nbsp;are not adequate to create stable organizations or employers of choice or&nbsp;preferred investments for stockholders.&nbsp;
I value leaders immensely; they occupy the second-highest tier on a pedestal within my mind. But the uppermost tier is occupied by the strategist, because she is the progenitor of everything that follows. She is the one who first puts pencil to paper and sketches out what will ultimately become a blueprint, and the blueprint defines the entire space&ndash;its surroundings, its interior, and its inherency. I respect the strategist above all others, because it is the strategist who pioneers and lays claim and authors the music that leaders orchestrate. If the leader is the conductor of musicians, the strategist is the composer.
As we enter 2010, we should pay more attention to these often overlooked masterminds who set entire organizational-universes in motion. From Thomas Jefferson who often worked alone in his tiny room penning the Declaration of Independence to Roman architects who built an array of roads and aquifers that revolutionized civilization&ndash;those who put lines to paper frame the system and set the table for much of what follows. Centuries and millennia later, we find ourselves as tiny planets orbiting around the words of Jefferson through contemporary legislation. Much of western civilization was shaped in the dye that was cast over 2,000 years ago by Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians before them. The importance of their work, of similar work across the East and of all the contributions made since the dawn of man by those quiet, behind-the-scenes strategists must be illuminated. It must be acknowledged, studied, and dissected. We must&ndash;as students and scientists with inquiring minds&ndash;look way back&hellip; back to specific beginnings when architects, be they writers or composers or sculptors or painters or potters or doodlers like Leonardo da Vinci put pen to paper and crafted the rules by which we often play. We must make their implicit work explicit. We must bring it to the light of day that we may, in our own humble and unique ways, master it ourselves. Indeed, strategy is organic and evolves over time&ndash;where we began cannot be where we go, yet an understanding of an organization&rsquo;s strategic origins certainly informs those strategists responsible for shaping and reshaping it on a continual basis.
As has occurred to others, perhaps it occurs to you now, "But what if I&rsquo;m not the strategist? The walls were here before I arrived. I&rsquo;m just a leader in an organization that was built long ago &ndash; but I do wish to become a more strategic leader." One needn&rsquo;t be the creator to be strategic; one needn&rsquo;t be the original architect to remodel, refine, and improve. Life is dynamic, not static, and though we might not have been the original architect, we are &ndash; each and every day &ndash; shaping everything we touch.&nbsp;
And perhaps more importantly, you are indeed the strategist of your own life. Whether you wish to remodel your career, your fitness, your relationships, your finances, or your future, 2010 is a new year&ndash;a blank slate&ndash;and I hope and pray it will be your very best year yet.

A Happy & Strategic 2010

Today's earlier&nbsp;blog&nbsp;("Enjoying the Journey") got me thinking about that 'ol Robert Fulghum&nbsp;poem, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
For those of you who enjoyed it then, or have never crossed it, here it is.
&bull;&bull;&bull;
&nbsp;
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten.&nbsp; Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.
These are the things I learned:
<ul>
<li>Share everything.</li>
<li>Play fair.</li>
<li>Don't hit people.</li>
<li>Put things back where you found them.</li>
<li>Clean up your own mess.</li>
<li>Don't take things that aren't yours.</li>
<li>Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.</li>
<li>Wash your hands before you eat.</li>
<li>Flush.</li>
<li>Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.</li>
<li>Live a balanced life&nbsp;--&nbsp;learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.</li>
<li>Take a nap every afternoon.</li>
<li>When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.</li>
<li>Be aware of wonder.&nbsp; Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.</li>
<li>Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup -- they all die.&nbsp; So do we.</li>
<li>And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned -- the biggest word of all -- LOOK.</li>
</ul>
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.&nbsp; The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation.&nbsp; Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm.&nbsp; Think what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap.&nbsp; Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.&nbsp;
&copy; Robert Fulghum, 1990.&nbsp; All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, Villard Books: New York, 1990, page 6-7. 
<a href="http://www.robertfulghum.com/">http://www.robertfulghum.com</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Alyans

As another Monday comes to a close, maybe it&rsquo;s time for a movie review? Here&rsquo;s a peek at &ldquo;American Sniper.&rdquo; (Gimme a few more days to recover and, time and energy permitting, I&rsquo;ll summarize &ldquo;Inherent Vice,&rdquo; &ldquo;Blackhat,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Paddington.&rdquo; Two I recommend, one I do not.)
But now for the big boy, American Sniper.
For starters, if you saw it, no, your imagination is NOT playing tricks on you: it was &ldquo;CRAZY PACKED,&rdquo; because it opened to HUGE January numbers.
Having played only in limited release since Christmas Day, American Sniper opened nationwide this past weekend and grossed $90.2 million in three days, setting two box office records along the way: (1) It had the largest January opening in cinematic history, besting 2014&rsquo;s &ldquo;Ride Along&rdquo; (starring Ice Cube and Kevin Hart) by a whopping $58 million dollars. (2) It is the second highest R-rated opening ever, second only to The Matrix Reloaded's $91.7 million. (Interestingly, Bradley Cooper also starred in the third largest R-rated movie ever, &ldquo;The Hangover Part II,&rdquo; which grossed $85.7 million in 2011.) American Sniper received the coveted &lsquo;A+&rsquo; Cinemascore, which conceivably bodes well for its six Oscar nominations.
I enjoyed the film&mdash;if &ldquo;enjoy&rdquo; is the correct verb&mdash;experiencing it with 26 &ldquo;Movie Men.&rdquo; The word each of us used most frequently as we shuffled out of the theater was &ldquo;sobering.&rdquo; Save a few gunshots and explosions here and there, I found it to be a very quiet film. There is much on the screen, sure, but more of the action occurs within one&rsquo;s heart. If you search for its soundtrack on iTunes, you won&rsquo;t find one...because there isn&rsquo;t one. There are only three songs attributed to the film (&ldquo;Taya&rsquo;s Theme,&rdquo; &ldquo;Someone Like You,&rdquo; and &ldquo;The Funeral.&rdquo;) It&rsquo;s THAT quiet.
And precisely as I predicted a couple weeks ago, &ldquo;the left&rdquo; has lashed-out at the film, from Michael Moore and Seth Rogen to countless others bemoaning its [exactly as I wrote] &ldquo;glorification of killing.&rdquo;
C&rsquo;est la vie.
I suppose they&rsquo;d prefer we defend God and Country with butter knives or shoehorns or not at all. Or that we, fighting that shadowy terrorism for which we never asked, simply abide hijacked planes flying into our buildings or stand by silently while disenfranchised punks with guns shoot cartoonists in one of the most pacifistic countries in the world, the land of baguettes, croissants and crepes. Je crois que non.
And for those who lambast snipers as &ldquo;cowards,&rdquo; as some have done in the media recently, all I can say is they are living in fantasyland. The English were routed in our American Revolution because colonists employed tiny militia who, for primarily utilitarian reasons, incorporated guerilla tactics rather than presenting nice, clean lines of infantrymen to be shot down easy as tin ducks at the state fair. Such military adaption is as old as time itself, and snipers have always been and will always be a core force multiplier in wartime. To cede high and superior vantage points, whether through aircraft or rooftops, is suicide. End of politics, end of manners, end of story.
As for the film itself, it&rsquo;s simple and pure and entirely unornamented, as are all Eastwood&rsquo;s sparse creations, from &ldquo;Unforgiven&rdquo; to &ldquo;Gran Torino.&rdquo; In this case, it&rsquo;s a man and his long rifle, representing in their simplicity the entire sweep and zeitgeist of our 14-year war-on-every-front thus far. My takeaway? We are damned if we do and damned if we don&rsquo;t. There is no winning if we continue, but there is surely failure if we stop. In a world-sized playground in which bullies keep on comin&rsquo;, what choice remains but to stand one&rsquo;s ground? Better to die defending oneself than to forfeit freedom by allowing radicals to run the asylum unchecked.
But imagine plunging one&rsquo;s fist into a bucket of water. There&rsquo;s spillage, there&rsquo;s a wet hand, and as soon as it&rsquo;s removed, the water returns&mdash;save a tad less water now&mdash;to much of its original form and state and shape.
Such is the case here, it seems: as Bradley Cooper&rsquo;s SEAL sniper Chris Kyle eliminates 160-255 targets [actual figures remain murky] and kicks down door after door after door, deployment after deployment, tour after tour, the emotional and traumatic spillage is everywhere, and no one&rsquo;s hands are dry. There will be blood, indeed.
And eventually, Kyle makes the very logical decision to fight for his wife, for his children, for the vets who battle an equally real enemy back home in every form imaginable: mental, physical, spiritual.
As with &ldquo;Foxcatcher,&rdquo; we know how Sniper ends, too, but that doesn&rsquo;t make it any easier to bear. Kyle&rsquo;s casket, glistening in gold with an estimated thirteen dozen tridents, is but the umpteenth reminder the high price of war.
As has been described by all, yes, the film ends in utter silence. At this point, really, there is nothing more to convey anyway. A life is gone, more will follow, damned if we do, damned if we don&rsquo;t.
As for Cooper himself, he faces stiff competition for the Oscar on February 22nd. In a field that includes Steve Carell, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Keaton and Eddie Redmayne, there isn&rsquo;t one weak performance in the lot. Keaton is the shiny frontrunner, Cooper&rsquo;s role will likely divide voters right down the middle, Redmayne&rsquo;s Hawking is seamless, and Cumberbatch&rsquo;s Turing may be too obscure for some, so it&rsquo;s a complex race any way you slice it. I suspect Keaton will win (the Academy is lapping up I&ntilde;&aacute;rritu&rsquo;s longshots like sweet milk), and Cooper is phenomenal, but I&rsquo;d personally like to see Carell&rsquo;s portrayal of John E. Du Pont take the prize. He&rsquo;s ceaselessly flawless and haunting in ways only partially seen among his peer group here.
I don&rsquo;t know whether you saw &ldquo;Interstellar&rdquo; but, if you did, you might agree that HALF the film is easily &ldquo;the music.&rdquo; Without it, there is little to no movie. With it, it&rsquo;s arguably anthemic and propulsive, at least to me. And so, if I have only one negative thing to say about American Sniper, it&rsquo;s literally that in Eastwood&rsquo;s classic style, sans much music, American Sniper fails to create what it might have otherwise created had the ringing in Cooper&rsquo;s ears been further exploited, or had the funeral scenes been layered with more auditory crescendo, or had the moments of stillness been&mdash;gasp&mdash;accompanied by some strings or piano or lonely horn, a la &ldquo;The General&rsquo;s Daughter.&rdquo;
Musical accompaniment is, for me, immeasurably potent at creating layers and dimensionality, at creating emotion and movement in an otherwise line-free scene. Powerful as it was, I can only imagine how powerful Kyle&rsquo;s funeral scene(s) would have been had Sigur Ros&rsquo;s Jonsi scored them, or Michael Mann&rsquo;s team (think &ldquo;The Insider&rdquo; or &ldquo;Manhunter&rdquo; or &ldquo;Last of the Mohicans&rdquo;). Had Mann scored the film, for example, and accompanied the funeral procession with Taps, and rolled the credits silently afterward, wow. There DEFINITELY would NOT have been a dry eye in the house, I gua-ran-tee.
As it is, as his procession and burial occur, we only get one scant line of text which conveys that Chris Kyle was killed while trying to help troubled Iraqi veteran Eddie Ray Routh.
No larger account, no further contextualization, no grander perspective beyond what we&rsquo;ve just witnessed for, sure, two hours.
And I&rsquo;m fine with that; this was Kyle&rsquo;s story, not some attempt to cleanly encapsulate the entirety of war. But yes, I do wish we could have gotten four or five black screens about his life, his death, his family, his fallen brethren, our progress or lack thereof and our current state of affairs over there, and a suitable tribute to his legacy today, which is vast.
It is a haunting and beautiful and stripped down film, and I hope that Eastwood and Cooper continue to be acknowledged for their efforts in what is undoubtedly politically-charged subject matter, as they have proficiently created a lasting and impactful tribute&mdash;memorializing for all time one man&rsquo;s sacrifice, the greatest there is, for the country he loved so dearly, so actively, so passionately, so firmly, so unquestionably, so continually.
May he, and eventually each of us, rest in peace.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

American Sniper

Check-check, test-test...is this thing on?
&bull;&bull;&bull;
After 180 days offline, Blake's Blog is&mdash;once again&mdash;cooking with propane!
Sorry about that. Wonderfully consuming projects that keep the lights on and fridge full, a quick summer vacation, a server crash with nefarious tendrils, work trips, concerts, campus visits, covering for a beloved colleague on maternity leave, Homecomings, Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday preparations, Homeland and Downton Abbey midnight marathons with my bride, droll doctor visits, standard errands, year-end altruism, ruminations (and procrastinations) about website re-designs...such things, evidently, trip a man up and slow things down.
Heck, we never even got around to writing (much less publishing) our autumn or winter LEATHLET newsletters. Again, our collective and my personal apologies.
But here we are again, and ringing in a New Year. The Hobbit is released, Django is enthusiastically unchained, the Trip is Guilty of hilarity, Jack has successfully Reached, Les Mis is jubilant, Life of Pi is infinitely inscrutable and only rarely computes, Lincoln was a phenomenal tele-play, the Guardians Rose (but did anyone see or hear them?), Skyfall rocketed, This is 40 is right, the controversial Promised Land is coming and, most excitingly, The Impossible and Zero Dark Thirty and Beautiful Creatures are calling our names. I love the guilty pleasures of pop culture. They (along with dinner rolls slathered in cinnamon butter) are such pleasant reprieves, however small and insignificant.&nbsp;
One of my 2013 personal aims is to read several works by Charles Dickens. Born 200 years ago this year, Dickens carols my name each and every Christmas, but I'm most eager to read American Notes for General Circulation and see how he walloped America upside its head like Billy Jack.&nbsp;
&bull;&bull;&bull;
I hope 2012 was your best year yet, and that 2013 will top it.
Momentarily, I'm off to read the transcript of a dear friend's forthcoming book, The Good Will Leader. (More about that next year.)
Then, just a few more holiday excursions, a couple remaining parties, evasive movies, gift returns, automobile repairs, financial closings, and then it'll be time to yank the starter-rope once again and rev-up the engine for another leg of the journey.
&nbsp;
Hugs to everyone in your life. Enjoy your moments, relish health, and count your blessings. They are typically more bountiful than meets the cursory eye.

...and We're Back!

&ldquo;Those who defend mediocrity get to keep it.&rdquo;&nbsp; &mdash;Author Unknown
&nbsp;
As a general rule, I resist complaining about things I cannot solve. Or, at least, would not strive to solve. Or, at the very least, believe I cannot dent.
But today, I'll climb the tallest peak and scream into the wind, "We deserve better." Or, if we do not deserve better&mdash;I sure wish we had better.
Perhaps we get and have precisely what we deserve. Maybe that's part of the problem? Maybe too many of the good, worthy people see the growing abomination that is &ldquo;professional politics&rdquo; and elect, wisely, to not stick their hands in the gears and risk mangling everything and everyone near and dear to them.&nbsp;
I don&rsquo;t know.
I&rsquo;d like to say, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know anymore,&rdquo; but I suspect I never knew. I have never understood politics, perhaps because I confuse it with public service, public policy, legislation and law itself. More accurately, I suspect it&rsquo;s because I mistake it for a brew that illogically combines ethics, morality and denying oneself.
I would like to think, perhaps naively, that our founding fathers were wiser. Were better. Were more noble, selfless, sacrificial than today&rsquo;s leaders. But the more I read David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss and their ilk, the more inclined I am to relinquish such pollyanna notions. Forever in awe of all our founding fathers accomplished, but also acutely aware that lightning rarely strikes the same target twice, I&rsquo;m inclined to believe the 18th Century was the perfect libertarian greenhouse&mdash;and one that we shall not soon see again. An alchemic period that combined crisis and opportunity, burden and hope, pragmatism and intellectualism with the will to change or die trying. A flash of transcendent alliances that brought France to the aid of ragged and often disjointed colonists, legislators and entrepreneurs and writers and social philosophers to the cause c&eacute;l&egrave;bre of freedom, and settlements separated by time and space and culture and ideology together at the eleventh hour to achieve something momentous if not altogether unprecedented.
An assembly of flawed human beings, many of whom were slave owners, or womanizers, or self-serving schemers parading as diplomats to curry favor with the wealthy. In spite of these sins, which range from avarice to arrogance (ailments as old as time), a Committee of Five, comprised most notably of Thomas Jefferson, whipped up the most delicious rhetoric this side of the Renaissance that began with the soaring teaser, &ldquo;When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.&rdquo;
Wow.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s unquestionably one of the most gorgeous, luminescent, ambitious&nbsp;preambles of all time.
Its piers bore deep, to the bedrock of all human expectation. Its slab runs broadly, invoking freedom and joy. Its spire reaches high, as if brushing the hem of God Almighty and tugging at the warm side of His promises.
Thirteen years shy of one century later, this timeless preamble would be as fresh to Abraham Lincoln as if it had been written&nbsp;days prior when he solemnly opened his Gettysburg Address with the words, &ldquo;Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.&rdquo;
America&rsquo;s work&mdash;the great democratic experiment&mdash;continued to blossom 101 years later with the 1964 passage of the Civil Rights Act.
The work continues, and I trust it always will.&nbsp;
But my disappointment, perhaps like yours, will ebb and flow over a lifetime. It recedes when we, as a nation, achieve something unique or spectacular, which we sometimes do. And it surges, as it does now, when I believe we can do better.
On a recent flight, the woman next to me saw that I was engrossed in This Town by Mark Leibovich. She remarked, &ldquo;Is it any good?&rdquo; to which I replied, &ldquo;Yeah, it&rsquo;s great. But disheartening.&rdquo; &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;ve heard,&rdquo; she replied, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve thought about getting it, but I think it&rsquo;ll just make me mad. I&rsquo;m so sick of our politicians.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Amen.&nbsp;
And particularly the men.
To be reaching the end of This Town (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/books/review/this-town-by-mark-leibovich.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">synopsis</a>) while turning on the news at night only to see Anthony Weiner stagger through the public arena like a man who&rsquo;s been knocked out but doesn&rsquo;t quite realize it yet (or accept it) brings into sharp focus how far we have fallen, how low our expectations have degraded in recent years. Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bill Clinton, and a longer, deeper list if one bothers to search.
And should one be willing to cast a broader net, the sort that scoops up professional male athletes, today&rsquo;s baseball is replete with liars, gamblers and shenanigans of all sorts and stripes. As is cycling, football, basketball, seemingly every sport. And I wouldn&rsquo;t let the winner of this past Sunday&rsquo;s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational anywhere near my child, his depravity runs so deep. He so wantonly objectified women through his perverted appetites that, were I the Mayor of Moralia, his photograph would be in a municipal database warning neighbors of his past offenses and current address. The notion that Nike values money over virtue is emblematic of the problem itself: as long as the cash flows, we care very little about the cesspool from which it springs or the stain it leaves behind.&nbsp;
At a recent dinner during which, of all people, Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson gave the invocation, he spoke passionately about our country, how far afield our leaders have wandered, and the immoral content our children are bombarded with daily via social media like fish in water. &ldquo;God, help us through these times of depravity we find ourselves unwittingly swimming in.&rdquo;
Our founding fathers were far from blemish-free, and perhaps today&rsquo;s are no worse, but I had hoped we would have evolved by now. Martin Luther King optimistically commented, &ldquo;The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.&rdquo; I would like to believe this is true, I will choose to believe this is true regardless, though I do seem to become more jaded and skeptical with time. I doubt whether justice is an ore mine-able on earth.
An eternal optimist becoming pessimistic. Say it isn&rsquo;t so.
Writer and philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, &ldquo;Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.&rdquo; But it appears to me that those who do remember the past are simply inclined to see it as a transient news cycle, everyone getting a second, third, fourth act, and yesterday&rsquo;s criminal is tomorrow&rsquo;s gavel wielder, trophy hoister, or bedazzling spokesman.
I am comforted by grace and forgiveness, as we all&mdash;by any measuring stick&mdash;fall so short of our goodness, though I do hope against hope that from among our ranks, in this generation and not the next, an assembly of finer leaders would emerge in this nation. How they might become electable without possessing the pedigree that big money seems to back, yet still represent the common man, I do not know. How they might run the various gauntlets and gates required to win any votes without selling their souls or finding themselves over the proverbial barrel (indebted to this constituency or that while striving to find their own voice and letting the chips fall where they may), I do not know. How we might flush the overwhelming majority of leaders already entrenched within and attached to our nation&rsquo;s capital and every city of consequence like cancer cells, parasites, barnacles or lichens, I do not know. How they might wind their way up from &lsquo;everyday America&rsquo; without first graduating Harvard or creating a multi-billion dollar empire, I do not know. Why anyone capable would, in his or her right mind, willingly enter what Americans now view as the unseemly, seedy world of politics, I do not know.&nbsp;
But what joy it would bring me to see an army of saints overtake Washington. One can pray, and hope, and continue donating time and money to see it happen, but were it to occur, it would defy two out of three laws of motion: (1)First, some substantive force&mdash;stronger than the &ldquo;We Are the 99% Movement&rdquo;&mdash;would have to disrupt the inertia of current political practice, and (2)Second, this force would have to overcome the status quo in perpetuity, tantamount to a knife winning the gunfight, then holding that fort for a generation or two or three.
Highly unlikely, because where there is money, there is temptation. And where there is temptation, there are vices. And where there are vices, there are dealers and dopers and the reverberating echoes of depravity.
In short, Washington would have to become a vacuum, one devoid of money, squatter's rights, and limitless terms in which former legislators 'naturally' mutate into lobbyists and economic hangers-on. Somehow, inconceivably, the poli-sphere writ large would have to be perceived as a sacrificial and service-centric theater of actual contribution, not unlike a tour of duty (accompanied, as it is, by hazards and risks that one cannot endure indefinitely) rather than a mint.
Time, as always, will be the great arbiter.
And He who created time.
Meanwhile, rather than simply waiting for the ocean to boil (which it will, eventually, according to Revelation 19, 20 and 21), may we each commit to doing and being better one-on-one, in our families, in our places of worship, in our communities, in our villages-hamlets-towns-burgs-boroughs-cities-counties-states, and as actors on the national and international stages.
Butterflies flapping our wings and so forth, beachcombers throwing starfish back and all that, should the bedtime&nbsp;stories we heard as children (which&nbsp;reliably documented victorious protagonists and vanquished antagonists) prove true: &ldquo;And they lived happily ever after. The End.&rdquo;
&bull;&bull;&bull;
&nbsp;

An Elegy for Good Men

Not quite, but my promise to you today is one of pithiness.
Of all the words that have been written about leadership, performance and the like...of all the 'ornamentation' we hang here and there to garnish the tree, it always comes down to this:
CONNECTION &amp; CONTRIBUTION within RELATIONSHIPS defined by TRUST.
End of story.&nbsp; Period.
We all desire a sense of connection--to others, to purpose.&nbsp; To make a difference, to contribute something.&nbsp; To buzz the work and get 'r done.&nbsp; To see, as Steve Jobs wrote, "a dent in the universe."
"I made that," the credit rolls...
If we can truly connect to someone and something--and be trusted to&nbsp;achieve worthwhile outcomes, life is good.
Don't believe me?&nbsp; Read any study, particularly longitudinal ones like Harvard's 70-year-old 'Happiness Study.'&nbsp; Or&nbsp;faster yet, ask an unemployed person why he or she is periodically depressed.&nbsp; "I'm drifting, untethered.&nbsp; I feel emasculated and small.&nbsp; I want to engage and provide and be counted."
Whether we look at it as a parent, sibling, child, employee, citizen...it makes no difference.
To reach our potential, to sing our song, to paint our masterpiece, to live life to the fullest--this organism requires connection and contribution within relationships defined by trust.
Now go get yourself some air, water, sunlight and soil.&nbsp; Plug-in and power-up.
And if or where you struggle, don't lose hope or give up the fight.
Even weeds find sunlight through concrete, and so&nbsp;do we.
Connect and contribute in even the smallest of ways and, like a spark in the night, the rest often takes care of itself.

An Entry to End Entries?

The summer I turned twelve, my parents dragged me and my big sister to our great uncle&rsquo;s homestead in Midland, TX for a family reunion. After graduating with a degree in petroleum engineering from Texas A&amp;M in 1938, Rufe Bynum served in WWII from 1941 to 1945. In 1946, he joined an organization named Core Laboratories where he would serve as a tremendous leader for many years. Resulting from his business acumen and myriad investments, Rufe and his wife were millionaires many times over. As a young, impressionable boy, his lifestyle dazzled me. His garage was full of Cadillacs and Mercedes cars, his property was a huge expanse of landscaped green, and he had an elevator in his home because his knees had failed him in the war.&nbsp;
The family reunion was a roaring success. Dozens of relatives congregated together for the first time in many years, and I was finally able to put faces to the names that had been spoken in our home for so many years. As the evening quieted, people settled into meaningful conversations in every nook and cranny of Rufe&rsquo;s backyard, and I found myself alone with him by the barbeque grill where he stood tall in his overalls, shiny tongs engulfed in his large hand. He leaned in, placed his free hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently as his twinkly eyes and white hair radiated with the crackling flames in the background. &ldquo;Talk to me, son. Tell me something: what will you do with your life?&rdquo;&nbsp;
I stammered, &ldquo;My life? Um, I don&rsquo;t know. You know I&rsquo;m only twelve, right?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Yes, Blake. I know you&rsquo;re a young man, but it&rsquo;s never too early to start thinking about these things. After all, you never know when you might be called up.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;Well, Sir. To be honest, I&rsquo;ve never really thought about it.&rdquo;
And then it happened; he eased slowly down, forcing his bum knees to work with him, and when he was finally just slightly shorter than me, he stared deep into my eyes and said the words that ring as clear today&ndash;a quarter of a century later&ndash;as they did on that warm summer night by the grill. &ldquo;Blake, my boy. Listen to me now. Life&rsquo;s short. Real short. You can&rsquo;t appreciate that in your position, because you&rsquo;re on the front end of it. But I&rsquo;m telling you, as you get further into it, the roads rush up to meet you, and before you know it, you&rsquo;re looking in the rearview mirror at life. And all the things you love, the people you love, they&rsquo;ll all fade away. You&rsquo;ll say goodbye to friends, girlfriends, even your parents. Why, I hope you&rsquo;ll be kind enough to attend my funeral to pay your respects. But here&rsquo;s the deal: life&rsquo;s too short to live off-purpose, and no amount of money is worthwhile if you hate what you do. Like my daddy told me, &lsquo;If you love what you do, you&rsquo;ll never work another day in your life.&rsquo; You think about what I&rsquo;m telling you, and find something you love to do, because you&rsquo;ll be doing it for a lifetime. Do that, rather than chasing money, and you&rsquo;ll be rich in every way that really matters.&rdquo;
Surprisingly, while I was only twelve at the time, what Uncle Rufe said made complete sense. In my lifetime, albeit short compared to Rufe&rsquo;s eighty years of wisdom-building, I have observed in others, and experienced in myself, the importance of doing what fulfills, rather than simply chasing dollars. I have coached and counseled hundreds of financially successful leaders, many of whom are emotionally, spiritually, physically, intellectually, or socially bankrupt. Likewise, I have met what is described in Zen Buddhism as stomachless ghosts&ndash;those individuals whose appetite for material goods can never be satiated. The more they get, the more they want. I&rsquo;ll always remember a man named Mark Scharenbroich, who spoke to my high school graduating class and warned us against, &ldquo;Promising yourself happiness when you achieve the next milestone. You&rsquo;ll always be reaching for the house, the car, the degree, the person, the money&hellip; and never be satisfied with YOU. Contentment is not getting what you want, it&rsquo;s wanting what you have.&rdquo; And finally, I remember the wisdom of Joe Coey, a dear family friend who describes &ldquo;wealth is freedom and choices. Those who have no freedom and have no choices are impoverished. When you must work to live, rather than live to work, you&rsquo;re broke.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;
All this wisdom&ndash;handed down from Uncle Rufe, Mark Scharenbroich, Joe Coey&ndash;has greatly affected my own choices in life, yet it pales in comparison to the words of Jesus Christ, who spoke of money in sixteen out of forty parables. In fact, Jesus spoke of money far more than any other topic. Does this surprise you? It surprised me initially, just as my uncle&rsquo;s words surprised me, but as we age, I believe we all come to terms with the utility of money, and we see that it is a common denominator in so many facets of life. Like it or not, Jesus knew that money was potentially as influential in our lives as health, love, faith, hope, integrity, etc. The extent to which we can tame our own desires and master them greatly affects the scope of our entire lives.
The word vocation (one&rsquo;s occupation or profession) derives from the Latin vocare which means, to be called. We are each called to be someone specific&ndash;to be someone on-purpose. Our two most finite resources, Time and Money, are great indicators of what someone values. If you ever wish to know what matters to a person, see where they spend their time and money. Go through their calendar and their checkbook. Know this, and you&rsquo;ll know where their heart is. May we all have someone who will teach us how to be a person of substance, depth, contribution, and&ndash;in the end&ndash;how to build wealth in the truest sense of the word... the origin of the word wealth actually derives from the word health, and refers to three particular attributes: happiness, prosperity, and well-being. Money alone won&rsquo;t bring you any of these things, but true wealth (it its broadest sense) facilitates giving, investments in others, contributions to those in need&ndash;and such philanthropy goes a long way toward bringing a sense of personal purpose.&nbsp;
Remember, life&rsquo;s short. Be selective about what truly matters to you. Build a life of wealth that affords you freedoms, choices, and purpose&ndash;and that allows you to help others and sponsor their dreams. Accept in your bones that money, although the currency of our day, is not the end-all.

A Perspective on Money & Wealth During These Troubled Times

Tomorrow is Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009, and while I am no Presidential scholar, I sense the weight and significance of the day deep in my bones. Perhaps more importantly, I sense the promise.
I know that many are hanging great hopes on President-elect Obama, hopes that are unlikely to be achieved by any mortal. Likewise, many others write derogatorily about him, continuing the whispering campaigns that began 2+ years ago now.
But my comments today are apolitical and apartisan. Instead, I mean to reflect on the forthcoming Obama Administration from a Leadership perspective. Admittedly, when I watch the news at night, as I did last night, there are so many nuances to the political machinery that is the United States that I periodically find myself recalling the words of Oscar Wilde, who once wrote, "I am not young enough to know everything." Regardless, there are things I do understand -- that we ALL understand deep in our souls. It is a few of these understandings that I wish to mention, however briefly, today.
First and foremost, on January 15, 2009, Martin Luther King, Jr. would have turned 80 years old. He gave his infamous, I Have a Dream speech 46 years ago. A number of people were interviewed on TV last night describing the significance of this Presidency, and as tears flowed and the history of slavery in the United States was recounted from the year 1619 forward, the profundity of Inauguration Day was palpable. By now, we all know Obama's history quite well... white mother, distant father, raised by Grandparents, Hawaii, Harvard. Arguably, this arc could become as well-known as Lincoln's one day.&nbsp;
Which brings me to a second observation. As Obama stood in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial yesterday and addressed the crowd, those who had just moments prior tuned-out U2, Shakira, Stevie Wonder, Beyonce, Usher, and other musicians, the contrast was stark. When Obama took to the podium, all eyes were fixed on him and the crowd grew silent. All of us who have respected and read Lincoln with admiration could not help but be moved by the fulfillment of Lincoln's aspirations in our soon-to-be 44th President. It took us long enough to get here, but we're well on our way now.
And so, a third point. There are many in the halls of academia, politics, popular culture, the media, and the streets and halls and churches and synagogues across America who are dialoguing about the progress we have made on the battlefield of racism. Or, as some argue, the lack of progress still. Indeed, the battle is far from over, as one cannot help but notice as he traverses this country. Bigotry has always and will always exist. It is a symptom of the hardships of life. But indeed, Inauguration Day will mark a turning point and will serve as a beacon for many. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you must keep moving forward." It was said yesterday that Lincoln crawled so King could walk so Obama could run so our children could fly. My goodness. If that doesn't bring tears to your eyes then you're not alive.
Fourth, it is against this canvas of history that we see HOPE in all its radiant glory. The American people have a history of electing the right leader for the time, and as has been said before, "Hope beats Fear in most elections." I'm sure that Tuesday's Inauguration Speech will be a blend of Lincoln, Kennedy, Roosevelt, and yet be uniquely Obama. He will predictably describe the difficult years ahead, the trade-offs and sacrifices that must be made, the Grand Bargains and dampening of expectations we must accept, and then plant seeds of soaring hope and rhetoric that can only be fulfilled if we all join together. The past few years have been difficult for all Americans, and many lives have been lost protecting our borders and citizens. A complicated inheritance lies at the feet of Obama and his circle. A Pandora's Box if there ever was one. We cannot expect that Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Economy, Healthcare, Education and a myriad of other pressing challenges will be resolved to anyone's satisfaction within one Administration. Indeed, I'm certain these issues are a complicated morass that is worsened by bureaucracy and the gunk that retards any democracy committed to choirs vs. soloists. As we learned in grade school, "Any number times zero equals zero." So tape-up and suit-up; we've got to take the field together if we stand any chance of winning the war on mediocrity, failure, and stagnation that has strangled our K-12 public education system, our worldwide reputation, our ability to create and implement progressive reform across industries, technologies, sciences, and social infrastructure.&nbsp;
And finally, an observation on the importance of listening, curiosity, and remaining a lifelong student. In the months leading up to the November 2008 Presidential Election, as we all engaged in bipartisan debates about the candidates, anyone who stood far enough back from the fray to observe the behaviors of Obama couldn't help but be impressed by one singular distinction: his approach to problem-solving. For decades, I have been disillusioned by politics, having seen elected official after elected official who failed to keep his campaign promises, who lived a life of hypocrisy and absent-integrity (by preaching 'family values' while involved in a debaucherous lifestyle), but most importantly -- by seeing the absence of an 'abundance mentality.' Like the racoon in Where the Red Fern Grows, our elected officials seem to latch onto their party's shiny silver object, whatever that object is, and never let go. They conduct closed-door meetings, they exclude others with potentially brilliant insights, they do what their gut tells them, they remain committed to their personal convictions and ways of thinking, however shallow or poor they may be. Sure, all great leaders demonstrate a courage and fortitude, but only ignorant leaders presume they know all or perhaps even enough. If we are to know anything, we must often exit our inner-circle and seek wisdom wherever it may be.
I've commented to my wife (often after seeing luminaries like George Will and others who have such a broad grasp of the body of knowledge of politics), "I wish our President would just go to dinner with a bunch of folks like George and treat them as a Think Tank. It could only help to get a more well-rounded perspective." And so, with great delight, I watched the footage of Obama at an intimate dinner party at George Will's house no less, along with nine other conservative intellectuals. What I would have given to have been a fly on THAT wall.
But this is promising, regardless of your political viewpoints, because it demonstrates what unquestionably worked so well for Lincoln: the surrounding of oneself with counter-views and disparate thinking. Through divergent thinking, we then converge on a solution that is robust, well-rounded, and ultimately the most informed. Indeed, it will be Obama's Presidency and Administration, and I have no doubt that he will make his own decisions and perhaps periodically, 'from the gut.' But his process of arriving at those decisions will be a rigorous one, inviting skeptics and naysayers and conservatives and the like to the table for a healthy debate and dialogue.
You gotta love that. It's what this country is predicated on and, like any great democracy, it's what's required to move forward.
Like it or not, we're off to the races now. We've got many hurdles ahead, lots of water-jumps and perilous conditions, fierce competitors, a rowdy crowd, and more saboteurs than we can count. As for my prediction regarding our placement in the upcoming photo finish, I like what they say... "Whether we think we can win or think we can't, we're right."

Apolitical Reflections for Inauguration Day

I usually restrain myself from sharing recommendations pocked with four letter words, the second of which is the only vowel.
But I stumbled across <a title="gapingvoid.com" href="https://www.gapingvoid.com/">gapingvoid.com </a>last week, bought the book at B&amp;N, and read&nbsp;it last night.
<div id="imageViewerDiv">
<div><img id="prodImage" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41QbZXspduL._SS500_.jpg" alt="" width="324" height="317" /></div>
</div>
It's hilarious and, though sometimes blue, full of great career advice for the 'creative thinker' or 'entrepreneur.'
i.e., You.

A Quirky Little Treasure in Alpine, TX

As a boy, I just loved the book A Separate Peace.&nbsp; Sad, yes, but beautifully written, simple, and powerful enough to make an impression that has lasted thirty years.
In recent months, two acquaintances and one good friend have metamorphosed into three quite different people.&nbsp; Two at the hand of a stroke, and one at the hand of encephalitis.
Today, I find them even kinder, warmer, gentler, more patient &ndash; and altogether&nbsp;delightful and inspiring&nbsp;to be around.&nbsp; One jokes that he&rsquo;s had &ldquo;a personality transplant,&rdquo; and he&rsquo;s right.&nbsp; His new perspective has led to a heightened appreciation of so many things.
Expectedly, when tragedies initially befall us, we struggle to come to terms with our new realities.&nbsp; I know this is true for me in my own tiny circumstances.&nbsp; Since December 2007, I have lived with chronic pain that subsequent surgeries merely refashioned rather than removed.&nbsp; For perhaps eight months, I prayed and expected to fully turn the corner and get my old life back.&nbsp; Fifteen months later, I remain increasingly acceptant of my new reality.&nbsp;
Whatever befalls us, it&rsquo;s best to carry on in whatever ways possible and find purpose and joy in every viable nook and cranny.
We are not promised Happiness, but Hopefulness is there for the taking.
And while we are&nbsp;not destined&nbsp;on this 3rd rock from the Sun to achieve any lasting peace, it is possible to find a separate peace, unlike the temporal sorts we generally seek.
I&rsquo;ll close with two quotes that really move me.&nbsp; I hope they move you, too.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Hi, Jules.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s Brian.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m on a plane and we&rsquo;ve been hijacked, and it doesn&rsquo;t look good.&nbsp; Hopefully, I&rsquo;ll talk to you again, but if not, please have fun and live your life the best you can.&nbsp; Know that I love you and no matter what I&rsquo;ll see you again someday.&rdquo;
&bull;&nbsp; Brian Sweeney&nbsp; (At 8:58 A.M. on September 11, 2001, Brian Sweeney, a businessman who had once flown F-14s for the Navy, was on his cell phone trying to reach his wife, Julie.&nbsp; She wasn&rsquo;t home, so he said goodbye into the answering machine.&nbsp; Moments later, Sweeney&rsquo;s plane [United flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles], crashed into New York&rsquo;s World Trade Center.)
&ldquo;Nothing so infuriates me as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn&rsquo;t go around this world with His finger on the triggers, His fist on knives, His hands on steering wheels&hellip; never do we know enough to say that a death was the will of God.&nbsp; My own consolation lies in knowing that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God&rsquo;s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
&bull;&nbsp; William Sloane Coffin, former chaplain at Yale, in a eulogy for his son Alex, age 24&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

A Separate Peace

Good grief, has it really been five months?
Life is flying by.... That, and the fact that&mdash;as I joked with a client months ago&mdash;"Blogging feels so...long-form." (Anything more than 140 characters seems like such a colossal imposition on folks' finite reading allowances these days.) Alas, I have not written you since August.
But I'm in a "writerly" mood, finding myself eyeballs-deep ghostwriting for a client and needing a twenty-minute brain-break over lunch. So I'll turn to something simpler: my own thoughts.
&nbsp;
Here it is...January 7th, 2014. As a dear friend at a New Year party commented, "2014 can't help but be a better year than one with a thirteen in it." Who knows. 2013 was awesome, but it's always a crapshoot, isn't it?
Or, as the philosophical-Oreo-center&nbsp;might say, "Calendars are just arbitrary, mechanistic, ill-fitting templates&nbsp;designed to make sense of seasonal rhythms in ways that nature never intended, so there's no point resolving that the next twelve whatevers would be any different than the last twelve."
But sure, 2014 certainly sounds more fun than 2013. I'll give her that.
&nbsp;
I sincerely hope that 2013 was a wonderful year for you, and that 2014 will be even better.
I find that as I grow older, my wants and wishes have become simpler.
I still pump and pedal, search and strive, reach and run, but it's fair to say that The Serenity Prayer best captures my heart's desire: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
Most of the time, I don't pray FOR&nbsp;THINGS so much as for everything. Rather than some animated Aladdin, I instead view Christ as the one with whom I must be aligned. "Lord, may I seek and see and serve your will today." I pray for contentment, peace, and sometimes understanding, but mostly contentment and peace, because I know that understanding is a bit of a stretch, particularly in this broken world where war, starvation, disease, hate and genocide rage.
I cannot explain 99.99% of what occurs, but I can pray that when it happens, it would somehow be well with my soul. Or that when I cannot reconcile a particular splinter with my nail, that I might find tweezers or some other suitable instrument designed to make things healthier for all involved.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Regardless, I&mdash;and we&mdash;likely have one goal or another for 2014.
Sure, I pray that if they are God's will they would come true.
But more importantly, I pray that if or when you get some lemons, you can find an outlet for that juicer.
&nbsp;

A Serene 2014 to You & Yours

Today's gift is a bonus. I do hope you enjoy experiencing it as much as I did recording it.
# # #
&nbsp;
A dear mentor once said, "If you want to make someone's day, call them by their name."&nbsp;
At the time, some 30 years ago now, it didn't really mean that much to me, after all, anytime I heard&nbsp;my&nbsp;name (especially my&nbsp;full name), it usually meant I was in trouble and being summoned for punishment!
But now, halfway into my 50s, I understand, and he was right, of course. He was always right.
It means a lot to people to be called by their name. It means you see them, recognize them, know them. In today's world (which is often a cacophony), calling someone by their name can cut through all that noise and make 'em feel alive.
To that end&mdash;and in part because there's not much extrinsically to be given to most of my friends that would mean all that much&mdash;I do whatever I can as often as I can intrinsically.
&nbsp;
To do so is Biblical, and, of course, He is always right. A favorite scripture of my late father-in-law was:
"The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing."&nbsp; &nbsp;(Zephaniah 3:17)
I love that verse too, so today I'll follow two fathers' great example and sing the praises of a third...
&nbsp;
In today's <a href="https://youtu.be/dCXMwQesI4g?si=cIoLClgAFHXm4iD5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #26,</a> I'll make a moment to reflect on my friendship with Dr. Daren Martin over the past couple decades and share both my professional and personal insights into his character and integrity.
<a href="https://www.darenmartin.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">To learn more about Daren&rsquo;s company and work.</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
For Daren's books, of which there are many, hit <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B00FLATTX8/allbooks?ingress=0&amp;visitId=ddd0c261-3131-4917-abde-ce8d5a0386a0&amp;ref_=ap_rdr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amazon</a>.
I hope you enjoy learning more about Daren. I know I always have.
And if you see him out there in the wild someplace, please tell him, "Hey, Daren! Blake says Hi!"

A SERIES OF GIFTS — A FEW WORDS ABOUT DAREN MARTIN, PHD

Welcome to "A SERIES OF GIFTS" for the New Year!
Comprised of 20 stories, concepts, models, tools, and popular best practices from the LEATH GROUP vault (plus 6 book recommendations, a few Easter eggs, and some surprise shout-outs along the way), this series aims to help folks hit the ground running in 2023.
We believe the best leadership tools are those that shift one&rsquo;s perspective, alter one&rsquo;s inner state, or refine one&rsquo;s behavioral approach immediately (in real time), thereby transforming discouragement into hope and problems into opportunities by reducing amorphous ideas into manageable or memorable steps or stories.
To that end, <a href="https://youtu.be/Dibyq_U6A2k" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #1</a> in A SERIES OF GIFTS explores our own little hypothesis about perhaps "the most common root cause of disappointment in life" through the "E-Gap."
We hope it's an encouragement for someone out there.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 01: EXPECTATIONS & MANAGING THE E-GAP

Welcome to "A SERIES OF GIFTS" for the New Year!
<a href="https://youtu.be/oo5FpSXmriY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #2</a> introduces a slight yet HUGE mindshift&mdash;that from doer to dreamer, tactician to strategist, manager to leader&mdash;plus how to make the pivot.
We hope it's an encouragement to someone out there.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 02: 'ON' vs. 'FOR' & 'IN'

Welcome to "A SERIES OF GIFTS" for the New Year!
In GIFT #2, we suggested the value of helicoptering up (beyond working For or In an organization to working On an organization), this shift in mindset being equivalent to asking &ldquo;Are we on THE RIGHT ISLAND?&rdquo; rather than simply assuming we are and then proceeding to chop down every blasted coconut tree in sight to reach some arbitrary objective.
<a href="https://youtu.be/0IhVvC_Ny84" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #3</a> continues this line of thought, reminding us that when we work On a relationship, we are poised all the more to improve both its Nature and Design, its essence and outcomes.
Whereas &lsquo;dwellers&rsquo; inhabit whatever world in which they find themselves, &lsquo;architects&rsquo; (of companies, of cultures, of communities, of creativity, of contribution, of connection, of RELATIONSHIPS) can&mdash;through changing the very nature and design of such things&mdash;alter the air we breathe or the water in which we swim.
This is terraforming, and the headspace in which those who question assumptions and re-shape realities thrive.
Transitions of this magnitude are so significant that they often lead to demarcations en masse between &ldquo;What Was&rdquo; and &ldquo;What Is Now,&rdquo; like B.C. and A.D., before 1776 and after 1776, before Stowe and after Stowe (1852), before Edison and after Edison (1879), before Curie and after Curie (1898), before Ford and after Ford (1913), before Einstein and after Einstein (1915), before Oppenheimer and after Oppenheimer (1945), or pre-pandemic/post-pandemic (and its long tail of bankruptcies, employee churn, market volatility, Corporate cataclysms, mental illness, domestic violence, and all the rest).
But PERSONAL change needn&rsquo;t be so grand to be remarkable to oneself!
After all, we are each the architect of our own life, and CHOICES ARE OUR CHISEL:
<blockquote>
(1)&nbsp; &ldquo;What will I CHOOSE to say Yes to today?&rdquo;
(2)&nbsp; &ldquo;What will I CHOOSE to decline?&rdquo;
(3)&nbsp; &ldquo;What attitude and behavior will I CHOOSE to carry into this next meeting?&rdquo;
(4)&nbsp; &ldquo;Shall I CHOOSE open or closed-mindedness in this next hour?&rdquo;
</blockquote>
Working On ourselves is hard work, but it sure beats enslavement to presumption or habit, and also to unliving one&rsquo;s full potential.
CHOOSE THE RED PILL, won't you?
We hope you will, and that doing so proves to be both encouraging and liberating.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 03: 'ON' = CHANGING BOTH THE NATURE & DESIGN OF RELATIONSHIPS

<a href="https://youtu.be/d2xe6TVXWnk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #4</a> in A SERIES OF GIFTS suggests how vital the shift in FOCUS is for organizations interested in making the leap from TYPICAL to EXEMPLARY.
We hope it's an encouragement to someone out there.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 04: SHIFTING AN ORGANIZATION FROM TYPICAL TO EXEMPLARY

<a href="https://youtu.be/Obg0FwnjFUc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #5</a> in A SERIES OF GIFTS explores how leaders can help followers shift from the past to the future while living in the here and now, aka &ldquo;The Is&rdquo;!
To aid the transition, consider that which we CAN control, for example, what we can Start, Stop, or Continue to bridge from Endings to new Beginnings.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 05: THE 'IS' BRIDGE

<a href="https://youtu.be/nQZlJPICooQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #6</a> in A SERIES OF GIFTS enumerates "FIVE THINGS EMPLOYEES WANT FROM LEADERS DURING CHANGE" as introduced in "Unplugged: How Organizations Lose Their Energy and How to Get It Back" by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-buchholz-89196b7/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. Steve Buchholz</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/wilson-learning/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wilson Learning</a> COO <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-roth-09612a24/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tom Roth</a> (available wherever books are sold, including <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Unplugged-Organizations-Lose-Their-Energy/dp/1732727708/ref=sr_1_1?crid=25GOBYVKNPAF&amp;keywords=unplugged+steve+buchholz&amp;qid=1675359008&amp;sprefix=unplugged+steve+buchholz,aps,119&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>).

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 06: 5 THINGS EMPLOYEES WANT FROM LEADERS DURING CHANGE

Employee Stress. Energy. Loss. Gain. Excited elsewhere, but dead at work....
All these (and a smidge more!) in <a href="https://youtu.be/5gCNniFpjsI">GIFT #7</a>, today's installment from our SERIES OF GIFTS for the New Year.
We hope it's an encouragement to someone out there.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 07: EXPLORING 2 TYPES OF EMPLOYEE ENERGY & STRESS

On Friday we explored &ldquo;being excited elsewhere but feeling dead at work,&rdquo; and Loss v. Gain amidst Change, and Employee Energy, and two forms of Employee Stress (eustress and distress).
Today's installment from our SERIES OF GIFTS for the New Year is <a href="https://youtu.be/f8rRWUZN58M" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #8</a> &mdash; a slightly deeper dive into several of the more common, telltale signs of DISTRESS.
Some people are masters of masks (absolute pros at hiding what they truly feel on the inside).
Nevertheless, it helps to be &ldquo;an equally attentive and approachable lifeguard.&rdquo;
We hope today&rsquo;s checklist is a conversation starter for some and an encouragement to all.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 08: SIGNS OF BEHAVIORAL DISTRESS AT 3 INCREASING LEVELS

Organizational life (like life itself) isn't always a bed of roses. Loss is part of it, and loss can be downright grievous. One silver lining post-pandemic is that discussing mental health is less taboo. That's progress in my book because withdrawing, isolating, and feeling all alone only serve to deepen one's depressive state and delay recovery. The same is true in organizations. No organization succeeds all the time, but too few feel comfortable or equipped to process setbacks, losses, or outright failures COLLECTIVELY, the result often being silence or whisper campaigns in which employees are left to make sense of disasters on their own (and it's not unusual at all for those who take longer to 'process' Corporate loss to feel somewhat gaslit by leaders who pretend nothing happened in the first place). <a href="https://youtu.be/oi7BaVcU93E" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #9</a> in our SERIES OF GIFTS introduces a framework and vocabulary for processing loss at scale (as individuals working together within an enterprise). Grieving is, after all, natural, but so is feeling "stuck" in the crevasse between What Was and What Could Be. Not everyone grieves the same things or the same way or at the same pace, making it all the more important to learn how to grieve better together.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 09: GOOD GRIEF

Conflict. YUCK! Fortunately, there are several ways forward, through, and out to the other side. Welcome to <a href="https://youtu.be/_4ywOwv96YA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #10</a> in 2023's SERIES OF GIFTS.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 10: THE CONFLICT CONTINUUM

Remember 1991&rsquo;s &ldquo;What About Bob?&rdquo; Dang, I loved that movie. What a hoot! In it, a rather fussy, self-absorbed shrink (Richard Dreyfuss as Dr. Leo Marvin) has his life upended by this galumphing goofball-of-a-patient (Bill Murray as Bob). High jinks ensue and a book entitled &ldquo;Baby Steps&rdquo; is born. I&rsquo;m reminded of that book today, because RESILIENCE (and, specifically, desiring to BECOME more resilient) might feel tantamount to climbing Everest, but it needn't. In fact, the gateway in often begins with two surprisingly simple steps: 1) First, taking a page from Optimists rather than Pessimists. 2) And second, seeing what they've written there about Perspective. Once you&rsquo;re past those, the rest come with practice and repetition. See? Baby steps! We hope <a href="https://youtu.be/vmlT_lsvBgU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #11</a> in our SERIES OF GIFTS &mdash; &ldquo;RESILIENCE AND THE 5 Ps SOLUTION&rdquo; &mdash; is an encouragement to someone out there.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 11: RESILIENCE AND THE 5 Ps SOLUTION

"There are two reasons we don't trust people: First, we don't know them. Second, we do."
We hope <a href="https://youtu.be/Jox1GxdG_Lk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #12</a> in our SERIES OF GIFTS is an encouragement to someone out there.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 12: 4 ½ PARADIGMS OF TRUST

<div>
<div dir="auto">If trust is social currency, then what comprises the coin stack?</div>
</div>
<div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">May <a href="https://youtu.be/PvCY3Y02FoQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #13</a> from A SERIES OF GIFTS &mdash; "THE CURRENCY OF TRUST" &mdash; be an encouragement to someone out there.</div>
</div>

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 13: THE CURRENCY OF TRUST

The last couple days, we've explored TRUST &mdash; what it is (a form of social currency), people&rsquo;s inclinations to trust or not (<a href="https://youtu.be/Jox1GxdG_Lk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">4 &frac12; paradigms</a>), and five common coins comprising the currency of trust (<a href="https://youtu.be/PvCY3Y02FoQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">approachability, character, integrity, commonality, and one&rsquo;s pattern of behavior</a>). Beyond these, trust is a multiplier. Without it (&ldquo;zero trust,&rdquo; let&rsquo;s say), little to nothing gets done, much less sustained. For example, human relationships devoid of trust neither flourish nor thrive. Two cases in point are Sacred Cows and Undiscussables. Without in-group trust, we might feel reticent to challenge that which others perceive as sacred (as can occur with group-think). Similarly, most groups, projects, teams, companies, countries, families, cultures, tribes, relationships (virtually any collection of people) harbor undiscussables: "Those things we never discuss (much less resolve) and yet, without resolution, can never move beyond." And so, the end result is the same result it&rsquo;s always been: status quo. We are trapped in amber. The splinter is never removed and so we never heal. Many groups, you'll find, will frequently re-arrange literally ALL their social furniture... save the Undiscussables! For example, they'll re-vision, they'll re-value, they'll even re-vote new leaders... but they'll never talk about the fact that "Brutus is a toxic back-stabber and until he's off the team we cannot move forward!" Such weak links, bad apples, and outright futility is absolutely MADDENING to high-integrity-high-performers and is the epitome of that old saw "insanity is doing the same thing yet expecting a novel outcome." Sliding a bunch of 10s around without expelling the 0 is a great way to reliably level-set back to 0 time after time after time. I'm reminded of Congress. And so much more. Remember: "PERHAPS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT LEADERS DO IS WHAT LEADERS TOLERATE." Anyhoo, Socrates articulated the Undiscussables conundrum best when he wrote: &ldquo;The least important things in life we think about and talk about the most, and the most important things in life we think about and talk about the least.&rdquo; I shudder to think what the seesaw would look like if we put all our idle talk on one end and our constructive, meaningful dialogue to move forward civilly on the other. I am sobered by <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2012:36-37&amp;version=NIV" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Matthew 12: 36-37</a> when I weigh the enormity of eternity against my wasted grains of sand. And with that, WELCOME TO <a href="https://youtu.be/fQv2KKQes4s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #14</a> from our SERIES OF GIFTS: &ldquo;SACRED COWS &amp; UNDISCUSSABLES!&rdquo; Aren't you glad you came today? Nevertheless, we hope it's an encouragement to someone out there!

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 14: SACRED COWS & UNDISCUSSABLES

Is ignorance really bliss, or is it simply the beginning of the end?
In <a href="https://youtu.be/STSaTna2eEQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #15</a>, "IGNORANCE &amp; THE SLIPPERY SLOPE" (from our SERIES OF GIFTS for the New Year), we explore indecision as deciding, and inaction as acting.
We must beware ignorance, yes, but beware all the more what cascades beneath, behind, and beyond it when we're not looking.
We hope today's installment behooves someone who's not paying attention!

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 15: IGNORANCE & THE SLIPPERY SLOPE

<a href="https://youtu.be/hoR-ZX0StGs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #16</a> from our SERIES OF GIFTS is a heady one, as it explores the intricate process of SELF-DECEPTION and the lies we tell ourselves to sleep better at night&hellip; all while dishonoring those in conflict with us.
Dig in!

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 16: SELF-DECEPTION

<a href="https://youtu.be/A8yU8sLARVQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #17</a> from our SERIES OF GIFTS differentiates transformational from incremental change, but suggests a shorter route around the barn.
It begins with THE RIGHT DEGREE (versus fiddling with all the wrong knobs and levers) to alter one's state.
Enjoy!

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 17: INCREMENTAL vs. TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE & TWO PRINCIPLES OF 1°

In GIFTS #2 &amp; 3 (from our group's SERIES OF GIFTS for 2023), we channeled Michael Gerber and the powerful distinctions he once made between working ON, FOR, or IN an organization.
Working ON, of course, is proactive, strategic, and architectural in nature.
Working FOR and IN can sometimes feel reactive, tactical, dweller, and perhaps even &lsquo;victim mentality&rsquo; in nature.
In today&rsquo;s <a href="https://youtu.be/2qODkw4iiSQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #18</a>, we revisit working ON the organization and answer the question, &ldquo;How does one make the FOR/IN shift as a micromanager to working ON the organization and pushing personal responsibility, pride, and extreme ownership upward, laterally, downward, and throughout the organization?&rdquo;
The shift includes making five subtle transitions affectionately known as &ldquo;the wedge.&rdquo;
Join us as we dive in... to the wedgie!

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 18: FROM MICROMANAGING TO EXTREME OWNERSHIP

We live in increasingly tricky times, but human beings remain reaction machines. We judge books by covers (typically forming impressions of others within milliseconds) and, because we like &lsquo;social shorthand,&rsquo; the primitive portion of our brain frequently categorizes people with lightning-quick speed into one of four common categories: (1) Indifference, (2) Friend, (3) Foe, or (4) Potential Mate!
(1) When INDIFFERENT toward others, our minds wander to other interests.
(2) When we perceive someone new as a FRIEND or potential provider to our interests, we may approach.
(3) When we perceive someone new as a FOE, potential predator, or outright threat, we avoid.
(4) And if one perceives another as a potential MATE, his 13-year-old-self preens, peacocks, slicks back his hair and proceeds to jump ramps and pop wheelies to be seen. Or, like in 1985's Breakfast Club&nbsp;(or virtually ANY teen drama or musical), may slide into any number of social group identities (from 'jocks' and 'chessies' to 'bangers' and 'goths') for affiliation, power, protection, or provisional purposes.
All this to say that we human beings SORT &amp; STACK instantaneously, without trying: First Impression then Ignore, Approach, or Avoid. &ldquo;Wham, Bam, Thank You, Ma&rsquo;am!&rdquo;&nbsp;
Filtering (and quickly) IS key to our survival, so we&rsquo;ve gotten really good at it over the years (and for newbies, neophytes, and the nascent or naive, we&rsquo;ve historically equipped them with simple, memorable [and sometimes traumatizing] &ldquo;Stranger Danger&rdquo; lessons and the like).&nbsp;
Training wheels are great and survival mechanisms matter as much to adults as they do to children, but what happens when we generalize, stereotype, classify and fail to distinguish individuals from groups?
Dive into <a href="https://youtu.be/8WMCYZm0quc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #19</a> from our SERIES OF GIFTS and see for yourself!
We hope it&rsquo;s an encouragement to someone out there.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 19: 3 SOCIOCENTRIC TRAPS

**please read to the end: GIFT #20, updated video**
&nbsp;
You know it and I know it: MOTIVATING OTHERS in the workplace is a top-tier conundrum. Always has been, always will be. It&rsquo;s right up there with MANAGING CONFLICT, which I spoke about at length in November&rsquo;s <a href="https://lnkd.in/gMHdfsuB" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GRATITUDE SERIES, EPISODE 5: LEADING &amp; LIVING IN RELATIONAL PEACE</a>.&nbsp;
Now, when it comes to MOTIVATION, things get personal fast. Heck, there are moments, days, seasons, sometimes YEARS when even the most zealous lose the fires in their bellies. I see it all the time in organizational change, in acquisitions, at inflection points near retirement, and on teams with new and lousy bosses or bad apples.
We saw and sensed LOTS of this during COVID, did we not? Amidst disconnection, loss, hardship, and wavering purpose, our teens suffered, depression spiked, 20% of Americans changed careers, and an estimated 1.5 to 2 BILLION human beings struggled mentally.
Why, just last night as I stood briefly in a movie line, two young women in front of me were discussing <a href="https://lnkd.in/gZ96xM2g" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this article about Cara Delevingne hitting her own rock-bottom</a> these past few years.&nbsp;
Back in the workplace, though, any time someone shouts out in class, &ldquo;Hey, Dude, got any ideas for getting folks as excited about work as I am?&rdquo; laughter always ensues, because (A) It's relative, and (B) We&rsquo;ve all been there. MAYBE THAT&rsquo;S WHY THEY CALL IT &lsquo;WORK&rsquo;!
And sheesh, how do we even know who's working, or on what, given all this hybrid, side-hustle mess? If curious, check out EPISODES 2 &amp; 3 from last November for my thoughts on exactly that: <a href="https://lnkd.in/g4_dYp6s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">EPISODE 2: LEADING &amp; LIVING WITH OPTIMISM &amp; JOY (some BAD News)</a> and <a href="https://lnkd.in/g3XNMYye" target="_blank" rel="noopener">EPISODE 3: LEADING &amp; LIVING WITH OPTIMISM &amp; JOY (some GOOD News)</a>.&nbsp;
Anyhoo, for better or worse, I&rsquo;ve got recommendations for getting folks as motivated about work as you are, though you may not like the answers 😐.
&ldquo;Popular&rdquo; and &ldquo;Right,&rdquo; we must remember, are not always one and the same. In fact, I dunno about you, but after 53 orbits around the Sun, I&rsquo;m increasingly of the opinion that &ldquo;The right thing to do is simple to see: Among all the options, it's the difficult one!&rdquo;
See whatcha think.
And by the way, for those faithful few among you who already watched today's GIFT #20 (&ldquo;The CURSE of Motivating Others&rdquo;), please WATCH IT AGAIN. That original you saw was not quite the entire one, so today&rsquo;s version has the balance of my 2 cents ;-)
I do hope it&rsquo;s an encouragement to someone out there.
Here's #20, proper, this time:&nbsp;<a href="https://lnkd.in/gJUVhxAx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://lnkd.in/gJUVhxAx</a>.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 20: THE CURSE OF MOTIVATING OTHERS

The LORD works in mysterious ways...
&nbsp;
18 months ago, by happenstance (in God&rsquo;s economy), I met a fella named Mike Fransen who was completing a book entitled <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Business-Practical-Insights-Assembling/dp/1664260153/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3HS69URT9W246&amp;keywords=the+legacy+business&amp;qid=1671693270&amp;sprefix=the+legacy+business,aps,108&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&ldquo;THE LEGACY BUSINESS: PRACTICAL INSIGHTS TO ASSEMBLING A LIFE WORTH PASSING ON TO OTHERS.&rdquo;</a>&nbsp;
Then, just last month and in another city, I was visiting with a group of leaders on the topic of LEADERSHIP IDENTITY. That&rsquo;s all. Nothing else.
After everyone had left and the room was cleared, one gentleman lingered and approached. We had a very nice visit (maybe 10 minutes or so) during which he remarked out of the blue, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m really feeling called to create a LEGACY BUSINESS.&rdquo;
Had I been sitting down, I probably woulda fallen out of my chair, but since I was standing, you coulda knocked me over with a feather.
&ldquo;I brought three books today,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;and look at what this one is called.&rdquo; I then reached for the stack, and the book in the middle was my personal copy of &mdash; you guessed it &mdash; Mike Fransen&rsquo;s &ldquo;THE LEGACY BUSINESS.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Believe you me, when I slid that gorgeous black book out and handed it to the gentleman, our eyes were the size of saucers!
The man continued: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve started and sold two successful companies, but this last one&rsquo;s gonna be different.&rdquo;
&ldquo;How so?&rdquo; I asked.
&ldquo;The last two made tons of money, but they also robbed my soul. Having one left in me, I&rsquo;m making and giving this one entirely to the LORD.&rdquo;
&ldquo;And how&rsquo;s that going?&rdquo; I asked.
He smiled a knowing smile. &ldquo;My wife chastised me the other night because she saw me reverting right back into my old behaviors: the 24/7 hamster wheel, ego, arrogance, money. &lsquo;I thought this one was gonna be different,&rsquo; she said, so yeah, this is the book I need. I guess today was the divine appointment that nails it to the door for me. I cannot ignore God's calling anymore, and I can't believe that&rsquo;s the book you brought with you."
I can.
So here it is, <a href="https://youtu.be/9kJirRTyRXY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #21</a>, my book review and lite summary of THE LEGACY BUSINESS.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
For everyone out there callousing his or her knees in prayer, toiling 24/7 to get something worthwhile off the ground or up and out of the ditch, or wandering in the wilderness (fearing, perhaps, that you&rsquo;ve altogether lost your way), or worrying or wondering whether God's abandoned you, just remember: His promises endure.
As evidenced 18 months ago and just last month: Come hell or high water, God will encourage those who write in the dark and even use those who unwittingly carry His testimonies of hope into faraway lands.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
In moments of doubt, I'm personally reminded of one of my late father-in-law's favorite passages in all of scripture. He was imperfect, as we all are, and as COMPETITIVE a human being as I've ever encountered &mdash; so you may have difficulty squaring that FIERCE mental image with the verse he'd highlighted and underlined so many times in his Bible that it nearly tore the paper &mdash; but here goes:&nbsp;
"The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.&rdquo;&nbsp; (Zephaniah 3:17)
Now, you may not believe that Mike's little black book could move mountains, but...
I can.
And with that, a butterfly flaps her wings.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 21: "THE LEGACY BUSINESS" by Mike Fransen

Like yesterday's, today's gift is a book review of sorts, but it's more than that.
For leaders eager to solve the 'culture conundrum' in our latest era of work (one defined by side hustles, desk sharing, hybrid cadence issues, influencing from afar, decreased employee engagement and divided attention), <a href="https://youtu.be/t1NRL3AFJ-Q" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT #22</a> introduces a book that's chock-full of simple answers and actionable steps we can ALL take to design what author Dr. Daren Martin describes as "a company of owners."&nbsp;
And for those pressed on time or drowning in a glut of free advice, here's another biscuit to whet your appetite: The book is 144 pages, but most of them are PICTURES (infographics, diagrams, charts, fun statistics, insightful quotes, beautiful illustrations, bulleted best practices, etc.)!
It's a blast to read, and also a great gift to others.
Anyhoo, my additional thoughts are in the filmlet (along with a link to purchase the book as moved).
Pass it on............................

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 22: "ARCHITECTING A COMPANY OF OWNERS" by Daren Martin, PhD

By and large, I concur with the sentiment that &ldquo;CULTURE eats strategy for breakfast,&rdquo; and though <a href="https://www.drucker.institute/did-peter-drucker-say-that/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Drucker didn&rsquo;t write exactly that</a>, what he did write (for example, &ldquo;Culture&mdash;no matter how defined&mdash;is singularly persistent.&rdquo;) suggests that anyone who underestimates Culture does so at his or her own peril.
Beneath Culture, however, lies something equally important and far more personal: MINDSET.&nbsp;
Mindset (like EMOTIONS, BELIEFS, and BIASES) is &ldquo;the software upon which our behaviors run,&rdquo; and&mdash;like software&mdash;sometimes there are bugs and glitches.
Sorta like an amorphic mutation (one that causes complete loss of gene function), OVERTHINKING can be detrimental to one&rsquo;s mindset.
So, what to do, what to do?
Today&rsquo;s <a href="https://youtu.be/88nGGc1Gjys" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT (#23</a>, from our SERIES OF GIFTS) is a fun read by Jon Acuff entitled &ldquo;SOUNDTRACKS: THE SURPRISING SOLUTION TO OVERTHINKING.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Overthinking is a really interesting phenomenon that, safe to say, is not evenly distributed across the population. Sure, some folks overthink, but some folks behave as if they rarely think at all!&nbsp;
Or perhaps as if they have no filter.
Or perhaps as if they have no inside voice.
Or perhaps as if they have no empathy.
Or perhaps as if they have no manners.
Or perhaps as if they think too few steps ahead (infrequently considering the short or long-term consequences of their actions, as often happens when haste, instant gratification, desire, or rage trump reason). I'm reminded here of that incredible line by Ambrose Bierce: &ldquo;Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.&rdquo;
Overthinkers, of course, may have a rich interior life, though they may have a problem with &lsquo;presence.&rsquo;
For example, overthinkers who live in the PAST may live lives of REGRET, or (if their past was great, or even simply remembered as great), they may live nostalgically about &ldquo;the good ol&rsquo; days,&rdquo; pine for how things used to be, complain about &ldquo;people these days,&rdquo; listen exclusively to Springsteen&rsquo;s Glory Days while bellied up to the bar recounting someone's successful field goal kick from 1973 that won the State Championship, or fancy themselves &lsquo;the historian in the bunch&rsquo; whose responsibility it is to remind everyone that "Back when so and so steered this ship, we didn&rsquo;t have all these problems.&rdquo;
Conversely, rather than dwelling in the past, some overthinkers live in the FUTURE. If they are optimists, perhaps the future is bright... if only we can live to see it! But if they are pessimists, welp, their burden is often one of WORRY. Worry is a brain cancer, of course, but it&rsquo;s also a rocking chair that never gets us anywhere. Or, as described in David Mamet&rsquo;s The Spanish Prisoner, &ldquo;Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt that never exists.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Should an overthinker&rsquo;s &lsquo;presence&rsquo; issue not be the PAST or the FUTURE, it could very well be the 'present,' aka, LIVING IN THE HERE AND NOW. The 'mentally, physically, or emotionally absent' folks are those among us whose minds always tend to wander, or who struggle to focus, or who struggle to live in and enjoy the experience at hand.&nbsp;
Clearly, virtually everyone struggles at one point or another or to some degree with the past, the present, the future, or overthinking any one or all three of them.&nbsp;
That being the case, anyone interested in learning more about 'being present' can explore <a href="https://youtu.be/0I9gNzq1h3g" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Episode 5 of November&rsquo;s GRATITUDE SERIES (&ldquo;LEADING &amp; LIVING IN RELATIONAL PEACE"), as I covered REGRET &amp; WORRY at length there (beginning at 00:24:30).</a>
Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy <a href="https://youtu.be/88nGGc1Gjys" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a few thoughts on Acuff&rsquo;s </a><a href="https://youtu.be/88nGGc1Gjys" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SOUNDTRACKS</a>, because his book is insightful, meaningful, and fun (and funny!).
I&rsquo;m indebted to Austin Powell for bringing it to my attention a summer or two ago.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 23: "SOUNDTRACKS" by Jon Acuff

<a href="https://youtu.be/e1uFLcO4HBQ?si=7PsyrjVxY7xS3v1J" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT # 24</a>, PERMISSION TO FEEL: THE POWER OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TO ACHIEVE WELL-BEING AND SUCCESS by Dr. Marc Brackett is one of my favorite books in the past five years.
Based on research from Yale&rsquo;s Center for Emotional Intelligence, Mark enumerates six transformational tools for those interested in developing a richer 'feelings vocabulary&rsquo; including: MOOD METER, CULTURE/CLIMATE CHARTER, META-MOMENTS, BLUEPRINT (EMPATHY, BALCONY), PRIME, and RULER (a popular tool for developing social emotional health in schools).
When combined with Daniel Goleman&rsquo;s work on Emotional Intelligence, PERMISSION TO FEEL puts the 2 in the "1, 2 punch!"
<a href="https://amzn.to/3GcEOCn%20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">To order Marc&rsquo;s trailblazing book.</a>&nbsp;
<a href="https://medicine.yale.edu/myysm/profile/marc-brackett/?tab=bio" target="_blank" rel="noopener">To learn more about Marc and his work.</a>&nbsp;
<a href="https://medicine.yale.edu/myysm/search/?q=marc+brackett" target="_blank" rel="noopener">For Marc&rsquo;s videos (and others' in his circle).</a>&nbsp;
<a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/how-we-feel/id1562706384" target="_blank" rel="noopener">To download Marc&rsquo;s/Yale&rsquo;s HOW WE FEEL app (which replaces their former MOOD METER).</a>&nbsp;
<a href="https://medicine.yale.edu/childstudy/services/community-and-schools-programs/center-for-emotional-intelligence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">To learn more about the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.</a>&nbsp;
Enjoy.

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 24: "PERMISSION TO FEEL" by Marc Brackett, PhD

<a href="https://youtu.be/iuHyVI4BWMk?si=-Bfueo6OIepTTsQO" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GIFT # 25</a> is actually two recommended readings for anyone interested in learning more about Blake&rsquo;s concepts, tools, and best practices covered in A&nbsp;SERIES OF GIFTS: 
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Cultivating-Strategic-Mind-Blake-Leath-ebook/dp/B07DDBT84B?ref_=ast_author_dp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CULTIVATING THE STRATEGIC MIND: GROWING FROM LEADER TO VISIONARY, CREATOR, AND ARCHITECT OF STRATEGY (2nd Edition)</a>
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fireside-Seasoned-Leaders-Reflections-After/dp/B08FP9Z74T?ref_=ast_author_dp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FIRESIDE: SEASONED LEADERS' REFLECTIONS ON WORK, LIFE, AND LIFE AFTER WORK (black and white)</a>
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fireside-Seasoned-Leaders-Reflections-After/dp/B08KH97MNG?ref_=ast_author_dp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FIRESIDE: SEASONED LEADERS' REFLECTIONS ON WORK, LIFE, AND LIFE AFTER WORK (full-color)</a>
Thanks for your support!

A SERIES OF GIFTS — No. 25: BLAKE'S BOOKS

The&nbsp;matter of 'workplace' and 'personal' motivation comes up a lot.
Here's one of the more pleasurable explanations that I've come across.&nbsp; My thanks to a dear colleague for sharing it.
Enjoy!&nbsp;
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u6XAPnuFjJc" width="290" height="150" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<a title="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc</a>

Authentic Motivation

I suppose the term 'bailout' will take on new significance this year, just as the phrase 'ground zero' did after 9-11.&nbsp; Bailout meant something a year ago, and today it means something much more!
Though I remain&nbsp;dedicated to sharing only pithy thoughts in my Blog (and oh, hasn't that word been hijacked too?), I'll flex a bit on this rainy Friday and share the following, which came to me by way of a dear friend earlier this morning:
When Chuck was a young cowboy in Montana, he bought a horse from a farmer for $100.&nbsp; The farmer agreed to deliver the horse the next day. The next day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news... the horse died." Chuck replied, "Well, then just give me my money back." The farmer said, "Can't do that.&nbsp; I went and spent it already." Chuck said, "Okay, then just bring me the dead horse." The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him?" Chuck said, "I'm going to raffle him off." The farmer said, "You can't raffle off a dead horse!" Chuck said, "Sure I can, watch me. &nbsp;I just won't tell anybody he's dead." A month later, the farmer met up with Chuck and asked, "What happened with that dead horse?" Chuck said, "I raffled him off. &nbsp;I sold 500 tickets at&nbsp;$2 a piece and made&nbsp;$998." The farmer said, "Didn't anyone complain?" Chuck said, "Just the guy who won.&nbsp; So I gave him his&nbsp;$2 back." Chuck grew up and now works for the government. &nbsp;He's the one who figured out how the bailouts&nbsp;are going to work.&nbsp; &nbsp;
This past week, my wife and daughter and I traveled to Kauai and spent time with some wonderful people there.&nbsp; As you can imagine, Kauai is struggling.&nbsp; The hotel where we stayed reported 30% occupancy, compared with 100% occupancy for the prior seven years.&nbsp; Yowza.
As we strolled a small shopping area one afternoon, we came across this sign outside an art gallery.&nbsp; My Republican friends will surely love it, as will entrepreneurs, small businesses, capitalists, and for that matter -- most taxpayers.
My clients run the gamut.&nbsp; Indeed, some are&nbsp;bailout-beneficiaries, others are government-centric groups, and some are small banks hanging on by their fingernails.&nbsp;&nbsp;A great many&nbsp;are manufacturers and service providers in the private sector.&nbsp; (One banking executive recently said to me, "In our new economy, the government seems to view an organization as 'too large to fail' or 'too small to save.'&nbsp; In the end, we're all citizens committed to re-starting our economy.")
And as taxpayers, when we disregard the&nbsp;'Wall Street vs. Main Street' rhetoric, I see much common ground.&nbsp; In fact, more common than uncommon ground.&nbsp;
Because in the end, we want justice, equality, opportunity, health, safety, happy children, and our shot at the pursuit --&nbsp;or dare I say it -- the arrival of happiness.
Sometimes we wind-up feeling like <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=22&amp;chapter=1&amp;version=31">Job</a>, who lost&nbsp;ten children, his health,&nbsp;and everything he possessed.&nbsp; But when he prayed for his friends, "the Lord made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before."&nbsp; He died, old and full of years.
If you're not wishing the best for others or praying for them, maybe now is the time to do so.
All the best to you and yours; enjoy the weekend.

Bailout Arithmetic

We stood at the counter, Dawn, our six-year-old daughter Lauren, and me. 


And from Lauren&#39;s tiny mouth come these words, &quot;I&#39;ll have a banana smoothie, please.&quot; 


She had&nbsp;read this $2.50 line-item from 20&#39; away and ordered it herself. 


My, oh my, how times change.&nbsp; A year ago, she could read one and two-syllable words.&nbsp; Two years ago, at age four, I think she &#39;recognized&#39; words, but I don&#39;t recall her reading many sentences.&nbsp; But here we are, May 2009 at the age of six, and she&#39;s reading chapter books, street signs, movie titles, Viagra commercials, Disney Channel barrages... she can, in short, read just about anything.&nbsp; Words like &#39;catastrophe&#39; throw her, but with these&nbsp;wily exceptions, she can pronounce most everything. 


Like soft mid-sections and wiggly skin, I know that, as adults, undesirable things creep up on us.&nbsp; But the year the world begins to reveal itself to a child like a blossoming flower in Spring is a&nbsp;welcome year indeed. 


Life itself is like this, I believe.&nbsp; We are born into utter darkness, ignorant of all.&nbsp; And year by year, bit by bit, our eyes open.&nbsp; They open to the good, the bad, the indifferent -- but they open.&nbsp; And over time, we assert ourselves (or fail to) and become a person with proclivities, opinions, preferences, and biases. 


What an amazing thing, life.&nbsp; 


Relish it. 


And every now and again, stop and smell the flowers -- indulging and appreciating the awesomeness of simplicity. 


After all, there&#39;s more to saying, &quot;I&#39;ll have a banana smoothie, please&quot; than meets the eye.

Banana Smoothie

WACO, TX / OCT. 17 &mdash; In these polarized, contentious times when national debate so frequently devolves into national division, I&rsquo;m reminded of 1958 alumnus Robert Fulghum&rsquo;s folksy, homespun wisdom on the matter: &ldquo;We could learn a lot from crayons,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names&mdash;but they all have learned to live together in the same box.&rdquo; 
Now, your experiences in the whole wide world might differ, but it&rsquo;s my impression that life takes a toll and no one skates for free. It turns out that striving to live honorably and with integrity in this box, believing in and standing up for what&rsquo;s eternal, fighting the good fight, and daring greatly in any arena can sometimes feel akin to tilting at windmills or boiling oceans. Fortunately, ours is a faith rooted in hope and rendered in love, so no matter one&rsquo;s circumstances or life&rsquo;s taxes, His promises are those of peace; we are never unmoored, never abandoned, never alone. I am reminded of this daily, and especially every autumn&mdash;when I find myself longing for respite from the world at large and eager to return home to my beloved green and gold.
This yearning may sound silly to some, but remember this: There are no little things. Why, just the other day a dear friend of mine named J.B. (a septuagenarian, in fact, who has survived more loss in his lifetime than one might think any person could bear) wrote the most actionable note reminding everyone in his circle to be thankful for and to celebrate life&rsquo;s simplest pleasures: &ldquo;As summer gives way to cooler weather, give thanks for FOOTBALL, FESTIVITIES, and HOLIDAYS... the coming of perspective and relief in so many forms.&rdquo; How fitting, therefore, that in these divided states Baylor Nation should roar back to life, lead the way forward and out, and aim to overcome through unity of spirit.
For the 113th year, we are afforded that beautiful 3-day weekend to &ldquo;renew former associations and friendships, and [to] catch the Baylor spirit again.&rdquo; In a word, to become heartened. As your week winds down, please lift your gaze, will you, and refill your heart and soul at the fount of our unique alma mater. To your every motivation, be they prosaic or profound, this year&rsquo;s Homecoming runs October 20-22 and includes Dinner with the Livingstones, Mass Meeting, Pigskin Revue, Homecoming Court, Friday Night Flashback, 50th Reunion &amp; Golden Grad Diploma Ceremony, Singspiration: Baylor Alumni's Homecoming Worship Service, Extravaganza / Pep Rally / Bonfire, the Homecoming Parade, Baylor Alumni Tailgate, and, of course, the culmination of it all in Saturday&rsquo;s football game against the Kansas Jayhawks.
I look forward to seeing your beaming face back in our happy place. &nbsp;#BaylorHomecoming
&mdash;Blake Leath, &rsquo;92
&nbsp;
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1666765552/iwaa4bruvcg1o9gbrq7t.png" alt="" width="300" height="208" />

Baylor Homecoming 2022

With the recent&nbsp;celebration of our 16th wedding anniversary, followed immediately by the occurrence of Father's Day, I have a whole wallet stuffed with Barnes &amp; Noble gift cards.&nbsp; One of the 'givers' inquired, "What did you buy?"
In response to her, and a client this morning who asked, "What are you 'bedside reading' these days?" I offer this brief defense.
The table is spilling over with magazines: The Week, Inc.,&nbsp;and Time -- to stay abreast of 'the serious issues.'&nbsp; And I've got a couple issues of Entertainment Weekly, for those moments before take-off when my mind wants empty calories rather than world events.&nbsp; There are undoubtedly moments when I cannot bear to read 'heavy stuff.'
I also purchased an assortment of interesting books, a couple new ones and a classic.&nbsp; A Different Life by Quinn Bradlee looks promising.&nbsp; A young man with VCFS who has memoir'ed his journey as a learning-disabled student, son, and friend.&nbsp; I love the dedication page, "To my mom -- my archangel, and my father, who is my sword and shield."&nbsp; We should only be so appreciated.&nbsp; Losing Mum and Pup by Christopher Buckley, about his inimitable parents and their respective deaths in 2007-2008.&nbsp; A loving tribute from a complicated son.&nbsp; All the King's Men by Pulitzer Prize winner, Robert Penn Warren.&nbsp; A classic, and more timely than ever, even 63 years later.&nbsp; Finally, I've&nbsp;got an Idiot's Guide to Latin beside the bed because it has always fascinated me and I don't want my brain jell-o-ing to mush.&nbsp; To keep a muscle, you gotta use it!
It'd be nice to be one of those folks who grows younger as he grows older (more curious, more free, more fun), rather than the other way around (less curious, less free, less fun)!&nbsp; (Sort of a Benjamin Button, if you will, minus the drool and diapers at each life-endpoint.)
Keep the recommendations coming; I'll read all I can.&nbsp; As a great mentor, Carveth Kramer, once said to me,&nbsp;"Leaders are readers" or, at least, they should be.&nbsp;

Bedside Reading

Earlier this week, perhaps our most beloved client expressed the difficulty their organizational leaders have "incorporating strategic thinking into their daily routine."
Because this challenge is more universal than unique, I thought I would offer up some suggestions that might remind each of us how to do this&mdash;and more consistently.&nbsp; After all, it&rsquo;s tough to see "the theatre of war" within the fray and fog of it.
Attached is a <a target="_blank">seven-page, 3000 word summary with 15 recommendations</a> for how you can be Strategic...Now.
<a href="../../blogging/file.axd?file=2012%2f4%2fBeingStrategicDaily_v3.2.pdf">BeingStrategicDaily_v3.2.pdf (449.10 kb)</a>
Tally-ho!

Being Strategic—Now!

A couple weeks ago, I watched Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life.
Talk about "Give a Mouse a Cookie!"
It's not really a movie.&nbsp; It's more an exposition on existentialism.
Sure, it's presented via film, but it's&nbsp;primarily a hallucinogenic journey from creation to destruction, with Texas and philosophy&nbsp;residing somewhere in between.
The early lines about two ways to live, via grace or nature, are breathtaking.&nbsp; And, as the journey unfolds, similarly heartbreaking.
But the film led me on a Terrence Malick bender, proceeding from The Tree of Life to Badlands, Days of Heaven and The New&nbsp;World (which was particularly rewarding because, after&nbsp;devouring A Land as God Made It and A Kingdom Strange [both by James Horn, about the Jamestown and Roanoke colonies, respectively], I had also just returned from an emotional day at Jamestown Colony).&nbsp;
After growing up in Waco, TX, Malick graduated from Harvard with a degree in philosophy.&nbsp; He then attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, but he did not complete his doctoral work, opting instead to drop-out, become a journalist, writer, itinerant professor at MIT&nbsp;and, surely, one of this century's most reclusive, enigmatic, brilliant directors.&nbsp; His personal story is marked by lows and highs, from his pianist brother's crippling his own hands and eventual suicide to Malick's three marriages and his ultimately directing what many regard as the finest film ever made, Days of Heaven, which proved that 'the magic hour' right before dusk can be the most gorgeous time to roll tape.&nbsp;
Malick's own inquiries, evident in everything he has touched,&nbsp;are about Being.&nbsp; In fact,&nbsp;one of his&nbsp;best known scholarly works is a translation of Martin&nbsp;Heidegger's (1889-1976) Vom Wesen des Grundes, published by Malick as The Essence of Reasons.&nbsp; Heidegger, a controversial figure then and now, explored the meaning of Being, determinism, our role in the world ("in situ," as it were)--and the extent (or limited extent) to which we can be, in short, "masters of our domain,"&nbsp;advocating instead that we are&nbsp;probably just&nbsp;"leaves in a stream."&nbsp;
These films by Malick, the books by Horn, my introspective&nbsp;day at&nbsp;Jamestown (during which, virtually alone for hours, I felt like an alien landing on earth some 300 years after it imploded)--coincide with my 42nd birthday--placing me (God willing and health permitting) smack-dab between my own creation and (carnate) destruction at the intersection of Texas and philosophy.&nbsp; Mid-life, to be sure.
<div><img src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2011%2f12%2fJamestownPort.jpg" alt="" width="877" height="570" /></div>
As I've written before, our daughter&nbsp;articulated her first, deep existential angst about one month into 1st Grade.&nbsp;&nbsp;As I lay&nbsp;her in bed one night, her heavy head on the pillow, tinkly music drifting in the background, she stared up at me with her big round eyes and inquired (God as my witness), "Daddy, is this all there is to life?"&nbsp; Perplexed, I asked, "What, Sweetie?"&nbsp;&nbsp;Sighing, she said, "You know...dressing,&nbsp;eating, sitting in plastic chairs all day listening to a teacher.&nbsp; Coming home to eat, undress and do it all again tomorrow?"&nbsp;
Needless to say, I was first taken aback.
Who spoke these words?
In return, I was speechless.&nbsp;
There is, to life, a number of days in plastic chairs.
And a number of hours&nbsp;standing in line.
Along with perhaps 87,600 meals.
And 29,200 showers.
And, if you want them and are fortunate, perhaps 2.5 kids, a couple cars, a house in the cul-de-sac, a few diplomas on the wall and all the rest.
Sure, yes, there is much about life that is pedestrian, pragmatic, prosaic.
As we spoke, for what amounted to perhaps one hour, we proceeded to move beyond these ideas though, at which point&nbsp;I tried (speaking to a six-year-old) to describe meaning, belief, service, faith, hope, love and all the rest.&nbsp; And, very briefly, to describe a sense of calling,&nbsp;living a life on purpose, and talents.&nbsp; (Hey, she asked.&nbsp; We're too far in to turn back now, I reasoned.)&nbsp;
Looking back over the nearly four years that have lapsed since then I can say, with a degree of shock, that it did seem to click.&nbsp; She was listening.&nbsp; She more than heard me--she somehow,&nbsp;through her tiny ears and wet eyes, understood.
And her journey, like mine--yours--ours, is often about Being more than Doing.
We are trained, most of us, to focus on "behavior," as it is, from a reductive standpoint, observable and, therefore, "measurable and coach-able."
But I must say, as I get older, that any worthwhile reflection on one's personhood begins much deeper.&nbsp; Not at the 'genetic' level, mind you, but certainly at the 'atomic' level of, say, one's Being and Beliefs.
To make this demonstrable, consider the hypocrite.&nbsp; The politician, for example, who Is and who Believes one way, yet consistently Behaves obversely.
More slippery still, consider the person who Behaves well toward you, demonstrating wonderful actions, when all the while a brew of anger, hate, jealousy or vengeance roils right beneath the surface.
Psychologists and philosophers have wrestled with and written about these "veneers" and "masks" for millennia, and they always will.
The questions of "Who am I" and "What do I believe" undergird and give shape to our very existence.
They precede Behavior and, to my current way of thinking, actually supersede it.&nbsp; True, I care about Behavior.&nbsp; I/we all do; should; will.&nbsp;&nbsp;Agreeing with the cognitivists (e.g., Maslow, McClellan, McGregor, Herzberg) more than the behaviorists (e.g., Pavlov, Skinner and all the rest), I believe that, while&nbsp;actions and reactions matter,&nbsp;behaviors are primarily symptomatic in nature, with&nbsp;one's&nbsp;starting disposition being more&nbsp;causal.&nbsp; (Yes, yes, there are limitless exceptions, from seatbelts and smoking to aromatic foods, ringing doorbells and vibrating phones, but these do not dissuade me from my 51/49 lean.)&nbsp;
As I reflect on Malick's films, the colonists who forged this nation, the founding fathers who (nearly 160 years later)&nbsp;canonized its liberties...and even David Fincher's&nbsp;interpretation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I am convinced&nbsp;beyond certainty that Being and Beliefs, while not quite prologue, are immeasurably paramount.
When I coach someone who has had "a change of heart," his/her ears and eyes are wide open.
When I coach someone who "intellectually understands," yet maintains a concrete bunker around&nbsp;his/her heart, we both fail.
I share these ruminations in the magic hour of 2011, as dusk is coming and, with it, the sun is slipping below the horizon.
All too soon, 2011 will be but a distant memory and we, like the rooster, will be crowing about 2012 and all that dawns ahead.
May this New Year be your best one yet, so abundant with blessings that your storehouse nails pop clean out, boards bursting at the seams,&nbsp;flat-out overflowing.
But more than this, much more, my hope and heart and mind and prayer is this: may you find and be at peace with your own Being and Beliefs.
So much that, should this or that be your last hour, you&nbsp;might rest&nbsp;your head on a soft pillow&nbsp;knowing, tomorrow and beyond, there is unquestionably Meaning, Reason and&nbsp;Hope well beyond the plastic chairs.&nbsp;
It is the way of grace.
<a href="../../blogging/file.axd?file=2011%2f12%2fJamestownPhotos.pdf">JamestownPhotos.pdf (12.52 mb)</a>

Being vs. Doing

My wife and I were chortling the other day about several funny childhood memories. They are countless, right? Of course they are!
Here's just one, shared for no apparent reason whatsoever, other than perhaps because every time I think of it&nbsp;I laugh so hard peas fly out my nose.&nbsp;
I remember my first day of 6th grade as if it was yesterday. I made quite a...splash.
All of us had been in the same school, grades 1-5. The move to grades 6-8 was a biggie, primarily because it was an entirely different school several miles and one big bridge away. Its scope and scale were colossal by comparison. In the course of one year, we jumped from carrying tubby-trays with Big Chief tablets and fat pencils to a campus replete with lockers, designated smoking areas, a quarter-mile track, sports fields, science labs, woodworking and welding shops,&nbsp;labyrinthine hallways&nbsp;and an amphitheater with a sound system.&nbsp;
I&nbsp;entered this grandiose facility for the first time wearing&nbsp;a bright red t-shirt with gold lam&eacute; writing that read, "I am FANTASTIC!" in a big arc across the front.&nbsp;
After a day of proverbial swirlies, wedgies and being placed upside down in trash cans by 8th graders, I returned home and stood--defeated--in the kitchen with my mom. "Mom--I am NOT fantastic." And whoosh, off came the shirt and into the trash can it went!&nbsp;
It's surreal recalling that day--thirty years ago now.
I'm not sure what the moral is, or even if there is one.
But I can guarantee you this: I do not wear red anymore. Ever. And Hades will become tundra before I wear pronouncement-clothing again.

Beware 8th Graders

Permission to Feel:&nbsp;The Power of Emotional Intelligence to Achieve Well-Being and Success
I don&rsquo;t know how you&rsquo;re feeling right now, but I know that you are.&nbsp;That&rsquo;s the gist of&nbsp;Permission to Feel,&nbsp;in which Marc Brackett estimates perhaps only 2/5ths of us have a working language capable of adequately describing our feelings.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m fine,&rdquo; &ldquo;All good,&rdquo; &ldquo;A-Okay,&rdquo; &ldquo;Another day in paradise&rdquo; and &ldquo;If I were any better I&rsquo;d be twins&rdquo; are cop-outs and we know it, but they&rsquo;re chirpy and cheery, don&rsquo;t necessitate effortful dialogue, require no thinking on our part and, perhaps best of all, they&rsquo;re quick. Heaven forbid someone should actually endeavor to tell us how s/he REALLY feels. Eesh, that would require empathy, listening, and time&hellip;something many of us possess in only very limited quantities.
As family and friends die, our economy sputters, branded empires collapse, immigrants fear their future, frontline healthcare workers + police + firefighters wear down, teachers gird their loins for the viral new year, and parents whisper prayers over their kids before breathing deeply and pushing them out the door to school, the emotions we collectively feel right now are legit, powerful, and outright overwhelming. That much I&nbsp;can&nbsp;adequately describe.
Pessimism, apathy, anger, anxiety, sadness, stress, impatience, irritability, guilt, fatigue, boredom, pressure, worry, regret, distraction, embarrassment, shame, resentment, fear&hellip; They can simply be too much sometimes, and certainly 4-6 months (or years) into this New Abnormal.
Into this reality, however,&nbsp;Permission to Feel&nbsp;offers a lot of great, simple, actionable tips, tricks and skills. It&rsquo;s not a daunting, discouraging book. On the contrary, it&rsquo;s jam-packed with fun research and tools, and I bet you can buzz through it in two or three sittings.
Here are a few teasers for teachers, in particular, as school is upon us once again:
<ol>
<li>&ldquo;High school students and teachers experience negative emotions up to 70% of the time they are in school.&rdquo; &nbsp;</li>
<li>&ldquo;Research shows that having just one caring, capable adult can make the difference between whether a child thrives or not.&rdquo; &nbsp;</li>
<li>&ldquo;Classroom research shows that where there is an emotionally skilled teacher present, students disrupt less, focus more, and perform better academically.&rdquo; </li>
<li>&ldquo;Emotions determine whether academic content will be processed deeply and remembered.&rdquo;&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
Marc (Director of Yale&rsquo;s Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the Child Study Center in Yale&rsquo;s School of Medicine) offers this brief exercise that&rsquo;s helpful for each of us, no matter our role or profession:
<blockquote>
&ldquo;In seminars I conduct with teachers, I&rsquo;ll sometimes ask them to list their students and consider the feeling that each name automatically prompts. Is it love, dislike, trust, joy, fear, disgust? Next I&rsquo;ll say, Be honest and think about how that emotion causes you to act toward each of those children. They instantly recognize how differently they treat each child depending solely on their perception of how he or she makes them feel. It has little to do with how the child performs in class, or the child&rsquo;s needs, or anything they can name. It&rsquo;s just a strong, almost visceral reaction that usually has to do with something about the teacher, not the student. Outside the classroom, we all operate the same way: approach or avoid.&rdquo;
</blockquote>
And so, as we struggle with death and destruction, face masks, physical distancing (which eerily equates to social isolation), the politics of fear, and perpetual ambiguity, let us focus on our locus of control: You may not change me. I may not change you. But if I so choose, I can embrace a vocabulary and skill set that empowers me to more successfully say how I feel, and that&rsquo;s the sort of thing that changes (and SAVES) lives.
Permission to Feel.&nbsp;In paperback yesterday.
#PermissionToFeel
<a href="http://www.marcbrackett.com/">www.marcbrackett.com</a>
#ReadOn

Book Recommendation: "Permission to Feel"

Bringing Down the House led to 21 with Kevin Spacey.&nbsp; I have not seen the movie, but a number of friends have recommended the book.
It's a quick read -- one of three I&nbsp;enjoyed over Thanksgiving 2008 -- and I predict you'll crank through it in a few hours too.
The bottom line: it's a blast, but also a bleak series of recollections.&nbsp; Given the many dark and twisted characters, you may feel the need to bathe afterward.&nbsp; The underbelly of Vegas attracts all manner of humankind, and most of them are in rare display here.
For the mathematician in all of us, the feats accomplished by the merry band of blackjack raiders is quite impressive and always fascinating.
Enjoy the book... I'm sure it's much better than the movie.
<img src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2008%2f12%2fBringingDownTheHouse%2cbookthumbnail.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="240" />

Book Review: "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions" by Ben Mezrich

Wow -- this book was a figurative and literal&nbsp; B E A T I N G . 
I know he's a three-time Pulitzer Prizer winner... perhaps that's why I expected better.
Sure, he knows his stuff, but the book is circular, redundant, dry, and only momentarily compelling.&nbsp; Given his obvious zealotry about the important subject matter, it's&nbsp;unfortunate he becomes his own worst enemy.&nbsp;
Friedman makes his point SO WELL, AND SO MANY TIMES that I wonder how GREAT the book might have been were it only half the overwhelming 438 pages.
In time, it will prove to be a classic... ahead of its time... brilliant... and will be heralded as "the book that&nbsp;encapsulated it all."&nbsp; His sources, data, statistics, and stories are second-to-none... but then become second, third, and fourth-only-to-himself after&nbsp;perhaps 200 pages or so.&nbsp; His hypotheses and recommendations are dynamite, but hardly pithy.&nbsp; I feel guilty for perceiving the book to become tiresome about something that is so profoundly critical to us all.&nbsp;
But today, it is simply overkill, and too wonk-ish to attract the millions upon millions who need to read it if we are to truly democratize and integrate what has hitherto been known as 'the green movement.'
Thanks, Tom, for writing it.&nbsp; I only hope that enough of us are up to reading and implementing it.&nbsp; In time, perhaps an abridged version or summary will follow that can be distributed and implemented by the majority.&nbsp;
<img src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2008%2f12%2fHot%2cFlat%2cCrowded%2cbookthumbnail.jpg" alt="" width="91" height="137" />

Book Review: "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution -- And How It Can Renew America" by Thomas L. Friedman

Jim Collins' (or, ahem,&nbsp;Collins's, if I am to be contemporarily correct) reputation is beyond reproach, but I must say, his tendency to convert what should rightly be a 'snack' into a bloating 'meal' is becoming wearisome. (Call me jaundiced rather than scathing, but I expect better from Collins. One could glean more insights from a playground, yet he's been rubbing elbows for two decades with the world's best and brightest and this is all we get?)
His latest book is just a 200-page exposition on the 4,000-year-old&nbsp;idiom&nbsp;(and timeless truth) "pride comes before the fall."
No doy. It took him 5 years and thousands of interviews to determine this... again?
Consultants&nbsp;get&nbsp;a <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Is-it-Bad-Rap-or-Bad-Wrap">bad rap</a> because of such swill. It's like the client asking, "What time is it?" and the consultant responding, "May I borrow your watch for a moment?"
Collins's&nbsp;'illuminating, revelatory,&nbsp;and epiphanic' stages of How the Mighty Fall include such nose-on-the-face nail-biters as:
Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death&nbsp;
I think I get it. We all do. Pride, Excess, Denial, Demise. Hmmmm... sounds like a combination of VH1's Behind the Music, Kubler-Ross, the Weight-Watchers/Slim-Fast methodology, and Common Sense. Hardly worth $25.
His parting shot, captured on the back cover, [almost] says it all,&nbsp;"Whether you prevail or fail, endure or die, depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you."
Yes indeed, I'm responsible for Me. Got it. I'll try to remember that.
I'm confident that Collins's next&nbsp;book will be better; I think How the Mighty Fall is simply his Blink1. (For the record, both Built to Last and Good to Great were, to my way of thinking, exceptional.) Publishers have a way of teasing books out of best selling authors like Collins and Gladwell, and oftentimes before there is a book... and sometimes even when there is no book. (I know this is all very doorman-critiques-Bach, so far be it from me to judge, but alas, these are my two cents. Take 'em at face value.)
<a href="http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/9780977326419.html">Publisher's full synopsis</a>
<img src="http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/images/9780977326419.jpg" alt="9780977326419" width="133" height="200" border="0" />
This week as I travel, I'll be reading The World Without Us, written in 2007 by Alan Weisman. I have high expectations for this book, and hope to confirm them in my next review. More then; make it a great week.
1Sorry, but I thought Blink was as 'worthless' as The Tipping Point was 'priceless.' I mean, "thin slicing," come on. Talk about making a snack into a meal! Since when are the notions of 'go with your gut, use your instincts, and trust your first impressions' noteworthy? The Tipping Point was excellent, and Outliers is arguably the best social-science book of the last five years, but I thought Blink was much ado about nothing.

Book Review: "How the Mighty Fall & Why Some Companies Never Give In" by Jim Collins

For the last two nights, this 211-pages-page-turner absolutely possessed me.&nbsp; The [not-long-but] short of it is this: after four years at Princeton, and just prior to attending Oxford on scholarship, author Walter Kirn gets pneumonia while visiting his parents.&nbsp; Late one night he notices, for practically the first time, a few classics in his mother&rsquo;s bookshelves.&nbsp; From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Great Expectations, he becomes engrossed and reads them, really reads them, for the first time in his life.
Setting his pretenses down &ndash; the ones he honed to enter and survive Princeton &ndash; he says, in the final lines of Lost, &ldquo;And so, belatedly, haltingly, accidentally, and quite implausibly and incredibly, it began at last: my education.&nbsp; I wanted [for the first time in my inauthentic life] to find out what others thought.&rdquo;

Book Review: "Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever" by Walter Kirn

With Gladwell's third book, he is officially "2 for 3" in my book.
I give Outliers a solid, solid A.
With the exception of the Chapter Five and the Epilogue, which comprise the&nbsp;least engaging&nbsp;sections in the book, Outliers&nbsp;is one of the most remarkable books I've read in the past six months.
Gladwell's first published book, The Tipping Point, was simply outstanding.&nbsp; Blink, however,&nbsp;was a real snooze.&nbsp; (My own personal opinion is that he was rushing to cash-in on the success of The Tipping Point, but there was hardly a kernel worth writing about in Blink.&nbsp; "Thin-slicing?"&nbsp; Come on... much ado about nothing.&nbsp; Thin-slicing, indeed.)
But this latest contribution, Outliers, is a real treat.&nbsp; Candy for the brain.&nbsp; It reminds me of all the great, wonderful, intriguing ideas that led me to study the human and social sciences in the first place.&nbsp; To learn more about Outliers from Gladwell himself, check out <a href="http://www.gladwell.com/outliers/index.html">http://www.gladwell.com/outliers/index.html</a>.&nbsp; But the reasons I enjoyed it can be captured in the following representative list of&nbsp;topics that reminded me of undergraduate coursework in psychology, anthropology, and sociology that&nbsp;spurred me to continue studying and reading until... well... this very day:
1. patterns
2. selection, streaming, and differentiated experience
3. accumulative advantage
4. the 10,000 hour rule
5. divergent vs. convergent intelligence
6. general and practical intelligence
7. concerted cultivation vs. accomplishment of natural growth
8. the culture of honor
9. mitigated speech
10. the ubiquitous and unparalleled work of Geert Hofstede
&nbsp;
So, why don't I give Gladwell an A+?&nbsp; Well, setting aside Chapter Five and the Epilogue, my greatest concern is more substantive, of course, and it has to do with "too much cultural determinism."&nbsp; By Gladwell's way of thinking, we achieve what we achieve, in large part -- in fact, practically predominantly -- because of the culture in which we are raised.&nbsp; He strives to prove this through a series of stories and examples that are, indeed, fascinating.&nbsp; But they are not quite enough to fully convince.
In the particulate, his anecdotes are super.&nbsp; But in the aggregate, they border on stereotypical and ring somewhat hollow in today's increasingly 'post-racial and post-cultural' world.&nbsp; Indeed, differences remain among and between people of various backgrounds, but as a dear friend of mine from Portugal once said, "We are not all that different.&nbsp; There is TOO MUCH STEREOTYPING and GENERALIZING."
As Morris Massey articulated in his infamous, What You Are Is Where You Were When, some mild generalizations can be helpful, but they are inadequate.&nbsp; Indeed, with any taxonomy or typology, generalizations give us what Robert&nbsp;Cialdini (Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion) would describe as 'a shorthand way of interacting with each other,' but beyond that... generalizations and stereotypes can be dangerous and&nbsp;altogether misleading.
I am certain, as are countless others, that MANY individuals achieve a great deal on their own, as well as overcome and transcend the shackles of their culture, background, history, and surroundings.&nbsp; I know that Gladwell does not believe, 100%, that who we are and what we accomplish is solely because of those around us, but he works himself into a corner of sorts by&nbsp;arguing so strongly&nbsp;that we do.
But, my goodness, out of 309 pages (all of which you will, indeed, read in a B-L-I-N-K)... if this is my only concern, then color me IMPRESSED and DELIGHTED and AMONG HIS BIGGEST ADVOCATES.
This book will prove to be enormously successful, and millions of people will soak it up like a sponge.&nbsp;
Here's hoping they do... and wishing Tom Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded could have achieved the stickiness of Outliers.
<img src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2008%2f12%2fOutliers%2cbookthumbnail.jpg" alt="" width="169" height="254" />

Book Review: "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell

Once upon a time, in an organization far, far away, I coached a young man who sniffed, "I don't read management books, because they're what everyone is reading.&nbsp; I read other stuff, so I have something unique to say."&nbsp;
"I understand your&nbsp;rationale," I replied, "but that's equivalent to saying, 'I don't speak English, because everyone's speaking English.&nbsp; Instead, I speak Gomatan1.'&nbsp; What I&nbsp;suggest you do is read both.&nbsp; Read the drop-kicks... Drucker, Peters, Covey, Senge, Collins, Katzenbach and all the rest, and also read as much -- or more if you wish -- that is outside the norm.&nbsp; This way, you'll have the foundation everyone else has,&nbsp;but the added probability of being able to&nbsp;contribute a unique perspective&nbsp;every once in a while that dislodges groupthink."
I know that management&nbsp;books can sometimes feel&nbsp;quite pedestrian; that's a bit of what this young man was saying, but he was also exhibiting a&nbsp;scintilla of elitism, inferring that 'all the rest of the cattle can read -- sniff, sniff -- management books, but I'm going to read&nbsp;Literature.'&nbsp;&nbsp;(Thankfully, every once in a while, really stellar 'management' books arrive,&nbsp;like Outliers and Made to Stick.)&nbsp;
Alan Weisman's <a href="http://worldwithoutus.com/about_book.html">The World Without Us</a> is no management book, but it is a book about sustainability, impact, legacy, systems theory and, as much as all these, it's flat-out fun.&nbsp;
It's a thought experiment, nothing more.&nbsp; And how.
Your mind will whir,&nbsp;some cogs will click, and all manner of ideas and implications will flutter through your mind.
It's deftly written, hums along quickly, and packs a periodic punch.&nbsp; It will perhaps require a few sittings because it's quite dense, but it's a great guilty pleasure.
Try it, if you like.&nbsp; It's not a management book in any pure sense, but that's&nbsp;precisely the point, isn't it?
&nbsp;
1Save yourself the googling, it's an invented-here language.

Book Review: "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman

In his bittersweet swan song, <a href="http://www.thelastlecture.com/">The Last Lecture</a>, Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch shared countless pearls of wisdom about&nbsp;living and dying.&nbsp; Ten months later, he died at the age of 48 from pancreatic cancer, but not before&nbsp;saying, &quot;You have to decide if you&#39;re a Tigger or an Eeyore.&quot; 


Every hour and&nbsp;minute of every day is difficult and tragic for someone somewhere.&nbsp; I&#39;ve touched briefly on the subject of grief over the years, but paraphrasing now Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, &quot;What&nbsp;perspective does a WASPy, middle class, opportunity-fortunate American have?&quot;&nbsp;&nbsp;Perhaps very little...as little as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor">Princeton and Yale Law School graduate&nbsp;</a>might have.&nbsp; 


A few statistics to set a baseline for &#39;perspective:&#39; 


1. 876,213 children were&nbsp;reported missing&nbsp;in the United States in 2000 (FBI National Crime Information Center).&nbsp; Remarkably, the NCIC estimates that kidnappings comprise less than 2% of all violent crimes against juveniles reported to police.&nbsp; This means that a lot worse is likely happening than we know. 


2. In the summer of 1931, between 1 million and 4 million Chinese died in a flood.&nbsp; 


3. In 2004, approximately 230,000 innocents died in what is known as the Indian Ocean earthquake.&nbsp; 


4. An estimated 230,000 more died 35 days ago in Haiti.&nbsp; 


5. Between 1348 and 1350, &#39;The Black Death&#39; pandemic killed an estimated 30-60% of Europe&#39;s population.&nbsp; 


The list of such atrocities, from those perpetrated upon the most innocent among us (children) by the most evil among us (ill and/or wicked adults) to natural disasters, is a long one.&nbsp; For all intents and purposes, it might as well be infinite.&nbsp; 


As I glance through my last 155 blog entries, it appears that I&#39;ve written about loss or death perhaps a dozen times.&nbsp; Generally, I strive to encourage.&nbsp; So why am I periodically moved to consider end-of-life issues, wisdom for my daughter, or matters as seemingly vainglorious as &#39;legacy?&#39; 


As someone who writes often and has for many years,&nbsp;writing becomes -- in&nbsp;retrospect -- a bit like a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test">Rorschach inkblot</a>...reflecting (obviously)&nbsp;one&#39;s thoughts and emotions.&nbsp; The same is true for all of us, of course,&nbsp;though I doubt very seriously that&nbsp;busy people proofread, for the sake of comparison,&nbsp;archived emails&nbsp;as much as&nbsp;I&nbsp;do this blog.&nbsp; What glutton would?&nbsp; 


I share these uncharacteristically personal and intimate thoughts for a reason.&nbsp; Yes, there is a point.&nbsp; I am going somewhere with this seemingly random stream of consciousness...hang in there.&nbsp; 


This has been a difficult week, but only&nbsp;temperately compared to the grievous losses&nbsp;sustained by&nbsp;two dear families who -- quite unexpectedly and most certainly prematurely -- watched as beloved individuals died in their arms. 


The pain at &#39;ground zero&#39; is always the greatest, fading&nbsp;more forgivingly&nbsp;as&nbsp;it&nbsp;ripples out and away from the epicenter&nbsp;like waves in a pond.&nbsp; 9/11...the loss of a child...a sibling...a parent...a friend...we all know&nbsp;loss too well, undoubtedly experiencing our own round in the ring and logically concluding this tour with the ultimate reckoning.&nbsp; 


While the sum of all losses occurring across the globe&nbsp;is unfathomable, unimaginable,&nbsp;incomprehensible...we&nbsp;each have our very personal and proximate&nbsp;narrative of loss.&nbsp; As budding storytellers in grammar school, we are educated to start with something smallish: a child is born, a boy hurts his knee, a girl falls in love, a&nbsp;family&nbsp;seeks a&nbsp;better life.&nbsp; And from such seeds, we extrapolate.&nbsp; The story bounces along, characters come and go, things happen.&nbsp;&nbsp;On the way, the reader is drawn in, drawn down, drawn up.&nbsp; And perhaps at the conclusion thinks, &quot;Wow.&nbsp; That&#39;s me.&quot;&nbsp; Or, &quot;That&#39;s humankind.&quot;&nbsp; 


I cannot wrap my head around&nbsp;famine&nbsp;and disease&nbsp;in Africa.&nbsp; But I can wrap my hand around the hand of Kiki, the seven-year-old boy in Haiti who emerged from the concrete eight days after&nbsp;the quake.&nbsp;&nbsp;Or I can hug him,&nbsp;or pay for his medical attention,&nbsp;or feed him, or promise to pay for his education, or all of the above. 


So rather than&nbsp;minimizing my own life experience because it is too WASPy, simply lamenting the woes of nearly 1 million U.S. children who are reported missing each year, or throwing my hands up in despair because I&nbsp;do not know how I can possibly help Africa...I should instead ask myself something manageable like, &quot;Will I be an Eeyore or a Tigger?&quot; 


This mindset applies not only to the most important matters of life and death, but also to the routine and trivial: Will I whine when my pizza has too much tomato sauce?&nbsp; Or when the man with the world&#39;s longest torso places himself before me in the movie theater?&nbsp; Or when the parking slot closest to the entrance is &#39;stolen&#39; by a spritelike teenager in a Porsche? 


No, I shall not. 


Eeyore would, but I will not.&nbsp; 


I may not be the archetypal Tigger that Pausch embodied, but I cannot,&nbsp;in good conscience, be an Eeyore. 


Eeyores are over-populated already, and it would be a crime to enlarge their number. 


&nbsp;


My own take is this: We&nbsp;rarely know even at the end whether we released Boomerangs or Balloons throughout our life, but no matter.&nbsp; Both were meant to fly. 


Sometimes I aim high and throw hard -- and life reciprocates.&nbsp; I give love, and love comes back.&nbsp; I study and work hard, and&nbsp;the world&nbsp;opens her arms.&nbsp; I discipline my child, and she thanks me later by living a life&nbsp;replete with joy and grace and contribution.&nbsp; 


But sometimes, no matter how high I aim or how hard I throw, there is no echo...no feedback.&nbsp; Just silence.&nbsp; Or tragedy I cannot understand.&nbsp; The love I give...gone.&nbsp; The sacrifice I make...gone.&nbsp; The job, the purpose, the savings, the home, the child, the dream, the freedom, the country...gone. 


Whether a flood, an earthquake, a plague, or&nbsp;an intimate&nbsp;casualty&nbsp;-- we can only comprehend so much. 


But we must, and we shall. 


And when we&#39;re gone, so will those behind us and those behind them. 


Humankind is resilient and people, particularly Tiggers, are&nbsp;wired to move forward.&nbsp; And the rest&nbsp;must be encouraged&nbsp;to rise to their feet, dust themselves off, and soldier on.&nbsp; After all, we&#39;re not always Tiggers or always Eeyores -- these &#39;labels&#39; are really just descriptions of behavior...so from time to time, we&#39;re one or the other.&nbsp; You&#39;d be amazed at how contagious Tiggerness is.&nbsp; (Or Eeyoreness, for that matter.)&nbsp; Such things are viral and communicable (like clapping, laughing, and crying), as has been proven anecdotally, empirically, and statistically more&nbsp;times than you might care to know.&nbsp;&nbsp; 


The majority of people are inclined to inquire, seek, and find that boomerang you threw into the fray all those years ago.&nbsp; Or that balloon you released in the stillness of night, the one they eventually untangle from the tree halfway across the state. 


So don&#39;t worry about what life will bring or&nbsp;doubt whether you can make a difference.&nbsp;&nbsp;The last move, whether a boomerang or a ballon, is the same: let&nbsp;go.&nbsp; 


The&nbsp;ripple effects of your life&nbsp;are&nbsp;best&nbsp;recounted by those who succeed you,&nbsp;for they will tell your story personally just as I am&nbsp;generally.&nbsp; 


If you lived estimably, there will be those who remember.&nbsp; Who will wish&nbsp;they could&nbsp;call you,&nbsp;hug you,&nbsp;see your smile.&nbsp; And they will weep at their loss&nbsp;but rejoice&nbsp;in your life. 


It&#39;s one of the greatest ironies in life&#39;s orchard: The fruit only ripens when you leave the grove. 


So do the very best you can with all you&#39;ve got for as long as you&#39;re given -- and embrace joyfully the realization that those behind you will&nbsp;indeed experience your harvest.&nbsp;

Boomerangs & Balloons

I was exhausted last night as I shuffled onto the plane in the dark amid the sleety rain in Michigan.
I&nbsp;shoved&nbsp;one bag under the&nbsp;seat in front of me, another above me, and&nbsp;gingerly took&nbsp;my seat where I slept like a tranquilized boar for two hours.
When I awoke, I had a pleasant conversation with the young man beside me -- Brian.&nbsp; Brian is around 30 and works at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sewell.com/">Sewell</a>.&nbsp; Begun in 1911, Sewell is a very values-based car company, "And we really believe in it.&nbsp; For us, it's not just talk."&nbsp; We visited for over an hour and, somewhere along the way,&nbsp;quite nonchalantly, Brian commented, "I have brain cancer.&nbsp; See this scar?"&nbsp; (It ran from&nbsp;ear to ear, across the top of his fuzzy skull, and was easily 3/4" wide and almost 3/8" deep.)&nbsp; "I've finished seven weeks of radiation and now I'm in chemotherapy."
"Wow.&nbsp; And you're working?&nbsp; And travelling?" I asked incredulously.
"Yeah.&nbsp; What else am I gonna do?&nbsp; I'm tired all the time, sure, but we gotta keep moving forward, right?&nbsp; Plus,&nbsp;we just had a huge meeting in Detroit with GM."
"What's your prognosis, Brian, if you don't mind my asking."
"That's God's call, not mine.&nbsp; I can only do&nbsp;what the doctors&nbsp;suggest.&nbsp; After that, it's out of our hands."
It is indeed, Brian; it is indeed.
As we parted ways, he shook my hand.&nbsp; "It was nice visiting with you, Blake."
"You, too, Brian.&nbsp; You, too."
And with that, I watched him stride toward the front of the plane.&nbsp; Along the way, he helped a businesswoman remove&nbsp;her very heavy bag from the overhead bin.&nbsp; She was jabbering away on her cell phone, complaining to someone back in her office, "I simply will not work for that amount of money.&nbsp; You can tell&nbsp;him I&nbsp;said so."&nbsp;&nbsp;She never made eye contact with Brian and didn't say a word to him.&nbsp; Not even a 'thanks.'&nbsp; But he smiled and kept moving forward.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
As if&nbsp;the billions who&nbsp;preceded us are insufficient signposts, God&nbsp;repeatedly sends emissaries carrying more 'perspective' our way.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
No one promised you another day.&nbsp; Make this one count.&nbsp;
Oh, and another thing.&nbsp; A couple personal favors, really.&nbsp; One, remember to say "Please" and "Thank you."&nbsp; It's just mannerly, okay?&nbsp; And two, stay off the phone when you're in confined spaces.&nbsp; We didn't call you and, frankly, we'd rather avoid the assault.

Brian's Brain

Enjoy this&nbsp;uplifting story about a young police officer, Bryce.&nbsp; Devastatingly injured in the line of duty,&nbsp;yet making remarkable progress.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD8uVqTkM5A&amp;eurl=http://modernmom.com/main/polls_video/2">Bryce Video</a>
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XD8uVqTkM5A" width="290" height="150" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>

Bryce

On last night's <a href="http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank">SHARKtank</a>, an entrepreneur named "Cactus Jack" (aka Jack Barringer from Ames, Iowa) pitched his "push-up machine."&nbsp; (See 'Week 5, Episode 105.')
Nothing revelatory about the device, of course.
But he made a comment that I've heard in less memorable ways.&nbsp; As he put it, "The one lesson my daddy taught me that I still remember: 'You can trade hours for dollars or ideas for millions.'"
You go, C.J.&nbsp; Move those machines.
The world, of course, only goes 'round via both.&nbsp; We need brain surgeons to create new ideas, but we also need brain surgeons to operate.&nbsp; The equation doesn't work without a numerator&nbsp;I a denominator.
But I got a real kick out of Cactus, and I thought you might, too.

Cactus Jack Quote

As I&nbsp;listen to and exchange ideas with contemporary leaders on the front lines of today's economic battlefield, I am encountering a troubling theme.&nbsp;
It revolves around&nbsp;a notion I wrote about several weeks ago... the 'treading water' phenomenon.&nbsp;
So many leaders are 'waiting to see' what the new world of work will look like... that the 'see' is being&nbsp;thwarted&nbsp;and delayed!&nbsp; It is a vicious, self-fulfilling cycle not unlike the 'prior experience required to be hired' dilemma we&nbsp;all faced as we exited school.&nbsp;
To provide answers/clarity/solutions for clients and colleagues,&nbsp;we&nbsp;intend -- in the coming weeks -- to embark on a new Research Project.&nbsp;
Here's where you come in.&nbsp;&nbsp;We are&nbsp;in dire need of your&nbsp;help.&nbsp;
We&nbsp;are&nbsp;in the early, embryonic stage of crafting, honing, and&nbsp;refining the Research Question itself.&nbsp; Currently, it&nbsp;messily&nbsp;goes something like this:&nbsp;&nbsp;
"What are the most burning Issues or Questions&nbsp;leaders need&nbsp;Answered for the burgeoning 'new world of work' and the 'to-be-determined' new 'social contract' between Employees and Employers to manifest?"
In simpler terms, "What the heck do employees need or expect from their 'bosses' in order to engage, thrive, re-commit?"&nbsp; Or, "In our unstable environment, what can leaders and organizations realistically do to gain&nbsp;focus and&nbsp;performance from employees?"
But now I'm starting to put words in your mouth.&nbsp; Here's the 'call to action;' the specific Ask and How You Can Help:
Please email&nbsp;us a stronger Research Question or whatever Issues or Questions you would like to better understand to more effectively lead your people in the 2009-2011 timeframe.&nbsp; As our economy ebbs, flows, and ultimately reshapes itself, what burning Answers do you require?&nbsp; What do you wish to understand?&nbsp; Have a better handle on?&nbsp; Need in order to more effectively lead your people?
Based on your responses, "TBLG" (The Blake Leath Group) will refine the fundamental research question with the most value to the most leaders -- and launch a research project that we hope will provide CONTEMPORARY (not re-hashed) tools, frameworks, or answers&nbsp;to serve&nbsp;you through this volatile season of ambiguity.
We are searching for both new wine and new wineskins and hope to&nbsp;make a statistically-oriented&nbsp;contribution&nbsp;that is&nbsp;equally scholarly and pragmatic in nature.&nbsp;
Step 2 will be to ask you to recommend 5-10 leaders to participate in a subsequent Survey/Assessment/Questionnaire to be predicated on the final Research Question.
We&nbsp;anticipate a broad Umbrella Topic and various Sub-Topics, and TBLG will publish its findings in ways to be&nbsp;identified in coming weeks.
&nbsp;
Thank you, in advance, for your responses.&nbsp; Please email them directly to <a href="mailto:bleath@blakeleath.com">bleath@blakeleath.com</a>.

Call to Action: Request for Participation in Forthcoming Research

I received a meaningful email today from a dear friend I haven't heard from in several years. In it, he commented that he had been out of town for 14 of 20 weeks to negotiate a high-risk union contract.&nbsp;
For those of us... you.... who travel a great deal, what comfort can be found in the tiny moments, yes? In the warm embrace upon returning; in the time with children that follows.
Sometimes, when I've been away for several days on end and I enter the laundry room just this side of the garage, I dump my laundry on the floor and have to turn my head. The waft of soiled clothes and spilled toiletries can be too much.&nbsp;
But immediately upon dropping that suitcase, I run to my wife and daughter and give them a tight embrace. Laundry and boarding passes and travel receipts can wait -- they'll be there tomorrow morning. But "Hello" comes just that once, so you better get it right.
It took me YEARS to appreciate the importance of a warm return. I encourage you, upon your next return home, to let the tasks fall by the wayside: save the laundry and changing and brushing your teeth for later. For now, give those you love a GREAT BIG HUG, tell them how much you missed them, ask them about their days, and flop down on the couch or bed to listen with big ears, wide eyes, and high energy.
Someday, when the pitter patter of little feet has faded, you'll thank me. Stinky clothes, cramped toiletries, and crumpled notes and paperwork and receipts can wait. But marriages and parenting and L-I-V-I-N-G cannot.&nbsp;Nor can the priceless, "Thank you for caring for everyone and everything in my absence. I missed you."
Welcome home. And nighty night.&nbsp;

Call your family; they miss you -----

On November 11, 2009 PBS's Charlie Rose welcomed Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, followed by Malcolm Gladwell&nbsp;who discussed&nbsp;his latest collection of short stories, What the Dog Saw.
I know that so very many of you are interested in their writing -- so I just wanted to share an opportunity to see them interviewed. (<a href="https://charlierose.com/videos/10400">Freakonomics</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://charlierose.com/videos/24765">Superfreakenomics</a>&nbsp;respectively.)

Catnip for Gladwellians

It's not unusual (cue Tom Jones) for our little group to research, write and speak to Generational Differences in the Workplace, so my antennae are already piqued for changes among my cohorts: the "Forty-Somethings."&nbsp; And I am definitely sensing pre-tremors that I believe will lead to tectonic shifts within our generation--shifts that will be quite noticeable in years to come.
For lack of a less loaded phrase, let's call the primary shift Chic Frugality.&nbsp;&nbsp;(Whereas material&nbsp;fruits--possessions--were once synonymous with success, they are&nbsp;slowly becoming hallmarks of foolishness, recklessness, garishness and waste.&nbsp; Clearly, this&nbsp;signals a potential attitudinal&nbsp;sea change for consumerism in our society.&nbsp; Pure&nbsp;&amp; Simple = More.&nbsp; Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, indeed.)&nbsp;
As children of older Boomers, Forty-Somethings experienced the most prosperous childhoods since America's creation.&nbsp; More prosperity = more wealth, more choices, more education, more travel...the works.&nbsp; Granted, this doesn't describe the reality of everyone born in the mid-late 60's, but there is no question that the access to opportunity afforded to my generation was unparalleled in American life.&nbsp; We grew up on Leave it to Beaver re-runs, watched Lassie save the Forests and reveled as Kwai Chang Caine educated unsuspecting Californians with his feet in Kung Fu.&nbsp; The sacrifices of our parents and grandparents yielded many fruits; the world was our oyster and the harvest was frequently bountiful.&nbsp; &nbsp;
"Want a great job?"&nbsp; "Then get a great education."&nbsp; The formula for success was not complicated.&nbsp; Hunker down in school, get good grades and the rest would take care of itself.&nbsp; Scholarships, financial aid, competitive tuitions...relatively easy peasy.&nbsp; It was unusual to meet someone who wanted a college education but didn't get one.
&lt; <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U">Here</a> is&nbsp;one of the&nbsp;most powerful&nbsp;videos around that shows how education began--and why it is now failing. &gt;
Wow, have times changed.&nbsp; Today,&nbsp;all bets are off and employment is anything but formulaic.&nbsp; How's this for a statistic: "Six qualified applicants exist for every available job in the United States."&nbsp; It is an employer's market, not a graduate's market--and it's not unusual (there's Tom again) to hear of unemployed friends who have had &gt;150 interviews in 2 years...with no luck.
According to the Higher Education Research Institute, an army of 1.5 MILLION students entered college last fall.&nbsp;&nbsp;Among those interested in&nbsp;East&nbsp;and/or West coast schools, 47% applied to SIX or more universities...roughly&nbsp;twice the&nbsp;number&nbsp;in 2007.&nbsp; According to Collegia, a consultancy that helps cities market their colleges, 250,000 FAMILIES pass through Boston each year to visit Harvard, Tufts and BU.&nbsp; The University of North Carolina has seen a 24% increase in campus visits this year, primarily because they now welcome elementary-school age visitors.
In the midst of this competition, uncertainty and unemployment, expectations and confidence are eroding.&nbsp; If they have not already, nearly all my demographic cohorts (those in my age range) are shedding material possessions like snakes in spring, downsizing homes and cars, stuffing limited cash under their mattresses and recalibrating expectations for their lives and the lives of their children.&nbsp; The evening news is depressing, politicians are divided and the forecast calls for mostly cloudly with a chance of rain--forever.&nbsp; At best, maybe we can slash our national debt by $4 to $6 TRILLION&nbsp;USD and hope to claw back to a debt of only &gt;$10 TRILLION?&nbsp; Oy and Oomph are right.
For grins, check out the <a href="http://www.usdebtclock.org/">US Debt Clock</a>.&nbsp; Be sure to squint; it'll hurt your eyes.
At the granular, individual level, allow me to share a few personal anecdotes about how I see these oppressive&nbsp;realities affecting many of my friends and cohorts.&nbsp; Here are direct quotes folks have shared with me during conversations in the last month in three different states:
"It's real simple for me, Blake.&nbsp; Faith, family, friends."
"In light of all that's happening, and particularly now that I'm getting older, simple is better."
"We tried everything: the house, the land, the car.&nbsp; None of it brought happiness...and we'll never go back to living that way again."
"Three years ago, I was so driven.&nbsp; Anything was possible and my wife and I were willing to hunker down and stay.&nbsp; But now...now, I'm just flat-out tired.&nbsp; I want off the ride.&nbsp; My ego's not what it was, I don't hunger for promotions.&nbsp; I've become much more contemplative and think I'd be happier living in that proverbial van down by the river."
"I am so non-committal.&nbsp; We've sold&nbsp;virtually everything--and now I'm&nbsp;scared to buy anything!&nbsp; If I can't lease or rent it, I won't touch it."
"It's funny--we live like we have fear of future buyer's remorse.&nbsp; Everything stretches out before us, but we fear that if we pull the trigger, the bottom of the market will drop out from under us again and we'll be left holding the bag with no job to back it up."
"My&nbsp;husband and I live this nomadic life now.&nbsp; We&nbsp;were fortunate enough to sell our home and hit the road.&nbsp; We spent&nbsp;two years home-schooling in Europe and now we're heading out to the great Southwest.&nbsp; We live on $1,600/month instead of $12,000."
&nbsp;
From&nbsp;Hummer to Prius, home to travel-trailer, these comments have begun to roll in like waves.&nbsp; For those who are gainfully employed in secure positions or markets, life remains their oyster.&nbsp; But this reality is becoming a narrow beachhead on a shrinking strip of sand.&nbsp; The foundations of our capital markets have been rocked, federal employees describe living on "borrowed time," and nothing feels as certain as the evening TV schedule of old.&nbsp; Now, it's reality, reality, reality...drama, drama, drama...economic disaster after natural disaster after global climate change.
(I loved the headline on&nbsp;the&nbsp;cover of a recent Newsweek magazine, "Kate the Great: In a world gone to hell--thank God, a wedding.")
So much has changed since Princess Diana walked that long path to the altar.&nbsp; And perhaps a fitting metaphor, too, as&nbsp;many in our generation&nbsp;feel an&nbsp;innocence lost.
But time marches on and, with time comes new opportunity.
It has always been thus, and thus it will always be.&nbsp; Vanguards, harbingers and horizons.
The key (whether you've lost it all, are hanging on by your toenails or have your arms&nbsp;wrapped tightly around it) is to remember the transformative powers of letting go and of faith.&nbsp; It was never about the things and never will be.&nbsp;
Watch Instinct again, with Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Anthony Hopkins and the&nbsp;dialogue will crackle and resonate more than ever:&nbsp; "What have I taken from you," Anthony asks.&nbsp; "The illusion of control."&nbsp; From here--and only here--we can begin to move forward again and envision a new and better way of living.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
We Can Reverse This Lie:
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/42E2fAWM6rA" width="290" height="150" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA</a>
&nbsp;

Chic Frugality

"My friendship with the Hitch has always been perfectly cloudless. It is a love whose month is ever May."&nbsp; &mdash;Martin Amis, The Independent, January 15, 2007.
What gorgeous phrasing, no?
I just stumbled across it last night and thought you might enjoy. (Amis is describing his dear friend and the oft-irascible author, Christopher Hitchens, who was recently diagnosed with esophageal cancer.)
It is a great reminder that, even for those of us who&nbsp;otherwise hide within our introverted caves, a friendship to survive the decades is precious as platinum.&nbsp;
Whether you postulate 3 people would attend your funeral&mdash;or 3,000&mdash;may however many tomorrows stretch out before you be bathed in deep, rich, abiding friendships with those who know you entirely and love you nonetheless.
"Life without a friend is death without a witness."&nbsp; &mdash;Spanish Proverb

Cloudless Friendships

<blockquote>
&ldquo;For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.&rdquo;&nbsp; &mdash;1 Timothy 6:10
</blockquote>
&bull; &bull; &bull;
Beneath the stars and beside a roaring fire, I stood and listened to the words of a wise man the other night; one who has literally seen it all. &ldquo;My mentor told me,&rdquo; he began, &ldquo;that all manner of depravity&nbsp;can be traced to five simple sources: sex, substances, money, power, and pride.&rdquo;
All my life I'd heard about pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.
I don't care how one counts these things,&nbsp;as they&nbsp;feel like "six of one, half a dozen of the other," be they five or seven!
The bottom line is that&mdash;after 49 years on this&nbsp;giant, orbiting hairball&mdash;I'd say&nbsp;the&nbsp;path to peace is&nbsp;not paved with good intentions or great deeds, but rather, with contentment.
Faith, hope, and love are the inward and outward manifestations of a life deeply rooted and well-lived,&nbsp;but&nbsp;contentment is a consequence of self-control (one of nine fruits of the spirit) or, said another way, without self-control there&nbsp;can be no contentment.
Happily, contentment also leads to peace (and peace is a force multiplier), so consider it a two, three,&nbsp;five, seven, or ninefer.
Want for too much more, and one welcomes the wrath of self-destruction into his&nbsp;head and heart.

Contentment

In this time when 'psychology trumps the economy,' our Group embarked on a research project that involved interviewing a number of executives. In short, we wanted to know, "How 'ya doin'? How's the morale, the focus, the organization at large?"
Though not&nbsp;particularly surprising, the findings are certainly interesting and&nbsp;instructive for many of us. The results are trimodal, with three distinct 'camps' emerging within this representative sample. Some of the organizations are:
1. COUNTDOWNERS. These leaders and organizations are fixed on the countdown clock as it ticks to Zero. They perceive an organizational-apocalypse of sorts; the end is near. They hope to divest, sell, be acquired... and are meticulously dismantling their organization for bankruptcy or closure.
2. TREADERS. These businesses are treading water; biding time. They hope to emerge healthier one day, but don't know if... how... or when. They are hopeful yet realistic, and are exerting a great deal of energy to survive. They describe battle fatigue, a bunker/siege/foxhole mentality, and difficulty leading through ambiguity.
3. GROWERS. These organizations are engaged in due diligence. They are reorganized, lean, and hungry. They are searching for and gobbling up as many weak competitors as possible for pennies on the dollar. Their leanness will morph into plumpness as they continue to hire and expand their proverbial 'footprint.'
I'm not sure which of these three camps most adequately describes your organization, but I wanted to offer a few thoughts for all of us&nbsp;in these Turbulent Times. Think of these ideas as a sort of People Prescription to Foster Resiliency:
1) First, during turbulence and severe negative stress ('Distress' or 'Crisis'), we generally see 10% of the population ascend to lead. In other words, they take charge. We see another 10% of the population panic. And we see 80% of the population waiting for leadership. Those individuals who possess a Plan always fare better than those lacking a plan or waiting on leadership. So regardless your position in an organization, be engaged, have a plan, and collaborate with others to execute.
2) Second, understand that most 'survivors' (whether experiencing PTSD or more benign distress) share six common characteristics. They are (a) Hardy, (b) Interested &amp; Alert, (c) Confident &amp; Expectant, (d) Goal-Oriented, (e) Joyful, and (f) Peaceful. A very interesting mix, indeed. Both goal-oriented and expectant yet peaceful.&nbsp;This, by the way, is also indicative of mature adults. And by that, I don't mean age.
3) Third, the most resilient people behave in four particular ways during distress. (a)They exhibit a 'Sense of Coherence.' This means they perceive that crises make sense, they understand them, and though they may not like them, they remain rational. (b)They believe they possess the Skills and Capacity to adapt to distress. (c)They are Engaged and Accepting of Change. And (d)they participate in Active Problem-Solving. They participate and create their solutions and options, rather than wait longingly for a rescuer.
4) Fourth, and as important as anything mentioned thus far, great survivors and performers on the battlefield (a)have strong Support Mechanisms (e.g., Friends &amp; Family) and (b)purposefully Refresh their Life Objectives/Goals on the return to normalcy. In other words, they don't curl into a fetal position indefinitely; instead -- they RISE.
5 )And finally, leaders and employees who survive and ultimately thrive often experience a supportive organization that is (a)Accessible, (b)Collaborative, and which (c)Creates Transcendent Goals that put the business's crisis in perspective and provide a rallying stake for all.
In summary then, whether your Employer is 'Countdowning' or 'Treading Water' or 'Growing,' we can all be wiser and more successful by studying the behavior of those in Crisis.
&nbsp;

Countdowning, Treading, or Growing?

Like ants in a mound, we all sense the vibrations of impending change.
In particular, I am feeling in my bones, perhaps for the first time ever,&nbsp;bona fide (sorry for the pun) traction in the Green Movement. Similarly, I also sense the early tremors of a tectonic shift in Workplace Expectations in smaller, more nimble organizations.
The minority of "crackpots" are now becoming the mainstream, and with them... the trains are beginning to steam-up, rumble, and leave their respective stations. The 'get on board' or 'get left behind' decision-point is now becoming less theoretical and more tangible.
On the topic of the green movement, the media is dripping with books like The World Without Us, The Earth After Us, and The Last Human and 'thought-experiment-documentaries' like Life After People are springing up through the cracks of every sidewalk. Long overdue regulatory emissions and fuel economy standards have just passed, and now more and more grocery stores are charging a tax for consumers who use paper or plastic sacks at checkout. (Even Michael Moore has joined the proverbial greenpeace parade, with his latest entreaty on what should be created in the wake of GM's bankruptcy.&nbsp; <a href="../../blogging/file.axd?file=2009%2f6%2fGoodbyeGM%2cMichaelMoore.pdf">GoodbyeGM,MichaelMoore.pdf (15.29 kb)</a>)
On the topic of shifting workplace expectations, there is a trove of research -- two decades old now -- that has tracked and highlighted and forecasted all the varying expectations between 'generations' in the workplace. Given the recession and an average 40% loss in wealth among those with retirement plans, the 'social contract' between employees and employers is under assault and will result in a renegotiation of what truly matters.
I am running into more and more people, often in their sixties and seventies, who spent some fifty years away from their families to create a nest egg which barely remains. "Why?" is pretty much all they can ask. The 'deal' they made with the devil was a house of cards and, as the economy melts down, much of their 'earthly treasure' has become tragically diluted.
For all the parents who worked tirelessly, barely seeing their spouse or children in the mornings or evenings or on weekends, "why?" indeed. The then-logical, selfless, and sacrificial decision by these millions to create income as a means to secure financial and familial stability has been wholly undermined by a few reckless risk-takers in the most opulent buildings in NYC.
As a result of coming to terms with 'the casino sets the rules,' more and more employees are accepting that 'the house always wins.' And so, as Wall Street lands on featherbeds of bailout dollars and safety nets while Main Street shutters its windows and closes too many doors, individuals are taking stock and starting to reclaim what they can -- their lives -- for the benefit of their families and&nbsp;the sake of their own sanity.
I witnessed it just last night on <a href="https://charlierose.com/videos/17398">Charlie Rose as he interviewed Claire Shipman and Katty Kay</a> about their new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_0_6?url=search-alias%3Daps&amp;field-keywords=womenomics&amp;sprefix=womeno">Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success</a>. In it, many startling admissions that, hitherto, would have been blasphemous. But in the harsh sunlight of 2009, many people will say, "Of course." Read it and decide for yourself, but I predict it will be one of a raft of such books to follow in coming months. Books about owning reality, speaking truth, and reclaiming one's life on her or his own terms.
I am also hearing and reading more and more about such things as ROWE, Results-Only Work Environment as espoused by <a href="https://www.gorowe.com/">CultureRx</a> and embraced by clients like BestBuy. This is a trend I have seen coming for years, and it goes hand-in-hand with expectations held by many Generation X-ers, Y-ers, and Millennials (20-somethings). Few within these generations will agree to be chained to a desk, tracked or monitored to within an inch of their life, or to serve as a cog within a large, cold machine. Most of them will commit to accomplish results and be accountable, but not in exchange for balance, community, or altruism. And most of them studied <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&amp;field-keywords=george+orwell%2C+1984">George Orwell's 1984</a> as required reading&nbsp;somewhere in high school.&nbsp;
With all implosions and explosions, there is debris and fallout. And following forest fires, be they accidental or prescribed, there is regeneration and new life. New growth is the 'creative' that follows 'destruction.' What will the Recession of 2009+ yield? Only time will tell, but if the hairs on my arm are any indication, Bob Dylan's line was spot-on: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowin'_in_the_Wind">the answer, my friend,&nbsp;is blowin' in the wind.</a> People are questioning.&nbsp;
As is the case every hundred years or so, this will likely prove to be a season, nothing more. In time, the pendulum has a tendency to swing back.
But it is also possible that rather than a Season, we are dealing with a Genie or Pandora. And they, once out of the bottle, lamp, or box, prefer to stay out.
Either way, I'm sure the questions and changes are welcome. The way we worked throughout the Industrial Revolution is neither sustainable nor compatible with what is coming.&nbsp;
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, with new and fervent questions come better answers. And this, in the words of the "venerable" Martha Stewart, is a good thing.&nbsp;
<blockquote>
"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; - Albert Einstein
&nbsp;
</blockquote>
&nbsp;

Creative Destruction

On May 20, 2010 I caught a neat <a href="https://charlierose.com/search-results/?query=Nathan%20Myhrvold">episode of Charlie Rose </a>on PBS&nbsp;featuring an interview&nbsp;with Nathan Myhrvold of <a href="http://intellectualventures.com/Home.aspx">Intellectual Ventures</a>.&nbsp;
(Maybe you remember Nathan;&nbsp;he has been 'everywhere' the last couple years describing everything from IV's "mosquito-zapping laser" to their proposed "water hose&nbsp;in the sky,"&nbsp;theorized to&nbsp;minimize global warming.)
IV has been compared to "Davos...in Birkenstocks."
Whether you're creative, love people who are or fancy yourself a polymath, you'll totally dig Nathan. (Pun intended, given his fascination with paleontology and archaeology.)
It's fun, if only for a few minutes, to imagine how someone like him&mdash;and his "lab crew"&mdash;see the world.&nbsp;
Here's a great <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell?printable=true">article</a> about Nathan by Malcolm Gladwell, along with a giddy <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_myhrvold_on_archeology_animal_photography_bbq.html">presentation</a> at TED.

Creativity & Genius: Nathan Myhrvold

Decisions, decisions, decisions. 


We make countless decisions each and every day...every hour...every minute. 


And most decisions aren&#39;t that hard.&nbsp; We go with our gut, we experience &#39;behavioral shorthand&#39; and know how, for example, to wind our way to work each morning without even thinking about it or, in the case of tougher decisions, we think, we pray, we seek counsel.&nbsp; 


But you know as well as I do that some decisions are very, very difficult.&nbsp;&nbsp;Unimaginably gut wrenching.&nbsp; Consider the sort our President is wrestling with this very week.&nbsp; Or the sort our Supreme Court wrestles with each and every day.&nbsp; Or the sort a grieving adult-child faces as&nbsp;her dying parent is placed on life support.&nbsp; 


And some of these decisions are in the oven for months...for years.&nbsp; Indeed, they are very long in the making. 


To describe this protracted &#39;deciding,&#39; I use the analogy Decision Hill. 

<div style="text-align: center">
<img style="width: 571px; height: 214px" src="/blogging/image.axd?picture=2009%2f11%2fhillrev.jpg" alt="" width="571" height="214" /> 
</div>

The first segment of Decision Hill is the ascent.&nbsp; This is the acknowledgment that a decision, generally a complex, multifaceted one (and&nbsp;often an emotional one or one that will have &#39;tentacles&#39; affecting others or &#39;collateral effects&#39; beyond our immediate imagination) needs to be made.&nbsp; Consider a neophyte playing chess with a grandmaster or a naive child wandering alone in the dark.&nbsp; Neither is fully aware of the errors of his/her ways, much less the unknown and&nbsp;potentially devastating consequences that might follow an initial, innocent, well-intentioned&nbsp;mis-step.&nbsp; In fact, consider the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy...or the pre-strike intelligence the NSA&nbsp;possessed on terrorists&nbsp;before the horrors of 9/11 in NYC.&nbsp; Neither of these examples represent one huge&nbsp;or glaringly obvious oversight on anyone&#39;s part so much as an incremental, microscopic accumulation of residue...of tiny error after tiny error which, in the particulate, seem invisible, yet in the aggregate, seem enormous. 


The ascent takes a very, very long time. 


We wrestle with complexities.&nbsp; With our emotions.&nbsp; With possible outcomes.&nbsp; We recall the past, we look to the future, we strategize, we visualize moves and countermoves, we think of the people who will be affected by our choices, we fall to our knees, we seek others&#39; counsel, we T-chart the pros and cons, we flip coins, we toss coins in fountains, we wander and wonder, we rule things in and rule things out, we sleep on it, we eliminate outliers and finally...finally...after the grueling and the slogging and the swinging and the fighting and the traversing many meters to the top...we arrive, crestfallen, at the apex of Decision Hill. 


And we straddle the tippy-top of this mountain.&nbsp; We feel its enormity beneath and around us.&nbsp; We accept the hollowness within us.&nbsp; We long for the connectedness and renewal around us.&nbsp; And we stare into the fog and darkness and storm and wonder if the heavens are with us.&nbsp; 


And we decide. 


In an instant. 


After the weeks and months or even years that preceded, we finally, exultingly, make a choice. 


And this choice brings us -- in that singular moment -- from our ascension...to the second segment of our climb...the tipping point. 


The slow boil is now a gas. 


And with the clarity that cuts through the&nbsp;night like a knife through warm butter, we turn our eyes finally and fully toward the future. 


The angst of deciding is behind us. 


And we feel luminescent.&nbsp; And buoyant.&nbsp; And&nbsp;human again. 


The weights slip off our shoulders, the bodice around our chest is loosed, the vice around our mind is broken, the chains around our ankles and neck and wrists are shattered, and we fall forward toward our destiny. 


Like the child awaking to a pure and powdery snow on Christmas morning, it is the dawning of a bright, shiny, wondrous, clean, perfect day. 


And we fall face-down upon our sled, grab the handles with&nbsp;shaky hands, and&nbsp;are restored and renewed.&nbsp; We are officially in segment three: the descent. 


Beloved gravity will do the rest.&nbsp; Slowly, crunching...then quickly, now skittering...we gather speed and momentum and inertia and velocity...and we arrive, startlingly soon,&nbsp;at the bottom of the hill and find ourselves rocketing toward our future, snow spraying up all around us, ice crystals stinging our cheeks, laughter peeling all around.&nbsp; 


And like the shirtless, sledgehammer-wielding strongman at the summer fair, we are ready to&nbsp;slam forward&nbsp;into all the tomorrows that&nbsp;stretch out before us. 


I want to encourage you today: It will get easier.&nbsp; There is a top.&nbsp; There is another side.&nbsp; Even -- especially -- in the darkest moments of the darkest hours of the darkest days of the darkest seasons -- light shines on.&nbsp; It always will.&nbsp; It always has.&nbsp; That&#39;s the benevolent nature of light.&nbsp; It travels effortlessly and ceaselessly and swiftly across the darkest regions of the known and unknown universe to warm your skin. 


That&#39;s all there is to it.&nbsp; 


Your charge...indeed, the only toll for your journey is pure -- and simple: 


Believe 


and 


Keep Moving Forward 


God speed.

Decision Hill

Periodically, someone will ask for an example to illustrate the difference between how strategists&nbsp;and most leaders think about the world.&nbsp; Here&#39;s a great example, borrowed from a dear friend: 



Asked about Starbuck&#39;s organizational intent, a typical businessperson might say: 

&ldquo;Leverage a&nbsp;distinctive brand plus coffee buying, production, and marketing systems to achieve premium pricing and global dominance....&rdquo; 
 



When in reality, their strategic intent says: 


&ldquo;Sell back to a busy customer the 20 minutes each day she will look forward to the most....&rdquo; &nbsp; 


&nbsp;


Thanks for the great example, J.P.

Differentiating 'Strategy' from 'Business as Usual'

This morning I received a rather humorous email alleging, &quot;A magazine recently ran a Dilbert Quotes contest, eliciting quotes about real-life Dilbert-type managers submitted by their employees.&nbsp; Here are some of the&nbsp;best submissions from&nbsp;corporate America...&quot; 


<a href="/blogging/file.axd?file=2010%2f2%2fAlleged+Dilbert-Manager+Quotes.pdf">Alleged Dilbert-Manager Quotes.pdf (99.48 kb)</a>

Dilbert Levity

My father shared an interesting story with me the other day about a dear family friend who passed away.&nbsp; Fortunately, upon hearing of his illness, my parents moved quickly -- rushed to the hospital to be at his side and to visit with his&nbsp;wife.&nbsp; He died&nbsp;later&nbsp;that same&nbsp;evening. 


Today, I have attended several meetings.&nbsp; The first one included an overview from an&nbsp;architect and emphasized the importance of a Master Plan for a potential project.&nbsp; The second described the&nbsp;necessity of a Project Plan for a particular project.&nbsp; The third detailed a specific Plan for an ongoing project, and the fourth meeting -- you guessed it -- included an Overview&nbsp;&amp; Status Update on a current project! 


In each of these instances, the words of my mother ring true: &quot;Better to overdo than underdo.&quot; 


In the case of the Master Plan, we know the additional expenses and change-orders that arise in the absence of pre-planning can be exorbitant.&nbsp; In the cases of Project Plans and ongoing Status Updates, I am reminded of the carpenter&#39;s colloquialism, &quot;Measure twice, cut once.&quot; 


This very day, our Senate is wrestling with an Economic Recovery Package/Stimulus Plan.&nbsp; If our lawmakers are not careful, they might very well make things worse.&nbsp; (a big surprise for some of you, i&#39;m sure.&nbsp; unfathomable, isn&#39;t it?)&nbsp; Harvard economist Martin Feldstein commented the other day, &quot;$800 Billion is a terrible thing to waste.&quot;&nbsp; And Larry Summers (controversial former President of Harvard University and current Director of the National Economic Council in the Obama Administration) commented that whatever government does, it should be &quot;targeted, timely, and temporary.&quot;&nbsp; Amen. 


To my way of thinking, I like the potentially paradoxical&nbsp;combination of these three ideas: 


1. Better to overdo than underdo. 


2. Measure twice, cut once. 


3. When&nbsp;rescuing,&nbsp;be targeted, timely, and temporary. 


A dear friend of mine, who&nbsp;today is wildly successful in every sense of the word, grew up impoverished.&nbsp; Many years ago, as he and I were discussing welfare and the like, he commented, &quot;The poor need a helping hand, not a handout.&nbsp; Just facilitate, don&#39;t rescue.&nbsp; It preserved my pride and gave me all I needed -- opportunity and access.&quot; 


As leaders, this crisis is alchemy -- the opportunity to take ordinary parts and create an extraordinary whole through the right combination of support + access.&nbsp; What began as a mortgage collapse exacerbated by&nbsp;credit default swaps and&nbsp;a full-scale financial and economic&nbsp;embolism&nbsp;provides a phenomenal&nbsp;OPPORTUNITY for the United States&nbsp;to right the ship.&nbsp; But haste makes waste, and while there is very little time remaining to&nbsp;&#39;move quickly,&#39; it&#39;s key that whatever will be done... be done well.&nbsp; Otherwise,&nbsp;we&#39;ll simply add insult to injury and worsen an already complicated morass. 


But from the individual perspective, which is the only one we control, I propose we focus on&nbsp;doing right in all the little things; erring on the side of exceeding customer expectations, building strong and&nbsp;informed plans (pre-thinking as much as possible), and being targeted and timely.&nbsp;&nbsp; 


Like&nbsp;a child&#39;s training wheels, they&#39;ve got to&nbsp;come off some day.&nbsp; Our responsibility&nbsp;is to ready the rider for&nbsp;independence so&nbsp;he/she can perform beyond our existence... and this can&nbsp;most effectively happen when we err on the side of &quot;pre-habilitation and pre-planning,&quot; lest we&nbsp;remain forever in the process of &quot;re-habilitation and rescue.&quot; 


Like food coloring or plastic surgery, if&nbsp;we&#39;re not careful -- we&#39;ll add just one drop too many;&nbsp;perform one surgery too many -- and create an&nbsp;unintentionally eugenicized country that was neither what we settled, nor what our founding fathers set out to create.

Doing Right

Ego, "the 'I' that distinguishes us from others," including "our self-esteem and self-image," but also "our conceit and self-importance" is a tricky, tricky&nbsp;beast.&nbsp; A devil on our shoulder, a gremlin in the machinery.
On the one hand, it is necessary, essential.&nbsp; Without it, we are paper dolls, folded by the least life has to offer or brings our way.&nbsp; But too much of it and we are rigid, always right, enrobed in our self-righteousness and sense of entitlement or destiny.
In its extremes<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;too much and too little<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;it is&nbsp;as easy to spot as the peacock.&nbsp;
Too Little, Exhibit A: The abused, who apologizes for her abuse.
Too Much, Exhibit A:&nbsp;The tyrant, whose way is the only way.
In between, we find a&nbsp;diorama of figurines, from the insecure who, like the puffer fish, make themselves appear larger than they really are as an act of self-protection.&nbsp; Or bullies,&nbsp;the&nbsp;hyenas of humankind, who identify those whom they perceive as a step slower or out of sync with the herd, catching them alone at the watering hole or in a wild turn on an open field.&nbsp; Or the indignant.&nbsp; Or&nbsp;sometimes even martyrs, who originally felt called to champion a cause in someone else's name, or on behalf of others, but who&nbsp;may lose their way once they close their ears and become tone-deaf to the changing landscape or situation at hand.
There are dozens and dozens of archetypes smeared across&nbsp;our little&nbsp;stage, each of us&nbsp;having played many such parts in the course of our life.
I see it every day; we all do.&nbsp; For all his "honesty" and "straight talk," Donald Trump is periodically behaving&nbsp;rather badly: mean, divisive, sometimes employing hateful speech that borders on bullying, leaving very little room for the gray of life and which is, to my way of thinking at least, sexist, racist, superior, bigoted.&nbsp; I'm as ready as the next guy for a transparent leader, for spin-free and politics-free zones.&nbsp; Gosh, our country needs&nbsp;this desperately.&nbsp; We are lost; marooned.&nbsp;&nbsp;There is no America, just islands, camps, tribes, parties, factions, lobbyists, separatists.&nbsp; And Trump's absolutely&nbsp;right: political&nbsp;correctness can be a blight.&nbsp; But to lump entire people into&nbsp;categories, to deride said&nbsp;categories, to marginalize others, to be dismissive about what Warren Buffett succinctly describes as "the lottery of birth" (having been blessed, due to grace or chance alone, to be born in the United States or any progressive country) is absolute foolishness.&nbsp; Trump's&nbsp;name is so fitting, because his ego trumps everything.&nbsp; He appears to believe that he is right about everything and is equally intolerant of&nbsp;contrary opinions.&nbsp; I cannot fathom the circus his governance style would&nbsp;create.&nbsp;&nbsp;As much as people might like it&nbsp;to be&nbsp;the case, government does not operate like business.&nbsp; There are times I&nbsp;absolutely wish it did, but our government is a legislative democracy, not an autocracy or private venture or profitably oriented enterprise with shareholders and so, on the face of it, his approach will always be unsuitable.&nbsp; We need a statesman or stateswoman, but one who can, in fact, effect change to create unity, whether through the next figurative moonshot or something else larger than partisan politics.
But he is not alone, for if we are not careful, and when we are our worst selves rather than our best selves,&nbsp;a great many of us could be castigated for our example.&nbsp; It's not just politicians who believe they are above the law, or professional athletes, or celebrities.&nbsp; No, in&nbsp;a world that Andy Warhol would have loved, we are each enticed to create, proliferate, and maintain a cult of personality, be it through Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or&nbsp;Tumblr or wherever.&nbsp;&nbsp;
And the irony is not lost on this writer,&nbsp;who named a company after himself.
But we shall get to that.
Whether we lack ego, and&nbsp;forfeit ourselves to others' pleasures or dominion, or overcompensate for our shortcomings by bullying, or believe we are the smartest person in the room...chosen, designated, called, destined, whatever...and adopt a narrow-minded and "me-centric" worldview, we all fall short.
When things must be our way, or our way is the only way, or our way is the right way, well,&nbsp;one's world becomes very tiny indeed.&nbsp; It is inclusion, involvement, collaboration,&nbsp;diversity, delegation,&nbsp;even situationally appropriate submission that&nbsp;returns oxygen to the room, enlarges the table, leads to variety and better ideas and more amazing outcomes.
The "heroic manager" (be it a command-and-control throwback to 1955 or Steve Jobs himself in his early days before his dismissal and wandering in the desert which led to contrition)&nbsp;is a dying breed.&nbsp; I still stumble across it now and again, but even in the&nbsp;military, and paramilitary organizations, and the church itself<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;organizations which have every right to practice bureaucracy, considering they are among our oldest and were originally designed as hierarchies<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;I see&nbsp;autocratic management&nbsp;becoming all the more pass&eacute;.&nbsp; People are simply too aware, too educated, too empowered to abide it.
So where does this leave the leader?&nbsp; How does he or she strike the right balance, the right chord?&nbsp; How much ego is too little, and how much is too much?
As was put to me yesterday in conversation, "Perhaps like all things, Blake, it's a matter of moderation.&nbsp; One must constantly shift and find the right gear."
Well said.&nbsp; I couldn't agree more.
In hindsight, and with foresight, this is true.&nbsp; There are certainly issues in life which are black and white, but it is also true that most are quite complicated, and with complication comes&nbsp;different perspectives on&nbsp;the same issues, alternative paths up and out and, therefore, a whole lotta gray.
Among others, which are arguably too esoteric or spiritual for a business blog, two northern stars which have often guided my own sensibilities are derivatives of The Golden Rule and&nbsp;The Craftsman's Pride.
Regarding the former, I often ask myself, "In this situation, how would I want someone to treat my daughter?&nbsp; If she were to come home and share this scenario with me, to describe others' treatment of her, how would I feel about that, about them, about her behavior in this situation?&nbsp; And what would I do if the shoe were on the other foot...if I was 'the jerk' in her story?"&nbsp; It is true: only at my best am I so enlightened, but it's a star nonetheless, one which usually compels me to pause, to breathe deep, to ponder, and which later convicts me to re-think my ego, stance, position, or sense of self-righteousness or indignation.
Regarding the latter, a craftsman's pride, the company is called Leath Group because we are a group.&nbsp;&nbsp;And foremost, one that stands behind&nbsp;its work<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;so much so that we are willing to sign our name to it, like a silversmith or cobbler of old who put his initials on the bottom of his&nbsp;wares or inside a pair of boots he'd lovingly stitched.&nbsp; It's not&nbsp;ego behind the name, its personalization and accountability and a nod to simpler times.&nbsp; We could have named ourselves ACME Inc. or Consortium Consulting but, honestly, I prefer buying from Jim or Bob or Steve, not some faceless conglomerate, and so we began our work in that vein, and it stuck.
Our ethos, however, which may fly in the face of our branding<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;and gosh, I hope it does not<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;is generally one of anonymity.&nbsp; We are, at our core, creators and cultivators commissioned to plant and grow something small which, if successful,&nbsp;becomes our client's, not our own.&nbsp; Like any parent, our ultimate success and joy&nbsp;are best revealed in the well-being of our child.&nbsp; Try as we might, there are always genetics and internal/external forces beyond our control with which we must contend, but we strive mightily to be good examples, good role models, and to love unconditionally and without bias.&nbsp; To create great work products, deliver great services, then let them go.
Along the way, whether one is a politician, business leader, military leader, church leader, parent, you name it, one is constantly shifting gears while also remaining consistent and directed and pulled toward a northern star.&nbsp; This creates the much needed sense of stability, for oneself and others, while also fostering adaptability, malleableness, suppleness to bend in the wind without breaking.
To know oneself, one's strengths and weaknesses, and to be confident in his or her being, while also being willing to become invisible when it is the right thing to do, or to take the reins and grab the mic and take the stage when it is the right thing to do is precisely the shifting of gears that I'm describing.&nbsp; And as you know from personal experience, there is no rulebook, it is often gray, and it requires a deft touch, an ability to read the room and the situation, and the courage to vanish or show-up and absolutely represent.
Sometimes, it even requires we, as told to me by a former mentor, "Know when to lay it down and walk away."
I find, and perhaps you'll agree, that sometimes "the I" that is in each of us can become an Idol.&nbsp;&nbsp;Or, something that we do, or are, or perceive we stand for can become idolatrous because it means too much to us, it defines us, is addictive to us, or we cannot walk away from it when we should.&nbsp; We become obstinate, intractable, stubborn; we cannot let it go.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Consider these examples, all of which are complicated and have 50/50 sides:
If the day came, weeks or months from now, that Donald Trump found himself unsupportable or unelectable as the Republican nominee, would he fade quietly into the sunset, returning to his enterprises, supportive of those who remain, or would he bash the remaining and perhaps choose to run Independent, thereby splintering the country further and weakening his professed party in the process?&nbsp; In his rulebook, what comes first: self or the greater good?&nbsp; And what is right?&nbsp; Is there a right?
If a County Clerk found herself in violation of the Supreme Court's ruling and refused to issue marriage licenses to&nbsp;same-sex couples, should she stand her moral ground or yield to public opinion and let someone else do the job?&nbsp; What is right in this situation, who determines it, and what's the proper gear for the terrain?&nbsp; These are thorny issues for our Republic, the sort that define church, state, and the separation thereof.
If a hygienist in a dentist's office found herself to be the source of division and gossip, should she walk away for the health and betterment of the practice, or remain?&nbsp; Should she be loyal to the hand that feeds her, or loyal to her own personal convictions, cause, and sense of justice or injustice?&nbsp;
If a corporation becomes a cult of personality, or is represented in the public sphere by a spokesperson who generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue then does bad things in his or her personal life, should this person remain the spokesperson?&nbsp; What is the cost of collateral damage, the price of&nbsp;a corporate soul, and how does&nbsp;an organization&nbsp;tally it?&nbsp; There is a sea of examples to represent this conundrum, from Evel Knievel and Ideal Toys to Tiger Woods and Nike.&nbsp;
In each of these scenarios, one's ego is relevant.&nbsp; The candidate, the clerk, the employee, the representative: each&nbsp;is forced by circumstance to&nbsp;take stock, every conceivable&nbsp;path forward&nbsp;having gray alleys and obstacles, each alternative leading to personal consequences, some of which result in more or less polarization and none of which are simple, easy, or politically unambiguous.
In David Simon's HBO miniseries, Show Me a Hero, Yonkers' mayor Nich Wasicsko initially finds himself victorious, largely because of an unpopular political issue, public housing, which creates an opportunity for him to be the alternative candidate and steal the race.&nbsp; Two years later, the same thing happens to him, and for six more years he pursues the idol of political fame and purpose, repeatedly falling short and, rather than simply walking away and starting a legal practice, he clings to the past, fails to see it for what it was, becomes chronically depressed, and takes his own life standing at his father's grave during the week of his final election loss.&nbsp; It is a searing, heartbreaking story; a Greek tragedy of epic proportion, but set rather intimately in the fourth most populous city in the state of New York.
Kenny Rogers crooned, "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run."&nbsp; It's good advice, and we only wish the gears were thusly labeled.&nbsp; They are often inscrutable, caked in mud, clogged with debris from life's trails, and impossible to free.
I have walked away, and I have doubled down.&nbsp; I've won some, and lost many more.&nbsp; There were rarely buzzing, directional neon signs pointing the way; it was often a sense of intuition that necessitated a light touch (which is in contrast to being grabby-grabby, like the raccoon in Where the Red Fern Grows who won't release the shiny silver object within the log and gets scooped up by Billy and placed in a burlap sack).&nbsp; The illusions of power, of control are precisely that, as Anthony Hopkins&nbsp;reminds Cuba Gooding, Jr. in 1999's Instinct.&nbsp; 
Most everyone learns this lesson, eventually.&nbsp; Our sense of importance, of power, they can become idols in our heart, things which&nbsp;over-inflate our sense of self, distracting us from what is right,&nbsp;or pure,&nbsp;or good.&nbsp; Virtuous.
Left to one's own devices, he or she can lose sight of the big picture, or the long game, or the fact that our lives are but brief sparks, and legacy casts the longer shadow.
So stand for something, and be up for something, possessing a strong and firm foundation of ego that is not subject to whims, or peer pressure, or bullying, or popularity, or the transient in life like fad or fashion, but also be as selfless as possible, as modest and humble and quiet in spirit, knowing that one's works and craftsmanship and contributions to others and to causes greater than oneself are what matter far more, benefit multitudes more, and ultimately lead to greater peace, fulfillment, and contentment in this world.
###

Ego: Destroyer of Worlds

This afternoon, a client asked, "Do you have any clever recommendations for how I might go about finding coaches for all my managers?"
Ah so, indeed I do.
Try here: www.29000feet.com (this website no longer exists)
I know the company well, and they're great.&nbsp; Though they chide me for it, I refer to them as "e-Harmony for Coaches."&nbsp; Specifically, they'll hook you up.&nbsp; Customers (whether 'coaches' or 'coachees') simply complete a few fields about themselves and the computer algorithm matches "those in need" with "those who can help."&nbsp; And vice versa.
Pretty slick.
Enjoy!&nbsp;

e-Harmony for Coaches

Eleven

In honor of inimitable Aussie-auteur Baz Luhrmann's latest 02:39:00 epic opus,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3704428/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Elvis</a>, I remind you of his 1998 sonic collaboration (featuring Anton Monsted, Josh Abrahams, Lee Perry, Mary Schmich, Quindon Tarver, and Rozalla) that resulted in one helluva worldwide earworm-of-a-hit,&nbsp;<a href="https://genius.com/Baz-luhrmann-everybodys-free-to-wear-sunscreen-lyrics">Wear Sunscreen.</a>
At 52, I can confirm that the pragmatic wisdom contained therein is spot-on.
I particularly love this line about advice and those who give it:&nbsp;"Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. ADVICE IS A FORM OF NOSTALGIA: Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it's worth."
For further reading:
<a href="https://bit.ly/3OU5p8T">About Baz.</a>&nbsp;
<a href="https://bit.ly/3NvS0CR">About song.</a>&nbsp;
<a href="https://bit.ly/2JsfsSa">Lyrics' source.</a>&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Baz is the most commercially successful Australian director of all time (Romeo + Juliet&nbsp;'96,&nbsp;Moulin Rouge!&nbsp;'01,&nbsp;The Great Gatsby&nbsp;'13) and&nbsp;Elvis&nbsp;features Tom Hanks (as Colonel Tom Parker) and stars Austin Butler (whom you may recall portrayed Tex Watson in Quentin Tarantino's 2019&nbsp;Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood&nbsp;starring Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio).
Elvis&nbsp;opened today, along with&nbsp;Where the Crawdads Sing&nbsp;featuring Taylor Swift's latest track,&nbsp;Carolina.
Also opening today is Ethan Hawke's 95th film (and second collaboration with Blumhouse's Scott Derrickson and Robert Cargill since 2012's&nbsp;Sinister),&nbsp;The Black Phone.&nbsp;Here's&nbsp;<a href="https://bit.ly/3OHoWcx">an interesting article</a>&nbsp;describing why Hawke agreed to the film.
Ethan's (and Uma Thurman's) daughter, Maya (who portrays Robin Buckley in juggernaut&nbsp;Stranger Things) are top-o'-mind this week as Dad's movie drops and daughter's series surges toward Vol. 2 in July. Oh to be a Hawke this year, since April's&nbsp;The Northman&nbsp;(helmed by Robert Eggers) was also a work of art.
With&nbsp;Maverick&nbsp;fading behind us and&nbsp;Lightyear&nbsp;having crashed and burned, catch&nbsp;Elvis&nbsp;and&nbsp;The Black Phone&nbsp;before&nbsp;Minions: The Rise of Gru,&nbsp;Thor: Love and Thunder,&nbsp;Blazing Samurai,&nbsp;and Jordan Peele's highly anticipated&nbsp;Nope&nbsp;crash our shores this July.
Movies are back, y'all.

"ELVIS," Baz, and More!

Remember 1982 and that brain-rut-inducing Thomas Dolby song, She Blinded Me with Science?&nbsp;
Science can be blinding--and blind--but today let's explore how Emotions can be, too.
(Science, of course, can be blind because it presumes itself to be the determinant of what is real.&nbsp; It is the great judge, jury and executioner.&nbsp; And yet, on matters such as art or ethics, science has little if anything to say.&nbsp; Genomes or no genomes, deconstruction is no panacea.)
But what do I mean by "Emotional Impairment" or "Emotional Blindness?"&nbsp; Simply put, I mean that emotions can swallow us whole and, once enveloped within their darkness it is virtually impossible to see our hands in front of our face.
There's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0013TTK1W/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1">a great book</a> that describes similar phenomena, but let me attack it this way...
Forget for a moment the limbic system and all the hormones (which play absolutely vital roles in emotion) and let's just focus on two psychological elements: (1)Loss Avoidance&nbsp;and (2)Commitment.
As denoted by the image below, when one's "Opposition to Loss" (loss avoidance) and "Commitment" escalate, we have a recipe to brew disaster.
&nbsp;
<div style="text-align: center;"><img style="width: 329px; height: 210px;" src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2010%2f7%2f5.png" alt="" width="603" height="442" /></div>
&nbsp;
Examples are ubiquitous, from gambling and airplane crashes to suicide and high-risk behaviors.&nbsp; Wherever we see an individual tied to high-stakes, we are right if we see trouble.
Let's take a&nbsp;current example, one that I'm sure has universal applications: War.
Whether we look at "Civil" Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq...or the thousands of wars that have been waged non-stop since the dawn of humankind, we see leaders in the crosshairs.&nbsp; Leaders like Lyndon B. Johnson, who felt a tremendous pull between the war in Vietnam and his commitment stateside to create the Great Society.&nbsp; Here's a great, representative quote from LBJ in 1968.&nbsp; At the time, America had 500,000 troops in Vietnam and there had been tens of thousands of U.S. casualties:
&ldquo;I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved.&nbsp; If I left the woman I really loved &ndash; the Great Society &ndash; in order to get involved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home.&nbsp; All my programs, all my dreams to provide education and medical care.&nbsp; But if I left that war and let the Communists take over South Vietnam, there would follow in this country an endless national debate &ndash; a mean and destructive debate &ndash; that would shatter my presidency, kill my administration, and damage our democracy.&rdquo;
&nbsp;
What happens when we, as leaders, become consumed by Loss Avoidance while simultaneously Escalating our Commitment?&nbsp; We go blind.
We send more and more troops into un-win-able wars.&nbsp; We change mission.&nbsp; We broaden mission through scope-creep.&nbsp; We change the game.&nbsp; We change the rules.&nbsp; We change the scoreboard.&nbsp; We sell, we push, we spin.&nbsp; We beg for more.&nbsp; We ask and take and dicker and steal and we, along with all those around us, go up in flames.
I have a sweet friend whom everyone calls, "Zippo."&nbsp; Why Zippo?&nbsp;
Because every time he opens his mouth, he lights himself on fire.
He has no (in the words of my mother) "governor."&nbsp; No filter between his brain and his tongue.&nbsp; Or, perhaps too permeable a filter.
We all know Zippos.&nbsp; "Did he just say that?" we ask ourselves.&nbsp; And maybe, just maybe, it occurs to them after they've said what they've said..."did I just say that out loud?"
Beware your emotions.&nbsp; Yes, they serve a prehistoric purpose, without which you will win the <a href="http://www.darwinawards.com/">Darwin Award</a>.
As human beings, it is true that our emotions often supersede rational thought.&nbsp; We are reaction machines, our pulse often telling the story before we ourselves are attuned to our anger.
Be vigilant and self-aware, especially when--while reaching for the prize--you scale to the tippy-top of a precarious ladder comprised of self-justifying rungs named "I cannot lose" and "No turning back."&nbsp; The air up there gets very, very thin...and where so, we stop thinking, stop seeing clearly and become blind to our own emotionality.
Surround yourself with buddies, fail-safes, ejection seats&nbsp;and fire extinguishers.&nbsp; People who can say, "What are you thinking?&nbsp; What are you telling yourself?&nbsp; Why are you acting like this?&nbsp; Who have you become, Mr. Hyde?"&nbsp; And mechanisms designed to break the glass and douse the flames while you extricate yourself from your burning building&nbsp;and all that&nbsp;you have wrought.

Emotional Impairment

Please bear with me today; I&#39;m blown like a bubble with competing thoughts, so I&#39;ll&nbsp;trickle&nbsp;a stream of consciousness and do my best to tie things together near the end. 


These past&nbsp;three weeks have been a whirlpool; I&#39;m hopeful there&#39;s a point of encouragement somewhere in the swirl.&nbsp; 


&nbsp;


1. Random Thought Bubble #1.&nbsp; This past week, I was the last to board a plane and as I proceeded toward the rear of the aircraft, I scanned all the overhead bins before me, noticing they were&nbsp;closed.&nbsp; The flight was oversold, and I was simply thrilled to have caught it.&nbsp; As I passed the only open bin (about halfway to my seat) I stuffed my&nbsp;bulky overcoat inside, knowing I&#39;d barely have room enough&nbsp;at my feet for my bag.&nbsp; 


The flight was uneventful, but within the final few minutes, as I gathered all my things and shoved them in my bag, I found a stranger&#39;s notebook in the seatpocket in front of me.&nbsp; A prior occupant&#39;s.&nbsp; I scanned it quickly, looking for a name, card, phone number, anything.&nbsp; Finding nothing identifiable, I wrote &quot;28A&quot; on the cover and prepared to hand it to a flight attendant, should the&nbsp;occupant realize his forgetfulness and seek it later.&nbsp; 


I was the last person off the plane.&nbsp; As I proceeded to the bin where I had stuffed my coat, I discovered it was gone.&nbsp; In its place was a different coat!&nbsp; I looked around, saw no other coats, grabbed this one, bolted up the jetway and looked everywhere for someone wearing my coat.&nbsp; No one was to be found.&nbsp; I returned to the plane, found a flight attendant, and in a very confusing way, handed over the notebook and the coat.&nbsp; &quot;Here.&nbsp; Neither of these&nbsp;is mine; they are from different people.&nbsp; And by the way, someone has my coat.&quot; 


It was mild madness.&nbsp; She was perplexed, unsympathetic, and I spent the next thirty minutes explaining the &#39;loss of my coat&#39; to an equally disinterested redcoat and baggage claim agent.&nbsp; (Apparently, the airline has no &#39;claim process,&#39; and retrieving the coat is not as easy as emailing the passengers and asking, &quot;Anyone take a coat or missing a coat?&quot;)&nbsp; Needless to say, it is gone forever, and I&#39;m confident that both the notebook and remaining coat are also lost to&nbsp;eternal winds by now.&nbsp; 


&nbsp;


2. Random Thought Bubble #2.&nbsp; A few nights ago, about twenty of us had dinner at the rollicking Hofbrau House&nbsp;on&nbsp;the outskirts of Cincinnati.&nbsp; One of the men at dinner made an interesting comment -- one I&#39;ve heard before in similar ways.&nbsp; &quot;After about ten years [with my former employer],&nbsp;I could read the writing on the wall.&nbsp; It occurred to me that I couldn&#39;t work there another twenty years, and that no leaders had taken a particular interest in my career.&nbsp; I ejected.&quot;&nbsp; 


Today, he seems much happier.&nbsp; He is with a great group of people, doing meaningful work, and I&#39;m confident he&#39;ll thrive. 


&nbsp;


3. Random Thought Bubble #3.&nbsp; Several quotes have crossed my radar these past few weeks.&nbsp; I&#39;ve heard some of them before, but it always intrigues me when I hear several in a row -- from disparate sources -- that seem&nbsp;somehow related or similar.&nbsp; In these trying times, I hope they resonate or encourage you somehow:&nbsp; 


&quot;For those who believe, no proof is necessary.&nbsp; For those who don&#39;t believe, no proof is possible.&quot;&nbsp; Stewart Chase 


&quot;In youth, we learn.&nbsp; In age, we understand.&quot;&nbsp; Marie Ebner von Eschenbach 


&quot;I never teach my pupils.&nbsp; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.&quot;&nbsp; Albert Einstein 


&quot;You can measure a person&#39;s greatness by how much it takes to discourage him.&quot;&nbsp; Robert Savage 


&quot;He who argues for his limitations gets to keep them.&quot;&nbsp; Richard Bach 


&nbsp;


4. Random Thought Bubble #4.&nbsp; In the last&nbsp;five days, I have heard from&nbsp;several dear friends who were either passed over for a promotion or let go.&nbsp; Their&nbsp;frustration, disappointment, and anger are palpable.&nbsp; Concurrently,&nbsp;I am also aware of others, both friends&nbsp;and acquaintances, whose organizations are thriving and raging successfully.&nbsp; 


The&nbsp;contrast is so&nbsp;amazingly stark.&nbsp; It&#39;s as if there are two economies running in tandem.&nbsp; On the one hand, there is misery, challenge,&nbsp;worry, fear,&nbsp;paranoia, and insecurity.&nbsp; But on the hand right beside it is elation, opportunity, hope, excitement, and security.&nbsp; Bizarre.&nbsp; At the very point in time when&nbsp;hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people are losing jobs each month, there are pockets of people whose businesses are experiencing their greatest growth in&nbsp;a decade.&nbsp; 


Fascinatingly, it is so representative of our world.&nbsp; Just as a billion people awake each day to running water, heated homes, adequate nutrition, and healthy living conditions, nearly five billion people awake each morning without many or any of these.... 


&nbsp;


5. Random Thought Bubble #5.&nbsp; On Sunday,&nbsp;when discussing &#39;the coat incident,&#39; I told my wife and daughter that I wanted a new sweater and sportcoat for the Spring.&nbsp; (I can count on two fingers the new clothes I have purchased for myself in the last&nbsp;twenty months:&nbsp;in June 2008, I bought a $19.00 shirt for my twenty-year high school reunion.&nbsp; In October 2007, I bought the coat that someone mistakenly snagged!&nbsp; Needless to say, my closet is&nbsp;a&nbsp;well-preserved time capsule.&nbsp; I can&nbsp;[and do] still wear clothes I wore in high school, and I recently wore my&nbsp;1993 wedding tuxedo to the local Father-Daughter dance on February 7th.&nbsp; Because I wear so few&nbsp;articles&nbsp;and repeatedly, I have several other things in my closet that last for &#39;decades.&#39;) 


As&nbsp;we spoke of these two items to purchase, little Lauren grabbed&nbsp;a pink spiral notebook&nbsp;and wrote the words, &quot;Daddy.&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Coral.&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Salmon.&quot;&nbsp; And so, with the mommy-recommended-colors in hand, we set out for a daddy-daughter-date-day to fish. 


Eight stores later, having&nbsp;caught only ice cream, we returned home empty-handed.&nbsp; 


I think I&#39;ll just wear what I already have in the closet. 


---------------------------------- 


But what a fun day we had, Lauren&#39;s&nbsp;tiny, sweaty hand gripping mine as we trudged through parking lots, malls, and along sidewalks of every hue.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 


We had a purpose, she and I.&nbsp; Despite our legs nearly giving out, we bounced along for hours. 


And although&nbsp;our &#39;fishing expedition&#39; hadn&#39;t quite&nbsp;worked out, we still enjoyed the journey, laughed, talked a great deal, and rewarded ourselves with ice cream.&nbsp; 





I think the day served as a great reminder for me. 


Sometimes in our distractedness, we lose things -- or they are taken from us.&nbsp; We needn&#39;t perceive&nbsp;this as maliciousness.&nbsp; 


Sometimes in our career, we realize we&#39;ve&nbsp;leaned our ladder against the wrong organization.&nbsp;&nbsp;We need&nbsp;only move it.&nbsp; 


Sometimes, when we get really still or quiet, we&nbsp;see or&nbsp;hear things that were right there all along.&nbsp; We need only look and listen.&nbsp; 


Sometimes, when we feel really small or frail or as if we&#39;ve failed, it&#39;s important to keep things in perspective and realize how blessed we truly are.&nbsp; We need only appreciate.&nbsp; 


And sometimes, when we set out to sea&nbsp;for whatever expeditions&nbsp;lie before us&nbsp;-- whether&nbsp;fishing for&nbsp;coral, salmon, or&nbsp;joy&nbsp;-- we should keep our hands and hearts open and&nbsp;give thanks&nbsp;for the journey itself and our companions along the way.

Enjoying the Journey

As I grow older, I am experiencing a number of phenomena that are new -- sometimes altogether foreign to me.&nbsp; But as they accompany me for months that roll into years, like Stockholm Syndrome or the proverbial shoe-pebble or saddle-burr, they become my begrudged companions. 


Amusingly, many of them have to do with my own body.&nbsp; My barber seems to spend more time in and around my ears, my tummy resists its pants, my joints echo and reverberate throughout the bedroom as I make my way to the restroom each morning, and the pains in my back from years of sports, backpack carrying, weed pulling, and other sundry chores emanate further downward and upward.&nbsp; (I&#39;m not quite sure whether I have more pains than before, or if my tolerance for pain is eroding.) 


On most days, my left elbow barely functions; the &#39;throw me, Daddy!&#39; repetitions have left me feeling like Bjorn Borg after a lengthy Sunday with McEnroe. 


When I rise too quickly after kneeling to write for long periods, the room might very well spin.&nbsp; Or it might not.&nbsp; It&#39;s a crapshoot...a roulette wheel, after all. 


And is it just me, or do headaches accompany aging?&nbsp; For several months now, I have these temporary moments of great pain in my temples...as if I can literally feel the armada of platelets making their way through my capillaries to feed those twitchy roots growing like itty bitty fronds in my ears. 


I was with my daughter at The Container Store several months back and we stumbled across this absurdly large pill box.&nbsp; Each day of the week was so voluminous it could assuredly house a dozen sugarcubes.&nbsp; Lauren looked at it, laughed, and commented impishly, &quot;Hey Dad, this would be perfect for you!&quot;&nbsp; &quot;Um, yeah, sure,&quot; was all I could mutter.&nbsp; Keeping track of my periodic maladies&#39; medications feels equivalent to coordinating traffic flow through the Panama Canal. 


Alas, however inconvenient or painful my nominal yet increasing afflictions of the body, they pale in comparison to life&#39;s more worthy foes. 


Tragically, one of the more sobering trends that accompanies age is the increasing death rate of friends and family.&nbsp; Forewarnings of this reality come in flavors as innocent, ubiquitous, and pop-cultural as The Lion King&#39;s Circle of Life, but this doesn&#39;t make acceptance any easier or more welcome. 


About every month, my wife and I learn of a dear friend who has passed -- car wreck, cancer, stroke, heart attack.&nbsp; In the last month alone, several moms and dads have left this world three to four decades prematurely.&nbsp; There&#39;s nothing like a funeral attended by half-orphaned 3, 5, or 7-year olds to cue swelling Smell the Flowers music. 


Visited, much like Scrooge by the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, I too have been reminded by recent events of the primacy of life.&nbsp; We only get one.&nbsp; This is not, as they say, the dress rehearsal. 


Pain, too, is a great prioritizer. 


But regardless the source, the outcome is the same: I have chosen in the last couple years to re-balance my life.&nbsp; Much less travel, more home-time, and the addition of &quot;no&quot; to my vocabulary have absolutely transformed my existence.&nbsp; And with my daughter growing a solid foot in the last 18 months, I am certain these choices are the right ones...the only ones. 


For all I know, my funeral is next Wednesday. 


Far be it from me to wonder when -- better to live as if it&#39;s imminent, only to be pleasantly surprised if it&#39;s not. 


Without question, I would relish the gift of a long, albeit pain-ridden or pock-marked life.&nbsp; Furry ears?&nbsp; Gelatinous belly?&nbsp; Achey back?&nbsp; Creaky knees?&nbsp; Joy-robbing elbow?&nbsp; Bring &#39;em.&nbsp; Better them, friends muse, than never getting to experience them. 


Better to love, live, and laugh as a stoop-shouldered grandpa at my granddaughter&#39;s high school graduation than muscularly roar out of life alone with saddlebags of money strapped to my mid-life Harley. 


On the statistically possible offchance that my body or mind unexpectedly give out before my spirit or soul, promise me one thing: you&#39;ll give my wife and daughter big &#39;ol bearhugs and remind &#39;em that, while Daddy made a ton of mistakes, he always did what he believed to be right.&nbsp; And he did the best he could at everything he tried. 


But most importantly, that he lived a life full of love.

Eu-logy: The Study of a Life

We all need encouragement, regardless of the role or position we find ourselves in. 


This very day, I have spoken with four people -- all of them &#39;positive people&#39; -- and each of them needing encouragement.&nbsp; One of them works in the financial services industry, another is retired,&nbsp;the third&nbsp;works in a non-profit organization,&nbsp;and the fourth leads a team in a healthcare company.&nbsp; At various points in time across the years, they have each encouraged ME.&nbsp; So today I find myself&nbsp;with the blessed opportunity to&nbsp;return the favor in some tiny way. 


In a few hours, I will leave town for what amounts to a nine-day business trip that concludes on November 7th.&nbsp; In preparation for my departure, I walked over to my daughter&#39;s school and surprised her for lunch.&nbsp; Into the cafeteria bobbed a sea of messy heads... perhaps a hundred first-graders, entering Monday bleary-eyed.&nbsp; I saw&nbsp;our sweet girl&nbsp;immediately, though she didn&#39;t see me.&nbsp; Slowly she entered, lunchbox at her side, eyes scanning the room thickly for friends and familiar faces.&nbsp; Eventually, she saw me and B-O-L-T-E-D my direction, leaping into my arms from six feet away.&nbsp; I squeezed her hard for a good minute, and then she collapsed on my knee and we selected our table.&nbsp; What a memorable half-hour!&nbsp; She metamorphosed from a rag doll to a chipper squirrel within a few seconds, and those thirty brief minutes will serve me well for the next few days. 


As Twain wrote, &quot;I can live for two months on a good compliment.&quot; 


And I can survive for nine days after a hug from my wife and lunch with my daughter. 


Though&nbsp;she thinks lunch was for her, it blessed me beyond measure -- and filled my own proverbial cup while she slurped from hers. 


Sometimes, when we seek to encourage others, we forget about the Boomerang Effect.&nbsp; And while my daughter surely enjoyed herself, I can assure you that the blessings on my side of the table are immeasurable. 


To encourage yourself, encourage others.&nbsp;&nbsp;Remember that life is an ocean; a constant ebbing of tides.&nbsp; Maybe last year&nbsp;&quot;was a stellar year for you.&quot;&nbsp; I can guarantee that is the not the&nbsp;case for all.&nbsp; When you&#39;re up, be the&nbsp;tide that&nbsp;lifts all boats.&nbsp; Because inevitably, the time will come that you&#39;re drowning in a sea of hardships or&nbsp;loss and will appreciate all the more the buoyancy that can be found in a helping hand. 


So thanks to all of you who encourage me;&nbsp;rest assured I do all I can to pass it forward.&nbsp; 


And to my sweet girl and beloved bride: I&#39;ll be home soon; please save me a cookie.

Everyone needs encouragement

Yesterday was my beloved&#39;s birthday.&nbsp; (A big one, though I probably shouldn&#39;t say anything further on that front.&nbsp; Okay, I just did.) 


And today is mine. 


I am 364 days older than my wife and it is her life&#39;s mission to ensure I never forget this.&nbsp; (Though soon enough, I am destined&nbsp;to forget this--and much,&nbsp;much more&nbsp; ;-) 


By their very nature, birthdays are nostalgic; they always take us back, and they&nbsp;inevitably bring old friends into our lives once again.&nbsp; (Facebook and LinkedIn are wonderful tools that ensure we &#39;pop up&#39; on busy people&#39;s radars.&nbsp; We live in amazing times, agreed?) 


It&#39;s been a great couple days--phones ringing, emails chirping, and lots and lots of thoughtful people singing songs into speakers half a world away. 


Maybe you don&#39;t celebrate your birthday anymore, but you should. 


I hit a patch several years back when I stopped celebrating mine, but then I had a good friend pull me aside and say, &quot;Blake, not only do you rob yourself when you skip the day, but you rob all&nbsp;those who&nbsp;care about&nbsp;you and want to say so.&quot; 


This perspective changed my tune.&nbsp; After all, he&#39;s right.&nbsp; There really are few &#39;official&#39; opportunities that create a natural excuse to say to folks, &quot;Hey--you mean a lot to me, and I&#39;m glad I know you.&nbsp; Have an awesome day.&quot; 


Stop being&nbsp;miserly with your birthday, keeping it to yourself...downplaying it...or focusing on the &#39;dark sides&#39; (gravity, loss, the inevitable). 


Instead, think of it as a really&nbsp;neat excuse to throw yourself a hootenanny, nosh on some ultrarich cake, tear open&nbsp;handmade gifts and, most importantly--through notes, cards, letters, texts, tweets, calls, voicemails or smoke signals--allow others to say what you&nbsp;enjoy saying to them: &quot;Love &#39;ya, am thinking of you today...and just wanted to let you know I&#39;m glad you exist.&quot; 


After all, life is super-short and there are&nbsp;zero guarantees about future shindigs or rodeos. 


So wedge yourself into those bluejeans like Yosemite Sam and imbibe. 


When asked, &quot;What&#39;s the occasion?&quot; tell &#39;em it&#39;s your birthday and to rouse up the entire restaurant, &quot;Cuz&nbsp;my friends and family&nbsp;wanna hear a&nbsp;hundred strangers obnoxiously singing my praises at the top of their ever-lovin&#39; lungs.&quot; 


The day will come when you&#39;ll be glad you did.

Existential Birthdays

I&#39;ve shared <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/etc/view.html">this story</a> (also known as &quot;Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes&quot;) so many times when discussing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect">the Pygmalion Effect</a>; I was delighted to find it online.&nbsp; I suppose now I can&nbsp;shelve my&nbsp;warbly VHS copy.


More delightful, by far, is how increasingly anachronistic it feels just four short decades after it was filmed.&nbsp; Society has a long, long way to go--but my, oh my--how far we&#39;ve come in recent years.


When you can spare 49 minutes, consider watching it again.


Your skin will crawl and, to my way of thinking, that&#39;s your conscience, without which we are rudderless.


And with, we are guided.

Eye of the Storm: A Class Divided

<div>
With Halloween only 102 days away, I've already had two friends ask for horror movie recommendations. Also, I suppose, because NOPE&nbsp;opens wide tonight.
Whatever the impetus, here's my [rather prosaic] list. I'll try and edit it annually, or as moved.
Admittedly, most of these are on here for sentimental reasons, not because they are, say, &lsquo;good&rsquo; or &lsquo;universally acclaimed,' so caveat emptor.&nbsp;
</div>
Anyhoo, here goes: 
1. [An] Alien [or two] 2. [Lotta 1930s-1950s stuff:] Creature from the Black Lagoon, everything with Lugosi and Chaney [Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, etc. Poor ol&rsquo; Chaney died in 1930 at the tender age of 47. Swallowed too much fake snow!]
3. [Nearly every] Halloween 4. [Several] Friday the 13ths 5. [Several] Underworlds 6. 1408 7. 28 Days Later 8. Amityville Horror [original] 9. An American Werewolf in London [I love the pub scene and the airplane joke] 10. Antlers&nbsp; 11. As Above, So Below 12. Blair Witch 13. Bram Stoker&rsquo;s Dracula 14. Children of the Corn 15. Creepshow [&lsquo;82] 16. Don&rsquo;t Be Afraid of the Dark 17. Final Destination [the early ones are best] 18. Fright Night [&lsquo;85 &amp; &lsquo;11] 19. Gremlins [and at Christmas, too!] 20. Hocus Pocus 21. Hotel Transylvania [I love these! The opening/lobby scene in the first one is adorable and so high-energy!] 22. I Am Legend [new one forthcoming, I hear!] 23. Insidious [I&rsquo;ve written about this a couple times, but <a href="https://www.leathgroup.com/review/the-conjuring-2">can only find mention of it online here</a>.] 24. It [&rsquo;17 only] 25. It&rsquo;s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown 26. Jacob&rsquo;s Ladder [&lsquo;90] 27. Jeepers Creepers [1 &amp; 2; I hope they make a 3rd installment] 28. Jennifer&rsquo;s Body 29. Krampus [Lauren and I chortle every time: If Peter Jackson had a puppet show!] 30. Legend 31. Legend of Sleepy Hollow [Depp], and Disney&rsquo;s &ldquo;The Adventures of Ichabod Crane&hellip;&rdquo; 32. Lost Boys 33. Love at First Bite [George the-tan-man Hamilton, 1979!] 34. Mandy [so incredibly gonzo!] 35. Manhunter 36. Overlord [I love the first 15 minutes in the airplane; wow! That reminds me: Twilight Zone with John Lithgow had a great airplane gremlin&hellip;] 37. Pan&rsquo;s Labyrinth 38. Paranormal Activity 39. Pet Sematary [latest] 40. Prometheus 41. Pumpkinhead 42. Salem&rsquo;s Lot&nbsp; 43. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 44. Scream 45. Silver Bullet 46. Stir of Echoes
47. Suspiria ['18], and if you like it, try The Witch, Hereditary, Midsommar, and The Green Knight 48. Texas Chain Saw Massacre [&lsquo;03] 49. The Babadook 50. The Conjuring 51. The Descent 52. The Fly 53. The Good Witch 54. The Haunting [&lsquo;99] 55. The Howling 56. The Hunger 57. The Mothman Prophecies 58. The Night House [great music, BTW] 59. The Others 60. The Relic 61. The Ruins 62. The Sixth Sense 63. The Strangers 64. The Thing [&lsquo;82] 65. The Village 66. The Witch [yikes!] 67. Train to Busan 68. Werewolves Among Us [saw last spring; cute!] 69. When A Stranger Calls [original and latest] 70. Wrong Turn [&lsquo;03] 71. You&rsquo;re Next
&nbsp;
And if I could only recommend ONE each night between 10/5 and 10/31, my go-to bag would probably include: 1. [Anything with] Lugosi/Chaney 2. [Disney&rsquo;s] &ldquo;The Adventures of Ichabod Crane&hellip;&rdquo; 3. [The original] Halloween...TO BE SAVED FOR 10/31, of course! That's when we eat the CHILI! 4. An American Werewolf in London 5. Bram Stoker&rsquo;s Dracula 6. Creepshow 7. Friday the 13th [first] 8. Fright Night [from &lsquo;85] 9. Insidious 10. It ['17] 11. Jeepers Creepers [either one!] 12. Manhunter 13. Pan&rsquo;s Labyrinth 14. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 15. Scream 16. Stir of Echoes 17. The Babadook 18. The Conjuring 19. The Fly 20. The Haunting [&lsquo;99] 21. The Howling 22. The Mothman Prophecies 23. The Sixth Sense 24. The Witch [yikes!] 25. Wrong Turn [&lsquo;03]
p.s.&nbsp;NOPE&nbsp;is a blast, so I highly recommend it. And I've seen&nbsp;The Black Phone&nbsp;seven times now, so it, too, has my strong seal of approval. That (plus $8.00) might just buy you a coffee, so take my opinion for whatever it's worth.

Favorite Halloween Horror Movies

Continuing then, from my prior post --- HERE&#39;S A TINY EXAMPLE of what it means to live in a possibility mindset.


You MUST watch this; it&#39;s only 00:03:37, and you&#39;ll enjoy every second:


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLF9iEXnBRo">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLF9iEXnBRo</a>


Have a stellar weekend; sing your lungs out.&nbsp;

Feel Good Friday

Today a client asked for some possible images to express a recent idea he had. "Can you show me some 'ferocious' movie men, maybe?"
"Ferocity? Yessir, we can do that."
"And tenacious, determined."&nbsp;Right. Got it.
Fun assignment, up the proverbial alley.
In fact, I had just been talking with someone the other day about a few of these. Childhood memories, many of them.
There are some cool, nostalgic items here.&nbsp;
I only wish we'd had more than an hour (there are so many gems!), but he did say these succeeded at getting the incubatory idea across the ol' finish line.
Ooh Rah!
&nbsp;
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1462949379/atvy8qsxw2lwxufx4hsx.gif" alt="" width="292" height="548" />
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m gonna take this right foot, and I&rsquo;m gonna whop you on that side of your face, and you wanna know something? There&rsquo;s not a damn thing you&rsquo;re gonna be able to do about it.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Quickly as you can, snatch the pebble from my hand.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t mess with the bull, young man; you&rsquo;ll get the horns!&rdquo;
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you can take us all.&rdquo; &ldquo;No, but I&rsquo;ll get an &lsquo;A&rsquo; for effort.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I want you to be nice, until it&rsquo;s time to not be nice.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Nothing like a good piece of hickory.&rdquo;
&ldquo;On the bloody morning after, one tin soldier rides away.&rdquo;

"Ferocity? Yessir, we can do that."

&nbsp;
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="http://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1504651021/xvhlgigltohzzs1pokzm.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="240" />
&nbsp;
Please join us&nbsp;<a href="../blog/post/introducing-fireside" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FIRESIDE</a>&nbsp;tomorrow, September&nbsp;5<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">th, for the first installment in our new written/longform blog series.&nbsp;
In this troubled world, I guarantee our first guest's spark will pierce the dark and warm your hands and heart.
Find a new message of worky/life-hope <a href="../blog">right here</a>, every week through December 26<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">th&nbsp;2017. &nbsp;
The guise will be management, yes, and lots of it, but the essence will be life itself.
I'm a huge believer that "leaders are readers," and as someone always on the hunt for good, fresh information while sitting in a plane or on the road at a restaurant after a long day's work, my face drops when I find article after article on LinkedIn, Facebook, or wherever that is 2,000 words or less. FIRESIDE entries begin at 5,000 words, and some will run 10,000 words each. That's 15-20 single-spaced pages every week of 90-minute one-on-one interviews with some of the finest Executives and Managers and Leaders I've ever had the privilege to meet.
They are written so that you may share them, print them out, underline them, pin them to a bulletin board, or save them and return to them in coming months.
Most interviewees are not household names, but they should be, and several of them have served in pivotal roles in some of the most influential organizations in the world, or have gone unseen whilst making life-changing contributions behind the scenes.
A person responsible for voicemail. A person responsible for ticketless travel. A person responsible for daily operations in one of the finest glass companies in the world. A person responsible for educating/positively impacting thousands of children annually. A person responsible for one of the finest real estate companies in the region. A successful six-time author. One of the country's most sought-after mastery coaches. One of the nation's most influential natural resource advisors. An executive at a precious metals company that has weathered storm after storm, and still stands, head held high. A highly ethical/awarded investment and financial advisor. Two executives who have survived the worst losses one can imagine, come out the other side, and found new ways to contribute and make a difference. And on and on it goes: great people, often behind the scenes, with largely unheard stories that may sound familiar, and now you can put a name to a notion.
In our four months together, we visit Washington state, Colorado, California, Ohio, Arizona, New Mexico, Michigan, Texas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Florida, Minnesota, Ontario province, and many more locations TBD. We'll light bonfires all over the freakin' place, and I'll deliver the transcript of each straight to this blog mid-week for your eyeballs to consume.
There will be some fun surprises in there, and I think you'll be rewarded for faithful readership.
If you enjoy them, or are educated by them, or are encouraged by them, please share them.
For all its beauty, ours is a dark and fallen world, and I'm convinced we need every ray of light we can locate, and every warm glow we can muster.
Only time will tell whether you find either here, but I shall endeavor mightily to bring them to you...one pixel, one page, one interview, one week, one blog at a time.
Now that you've grabbed your marshmallows, blankie, and boots, all that remains is you.
Keep your eyes open. It's acomin' tomorrow.
Hope to see you fireside.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;###

FIRESIDE, Coming Tomorrow—

FIRESIDE No. 10 with Michelle Kinder

FIRESIDE No. 11 with Susan Thoma

FIRESIDE No. 12 with Bob Spencer

FIRESIDE No. 13 with Dick Reynolds

FIRESIDE No. 14 with Dr. Steve Buchholz

FIRESIDE No. 15 with Wilmot "Ray" Harmon

&nbsp;
<img src="http://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1512356320/sppiq7rjhlblrhmkze4s.jpg" alt="" width="240">
"the adam suit, difficulty changing, instant gratification, blessing others, thank you, position vs. personality, q-tip, burnout, the emotional tank, truth-tellers, the mission in miniature, church lady, the problem with layers, the power of personal, valleys &amp; peaks, the power of belief, psycho-logical, seligman&rsquo;s three p&rsquo;s, practical vs. platitudes, pursuing your dream, looking back &amp; looking ahead"
&bull; &bull; &bull;&nbsp;
In honor of Advent, we present FIRESIDE No. 16 with Dr. Charles Lowery.&nbsp;May his words be both a blessing and an encouragement to you this Christmas.&nbsp;
<img src="http://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1512879984/emrm6xngossvbxvcazm7.jpg" alt="" width="240">
**<a href="https://leath.podbean.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Listen in full stereo on podbean</a>**
&nbsp;
From&nbsp;our Leath Group family to yours,&nbsp;we send you our warmest holiday wishes.
&nbsp;
<img src="http://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1512880123/e2pjisxyvviwta9lpnrw.jpg" alt="" width="275">
&nbsp;
E N D
&nbsp;
Visit Dr. Lowery at <a href="http://charleslowery.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">charleslowery.com</a>.
To learn the impetus behind&nbsp;Fireside,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.leathgroup.com/blog/post/introducing-fireside" target="_blank" rel="noopener">click here</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="http://www.leathgroup.com/blog/post/fireside-coming-tomorrow" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>,&nbsp;and&nbsp;please join us again next Wednesday, December 27th, for the very special 3-part finale of&nbsp;FIRESIDE Season One.
&nbsp;
###

FIRESIDE No. 16 with Dr. Charles Lowery

<img src="http://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/w_240/v1512356865/cpzdnt53suqabxh6hhhh.jpg" alt="" width="240" />&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h4 style="text-align: center; text-transform: uppercase;">"perseverance, Coming of age, COMPETITION, grit &amp; THE GRIDIRON, Finding father figures, becoming promotable, AMERICAN AIRLINES DAYS WITH BOB CRANDALL, vision &amp; mission, entrepreneurship&nbsp;&amp; personal ownership, parenting &amp; social styles, correctness &amp; culture, the pence rule, surrendering to god, the magnolia miracle, chip &amp; joanna gaines, focus, balance, family, and finally: perspective for trying times"</h4>
&nbsp;
&bull; &bull; &bull;
&nbsp;
FIRESIDE Season One&nbsp;concludes in very much the same vein with&nbsp;which it began: a gesture of remembrance, appreciation, and honor.&nbsp; 
This final installment of 2017&nbsp;goes out as a&nbsp;Christmas gift to&nbsp;a dear mentor of mine, and to his precious family.&nbsp;
I trust the gift fits, for I can think of few other&nbsp;treasures I&nbsp;might be in a position to facilitate beyond that of capturing&nbsp;the&nbsp;poignant oral history of a first generation for enjoyment&nbsp;by the second&nbsp;and&nbsp;third.
What better gift than love&nbsp;itself,&nbsp;anyway, and to hear&nbsp;a father reflect with pride upon&nbsp;his son's roles as husband, father, brother, employer, friend and, most movingly, a man of faith?
And what a wonderful opportunity for&nbsp;each of us to&nbsp;say&nbsp;thanks&nbsp;to a family that has given so much of themselves, so thoroughly, so fully, so authentically, so honestly. I count myself among the many people who have been buoyed by the Gaineses, by their private and public example, and altogether stirred by their testimony and&nbsp;demonstration of goodwill toward men during otherwise and often divisive times.
This being the backdrop and context, then, I offer&nbsp;FIRESIDE No. 17 with Bob Gaines&nbsp;as&nbsp;our finale and last hurrah (presented&nbsp;in the&nbsp;spirit of&nbsp;Paul Harvey's "the Rest of the Story"), primarily opening wide&nbsp;the curtains&nbsp;to Bob's personal and professional journeys (remarkable on&nbsp;their&nbsp;own merits),&nbsp;and secondarily to his exceptional, front-row seat&nbsp;to son Chip's impacts on business, popular culture and, increasingly, altruistic causes and philanthropic endeavors. 
My 2-hour interview with Bob is presented in three parts in two formats.&nbsp;(Whichever medium you choose&mdash;audio or video&mdash;I suggest starting at the beginning, with Part 1, as succeeding parts build upon&nbsp;and reference those preceding.)&nbsp;
Podcast/Audio:&nbsp;
<a href="https://leath.podbean.com/e/fireside-no-17-with-bob-gaines-part-1-the-formative-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Part 1: The Formative Years</a> <a href="https://leath.podbean.com/e/fireside-no-17-with-bob-gaines-part-2-career/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Part 2: Career</a> <a href="https://leath.podbean.com/e/fireside-no-17-with-bob-gaines-part-3-magnolia-fever-the-fixer-upper-phenomenon/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Part 3: Magnolia Fever &amp; The Fixer Upper Phenomenon</a>
&nbsp;
YouTube/Video:
<a href="https://youtu.be/YzQhJPZ0LCA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Part 1: The Formative Years</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/HRPg2H4g_DY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Part 2: Career</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/MzVDMw6usi4">Part 3: Magnolia Fever &amp; The Fixer Upper Phenomenon</a>
My&nbsp;hope and belief is that Bob's life experiences and powerful words will be&nbsp;an&nbsp;inspiration to you and your family in the coming year&mdash;whatever your role or situation&mdash;as we&nbsp;each endeavor to&nbsp;build better lives&nbsp;(often against great odds of our own) and to more positively impact the lives of those around us.
To that end, and on behalf of all my colleagues at Leath Group and the Leath family, I wish you a&nbsp;wondrous 2018,&nbsp;and thank everyone&mdash;like Bob&mdash;for bringing&nbsp;their tremendous personal and vocational stories to life, and for making&nbsp;FIRESIDE Season One possible.&nbsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1518046755/abi6nuvngjnk3fawdd7w.jpg" width="270" />
&nbsp;
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1514233890/prbvrhxowdkxbj9y7xci.jpg" width="240" />
&nbsp;
<img src="http://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1512880239/nf0qxxkpng29islnobmd.jpg" alt="" width="275" />
&nbsp;
E N D
&nbsp;
Visit&nbsp;Magnolia Market at <a href="https://magnoliamarket.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">magnoliamarket.com</a>, the <a href="https://www.target.com/c/hearth-hand-with-magnolia/-/N-4k98u" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hearth &amp; Hand with Magnolia collection at Target</a>, or the silos themselves (and garden, baking co., and so much more) at 601 Webster Avenue, Waco, TX 76706.
When in Waco, be sure and&nbsp;grab a bite at&nbsp;<a href="https://magnoliamarket.com/our-restaurant-update/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Magnolia Table,</a>&nbsp;opening soon.
Subscribe to <a href="https://magnoliamarket.com/journal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Magnolia Journal</a> for inspirations for life and home.
Catch current and prior episodes of <a href="http://www.hgtv.com/shows/fixer-upper" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fixer Upper</a> on HGTV, and <a href="http://www.hgtv.com/shows/fixer-upper-behind-the-design" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fixer Upper: Behind the Design </a>beginning this spring.
Follow @chipgaines and @joannagaines and @magnolia and @MagnoliaHomesTX and @MagnoliaRealty on Twitter or Instagram for comings, goings, fun projects, announcements, and general happenings in the year ahead.
&nbsp;
&bull; &bull; &bull;
&nbsp;
AND FINALLY&nbsp;&mdash;
&nbsp;
My heartfelt thanks this&nbsp;season&nbsp;to you, the faithful reader, listener, and viewer, for engaging in and supporting this&nbsp;autumn experiment.
To&nbsp;Rheagan Baker and Amy Taylor for interview coordination and the Herculean task of&nbsp;transcribing approximately 34 hours and 215,000 words of conversation (more than enough to fill four mainstream books).&nbsp;To Sharon Anderson for proofreading and editing&nbsp;it all.&nbsp;To Dave Rigdon for research and&nbsp;FIRESIDE&nbsp;branding, identity, and logo stamp creation.&nbsp;To JR. Forasteros, Richard and Heather van der Dys, Jen Cho,&nbsp;Clay Morgan, and Scott Cornelius for technical,&nbsp;web, podcast, YouTube, and social media leadership.&nbsp;To Stan Chou for 17 beautiful illustrations. To&nbsp;Rob Rigdon for all things engineering (audio and video recording, music, effects, mixing, and sound editing).&nbsp;To Katie Byrd and Dawn Leath for turning this sow&rsquo;s ear into a silk purse or, more specifically, two gorgeous leather&nbsp;volumes for&nbsp;each guest and his/her family.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1514359076/ucqcyzkt17zmx4doabbj.jpg" width="240" />
And of course, my&nbsp;everlasting appreciation to Joe Brouillette, Bob Pennington, Mary Ober, Lou Romero, Gary Moreau, Alan Friedman, Dr. Knute Sorenson, John Moore, Dr. Howard Johnson, Michelle Kinder, Susan Thoma, Bob Spencer, Dick Reynolds, Dr. Steve Buchholz, Ray Harmon, Dr. Charles Lowery, and Bob Gaines for leaping without looking into my tiny dinghy and joining me on&nbsp;her maiden voyage with nary a map, compass, star, proof of concept, nor body of work to&nbsp;preview. I am forever indebted to you for your courage, trust, participation, and setting such an exceedingly high bar in this,&nbsp;our&nbsp;inaugural season.&nbsp;
To learn the impetus behind&nbsp;FIRESIDE, <a href="http://www.leathgroup.com/blog/post/introducing-fireside" target="_blank" rel="noopener">click here</a> or <a href="http://www.leathgroup.com/blog/post/fireside-coming-tomorrow" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @blakeleath and @leathgroupllc, and (God willing), please consider joining us again next autumn for&nbsp;FIRESIDE Season Two.
To nominate or recommend future interviewees,&nbsp;please contact us at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:connect@leathgroup.com">connect@leathgroup.com</a>.
###