johnmaconline

I recently visited the Museum of the American Revolution.

Well done. I highly recommend it.

My big takeaway: the US came to be because of the crazies. 

Not the reasonable people. Not those with a cool head. Not those with the ability to look at both sides and find the common ground.

The crazies.

And as someone who considers himself a reasonable person, that gives me pause.

But also, it helps me appreciate the big, beautiful chaos that is this wonderful country. We fight. We yell. We argue. We push it this way and that way. 

Most importantly:

We can fight. We can yell. We can argue. We can push it this way and that way.

This is freedom. This is what it looks like. 

Thank you, crazies. 

My cat woke me up last night, and then kept me up batting a little plastic spring around the floor and generally making an ass of himself.

First, let’s clear this up: Cats aren’t nocturnal.

They’re crepuscular. That’s a strange-sounding word that simply means “most active during the twilight hours.”

Bullshit, this was 3 am. 3 am is never twilight in southeastern PA. Now, I’ve been to Sweden, Finland, and Norway, and in the summertime, 3 am can indeed be twilight in those areas. But not here.

Regardless, crepuscular means they are adapted to seeing much better than you do in the low light. They don’t have perfect night vision, but they don’t need much light at all — the moon, a porch light, a street light down the block — to see just fine.

It’s the rods. They got a lot more than you do.

When you stumble over the coffee table or step on an errant shoe in the dark, it’s so tempting to look at the cat and wish you could see like they do. It seems like such an advantage.

But you got the cones.

Which means you see much better color and detail in both near and far distances than your cat.

Every time you look around at others and the world, you have a choice. You can continue to wish you were like the cat, or you could recognize the advantages you have.

Life is a journey of change.

Your experiences. Your family. Your work. Your body. Your ideas.

What would be the point of living if we didn’t let life change us?

We’re (I’m) wired to resist it. We (I) lean into what’s familiar, what feels safe, what’s comfortable.

But comfort isn’t the goal. Change is.

New problems present an opportunity to change your skills.
New people present an opportunity to change your thinking.
New seasons present an opportunity to change your priorities.

This you is a different you, whether you’ve embraced it or not. The trick isn’t ignoring or avoiding change. It’s participating in it. Each day presents the opportunity of change.

Change isn’t the interruption of your life.

It is your life.

Money is a charlatan. A trickster. And it is oh, so good. 

It says, “Look over here,” and we do while it pockets the card with its other hand.

We fight over it in our personal lives. We fight over it in our public and political lives. We bluster, yearn, blame, and chase. 

We say it doesn’t matter, yet we fashion our lives around it. We put it on the vision board as the goal.

But money isn’t a worthy goal. It’s not the end. 

It’s the means to an end. 

Money’s superpower is as a tool.

Once you recognize the real power of money, you stop chasing it for its own sake. You chase what it unlocks. You start chasing the real goal. 

But the goal? That’s still on you.

You can do all the science for your new startup business.

You can research the market and find the gaps. You can research the perfect product to fill that gap. You can research the development effort. You can research all the costs, risks, competition, and the pricing model. You can build a rock-solid pro forma.

But at some point, you still have to make the art.

What color? Rounded or square? What should we leave out? Who’s our person? What’s the story? What’s the story our person tells themself? What do we want them to feel? How do we convey the story? What are we willing to give up? What are we willing to change about our perspective?

Science gives you the data. The art determines success.

Anything worthwhile takes both.

Often, it’s easy to recognize when you’re the storyteller.

If you’re standing at the front of the room, you’re the storyteller.
If you’re posting on the socials, you’re the storyteller.
If you’re talking to a potential partner, you’re the storyteller.

Sometimes, however, you may not recognize it. But make no mistake, you’re still the storyteller.

If you’re looking in the mirror, you’re the storyteller.
If you’re replaying last week, you’re the storyteller.
If you’re thinking about next week, you’re the storyteller.

You’re the storyteller about yourself. About what happened and what’s possible. What didn’t and what could.

You own the narrative. You own the perspective. You own the feeling.

So, what kind of story are you telling yourself?

I got my first car in 1987. It was a 1979 Chevy Chevette. Mint green, 2-door, 3-speed automatic with a whopping 70 hp.

There is no way to sugarcoat this — this car sucked.

Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to have a ride, but every day it was something. I carried around a large adjustable wrench. Not because I might need to tighten some bolts (although that, too) but because sometimes I needed the all-metal handle to short the starter motor terminals. Sparks would fly, but the motor would kick over, and we’d be on our way.

I still have the wrench. Here it is, and you can easily make out the distance between the terminals on a 1979 Chevette starter motor.

The Chevette followed directly from the 1973 oil crisis. American car manufacturers, who had been spending most of their engineering effort on bigger, faster, musclier, and more luxurious cars, suddenly had to pivot to fuel efficiency. But it took time. It took real products out in the real world to figure out how to make them better.

In 1987, this car had less than 50k miles. I passed it on to my brother when he turned 16, and when he finally put it out of its misery, it had less than 75k.

How many miles are on the cars sitting in your driveway?

They don’t make them like they used to.

And thank goodness.

The shifting sands aren’t quite the same as the rug pull, but they rhyme.

The rug pull hits you all at once. One minute, you’re standing on solid ground, and the next, your feet are firmly planted in mid-air. The decision has been forced upon you. Solve the problem. Today.

The outcome of the shifting sands is the same, but the journey is different.

If you’re not paying attention, you probably don’t notice the ground moving. Or maybe you notice it, but it’s so slow and small that you decide it’s not immediately important.

A slow erosion. What once was stable is now a bit tilted. Not because something snapped but because it’s been shifting beneath you for months.

The shifting sands don’t demand action like the rug pull. They seduce you into complacency.

The danger of the shifting sands is not that you’ll fall. It’s that you’ll sink.

Even though it feels solid, the ground beneath us is always shifting.

How will you adapt?