In 2006, Gladys knocked on my door once more, and I opened it only to the chain stop. 

My chief engineer friend, living in San Francisco and now firmly helping to drive the bus of worldwide technological culture change, called me with an offer. They were deep in the throws of creating “…an iPod…a phone…an internet device.” He asked me to join the party. 

I flew to Cupertino. Walked the halls again. Signed the NDA’s again. Ate sushi with the team again. Talked housing and relocation with HR. Got the offer, complete with stock options that would eventually be worth…well, let’s just leave it at “a pile.”

My dream job, working for my dream company, and working on my dream project.  

I turned it down.

Another regret for this column here? Certainly — you bet your ass — at least, from one perspective. 

But how does one accurately evaluate and sort out feelings about unwalked paths when you don’t regret the journey you actually took? You can’t, at least not rationally. So all you can do is lay in the grass, watch the clouds drift by, and daydream. 

And in our daydreams, we play an additive game whereby we take the best outcomes from what coulda, woulda, shoulda and add them to the unchanged journey we’ve experienced.

Kinda like, “Let’s take our life as it is and add another couple of zero’s to our bank account. Now how does that feel?”

But, of course, that’s a fool’s errand. Our life, our journey, and the effect on those sharing the road with us is a complex model rooted in chaos. The butterfly effect in full regalia. 

All I know is how my journey has turned out so far, and so far, so good. 

I turned it down for reasons I’ll never regret, and those reasons have proven sound and correct. But yes, I sometimes still daydream about the what-ifs. 

Ultimately, though, I’ve concluded that the entire New Shoes experience is about control, specifically, control over one’s self, life, and direction. Recognizing who has it when you don’t. How to gain it, keep it, and respect it. When you have it, how to wield it properly and empathically. 

That tailspin of an experience taught me that I wanted, and still want, to have control. Even if that control means I fail, take the wrong path, or, yes, have regrets. 

That single decision — one over which I had zero control — profoundly impacted me, my career, and my family. 

Both positively and negatively.

A couple months later, I did find myself on the layoff list (as expected), as did most of my pirate friends. I got “saved” (then), but within a month or so, I had quit Agere on my own.

I just couldn’t do it anymore. 

A colleague asked me why I was leaving without a layoff package, and all I could say, because I felt it deeply, was, “I no longer believe.”

And when your profession intersects with your passion, belief is everything. 

I left Agere to try rekindling an old professional romance (it was as awful as the first time around) but returned six months later wiser and reinvigorated. Some time away, dancing with the train wreck of an ex-girlfriend cleansed my pallet and provided perspective. 

It catapulted me onto the path of focusing on what I can control and working to gain control — tech startups (failures), real estate (semi-successful), other marketing adventures (most failures), personal and professional development, and to a large degree, this writing before you. 

Most importantly, it gave me the courage to volunteer for a layoff in my mid-40s, leading me on a journey of interesting professional adventures, personal growth, and an evolving perspective on the intertwining of personal and professional being. 

What could have been, if even by association, sometimes has a way of turning into what is. 

About a year and a half after our disbandment, the marketing manager from the New Shoes team pulled me into his office.

By now, the iPod models that were supposed to be ours had hit the shelves. They were everywhere. 

“Look at this.”

And he pointed to the spreadsheet on his screen.

At the bottom of the summary column was a number around $4 billion. 

But we knew this would happen. We told you it was gonna happen. That single decision saved them, at the time, a few million bucks, maybe a few 10s of millions. It probably soothed the street and secured some bonus for jaw-flappers.

But it cost them the company. 

Because by now, all of Agere was starting to tailspin, not just the mobile phone division. Revenue was down 10% in 2005 and another ten in 2006, but we were about to fall off the cliff. We were jettisoning people and projects. The death spiral. By the end of 2007, LSI, a company from the servant class compared to our nobility status, had bought us. 

Agere was no more. 

It didn’t have to be this way. Twenty guys — twenty focused and excited pirates — had the power to change it all. Twenty guys would have doubled the entire company’s revenue with a single project. 

And that was just iPod. We later learned that Apple also wanted to commit to us the first generation of, well…

“widescreen iPod with touch controls…revolutionary mobile phone…breakthrough internet communicator…“

For God’s sake, just stay on the train. Ignore the ex-girlfriend. You know she’s no good for you. Stop looking back. Start looking ahead. Not what wasn’t, but what can be.

They would have been heroes, not just inside Agere but in the entire semiconductor industry. 

By the mid-2010s, in a particularly cruel twist of fate, the entrails of the former Agere Systems (by now already moved on from LSI to a company called Avago) would merge with and be consumed by Apple’s iPod rebound girl — Broadcom. 

Not just death, but death with an aggrieved, “It didn’t have to be this way.”

We got no answers. None that made any sense, at least.

And that was that.

We said our piece, but it had no effect. We walked in as a cohesive, highly skilled, and angry band of pirates and walked out a fractured, dilettante, and wilted group of lap dogs.

Tails between our legs.

The official disbandment filtered us individually into the myriad of other engineering teams within the division. I ended up back in a group I had purposely left about five years before. Ugh.

But we all knew what was coming. Quarterly reports with bad news beget canceled projects. Canceled projects beget layoffs. Layoffs beget counteractive good news to the street.

And when layoffs happen, who gets laid off? Well…

The chief engineer wasn’t waiting around. He pulled me aside a few days later to tell me he was switching coasts. Gladys had hired him to fix the heaping pile of shit that Agere left (and would cause ripples throughout the semiconductor industry).

Of course, Gladys’s New Shoes would still happen. That train was rolling and unstoppable. Just not with us. We stepped off at the last stop because the ex-girlfriend said she’d be there. But of course, she jilted us again.

I was happy for him and also a little jealous. Was there a spot for me?

Nope. Not right now, at least. But that would eventually come around.

For now, I was just another lap dog, praying my name wouldn’t show up on the list.

“We are canceling this program for two big reasons…

The first is we believe that Apple is about to lose its market share. Microsoft and Sony have both jumped in the game…blah, blah, blah”

Some hushed murmurs around the room. 

This one was at least plausible. As engineers, we had no insight into the market, executive relationships, or product pipelines. What do we know? Microsoft has killed off Apple in the past. Maybe they’ll do it again.

But it’s also an executive funeral service hack. Invoking the “market share” argument with a room full of engineers is a “get out of jail free” card. What do we know about the market?

So, OK, fair enough. Maybe this one has some merit. 

“And the second is that we think the iPod is a fad and has peaked.”

And the room erupted. 

Not exactly trading floor during a frenzied short squeeze, but twenty normally introverted and reserved engineers all talking loudly over each other.

A voice cuts through.

“A fad?! Peaked?! Have you been to the gym? Have you walked down the street? Do you have eyes?”

Who says that to the executive VP of a $400 million division?

Someone who’s exasperated. Someone who’s spent the last year-plus pouring his sweat and humanity into this project. Somebody who’s sacrificed at home to work the long hours required to make something great.

Somebody who doesn’t know business but knows with all of his being that this is the stupidest business decision in history.

We filed into the funeral parlor, knowing but not yet believing our fate.

Emotions are running hot. This is the morning after the leak, and the execs don’t yet know it, but the leak strategy has backfired. 

The tension manifests itself differently in each of us. I can’t even look at them, but my friend on the silicon design team hasn’t broken eye contact since we passed through the door. He’s shooting lasers. Around the room, grown-ass men can’t sit still in their seats. 

Just waiting their turn.

The beginning went according to the familiar project funeral script — gotta cut costs.

“Blah, blah, blah…synergies…blah, blah, blah…core focus…blah, blah, blah strength alignment…blah, blah, blah…”

“Now, we’d like to open it up to questions.”

I was crazed and hopping mad, but I had little courage at this time in my career (and life). I was never the guy to open his mouth. I was too afraid. But I couldn’t let this go. Could I form the words? Could I find the courage?

Luckily, I didn’t have to. My colleague opened the floodgates.

“Mr. [VP], you told us what was happening but never said why, specifically. Why (on earth) are you cancelling this project?”

I assume these guys are good at reading a room; reading this one wasn’t hard. Mr. VP found a sacrifice.

“Sure, I’ll hand it over to Mr. [Lieutentant], who’s more familiar with the details.“

“Thank you, [VP]. We are canceling this program for two big reasons…” 

Word has gotten out.

It always does in these situations. Barry tells me, I tell Doug, and so on. The executives usually leak it on purpose so that the catharsis can begin before the official word comes down. It’s an executive strategy to soften the blow. 

Unfortunately, me and many of my colleagues in this band of pirates have been to this rodeo before. That’s the tech industry. Most of us have a professional past littered with the carcasses of projects that could have been, should have been, or never had a chance.

We know the feeling. Its resignation tinged with a dash of regret and a sprinkle of mourning. And then we move on. A bit like when your favorite Uncle passed on when you were 12. It hurts; you mourn and will remember him nostalgically, but you move on. 

And let’s face it, as engineers, we’re the guys in the ditch with the shovels or 20 feet up in the bucket with the rubber-handled tools. We’re the doers. We make little rocks out of big rocks. We don’t get a say, but why should we? What do we know of the market, balance sheets, or quarterly reports?

But do you know what engineers do know and do care about? 

Making stuff. Making great stuff. 

All we want is to make something that somebody else cares about. Maybe once in your life, you realize the dream of making something truly great. Those opportunities don’t come around every day. 

Official project (or division or company) funeral services follow a familiar script. The leader stands up front and talks about regret, how it’s not our fault, and how we’re gonna come out of this stronger and better. They wax eloquent with buzzwords like synergies, core focus, and alignment like they mean anything to the guys with the hammers and lunch pails. 

But the vibe today at this funeral service is very different. The leak didn’t smooth out the edges. The pirates are angry. 

Because this funeral isn’t for a favorite Uncle. You just murdered our precious baby girl.

We’re gonna say our piece. 

And though we may not have insight into the board room, the handshake agreements, or whose bonus is at risk, we know, sure as shit, that Gladys’s New Shoes is worth making. We know this one is great and will make a difference. For many of us, maybe all of us, this will be our professional legacy. 

Mutiny is at hand.

“You’re joking, right?”

“I wish I was. I’ve been fighting for the last two weeks. They won’t listen. They’re doing it. They’re gonna kill the project. They’ll announce it tomorrow. I felt you should know.”

“How? Why?”

“They [the mobile phone division execs] just lost [their biggest phone customer]. They’re cutting everything so that when they announce the loss to the street, they’ll have something to soften the blow.”

“But this is THE FIX!!??”

“Of course, but they don’t see it that way. Our division’s name is ‘mobile phones’ and this isn’t a mobile phone.” (ah, the fear-driven, short-sightedness rears its ugly head)

“Won’t the street see that we’re gonna make it up on iPod?”

“Apple won’t let us tell them.”

And so here we sat as the early-evening sun flooded the cafeteria with a pall that matched our emotions. I could see he was drained. I had just found out, but he had been living this nightmare for two weeks and had fought the good fight. 

But it was over. 

We stayed for a while as he patiently played therapist while I bitched and moaned, swang from anger to sadness, and started to come to grips with reality. My dream project, the one that intersected my geeky fan-boy past with the impending tech cultural shift of our future, was over. And I had no say in the matter. 

Gladys’s New Shoes had just been run over by a bus full of fearful executives afraid of getting scolded for what they lost rather than being excited and confident about the possibilities of what could be.

“Oh, please, mommy, don’t be mad at me!”

I walked back to my desk in zombie mode and sank into my seat. As I stared at nothing, the lead silicon engineer popped in and said, “Hey, man, did you see that [the VP of the division] just invited us to an all-hands for the New Shoes team? I wonder what’s up?”

“Sorry, man. We just got invited to our funeral.” 

Gladys’s New Shoes were to be the first generation iPod Nano and the first iPod with Video.

Both cutting edge and groundbreaking. Statistically speaking, you probably owned one of them.

In our lab, we have some of the (extremely confidential) new bits and pieces Gladys has shared with us. I’m using them, experimenting, and figuring out how the CPU we’re making is gonna allow them to sing and dance for 24 hours on a single charge.

We’re a year or so into this whirlwind, and I’ve been to Cupertino a couple times. One Infinite Loop and De Anza 8 — where the history of my geeky youth was made. Now I’ve walked the hallways, sat in the rooms, and even scratched out a few of my own markings on whiteboards.

I can’t believe my good fortune.

Every time I show up, I get my ass kicked. They rake me over the coals. But it’s like having David Goggins as your personal trainer. He’s gonna kick your ass. You’re gonna be a dishrag and gonna wanna quit. And then tomorrow, you’re stronger.

At the end of each day’s struggle session, we go somewhere in Santa Clara county, eat sushi, smash a few beers, and talk about conquering the world.

With every fiber in my being, I know this is how great stuff is made.

It’s towards the end of a nondescript day in our office near Allentown, PA. I’m at my desk when the chief engineer of our team walks up and says, “Follow me.”

I’m not alarmed or concerned because this happens a lot. He and I have spent hours on his whiteboard working through the unending pile of hard stuff.

But we don’t go to his office. Instead, he leads me into the empty cafeteria. I can still remember the orange-ish hue of the late-day sun pouring through the large glass windows, casting its early evening glare throughout.

I take a seat, and he sits across from me. OK, now it’s weird.

I know him and his British mannerisms well. We’ve been through some shit on other projects, and certainly on this one. We have an informal manner to our relationship — friends in addition to colleagues. This seems kinda formal.

At first, he doesn’t say anything. He just kind of sighs and blinks. I can read the resignation.

And then I know. This can’t actually be happening.

I joined the cult in 1984.

I was excited to work on Gladys’s New Shoes because I’d been in the cult already for 20 years. I saw the super bowl commercial like millions of others, and then I got to touch one in person. I was hooked.

The look, smell, feel of the keys, and this new-fangled thing called a mouse. It was magical. 

In high school in 1984, the Mac was a cool and interesting curiosity kept at arm’s length because I didn’t have one. But Penn State changed all that.

At Penn State, we had rooms full of Macintosh SE’s stationed throughout the campus. Rooms full of IBM PCs also existed, but the Mac labs were for the cool kids. Who in their right mind would want to use some ugly greyish, multi-box, wires-everywhere, DOS-based PC over the slick point-and-click beauty of the Mac SE?

“Hey man, we got a paper due tomorrow. I’m heading to the Willard Lab to get in line. You comin?” 

I was on team Steve. I grumbled when he got fired, monkeyed around with NeXT, and cheered when he came back. 

As I jumped into the New Shoes project, my favorite Mac of all time was sitting in my kitchen (yes, the kitchen) — the iMac G4, looking like a desk lamp with a beautiful 15″ flat-panel display and ice-white hemispherical base. It was a beautiful addition to the kitchen decor. 

Then came the iPod. Like with the first Mac I touched, it instantly hooked me. When I held that smooth, shiny deck of cards and spun the click-wheel under my thumb, I knew this was my thing. I bought one as a “gift for my wife.” Wink, wink. 

And now I was lucky enough to be working on the next generation.

The engineering team is rolling.

Apple, famously, and to their credit, is hard on their partners and suppliers. But not in the “we’re gonna grind you up and toss you to the wind so we get ahead” way. 

I’ve had the misfortune of working with those customers. They abuse you on price, time, and effort to lever their competitors and undercut them by pennies. They chew you up, spit you out, and think nothing of it. As a supplier, you can’t succeed. You’re better off without their money. 

No, Apple is tough because they do care. They care deeply about what they’re making — the thing that has their name on it. They want it to be awesome. And to make it awesome, they hold themselves and their partners accountable. They demand excellence. You’re in the fire when you work with Apple, but it’s a cleansing fire. Not everybody can handle it. 

I can handle the fire. Our team can handle the fire. 

All told, we’re about 20 people inside a company of 5000. We’re like an internal startup. Not exactly outcasts, but definitely outsiders because we’re not working on the core product of our business unit, mobile phones. 

We’re a bunch of pirates. 

We’re small and energized. Innovative and agile. The executives aren’t lording over us. We’re an afterthought, which we thought was awesome. We’re working long, hard, and quite frankly, killing it. 

What’s today’s unsolvable problem? And then we solve it.

I’m exhausted, but exhausted in the way I am after finishing a triathlon. 

And we knew that at the end of this race, we’d be standing on the top step of the podium. Future Agere Systems executives will point to our team and our project and say, “That’s when we went nuclear. These 20 guys made this company.” 

We’re gonna be able to do anything we want. We had the ship, cannons, and the crazies with nothing to lose. We had the power. 

Ah, how naive I was. 

Apple builds consumer trinkets like it’s a matter of national security — all to feed the hype machine. Marketing brilliance. 

If you’re familiar with the Steve Jobs era, you know that their “one more thing” product announcements were always a self-congratulatory exercise in pretentious back-patting. 

“Scotty, engage the maximum hype generation drive!”

“I’m giving her all she’s got, Captain! She’s gonna blow!”

As such, they kept their new products’ specifications, development partners, and suppliers entirely on the down-low. As a partner (and for this project, the main partner), we had to sign NDA’s not just for normal proprietary information protection but also promising never to disclose we were working with them.

We had to create an internal code name for Apple and another for iPod as part of our contractual obligation. We were to always use these codenames, even within our office walls. 

Somebody suggested Gladys for Apple and New Shoes for the iPod. So we walked around talking about Gladys’s New Shoes. Presentations, whiteboard sessions, and documentation all referred to Gladys’s New Shoes. Imagine the blank stares and exaggerated blinks from our colleagues. 

I’ve worked under real security on very secure programs in the top-secret world. This was just funny. For what? Gladys’s New Shoes was a fitting name. 

And this level of pretend security, specifically not announcing to the street that we were involved, was part of our downfall. Because eventually, we’d be stupid enough to kick Gladys and her New Shoes right out the door.

My team single-handedly destroyed a $2B company, and then I got fired. 

This is less of a personal regret than a regret by association, and reliving it boils my blood, even today. 

It’s 2003, and I’m working at a semiconductor company called Agere Systems, which is a spinoff from the former Lucent Technologies and AT&T. We invent, design, and build the core technologies for cell phones, computers, network infrastructure, and many other electronic devices you’ve had in your pocket, in your car, or in your office.

I’ve just landed my dream gig — lead systems engineer on an exciting project. The project? It’s the big guy. The one that took the recently back-on-the-map Apple and catapulted it to the stratosphere.

“1000 songs in your pocket.”

And 2003 was the moment of dancing silhouettes with white headphones on primary background colors. Go to the gym on a Monday and see a few people with the tell-tale white headphones. Go again on Friday, and you see twice as many. Week after week. 

You don’t need special insight, marketing expertise, or anything other than a set of open eyes. Walk down the street. This shit is happening. 

This was the beginning of the Holy Growth phase for the iPod and Apple. The genesis of the changeover from cultural curiosity to planetary vernacular. The heel in the proverbial hockey stick curve. 

No matter. Even a giant in the industry with $2B in revenue can screw the pooch.

After two announced delays, we finally boarded. 

I’m fake smiling at people as I snake through the aisle full of lucky bastards up front. I hate them with all of my being. 

All the while straining my neck to catch a glimpse of seat 23D. For sure, I was giving the death stare to whoever had kicked me out. Daggers, baby. Get ready to have me think that I’ve made you uncomfortable with my death stare. 

But it was empty. And not just that seat. The entire section of rows 16 to 29 was completely absent of seated passengers. What’s going on here? I didn’t know whether to be annoyed or elated. What did this mean? I didn’t know what to feel. 

So I asked the flight attendant. She said, “Oh, this section is empty for weight distribution purposes.”

Huh? All of it? That’s bullshit!

Here’s the thing — my father was a professional pilot. I grew up in airplanes. I know this is true. My brain knows it’s a real thing. I’ve been in airplanes with him and personally witnessed him move people around for proper weight distribution. 

But I can’t get my emotions out of the way of my brain. It makes no sense. 

“Keep moving, sir. Your seat is just back there.”

When I got to 37D, I found exactly what I assumed I’d find given how this entire mess had gone so far — two people occupying seats 37D and F. My bookends. 

I thought to myself, “Oh, here we go. Fourteen more hours of this shit.” Wheels up. 

And then an angel appeared.

“Sir, now that we’re airborne, we can redistribute the weight. Would you be interested in changing seats?”

Uh, would I? All I know is that within ten seconds, I was back in that aisle, being led to a new and promised land. I don’t remember standing up. I probably left some of my crap in my old seat. I’m sure I stepped on the person next to me. 

“Sir, take your pick. You’re welcome to just about any seat in this section.”

So I chose. Really, there was only one choice. 

I sat my ass right down in seat 23D and contemplated the fourteen hours of relative bliss ahead. 

I was that guy. 

You know the one. The one you hate. The one you and your people shake their heads at. You see him at the restaurant, sometimes at the doctor’s office, and always at the DMV. And today, my fellow humans saw him at the airport in Doha. 

“What’s the deal with that guy?”

And then, suddenly, I had a moment of clarity and calm amid my temper tantrum. 

It didn’t come from bullshit, fake optimism like “making lemonade from lemons” or “smiling on the outside so my inside will believe it.” I couldn’t possibly have conjured any of that. 

But somehow, I stumbled on a moment of mindful awareness of my presence in that time and space and gratefulness for being. I’m in freakin Doha, Qatar. That’s kinda cool.

Yup, the old me also thinks that sounds nuts. Was I chemically altered?

An actual calm came over me as I paced in the corner behind the gate seating. I saw the light bulb. I took a seat.

I’d be lying if I said that now all was well, but at least I could sit and breathe.

But this was a brief respite. The pressure was about to build again.

Through the haze, I heard the agent mutter something about a seat reassignment. 

He quickly confiscated my boarding pass and handed me a new one. At first, the obscene markings on the new boarding pass didn’t even register, but then I focused my eyes and understood — seat 37E.

The fog lifted, and I became razor-focused on my surroundings.

WHAT??!!! 37E??!!!

I didn’t know exactly where 37E was, but I knew it was a) near the back of the plane and b) in the freakin middle seat of the middle aisle.

And the wheels fell off.

I don’t know who grabbed control. Obviously, it was some version of me, but I never want to meet that guy again. Do we all have this ugly infant inside of us?

I had a full-on out-of-body experience because one appalled part of my brain. I remember thinking, “Oh my God, stop!” I couldn’t, though. 

At one point, the agent asked me to please step aside so that the manager on duty could help me without holding up the process. 

I simply refused, like a child.

“I’m staying right here, blocking this line, until this is fixed!”

I was yelling and waving my arms. I wouldn’t be surprised if I stomped my foot at some point. At one point, I left the gate agent, stewed on it some more, and returned to pick up the fight. But in the end, I got no satisfaction. 

I was flying home in seat 37E.

We land in Doha at 4:30 am local time, but the airport looks like 9 pm on a Saturday night in Times Square. 

People and overly brilliant lights everywhere. No escape. 

I’m as introverted as they come. I enjoy less people so much more than more people. And when I’m agitated, I prefer even less people. At this point, I haven’t slept for over 24 hours. 

The InstantPot in me is now building pressure.

Luckily we have a savior in the form of my boss. He has a pass to the Qatar Airlines lounge and is happy to bring us. All we have to do is cut through the haze of brain fog and exhaustion, wade through the crowd, and find the lounge. 

We stumble upon the lounge. Yet another line, but upon entry, we sit down with some sparkling water and snacks to kill the next couple of hours.

Snacks and sparkling water. WTF is wrong with you? Quit your bitching. You live like a king.

An hour before boarding, in full zombie mode, I waded through the masses and found my way to the gate. 

After a quick and easy gate-entry security check, I hand my boarding pass to the gate agent for what I assumed was simply verification of my identity and acknowledgment that the passenger in seat 23D was at the gate.

That’s when the lid blew off the InstantPot. 

The journey started rough in Armenia.

Flights from Yerevan to Doha leave at 3 am local time. My colleagues and I worked all day, relaxed for a few hours in the evening, and then made our way to the airport. 

No sleep. 

We arrived in a brain fog at the airport to crowds, slow lines, and odd rules. At one point, an Armenian TSA officer confiscated my friend’s laptop. Not mine, though. What was the difference? After some difficult conversation, they hand it back, and we’re on our way to the gate. 

What just happened there? We still don’t know. 

Window seat on a 737. Tight, but maybe I’ll be able to lean against it and doze a bit for the three-hour flight. 

A young couple takes their seats next to me, and the friendly man sits in the middle, likely to shield his partner from the grumpy old man in the window seat. We exchange some pleasant conversation while the remaining passengers board.

I’m already glassy-eyed. I don’t blame the guy for shielding his partner.

Wheels up, and somehow, inexplicably, my formerly talkative neighbor falls sound asleep. Snoring. How does one fall sound asleep in coach? In the middle seat? 

It helps if you take over half of your neighbor’s seat.

So the next three hours were an exercise in physical and mental tension. I’m straining to keep myself out of his way, yet I’m smashed against the fuselage.

It’s uncomfortably warm, I’m exhausted, I have no place for my feet, I’m trying not to touch the guy next to me, my back hurts, and I’m hungry.

I’m starting to feel like an InstantPot full of rice, and someone just locked my lid and pushed the “go” button.

Even at 50, I couldn’t stop stamping my feet, waving my arms, and generally making an ass out of myself.

I squirm just thinking about it.

The occasion was a flight home from Armenia. My itinerary called for three hours from Armenia to Qatar, a 3-hour layover in Doha, and then 14 straight hours to Philly.

All in coach.

Although I’d never done this particular trip, I have flown many similar trips that were 13-16 hours on one leg of the journey. I’ve been to China nine times.

Always in coach.

If you’ve ever spent 14 hours in coach, you know that your personal seating arrangement on that long flight can make all of the difference between tolerable and miserable.

You have your preference — window, aisle, or middle. The correct one for you makes all the difference. And an empty seat next to you? That’s the emotional equivalent of hitting the $300M lottery.

I’m twitchy, and I prefer the perceived freedom of the aisle. Just the fact that I can get up whenever or flop my leg into the aisle, if even for just a few seconds, satisfies my twitchy mind like a calming balm.

When booking this particular trip, I chose the best under-the-circumstances seat for the leg from Doha to Philly — seat 23D on the inside aisle.

As perfect as can be expected for 14 hours in coach.

I don’t believe in “no regrets.”

I think it’s a bullshit mantra of the narcissistic hustle culture. Rock star-wannabe entrepreneurs, tech bros, influencers, and “sell me this pen” dickheads. Justification for living an outlandish life.

Because if you have no regrets, that means a) you’ve never tried something that didn’t work, b) you’ve never lost control of your emotions, or c) you’re a self-centered bastard. 

I certainly have some, and they generally fall into two categories: regrets of omission and roads not taken (the what-ifs) or regrets of things I have said or done.

This next phase of storytelling will focus on regrets. Not so much the what-if regrets. What’s the point of that? Any road not taken materially deviates from the road I did take, and I focus daily on gratitude for where I am and who I am with. 

But I sure have done some stuff I regret. 

The thing about regrets, though, is that each one is a lesson. A lesson in how to improve. A lesson in self-control. A lesson in being human. 

I now had an opportunity, but it would require going out of character.

I would have to open my mouth and talk to the stranger next to me.

But here’s another thing about me — I hate waiting. And this guy, who walked in at the same moment I did, didn’t wait at all. I summoned the courage. 

“How did you know that blue shirt was the right guy and get waited on so quickly?”

“I didn’t. But look around. What do you see?”

I just blinked. I had nothing.  

“Every single person in this store has their face buried in their device. Even the people talking to a blue shirt. They’re all the same. Nameless and faceless.”

All you gotta do to get waited on is stand out just a little. So I walk in with my head up, immediately make eye contact, and smile at the first blue shirt I see inside the door. Without breaking eye contact, I walk right around the cloud of people milling about. If they aren’t the right person, they tell me who to see, and then I repeat that process.”

I asked, “But don’t you feel bad about skipping the line?”

“What line?

The Apple Store doesn’t have a line. On purpose. Those people are just standing there because they don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to stand out. So they fade into the background.”

Huh.

Sometimes it pays to keep your head up and your mind open.

I’ve spent most of my life trying to not stand out. 

Fit in. Fade into the back. Stay comfortable. Don’t speak up. Wait my turn.

Maximize my sameness.

“I was just overwhelmed by how invisible he was. Just his shear mediocrity was hard to deny. It was so attractive.”

That makes sense, right?

Which brings me to the Apple Store, or as like I call it — The Introvert’s Torture Chamber. No customer service desk. No discernable line. No signs. Just a sea of co-mingled blue-shirted workers and customers running around doing extroverted things. 

Torture for anyone looking to maximize their sameness.

Once, however, I found an unlikley guide that has forever changed my Apple Store experience and taught me a life lesson in how and when to stand out. 

Needing to replace my laptop keyboard, I approached the door at the Philly Apple Store simultaneously with another guy. I held it for him, followed him in, and walked into the nightmare. 

Inside the door, a haphazard cloud of 10 or 12 customers milled about in front of a group of three blue-shirts. 

What’s my next move? I guess I’ll just stand here. 

But I watched with amazement as this guy I held the door for found the correct blue-shirt guy, checked in, and walked directly over to a table to wait for help within 60 seconds. Ten minutes later, after waiting my turn, I found myself standing next to him at our appointed table.

Here was my chance. 

Sometimes you just need a push. 

The other time I was compelled to overcome my fear of heights was in front of a bunch of teenagers. Luckily, I got a push.

We spend the Sunday of workcamp week on team-building exercises. If you’ve ever been to summer camp or a corporate retreat, you’re probably familiar with many of these activities — low-ropes stuff such as alligator crossing and the spider web. 

But sometimes, we did high-ropes courses. 

High-ropes courses are teamwork plus personal battles. And for me, or anyone with a fear of heights, a big-time personal battle. Fun for all on the two-line cable crossings, unstable bridges, and the suspended cargo net. If you freeze up, or can’t participate, everyone knows your shame. 

At this particular course, you end your time in the tree tops with a zipline trip down the hill. Fun!

I traverse the course with sweaty palms and weak knees, determined not to let these bouncy and bubbly teens see me struggling. I don’t look down. I never look down.

I make it to the zipline platform. Phew, I’ve done it. They won’t know. 

I hook in with some help from a worker and freeze. Like on the 10 meter platform, I can’t make myself jump off. I have no idea why my brain let me make it through the rest of the course but froze up here at the end. Maybe it’s because there’s nothing under me. Maybe I don’t trust that itty-bitty cable. Regardless, I can’t do it.

So I come up with a solution. I turn my head to the zipline-hooker-upper guy behind me and say, “Push me,” fully expecting to have to explain my novel idea.

I start to formulate my explanation, but to my surprise, he just smiles and says, “Sure thing.” This was not his first rodeo. 

And he pushes me. 

A thousand feet of exhilaration later, with my feet firmly planted on the ground, I feel the butterflies, but this time of joy.  

If you can’t do it yourself, get some help.

Twice in my life, I “overcame” a fear of heights with help from others. And by help, I mean physical help. A push, to be exact.

During a summer semester at Penn State, my friends and I liked to go to the pool on campus. The pool had a diving area complete with a 10-meter platform.

“Sure, let’s do it!”

Four of us climbed the ladder and waited at the platform’s back end. I watched two friends saunter out to the edge, peer down and jump off, piercing the water feet first.

My turn. I walked out just like my buddies, looked down, and froze. Over 30 feet in the air, plus the depth of the pool. It may as well have been a thousand feet.

I stood there for what seemed like and hour and could not will myself to jump, no matter how hard I tried. My lizard brain was locked up. Now my buddy behind me sees what’s happened and starts hazing me. So do my friends below. They’re on me hard.

I can’t do it, so I turn around and walk back to climb down the ladder, fully prepared for the relentless hazing that would fill the remainder of the day. It’s gonna suck, but it’s the only way.

But my friend behind me is having none of this. He blocks my way to the ladder, turns me around, and gives me shove.

Somehow that worked. With the momentum from the shove, I started running, stared straight ahead, and just ran off the end. Next thing I know, I’m swimming to the edge of the pool.

Yes, it was 100% peer pressure, but without that shove, I’d never be able to say I did it, and I’m glad I did. How many thousands of people have jumped off that platform and not died? All of them.

The Ben Franklin Bridge became my Mt. Everest. 

I spent three years running around center city Philly at lunchtime. Starting at the gym at 15th and Arch, I could explore the Rocky movie sites, historic district, Penn’s landing, University City, the sports complex (watched the Eagles a bit during training camp), boathouse row, and even had a few scary moments. It was awesome.

But there was no hill. If you’re training for an event, and I often was, you need some hill work.

I found the solution while running along Penn’s Landing at the Delaware river — the bridge! The Ben Franklin Bridge is a mile-long, majestic, arching hill over the river. Perfect. 

So on my next run, I set out for the bridge, feeling a bit smug with my brilliant idea. 

Approaching as a pedestrian is tricky because it hosts seven Vine St Expressway (I676) lanes, commuter rail from Jersey to the city, and the pedestrian walkway. There’s a lot going on, but you can find the walkway entrance on the south side, just past Franklin Square and behind the National Constitution Center. 

The pedestrian walkway sits about 20 feet over the rail, above, and outside the roadway. When on it, you can’t see the road or rails unless you lean over the railing. As I crossed the first time, I approached the crest of the hill and mindlessly peeked over the way-too-short outside railing. 

High (135 ft) — check . 

See straight down — check. 

Mistrust the safety equipment — check. 

Instantly my knees turned to jelly, and my brain locked up. I froze, put my arms out like I was walking a tightrope, tip-toed my way to the inside girder, and hugged a light pole like a long-lost relative. 

What the hell was that? But I couldn’t help it. 

I can only imagine what this looked like to the others on the walkway. Not surprisingly, a few passers-by gave me plenty space on the way by. 

Now what?

I composed myself, turned back toward the entrance, and shuffled the almost half-mile back off the bridge with my hand on the inside girder. Head straight. Eyes forward. Hug the railing.

I was flustered and more than a little embarrassed but also determined. I wasn’t going to let it beat me.

So over the next weeks and months, I kept trying it. Eventually, I made it over. It wasn’t pretty — head straight, eyes forward, hug the inside railing. But I did it.

Over time and repetition, I got to the point where I could run along the outside and even take some quick peeks over the side. My knees still weakened, but the more I did it, the more I could control my mind. More than once, I did hill repeats. 

The fear hasn’t left me, but I’ve learned how to cope and operate in the face of it. Here’s some proof of progress. 

Lighthouses — cool structures, romanticized nostalgia, and a wealth of symbolism.  

Some of my earliest and fondest memories from childhood are of the Hatteras lighthouse on the outer banks of North Carolina. 

And over the years, I’ve climbed many in different parts of the country with little issue, so I had no idea that the one on Tybee Island, Georgia, would turn me into a whimpering toddler.

I’m lucky in that I don’t have a universal fear of all heights. I don’t actually have clinical acrophobia, but I’m easily reduced to a bowl full of jelly when just a few ingredients exist. 

• High enough that I risk injury. So probably over 15 feet.
• I gotta be able to see straight down.
• I don’t trust the safety equipment (railing, wall, cable, etc).

If you combine those things, my knees weaken, and my mind locks up. The lizard brain takes over.

Which brings us to the top of the Tybee Island lighthouse. As I emerge from the lantern room onto the catwalk, all three ingredients combine to rip any vestige of self-control away from me. 

It’s a lighthouse, so of course, I knew it was high, and I’d be able to see straight down. I’ve done it many times. But I had no idea the catwalk railing would come up only to the middle of my thighs! Usually, the catwalk railing is at least chest high and often reaches over my head. 

I’ve lost all trust in the safety equipment. 

Who’s that minuscule railing gonna save? Uh, nobody over 3 feet in height. What if you get startled, someone bumps into you, or you lean over just a bit too much while waving to the smart people below? Surely the remains of people waving to their much smarter family and friends litter the ground around the bottom of this lighthouse.

My lizard brain was having none of it. It locks up, and now I physically can’t move. I literally can’t move. 

Not only can’t I move, but now I find myself hugging the lantern room from the outside. Not hugging in the sense of “staying close to.” No. Hugging, hugging. Like it’s a giant teddy bear — arms outstretched, belly and cheek stuck to it. 

And I’m not the only one on this catwalk. Heck no. I got at least ten other people around to witness this public display of terror. Lucky me. 

At first, the others are mildly curious, like maybe I’m playing some kind of game. If only. But after a few minutes, they all know. My shame is public. How could it not be? I’m hugging the giant lighthouse 140 feet off the ground, and I can’t move. 

Well, here’s how it ends. After my friends and family take a few pictures of me for nostalgia purposes, my wife saves my ass. She tenderly takes my hand, looks me in the eyes, and says, “OK, don’t look anywhere else but at me. I’ve got you.”

And she leads me around the catwalk to the lantern room door and into safety. Finally, I can move again on my own. 

November 18, 2011 at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall about an hour north of Beijing.

How was I supposed to know that to stand on that wall required a windy traverse over what certainly was a bottomless chasm on an old rusty ski lift? 

That part was not in the brochure.

But there I was with my coworker and friend George, somehow standing on the platform of that ski lift, waiting for the 1970s-era 2-seat, open-air death trap to come around the giant cog and grab my ass.  

I almost didn’t do it. Truly. I was sweating, shaking, and probably white as a ghost because I knew what would come after dropping the bar over my head. 

But I sat my butt in that chair, and now I was trapped.

We took off, rose over the initial crest, and the ground dropped away. I froze. Not from the early winter chill in the air but from terror. The wind picked up. All I could see was that rusty cable stretching as we bounced along 8 billion feet above the earth. 

How much more could it withstand?

I knew with all of my being that the cable on the lift was about to snap. I believed it with all of my heart. The only thing that kept me from outright weeping was my pride in front of George.

He, though, was apparently unphased — turning around, taking pictures, leaning over the bar, and making that itty-bitty seat bounce even more. So I closed my eyes, sat ramrod still, and let George do all the talking. Thank God he was talking. I couldn’t have choked out anything comprehensive above a grunt. 

Miraculously, somewhere between 5 minutes and 3 hours later, I found myself standing on that wall. What a payoff that was. 

And I would do it again in a heartbeat, even knowing the terror that I’d hoist upon myself again. The Great Wall is truly one of the great wonders on this planet. I’ve seen the pictures, you’ve seen the pictures, but the only way to appreciate its majesty is to stand on it with your own two feet.

If I’d succumbed to the fear, like I almost did right before the chair lift swung around that giant cog, I’d be kicking myself forever. 

Many of us have them. 

Irrational fears — spiders, snakes, needles, public speaking, the dentist, whatever. Various estimates put the number of people in the US with phobias from 20% to 25%. 

Mine is heights, and I share acrophobia with about 5% of the population. That means 95% of you are crazy and should think about therapy. 

Because our phobia is better than yours. Better in the sense that it’s real. Real in the sense that we will die if we fall from something high. It’s not some made-up fear like nomophobia or xanthophobia. 

I feel good and validated about my acrophobia. But still, even though I’m afraid of something real, unlike y’all with ablutophobia, I recognize that I must not let it get the best of me. Life demands it. 

So I test myself. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. I always pass with flying colors (if flying colors means freezing, running the other way, crying, or acting like a toddler). 

What follows over the next few days are stories about those tests. 

Oh, and if globophobia or optophobia has got you stuck in your house in the dark, you should dig in here. The nuggets of wisdom will be coming fast and furious.

If my ridiculous fails and antics can’t at least help someone feel less alone, then what am I doing here?

I’m alone in the dungeon, but I make it to the locker room door.

Shit! It’s closed and locked. My key’s down by the pool. This door is always locked. We’re in center city. Stuff happens.

Just as I’m about to wheel around and head back to the pool because now I’m committed to the locker room, the door opens and hits me. A guy runs out and says, “Get out, man!” And he’s off.

I grab the door before it closes. At my locker, I pause and look around for just a second or two. It’s empty, of course, but at no point have I smelled or seen smoke. That’s still true. The fire, if there is one, may prevent me from escaping, but here in this locker room, my life is not in immediate danger.

I can’t escape the vision of myself out on the busy city street in my jammers in ball-scratching cold weather. What would I look like? What would people think?

So I get dressed. Then I grab my bag and take off, not knowing if an escape route even exists anymore. If not, at least I’ll die with my clothes on.

Up the stairs, around the corner, through the big double doors, and out onto the sidewalk. With my clothes on.

Thank God. I mill about with the rest of the crowd and learn that this wasn’t a drill, but neither is the building on fire. A false alarm.

I chose well.

As far as I know, this is not a drill. The building is on fire. This is real.

The fire alarms blink and sound their klaxons. Is that smoke? I might be the last one left in the building. The “Fire!” guy is long gone. I don’t see anybody else.

I can, and probably should guarantee my safety by immediately evacuating. That means running up the two flights of stairs and outside onto the busy city sidewalk. I’m soaking wet, wearing only my jammers and a towel, and it’s 15 degrees.

And then what? The building is on fire. My clothes will be toast. Or, if not toast, who knows when I could get back in.

And then what again? What am I gonna do soaking wet without clothes? Walk the four blocks across center city in 15-degree weather? Walk into my office? Dude, I’m essentially naked.

Is this guaranteeing my safety?

Another possibility flashes into my mind. I can chance it. Take a quick duck into the maze of a locker room, which is just one floor up from the dungeon, and on my way out. At the very least, I can grab my stuff.

I decide to chance it. Really I had no choice.

Vanity versus death.

For a couple years, I worked in center city Philly — 18th and JFK. At lunchtime, I’d make my way past Love park to the gym at 15th and Arch. It’s an ancient YMCA building with a pool in the basement. 

Lap swimming is a form of sensory deprivation. Not in the total absence of senses, but in the inability to hear anything beyond the sloshing of your arms through the water and the inability to see anything past the radius of those arms, except some hazy, amoebic glow. 

Consequently, you find yourself retreating internally, oblivious to what’s happening around you. There’s really no other way. 

On this mid-winter day, deep in the throws of this sensory deprivation, I became vaguely aware of a flashing light. I stopped to pick my head up and look around. There it was — the flashing light came from the fire alarm on the wall. 

For how long? Impossible to know, but I wasn’t nervous. Because I, like you, have participated in hundreds of fire drills throughout my 50+ years. So I drug my annoyed self onto the pool deck, fully expecting to hide in the locker room until we got the all-clear. 

But something happened on my way to the locker room. A guy ran past me, yelling, “Fire! Get out, now!”

Uh oh.

There I stand, dripping wet in nothing but jammers and my towel. It’s 15-degrees outside. The building is on fire. I’m in the basement.

The250 is a project about stories. 

Specifically, how personal history colors the lens through which we remember and interpret those stories. Because ultimately, we see and understand the world around us through our collection of stories. They leave an indelible mark on what we believe to be good and true, whose side we’re on, and how we see our own role in this world. 

“People don’t believe what you tell them.
They rarely believe what you show them.
They often believe what their friends tell them.
They always believe what they tell themselves.”

Seth Godin

And we’re squarely focused on exploring that last line: what we tell ourselves. 

Our stories are about the memory of emotions, sometimes to the detriment of the memory of facts. We often twist, embellish, or create “facts” to match the memory of those emotions, which is why the passage of time is the enemy of an eyewitness in the judicial system. 

But we’re really good at remembering the emotions attached to a moment and our personal context in that moment. What was happening in our life at that time? Who was there? How did we think of ourselves? What change did that moment bring about? 

As our journey continues, we add more context, personal history, and outcomes. With a proper mindset, we can and should reinterpret and even change our stories. 

We always believe what we tell ourselves. This here is the uncovering of the stories I tell myself. 

I totally believe that authorities can coerce false confessions, and I’m thankful for those who work on behalf of the victims. I believe it because it almost happened to me right here.

I almost confessed. I really did. But to what? I hadn’t done anything other than keep my mouth shut, but I just wanted it all to stop. Right now. I would’ve said just about anything.

But I stuck to the truth, probably because I just didn’t know what else to say. The next time I got coherent words out, it was something whiny like, “I didn’t. I really didn’t. But I knew some people were.”

“OK, who was it?”

Wait, was this a glimmer of hope? Throw somebody else under the bus, and maybe you’ll be free!

So, I did. I gave them Derek, and then I couldn’t stop the gusher. It was like an out-of-body experience. But I guess it worked. If that’s what you want to call it. I walked out of there with nothing but a deep wound on my soul.

And that’s when I knew they were just fishing, and I was a live one. Maybe somebody had given them my name (like I had Derek’s), or maybe they just pulled me in because of my friendship with Derek (who they already nabbed). They were just soaking me for information and using fear as the mechanism.

I get it. I understand why authorities do it. It works.

But I also understand how this authoritative intimidation can lead to false confessions. It left a deep impression on me. Every time I see something about questionable confessions, I wonder.

Now standing in the security office in front of several stern-faced adults, I was shaking. I’m sure my face read like a book because I knew what this was about — it was about the system.

And this was the reckoning.

Even though I knew about and had seen the system in action first-hand, I was too afraid and prudish to have tried it myself. I hadn’t stolen a single dollar. Even if I had thought about trying it, fear and guilt kept me on the sidelines.

I hadn’t done anything wrong other than not squealing (yet), but here I was.

Mirrored sunglasses, staring directly at me since I walked into this chasm of hell, cuts right to the chase, “We know you’ve been stealing from the cash register. Now’s the time to come clean. If you do, we’ll go easy.”

Somehow, I choke out a feeble, “Um, no, I haven’t…”

“Bullshit! We’re way past that. We know you have.”

At this point, the dude-perm starts waving his finger at me, “Every dollar you put in your pocket comes right out of my pocket!”

This, coming from the guy who’s currently wearing 80’s style athletic short shorts that not only didn’t have a pocket but weren’t exactly concealing much else.

I just blinked and stammered. I wasn’t being smart, or coy, or playing any sort of game. I couldn’t even think. Had I peed myself?

People are clever and clever people who think they can’t get caught get careless.

I made a couple of friends working at the burger and fry shack that summer. One of them was Derek. He was cool. A year older and already driving; longer hair; metalhead like me. I had no idea, of course, that this friendship would eventually land me in the security office shaking like a leaf.

A week or so before my call down to the office, Derek let me in on a little secret, although, as it turns out, it wasn’t really a secret. He was lifting money from the cash registers, and “it was a foolproof system.”

Not only was he doing it, but several people were. Someone else had shown him. And now he was going to show me.

We sold three things at our stand: burger (with or without cheese), fries, and soda. Each priced a nice round number like $1.00 or $3.00, plus we had a “meal deal” where you got all three for $5.00.

Most customers ordered either a single item or the meal. Almost no change and easy math.

“Gimme a fry. Here’s $2.” Or, “Gimme two meals with cheese. Here’s a $10.”

And since they’re not getting any change, they grab their grub, wheel around, and off they go. They’re not looking at you or their money. As the cashier, just peek behind you to ensure no manager is watching and hit the “no sale” button. The cash drawer pops out, but with some kindergarten sleight of hand, that $5 or $10 misses the drawer and lands in your front pocket, and the cash register and daily reconciliation are none-the-wiser.

The system was foolproof.

But here’s the thing about clever people, they really like to show others how clever they are. What good is it if you can’t take credit?

More people. Less foolproof.

Ever wonder why prices at fast food and other volume-based retail establishments are $2.95, $1.10, and $5.15, rather than $3.00, $1.00, and $5.00? Wouldn’t it just make sense to use round numbers to make it easy on both the customer and the cashier?

Teenagers. That’s why.

Near the end of my summer working as the fry guy at Dorney Park’s Wildwater Kingdom, the shift manager summoned me, “Get your ass to the security office.”

So I did. I had no idea why, but this wasn’t an altogether foreboding request. We got summoned to the security office for a variety of non-scary and non-security reasons — phone call from home, forgetting to sign your time card, a question about a lost and found item, etc. I had been there a handful of times myself. No big deal.

So I sure didn’t expect what was waiting for me inside that office.

I walked through the door and into a group of stern-faced adults that included the head of security (in CHiPS-style uniform complete with mirrored aviators), another security officer (also in uniform, but without the shades), the operations manager for all food services, and the big guy himself — the bodybuilding, 80’s athletic short shorts and string tanktop wearing, dude-permed owner of the park.

My heart sank, my anxiety shot to the moon, and I thought to myself, “Uh oh, I think I know what this is about.”

For just a second, I didn’t move. Nobody did. 

A silence dropped over the entire room for what seemed like an hour. I had no idea what had happened, but now I could smell burnt hair. 

I looked down at the hair on my arms — most of it gone, and what was left was curled up like Christmas ribbon. A coworker looked at me and said, “Dude, your eyebrows.”

My eyebrows were gone, and so too were my eyelashes. My bangs looked like the few remaining follicles on my arms. 

And that smell.

If you’ve ever worked a pilot light before, you know what happened. I pushed and held the gas valve knob, which momentarily shut off the gas flow to the pilot light and choked out the flame. But I failed to twist it so that it stayed off. So as I worked to clean the fry hopper, the pilot light gas trickled (luckily, only trickled) out and built up inside the cavity, just waiting for some dumbass kid like me to come along and present the flame. 

My father-in-law had a great saying, “It don’t pay to be dumb unless you show it.”

I got my money’s worth that day. 

The good news is that now, over 35 years later, I’m extra diligent around gas-fired appliances. Fool me once…And I’ll never forget that smell.

Oh, and this was 1985. Of course, I stayed and worked the rest of my shift.

Now get off my f*#!kin lawn.

In the summer of 1985, I was 15 and worked the inaugural season of Dorney Park’s Wildwater Kingdom. I learned a lot of life lessons in those short couple of months. 

I worked in the burger and fry joint stationed at the end of the wave pool. Get out of the wave pool, and exchange your soggy dollar bills for a refreshing drink, burger, and fries. Yeah, we got ketchup. 

I was the fry guy.

Actually, we all rotated through the various jobs, the fryer was one, but we also made burgers in a conveyer belt oven, slung drinks from the fountain, and took our turn at the window interacting with the public. 

But my favorite job was making fries — I didn’t have to interact with the wet and impatient public; it was a one-man job; and most importantly, I could nic a few fries here and there throughout my shift. 

Today was cleaning day. As the “fry guy,” my job was the fryer. My directions:

1. Turn off the pilot light
2. Drain the cool oil
3. Clean the hopper
4. Fill it with new oil
5. Relight the pilot light

I went at it with fervor. Steps 1 – 4 were complete; now time to fire it all back up.

I reached for the pilot light with the match, and “Phwooooof!”

I can still remember the smell of the first computer I saw and touched. It was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. I was in fourth grade, and this was the library in Lower Milford Elementary school.

What is that smell? It’s caused by the out-gassing of blah, blah, blah…

It doesn’t matter what it is. Every time I smell it, it takes me back. Directly to that library in 4th grade. The engagement of nostalgia through my olfactory sense. Once I’m there, I can hear the keys’ click and feel their resistance under my fingers.

The first moment that set me on what was to be my professional path for over 30 years.

I remember the smell of the movie theater seats where my dad took me to see Star Wars in 1977 and the smell of the inside of a brand-new Dodge Omni. I remember the smell of the blanket we wrapped our oldest son in to bring him home from the hospital.

And I also remember the smell of the insides of many houses that I worked in doing mission work. I’m not sure what the ingredients are, but it’s the unmistakable smell of poverty. 

Every time I get a whiff of any of these out in the world, I’m immediately transported back to that moment. The story, or stories that surround those moments, make me who I am. 

What are the smells from your past that form the story of who you are?

We have a Holy war in the software development world.

Ours is an ancient topic invoking the same intense emotions as the debates around abortion, vaccinations, and crypto. Developers line up on either side, sling mud, and lose their shit over this topic like we’re all a bunch of toddlers fighting over the yellow dump truck. 

This Holy War is tabs versus spaces for indentation in a source code file. 

On the one hand, it’s as silly as you think. We’re throwing tantrums over whether the tab key will insert a “tab character” (ASCII character 9) or the appropriate number of “space characters” (ASCII character 32) into the file. 

When you look at the file, the outcome looks the same.

But under the covers, it’s way more nuanced. Some languages require tabs specifically. Some editors work better with spaces. Some are agnostic.

As a new engineer, I started out as a tabs guy. Why? Because the person who showed me the ropes was a tabs guy. But now I’m a spaces guy. Once I had built up my own profile of experience, I saw the light. 

So for the tabs people, I’m an apostate. Actually, worse. I’m a fallen angel, a backslider. Or, rather, I’ve carelessly thrown it away. A special place in hell awaits me. But I’m convinced I’m right. 

Here’s the thing about holy wars — no matter what side you’re on, you are always right. Until you switch sides. Then you’re right again.

I had no idea how to respond.

At 22, I didn’t have the experience or skills even to know what to think, let alone what to say. 

So I just mumbled, “Uh, what?” with a blinking stare on my face.

“I’m not going to teach you how to do what I do. You can tell Charlie that. This is what I do. If I teach you, then what am I going to do? They’ll just lay me off.”

So I walked away.  

I didn’t know what to do. I was too afraid to tell Charlie, so later that day, I mentioned it to my friend Jim. He said, “Yeah, I thought that might happen. Don’t worry, you and I will figure it out together.”

So that’s what we did, and it only took about a day of poking around and figuring stuff out.

Sure enough, the company had some layoffs a year later, and Bill was on that list. The very thing he was trying to avoid became a reality, and it had little to do with his skill set or how good he was at his job.  

Professional organizations need grease, not roadblocks. True for humans and true for robots.

I guess people have always been worried about protecting their jobs. It seems like a natural worry.

But we’re wrong to think that not teaching someone else to do our job or help us with ours is the way to protect it.

At 22 and fresh out of college with a degree in Electrical Engineering, I started working at a large defense contractor building satellites. I showed up a shy and unconfident version of myself.

My team ensured the satellites that we built would survive both natural and man-made radiation in space — nuclear survivability. Fancy, right?

My manager Charlie paired me with a few guys, Jim, Tom, and Rob, who helped me get comfortable, figure out what working and contributing in corporate America looks like, and helped me with all of my newbie technical questions.

A few weeks in, I was already growing.

And then, I hit my first roadblock. Charlie asked me to see Bill and ask him to teach me how he does his particular type of modeling. He was overloaded and could use some help.

So there I went — bouncing over to Bill’s desk like an enthusiastic puppy. I mentioned that Charlie had sent me over to learn how he does his modeling and asked when he had some time to show me.

After a pregnant pause, a slow turn in his chair, and a condescending stare down his nose over his glasses, he answered, “Not gonna happen.”

Uh, now what?

He flashed it, looked at us, put his shirt back over it, and kept right on moving past us.

Now I don’t know what to do except quickly deposit the trash and get back to our group as fast as possible. But once we were amongst the group, the whisper shouting started.

“What?! Should we leave? Are we ok?” And so on.

As one of the adults, I figured I should have some answers, but I didn’t. In my context, guns commanded safety rituals and pomp and circumstance. Nobody walks around with one in a waistband. I was knocked off kilter.

Luckily, my adult partner was our local expert and had spent a lot of time in this neighborhood fixing other people’s homes. He gathered us on the front porch.

“OK, let’s calm down. We shouldn’t have anything to worry about. 

Think about what y’all look like to him. He has no idea who we are, but he knows we’re not from here. We’re running around, making a commotion, laughing, singing, and walking all over the place. We got a dumpster out front and trucks with new stuff stopping by and unloading.

This is just his way of showing us that regardless of who we are, he’s prepared. And we should know that.

So let’s be a little more respectful of his space and try to put him at ease.”

Context forms the lens through which we see the world, and personal experience shapes that context. 

Tuesday was the day we saw the gun.

It was our second day of work at Mrs. Williams’s house, and we’re sitting in the marginal shade between the houses, leaning up against the chainlink fence, eating our lunch. The shade provides so little relief, but it’s oh, so important. The July sun in Richmond is unrelenting.

The only thing that comes in second to the workcamp shower is the workcamp sandwich. You get either a sparse ham and cheese or a squishy peanut butter and jelly on smooshed white bread. But it’s the best sandwich you’ve ever, or ever will, until the one you have the next day. By lunchtime, you’re so hungry that you’re eyeing up the giant cockroaches.

Our group of teenagers and adults numbers about ten, and at mid-day on Tuesday, we’re still a cheery and energetic group — breaking into song, laughing, and generally enjoying being together and working.

We were also outsiders, loud, noticeable, and, unfortunately, completely unaware. That was about to change.

One of the girls and I grabbed the lunch trash and headed for the dumpster out front. Coming towards us, on his side of the fence, is Mrs. Williams’s neighbor. A guy, probably around 30, staring right at us as we converge. I open my mouth to say “Hi,” but before I get it out, he tugs the front of T-shirt up just far enough to reveal it.

The handle sticking out of the waistband of his shorts.

I’ve just met Mrs. Williams, and I’ll forever be a better human because of it.

On this particular occasion in Richmond, our job is to replace the floor in her kitchen. I mean, it’s a complete disaster.

The old wood-fired pot belly stove (yup, you read that right) leans to the left because of the rotted floorboards. That lean creates a visible disconnect between the stove and the chimney.

I wonder what the air in this kitchen is like when she fires up the stove. Does she even fire up the stove? Of course, she does. It’s THE stove.

You can’t get to the sink without straddling the 18-inch hole in front of it. Over to the left, daylight shines through a breach in the wall. Look a little harder, and you see the telltale signs of the plethora of critters that also call this structure their home. At first, I’m disillusioned about the breach. But then, I thank God for that breach because the smell is overwhelming.

Mrs. Williams is 82 with a perpetual smile on her face. She’s your grandmother. She’s my grandmother. She’s everyone’s grandmother.

She flits about as we work on her floor throughout the week, always smiling. She moves pretty good for her age, but still, I have no idea how she gets to that sink. Maybe she doesn’t.

She and Mr. Williams moved into this house, a parsonage, a billion years ago when Mr. Williams became the pastor of the nearby Church. Mr. Williams died almost 10 years ago, but Mrs. Williams is like a freight train.

She continues to feed the hungry, smile at the sad, and hug those who need love. The front porch supports a constant stream of people who need what Mrs. Williams provides. Unfortunately, that porch is straining under the heaviness.

She’s kept on keeping on. But now, her house is crumbling like the neighborhood around her.

What were some of the best times of your life?

Were they travel adventures? Romance? Successes? The birth of children?

Do any of those best times involve layers of sweat and grime, cold showers, and sleeping on hard floors in a community room with 25 other people?

Mine do.

Each summer, our Church sent a group of teenagers and adults to various communities to do mission work for a week. Our mission was to repair, rebuild, and otherwise make safe the homes of people who could not afford to pay.

For those weeks, we slept in sleeping bags on the floor of some generous host Church. We ate whatever was graciously provided by local organizations. We showered sparsely and often in cold water.

These were some of the best weeks of my life.

At the end of each day, I was hot, grimy, and spent. The evening shower was always the best shower I’d ever had. And laying my head on that pillow on the hard floor produced sound and restful sleep. Satisfaction to the very depths of my soul.

This trip to Richmond in the late 90s was my first taste. The very first time I was fortunate enough to accompany this group of people just trying to make some difference, if even just a small one, in another’s life.

I gained so much perspective on these trips about so many things, but I could never have predicted the perspective-altering moment of seeing that gun out of context.

The first time I saw a gun out of context was in the inner city of Richmond, Virginia, with a bunch of teenagers from our Church.

I grew up in a hunting family. We had guns.

Not pistols, but long guns — rifles and shotguns. The kind legitimately used for hunting and practice (skeet, target, etc). My dad diligently taught my brother and me to respect and safely use, handle, care for, transport, and store guns. Safety was king.

We treated the gun respectfully, not only in our family but also in our hunting community. At hunting camp, we had a moment — the moment everyone unveiled the guns. It always occurred directly before we set out into the field or woods. Not too soon, and never were guns sitting around. Upon return, each person immediately secured their gun.

This system of operation around guns provided my context for what they are, how to use them, and how to handle them.

Which brings me to Richmond in the late 90s and how my context surrounding guns completely blew up.

I still cringe when I think of that moment. 

Briefly, the same feelings of shame, embarrassment, and utter unworthiness flash through me like a lightning bolt. I can feel it like it was yesterday, but it happened more than forty years ago.

The entire middle school experience, starting with the locker incident, built my wall of negative self-talk brick-by-brick, stacking one embarrassing moment on top of another. You can probably find yourself in some of these other moments.

My assigned square dancing partner in middle school gym class (yes, square dancing in gym class) looked at me with disgust and then asked the teacher for a new partner.

Getting rejected by someone that I asked to a dance specifically because her friend told me she’d say “yes.” It was really just a plot to make fun of me.  

Being greeted by a table of “big guys” laughing at me in the lunch room because one of them had struck me out the prior evening. 

Those bricks built up the wall that became my inner monologue of unworthiness. But that inner monologue is just a story, or rather, a collection of stories. I probably don’t even remember the facts correctly. I may have fabricated or conflated entire episodes. However, I remember the feelings. And that’s what our stories are about — feelings.

Whether our story is filled with facts or fabrications, we always bring that inner monologue with us no matter how, where, or with whom we show up in the world.

There it was. My locker.

All was lost.

Our hall lockers came in pairs, each pair consisting of a tall, skinny bottom part and a rectangular top part. My locker was the one on top, and I couldn’t reach it.

Even though the school, my peers, and the universe now recognized my status as a teenager, my body did not. I was still the smallest kid in the class, as I had been since 4th grade.

I knew this was a possibility, of course. I dreaded this outcome the entire bus ride to school and throughout the pre-locker homeroom activities. I had a 50/50 shot, and I lost.

This wasn’t going to work, and I had to tell the teacher. For a split second, I thought, “Maybe nobody will notice.” Already a shy, unsure, and self-conscious kid, I was terrified, but I did it.

And that’s when the nightmare became a reality.

The teacher called over my locker partner, a girl, and said we were to switch places because I couldn’t reach mine. She giggled a bit, the teacher giggled a bit, and within 1.4 seconds, the entire class knew my shame.

I had to switch lockers because I was too short. I was not worthy of the gifts bestowed upon a teenager with a locker. My talisman was a cheap piece of costume jewelry. It had no power.

I wasn’t a teenager. I was still a baby. Where was my cubby?

The day was here.

The new bus ride. The new people. The new school. Equal parts excitement and dread.

This was the first day of sixth grade — middle school.

Once settled into our homerooms, our first official task as middle schoolers? The locker.

Where would my locker be? Who would be next to me? Would I have time to stop at my locker between classes? Would I remember the combination?

As children in a semi-rural community, each of us converged on the middle school from outlier elementary schools, many with a single classroom per grade. We had never seen most of our classmates before. We knew nothing of changing classrooms mid-day.

Lockers in the hall? Uh, no. A cubby in the classroom and a wall hook for your jacket.

A cubby was for children. Lockers were for teenagers.

The locker was the talisman of the middle schooler. We were no longer shackled to a particular room, teacher, or even the same group of kids. It represented endless possibilities.

The locker was also the center of middle school social life. It was our own little piece of real estate in the community.

“Meet me at my locker.”

Entire soap operas, playoff recaps, movie reviews, and music performances came to life in those 4 minutes between classes, 60-90 seconds of which were spent at the locker.

This was the moment.

I got fired while on vacation with my family at the beach.

It was in the late summer of 2004. I got the call from my manager while sipping a beer on the deck of the rental home, and he gave me the news.

“I’m so sorry to inform you, but you’ve been put on the list of people who will be laid off…”

I have no idea what he said after that first sentence. In one dreadful instant, the culmination of a lifetime of worry came to a head and flipped me upside down.

I had no control, and I was terrified.

What am I going to do? 

What will my wife and kids think of me? What will my friends say about me? What will the world think of me?

Am I a failure?

Am I less of a husband, father, man?

And why me? What’s wrong with me? 

Am I not good enough at my job? Am I not a valuable employee, or a valuable person?  

As it turns out, I didn’t get laid off at that time. I was rescued off the list and moved to another group and set of projects. 

Crisis averted. 

But that crisis, that existential moment of dread, has become one of the moments for which I am most thankful.

It woke me up. It was the inflection point. 

It was the moment that I decided to change the story and focus on what I could control.

Thumbing through pictures…

“Wasn’t that when we had the Dodge? Damn, that thing was a pain in the ass. Remember when the thermostat stuck shut on the way to the farm?”

“Look at that. There’s the old red Wheel Horse. That sumbitch just worked. Remember when we pulled out that old tree stump?”

“Right! I think that was about the same time we got that old piece of shit Maytag. Remember when that sucker let loose all over the basement on Christmas Eve?”

I’m a Gen-X’er. 1969, to be exact. The year of the moon landing, Woodstock, and the birth of ARPANET. 

We, the Gen-X’ers mark the end of a nostalgic era in mechanized life. An era in which we fully anthropomorphize the machines from our past as family members. These machines are full-on characters in the stories we tell. Sometimes protagonists, and often just MacGuffins, but always playing a role. 

Watch a Gen-X’er or boomer thumbing through pictures. Watch the eyes when a mechanized family member pops up, usually in the background. Then pay attention as briefly the story takes a quick sidebar. Complete with one’s overall view of the machine and a specific illustrating memory.

We live stories. We tell stories. We remember our past through stories and the characters in them. And our past informs who we are and the lens through which we see the world.

Those stories and their characters, including the mechanized ones, make us who we are. 

The gardner does.
The flower receives.
The birdwatcher observes.

You might be called to one from deep in your gut, or the universe, or God. Or you might find comfort and balance in shifting between.

Maybe you started out as one, but that was then, and this is now. Just look at how much life has happened since then. You could never be that again. So now you’re another.

That’s OK. You’re no robot. You’re a human. You are the journey.

Whichever you are, or rather, whenever you are, be a good one.

Becoming famous is simple. 

All you need to do is get the public to recognize you: to know your name, face, or the work you do. That’s a one-step formula.

But let’s face it. You and I are already famous. At least in our own circles. Even if it’s just your family, friend group, or colleagues, you can always define a public in which you are famous.

Most of the time, “What did the important person say?” really means, “What did the famous person say?” Does it ever actually matter what the famous person says?

Whereas, “You’re important to me” or “You’re important to us” carries an entirely different wagonload. 

What if we used our famousness, at whatever level each of us is famous, as a means to dig into our importance?

What would you do with a 1000-chimp army?

If you cared for a large property, maybe you’d put them to work on that — mowing, weeding, trimming, raking, cleaning.

If you ran a manufacturing plant with an assembly line, maybe you’d put them to work on that — picking, moving, drilling, spraying, screwing.

If you managed a data analytics firm, maybe you’d put them to work on that — gathering, calculating, sorting, interpreting, publishing.

What would those chimps need to do that work?

They’d need a lot of training, oversight, and checking of their work. Presumably, they might need less and less over time with the right amount. It’s possible they’d even form some sort of hierarchy that would take care of a lot of it.

But you know what they really need from you because they will never have on their own?

Intent. Only you can provide intent.

This message isn’t about chimpanzees.

Yesterday I spent some time cleaning out the paint cabinet.

I feel great. Lighter, even. Not only is my workshop (where the paint cabinet lives) much tidier, but I’ve reclaimed a bunch of space.

We’ve lived here a long time, so that cabinet had accumulated all sorts of partially used cans of a million different colors. Gallons, quarts, spray cans — bunches of them. Some almost full, and some mostly gone. Some were dried up and useless.

I’m a bit of a hoarder. I’m the kinda guy that saved all the paint cans. Because, you know, I may need it someday. You never know when you might need to reach way back into that cabinet to retrieve a long-forgotten color.

In fact, as I went through the dozens of cans, I realized that some of the colors were from rooms that we had painted two or three times since. I couldn’t even remember in which room we used them.

You probably have one also. A cabinet, shelf, or corner somewhere that accumulates all of those partially used paint cans of long-forgotten colors. The ones that you convince yourself that you may need someday. Go ahead and dig in on a Sunday afternoon.

This message isn’t about paint.

What’s the easiest thing you can do?

Follow your beliefs.

Do what you believe in. Do what you believe you can do. Do what you believe you can be successful at.

Whatever you’re currently doing is something you believe. Whatever you’re not doing? That’s the thing you don’t believe in. That’s also the hard thing.

Sometimes we have to suspend our beliefs and do the hard thing.

A tree lives alone in a field near my house.

I run or walk by this tree many times per week. Sometimes, I keep right on moving. Occasionally I stop and take a photo. But I always look at it. 

I’m always curious about its mood. 

I’ve seen its mood shift each day, sometimes multiple times a day. The season, the weather, the time of day; each of these external forces pressing their will upon the tree and providing background and context. The tree simply internalizes and then reflects. 

How could it not?

I used to believe that my understanding of its mood was about it — the tree.

But as part of my great unlearning, I realized that I was leaving out the most important factor affecting the tree’s mood — myself and my story. 

As it turns out, my interpretation of the tree’s mood is all about me and my story and less about the tree and its story. 

I learned stuff because of where I grew up.
I learned stuff because of who I grew up with.
I learned stuff from the system in which I grew up.

Since then…

I learned stuff from my circle.
I learned stuff from my experiences in the world.
I learned stuff from the back of all of those who have come before me.

I’ve learned a lot of stuff, and all of it informs the story in my head. The story about who I am, what I can do, how the world works, what is right and wrong, and what is true.

That’s my story. The story of how things make sense to me.

But I’ve realized that I’m on a journey. A journey started with an unknown destination but has since become clear.

I’m on a journey to unlearn everything I’ve learned.

Not because what I’ve learned or who I’ve learned from is wrong or doesn’t have value but because it’s the only way. Unlearning what I’ve learned is the only way to see the other. The only way to engage with the other. The only way to access other abilities and perspectives. The only way to create something different.

This journey of unlearning isn’t about right and wrong. It’s about the story I tell myself.

What should you unlearn?

Time magazine first sounded the alarm in 1961. 

Dr. Russell Ackoff, a Case Institute expert on business problems, feels that automation is reaching into so many fields so fast that it has become “the nation’s second most important problem.” 

The Automation Jobless, Time Magazine, Feb 24, 1961

This was 1961, and even in 1961, they called automation an “old scare word.” Sound familiar?

Now it’s 2023, and automation is still putting you out of work. 

You may not get fired and directly replaced with a robot that looks like the best version of you (trim, great night of sleep, hair on point) but does your job better, faster, and cheaper. 

Instead, automation may be a bit passive-aggressive about it. Weasling its way into your career from the side door. For example, you may find it harder or impossible to get that next job. Or maybe your salary flattens or declines as your leverage disappears. 

So what can you and I do with that? How can we win that battle? How can we be relevant?

First, let’s not try to win any battles with automation on its home turf. Just concede. If a machine can do your job better, let it. Why compete in a game we cannot win? Let’s compete on a different plane. 

Second, here is the opportunity to lean into our relevance. How? By leaning into our humanity. Humans feel. Humans connect the dots. Humans define meaning and intent. 

Your humanity is a feature, not a bug. 

Climate change isn’t happening in Eastern Pennsylvania. 

How do you know? Show up and look around. 

None of the forests are burning out of control and threatening neighborhoods. Farmers aren’t starving, nor have they had to adjust their crops or livestock. We haven’t had any “out of the ordinary” droughts, floods, or winter storms (every few years, we get a banger summer or winter storm or have a month or two of drought — as always). We don’t have a coastline, so nothing to see there.

So this climate change crisis is a hoax, right? A non-crisis marketing scam propagated by a particular tribe to instill fear, increase their control, and extract finances.

A big nothing-burger.

Maybe.

But before we jump to conclusions about climate change — or COVID, racism, MAGA, crime, academia, etc — based on personal experience alone, let’s remember it’s a big world out there.

We all have a story we tell ourselves. One of the biggest inputs to that story is your personal experience. Personal experience is always a valid input but doesn’t usually tell the whole story. 

But if climate change is your biggest personal worry, maybe you should consider moving to Eastern Pennsylvania. There is no climate change here. 

Anti-vax or anti-science?
Anti-socialism or anti-capitalism?
Anti-smart or anti-dumb?

The tribe demands you pick a side. The algorithm rewards it. The mouthpieces celebrate it.

Here’s the truth: you don’t have to pick a side.

Once we realize that the sides were fabricated, and the answers lie within the humanity between, we can finally move forward.

In 1975, the third fight between Ali and Frazier (dubbed the Thrilla in Manilla) was seen by an estimated 1 billion people. The UFC earns close to a billion dollars each year. 

The right. The left.
The right versus the left, or the left versus the right.
Good versus evil.

No wonder our public platforms and channels amplify the fights between good and evil. 

Fights sell tickets. 

Just like each of us (yes, you, too) should be required to play baseball or softball as a teenager, here’s another mandate I’m putting in place when I become king:

Mandatory living (i.e., service time) in each of urban, suburban, and rural communities.

Between the ages of 25 and 40 (assuming you make it that far), you will live in a community within each type of housing zone. That’s five years in each, baby.

I’ll be very generous with the implementation — you know, because this is a free country, after all, and you are free, sentient human beings. And I’m a benevolent dictator.

You are free to choose the order. You are free to choose the geography (don’t worry, we’ll tell you which communities qualify for which label). You are also free to move around within those communities or from one geography to another.

The only other rule is that your service time must be accumulated contiguously — i.e., you must live in each for five years in a row. 

I can see only one other way to avoid this mandate.

That’s if each of us can find the generosity and empathy to realize that geography and community add to our personal history. And our personal history informs the story we tell ourselves. And the story we tell ourselves becomes the lens through which we see the world.

Our story doesn’t make us dumb or smart. It just makes us us.

Robots are better than you at certain things.

A robot is better than you at repeating the same tasks over and over.
A robot is better than you at moving fast.
A robot is better than you at working non-stop, 24x7x365.

A robot is better than you at shutting up, doing its job, and not asking questions.

Why would we try to compete with robots at the things they’re better at? Maybe we should just let them do that stuff.

But you and me…

We suck at shutting up, doing our job, and not asking questions. So let’s lean into that. That’s what we’re here for.

Let’s ask the questions. Your humanity is a feature, not a bug.

I’m a geek in technology. 

But that makes sense, right?

a) I work in the tech industry.
b) I’ve always loved technology. Ever since I first touched and smelled that TRS-80 Model I in the library of Lower Milford Elementary school in 4th grade. 

In a world where one can choose a path, you could argue that the tech industry was my destiny.

The same is true for my colleagues. When tech crosses the membrane and leaks into the world, we’re like little kids on Christmas morning. The world wide web, smartphones, self-driving cars — these are super bowls for tech geeks like us. 

And boy, do we love to debate their effect on the world. Sometimes we have useful insight, but most times, we overvalue our expertise. We need other non-geeks to stand above and behind, with different perspectives, to truthfully assess technology’s effects on the world.

Many professions have a similar crossover between a person’s geeky interests and vocation.

Take meteorology. One becomes a meteorologist because one loves the weather. And how do meteorologists act when an extreme weather event is imminent? Kids in a candy store. It’s their super bowl.

Public health is similar. Public health officials geek out on public health things (thank God). And when a new virus, bacteria, or behavior threatens the general population, it’s their super bowl. 

Like with myself and technology, the experts’ voices are important, but it’s critical to get the perspectives of the non-geeks when making decisions for the entire group. 

The tribe wants you to vote for it.

So it plays on your emotions with its platform, issues, and philosophy. It wants you to vote for the philosophy because the philosophy is for smart and caring people.

It doesn’t want you to vote for the person.

The person is dangerous. The person may not stick to the agenda. The person may have their own ideas. The person may have a relationship with non-tribe members. The person may care more about their people rather than keeping their tribe in power.

What if we voted for the person rather than the tribe?

The children’s play area at the King of Prussia mall is an interesting sociology and psychology lab. 

I spent one arduous evening at the mall over the holiday season, and the children’s play area, filled with 30 or so kids and their parents, was by far the most interesting thing I saw all night.

This was the runup to Christmas — the big day. I suspect Santa was watching. 

Here’s what I saw.

First, the obvious — kids at play. Some were running around and crawling on the overly safe animal-shaped equipment, and others were playing in calmer, loose-knit groups adjacent to the equipment. No electronics. I did see, however, many lonesome kids stationed all around the mall, on benches or at food court tables with their faces glued to screens. 

Second, I noticed that DEI seemed to take care of itself. All without special interest groups, mandates, rules, victims, or adult intervention. 

Third, kids in the wild are pretty good at organizing themselves and working out differences and issues. All it took was an occasional raised voice, a grab or smack on the arm, or simply ejecting from the group. Not exactly a calm or rule-based public discourse, but effective. 

Fourth, all of the adults — all of them — were sitting around the outside, heads down, necks craned, eyes glued to the 2.8×5.78″ gorilla glass. Some were probably spending their outrage budget on why the world is such a terrible place.

Look up. 

We overvalue ideas, and we overvalue our personal contribution to their creation and discovery. 

Ideas aren’t dangerous. Ideas don’t have any power. They can’t hurt you, nor can they help you. 

Nor can they be stolen.

We do all kinds of silly things to protect our ideas. We build a legal system around them. We speak of them in hushed murmurs behind closed doors. We sign meaningless pieces of paper promising not to discuss them outside of the room or with the wrong people. We argue over who owns the idea.

We love to inflate our egos with our brilliant ideas.

But an idea has no power or value unless and until someone does something with it. The idea must be born into the real world. It must move from abstract to concrete. 

Ideas are a dime a dozen. In fact, they’re worth less than a dime for a dozen. They are worthless. Unless you…

Build the thing.
Gather the tribe.
Write the story.

If you want to make a difference, stop worrying about someone stealing your idea and go do something with it. 

You want a mandate that will actually do some good? When I’m king, here’s one that I’m rolling out:

From the ages of 12 to 15, each and every American child should have to play baseball or softball. Mandatory baseball/softball service.

Here’s why:

1. You must learn how to handle failure. Baseball and softball are games of failure. The best players to ever play the game failed at 2/3 of their opportunities.
2. You learn how to forget what just happened and focus on the present. You just made an error? Get ready because here comes the next ground ball. You struck out last time? That has no bearing on your next at-bat. 
3. You cannot win individually. Even Mike Trout, the best individual player since Babe Ruth, never has and won’t ever win the championship unless and until he changes teams or the Angels get better collectively.
4. It’s a team sport, yes, but each play requires individual success or failure, and everyone will know how you performed. That ground ball is coming right at you. Only you can hit the next pitch. Will your fastball be a strike? All eyes are on you. You either did it or you didn’t.

“Never Forget” is a tribal mantra.

“Never forget 9/11!”
“Never forget January 6!”
“Never forget what they did to your kids!”
“Never forget how they voted for fascism!”

That’s tribal marketing doing what it does — working to gain and keep the power. They play your emotions like a fiddle, suck you in, and get your head nodding along.

But how exactly do we move forward if we “never forget?”

You can’t. You can’t ever move forward. It’s the surest recipe to stay stuck and exactly where you are. Is this where you want to stay?

Therefore, we must always forget. Start today.

When we didn’t have enough food, people died from malnourishment. Now we have enough food, and people die from over-nourishment.

When we didn’t have enough internet bandwidth to support social media, people were more isolated from each other. Now we have enough bandwidth, and people suffer from mental health disorders from being too connected.

When we didn’t have enough transportation, people died or suffered because they couldn’t get to medical attention. Now we have enough transportation, and people die or suffer because of transportation accidents.

If you don’t have enough money, life can be difficult. If you have enough money, life can be difficult.

Often, we think quantity is our problem. Sometimes it is. But having enough also brings its own set of problems.

Which side is a bigger problem? Less or more? Only context can provide that answer.

To be clear, you don’t need to get smarter. Neither do I.

I don’t really care, nor should you care if I care, because nowhere in this reality we call life does it matter how smart or dumb each of us is.

That’s lesson one.

However, if you want to get smarter, there is a simple prescription:

Question your own beliefs.

When you do that, you realize that many questions are valid scientifically, if not emotionally.

“Could the earth be flat?”
“Could gender be fluid?”
“Could lockdowns and masking be more harmful than helpful?”
“Could Christianity be wrong?”
“Could Q be nothing more than a grand marketing scheme?”
“Could COVID vaccines be responsible for deaths?”

By the way, it’s OK to land back on the same belief you had before you questioned it. Most of the time, you will. But the journey will pay dividends in the form of previously unknown nuggets of insight and understanding. And those tiny little nuggets stacked upon one another allow us to build the bridge of empathy.

Smart people aren’t afraid to question their beliefs, nor are they afraid of revisiting already answered questions, if even just to confirm.

The Science^(tm) demands it.

My software development team has a method of determining the importance of a particular requirement, bug fix, feature, or task by asking a single question.

“Is this elephant shit or mouse poop?”

For example, is it more important to fix the bug that’s crashing the system or that we get the correct heading color on the results page?

When you’re looking around at a room full of elephant shit and spot a little bit of mouse poop over there in the corner, where do you start? Seems easy, right? But it’s not always easy because often, the mouse poop aligns with the story we tell ourselves.

I’m cutting sugar to lose weight, so I don’t eat bananas.
I always buy organic Doritos.
I don’t run because too much running will lower my testosterone.

Mouse poop can be a powerful trap.

If you want to make a difference, attain a goal, or effect a change, take care of the elephant shit first. That may require adjusting the story you tell yourself.

I have the same thought each year as I trudge through my yearly Inbox Enema: 

There oughta be a better law^† for unsubscribing, and that law should look as follows.

• All email messages sent from a subscription service shall include a single-click opt-out for unsubscribing^†
• The opt-out shall be a clickable link in the header and footer of the message.
• The clickable link shall be attached to and presented by one of two methods:
  • The (hypertext) word “UNSUBSCRIBE,” or
  • An image/button that clearly presents the word “UNSUBSCRIBE.”

• Upon unsubscription, the service shall send a single message confirming that unsubscription is complete.

To further define “single-click:”

• When clicked, the link shall directly unsubscribe them from all communications.
• The user shall not be required to further login (provide credentials) or choose from a selection of opt-in/out preferences.

You may:

• Present a page that indicates they have been unsubscribed.
• On that page, include links to re-subscribe.
• On that page, present a selection of opt-in/out preferences.
• In the confirmation message, present any marketing information, resubscribe links, or opt-in/out preference links.
• In addition to “UNSUBSCRIBE,” email messages may include links for opt-in/out preferences or any other related operations. But the “UNSUBSCRIBE” link shall directly unsubscribe them from all. 

† A weak single-click opt-out law already exists.

I used to be a digital hoarder. 

Not anymore, though. Now, one of my beginning-of-the-year tasks is to give my email Inbox(es) an enema. 

Inbox Zero is a myth. Or rather, it’s a myth past the second week of January. So I don’t fight it. In fact, I’ve come to find that I don’t even need it. But once a year, I give that Inbox a right and proper enema. And boy, does it feel good.

Fresh and clean. Uncluttered and unencumbered. Open and inviting.

The opportunities are endless.

My cleaning cycle consists of unsubscribing, archiving, and deletion. Truth be told, though, “delete” is by far my favorite. In a single morning, I deleted over 1000 emails that had left my Inbox looking like a digital version of the dystopian landscape from WALL-E. 

I think there’s something emotionally cleansing about deleting that isn’t quite true of unsubscribing and archiving. Unsubscribing is an act for the future — “I don’t really know if you’ll try to take any of my future time, but please don’t.” Archiving is an act of preservation — “This might be useful, or helpful, or for some reason I may need to recall this. Even if I don’t want to.”

But deletion…That’s wiping the slate clean. 

What’s been piling up in your emotional Inbox that you need to delete?

The difference between misinformation and disinformation is intent.
The difference between murder and manslaughter is intent.
The difference between capitalization and exploitation is intent.
The difference between a misogynist pig and a virtuous Christian is intent.
The difference between a ring and an engagement ring is intent.
The difference between preference and racism is intent.

The outcome may be the same, but the process, thinking, and feeling are oh, so different.

Intention is difficult to discern, but it’s always worth the effort.

Janice had a thought.

“I’m a coffee drinker. I’ve never had tea before because…well, tea is dumb. Obviously. High octane, please. But some people I know really enjoy tea. I can’t imagine why someone would enjoy tea. But I wonder…Do I have it wrong? What would it be like? Why do some people choose tea over coffee? What if today I have tea instead of coffee?”

Of course, it doesn’t matter whether Janice has tea or coffee because the courage to consider that she might be wrong is enough.

The story you tell yourself may be how right you were. Or maybe it’s about how you’re a member of the right team — the smart, caring, and correct ones.  

But the story you tell yourself might be about what a bad person you are. About how you aren’t worthy or will never be who you want to be. It may be a story of failures and regrets.

Which is right?

They both are, of course. We’re talking about reality, not truth. 

Which means if you want to make a change, start a new path, or finally live authentically, start with the story you tell yourself. 

When I was a kid, sticks and stones may have broken my bones, but names would never have hurt me.

When I was a kid, we were color-blind. 

When I was a kid, if I got in trouble at school, my ass was toast when I got home.

When I was a kid, if I misbehaved in public, some annoyed adult would scold me, and my parents would thank them.

When I was a kid, we could and did get hurt on the playground.

When I was a kid, we figured out how to get a game going, the teams, and the rules all without a single adult supervising.

There. I got that off my chest…Now get off my f*!king lawn!

Don’t feel guilty if…

You grew up in a loving family.
Your mom and dad are still together.
Your family was middle class.
You had a stable home in the suburbs.

These are things over which you had no control. It was luck (or Providence).

Now turn that around. Don’t feel guilty if…

You grew up in a broken home.
You never knew your dad (or mom).
Your family struggled with money.
You lived in several places.

These are things over which you had no control. It was (bad) luck.

Exactly.

Some would say I’m in the business of replacing humans with AI and robots. That I’m one of the evil puppet masters turning our world into a dystopian Player Piano, all in the name of profit. 

I don’t see it that way, of course, but I understand why some do. My role is automation, and yes, using automation to scale a small company. Which means I’m in the trenches, and that gives me a unique perspective that politicians, journalists, and other doomsayers don’t have. 

But they do have one thing right: capitalism incentivizes productivity, and to a large degree, automation is about productivity (to be clear, it’s not only about productivity). 

We seem to be in a cultural milieu obsessed with personal and collective productivity. 

I’ve fallen prey to it myself. I’ve studied, implemented, and written about several systems to make myself more productive. As if productivity was mine and your main problem. 

All we need to reach the promised land is to be more productive — productive like machines!

But that’s not true at all. We don’t need to be more like machines.

We need to be different than machines. 

The good news is that we are fundamentally different than machines. We’re humans. And leaning into our humanity is ultimately what will take us to the promised land. 

Your humanity is a feature, not a bug. 

Are you on your phone? Yes, you’re being manipulated.
Are you shopping on the internet? Yes, you’re being manipulated.
Are you watching YouTube? Yes, you’re being manipulated.
Are you browsing social media on your computer? Yes, you’re being manipulated.
Are you watching/listening/reading the news? Yes, you’re being manipulated.
Are you playing video games? Yes, you’re being manipulated.

The question isn’t if you’re being manipulated. The question is, what are you allowing?

Read this today from the interesting thinker and wonderful writer, Luke Burgis:

Yet we have to go through the thin to get to the thick. We have to watch bad movies to know a good one when we see it; we have to drink mediocre wines; most of us have to date people we will not one day marry; we must go through adolescence to reach adulthood. The key is learning to get better at identifying one desire from the other—to develop a hermeneutic or interpretive key by which to judge these experiences in the first place.

Luke Burgis

I love it because it speaks to the ordinary yet true nuances of the toggle-switch, Failing Forward rhetoric from the Personal Development Crowd (PDC). The thin, the bad movies, the mediocre wines, the wrong relationships — these are every bit the failures without which we can never move forward. These are the kind of failures that give us context. And context is critical in every aspect of our life.

Yes, I’m a believer in using the capital ‘F’ failures to move us forward, as the PDC preaches. But never underestimate the power of the ordinary.

Because when we come to the fork in the road carrying a bag full of ordinary life failures, and the Cheshire Cat’s eyes are staring inquisitively at us, all of a sudden, the direction we choose does matter. 

I was watching the Bills-Bengals game live when it happened.

First, thank God for the reaction, action, and expertise of the medical staffs, officials, players, coaches, crews, and everyone on that field or in the stadium.

Second, kudos to ESPN, including Joe, Troy, Booger, Suzy, Adam, and the behind-the-scenes crew, for respectful and emotionally accurate coverage and for not jumping to conclusions, purposefully obfuscating or grandstanding. In my opinion, that was great reporting.

Third, before us lies an opportunity. What will we do with it?

Some have already decided the opportunity is to stick a fork in the other side — to continue to push the agenda. 

“How many more have to fall? #DiedSuddenly”

“Anyone claiming this is a vaccine injury is despicable and repulsive.”

But the real opportunity lies in the conversation we should now be able to have. Sober, if emotional, conversation about data, studies, and the real world devoid of tribal influence. Conversation about those whose names we don’t know. Conversation outside of narratives. 

And most importantly, conversation about how we can see the world from different angles yet still come together. 

Resilience often requires a distributed model. Independent farming is resilient. The blockchain is resilient. Suburban sprawl is resilient.

Efficiency often requires a centralized model. Corporate farming is efficient. A central bank is efficient. High-rise, high-density housing is efficient.

Resilience and efficiency aren’t antonyms, but neither are they synonyms. They are orthogonal. Elegant solutions strike a balance in systems with orthogonal requirements. Sometimes we push one way, sometimes the other. Sometimes we need flexibility in both thinking and doing.

What we don’t need, however, is religious fervor about either.

I did a fun little experiment today. I asked a question of the premier AI engine of today (ChatGPT, powered by the natural language model GPT-3):

“Create an essay on why AI won’t take over the world in less than 200 words”

AI systems are limited by their technological capabilities and the goals and biases of their creators, and do not have the ability to make decisions or take actions based on their own motivations. While AI systems have made significant advances in recent years and have the potential to revolutionize many industries, they are still not capable of replicating many of the complex cognitive abilities that humans possess, such as creativity, empathy, and problem-solving in unstructured environments. Additionally, AI systems are designed and programmed by humans and are therefore subject to the goals and biases of their creators. They can only do what they are designed to do, and their capabilities are limited by the data and instructions that are provided to them. In summary, it is unlikely that AI systems will take over the world due to their limitations and lack of independent decision-making capabilities.

A couple things struck me:

• OK, that’s pretty cool
• Punctuation isn’t perfect, but pretty good
• Lots of passive voice
• It had to talk about bias

Next, I think I’ll ask SBF why my money is safe in FTX. 

Don’t worry, folks. Nothing to see here. 

“This is the year that I…”

Starts with “This is the day that I…”

Which starts with “This is the moment I…”

Here’s wishing you awareness, courage, and sentience for all those moments in 2023.

If you’re someone who excels, you want a meritocracy.
If you don’t currently excel but believe you can with the right opportunity, you want equality (of opportunity).
If you don’t believe you can, don’t want to, or don’t think you should have to, you want equity (of outcome).

There are approximately 79342 reasons why you might see yourself in one of these statements. This is the story you tell yourself, and our stories make us who we are.

None of those reasons are objective. None of those reasons are for one particular group. None of those reasons are better than another’s.

Let’s not pretend they are.

I have a favorite pair of pants, but I know they’re liars. 

My favorite pants indicate they are the same size as my other ones, but they just fit better. This can only mean they’re lying to me. It’s a little white lie, but still a lie. 

And this little white lie makes me feel better about myself. Plus, I suspect that these pants fully understand what they are doing because they know they’re the ones I’m reaching for when I need to grab some pants. 

They’re smart liars. 

Smart marketers, tribes, and leaders understand the power of the white lie. The little white lie can engage FOMO, weaponize empathy, or like my favorite pants, make you feel good about yourself. 

I often wonder where the line is. That line between, “eh, it’s harmless,” and, “now wait a minute here.” 

Everybody knows that the gym is a madhouse in January. The memes are already flying around. The January-gym phenomenon is an excellent perspective lab. 

There’s this guy at the squat rack with the string tank top:

“Dude, WTF! Just get out of my way! Take your sorry ass over to the treadmill! Pretend it’s mid-February and disappear!”

There’s this guy using his entire body to curl a set of 50 lb dumbbells:

“Oh my gosh, I sure hope I’m not as obvious as I feel. Do I look like I know what I’m doing? Are people staring at me? Do I look weak? Do people still do curls?”

There’s this guy standing next to the Cybex leg curl machine:

“How do I use this thing? Do I have it right? Oh, please don’t let the trainer see me. Are the guys at the squat rack laughing at me?”

There’s this guy walking around with fancy training pants and the gym’s logo on his golf shirt:

“Oh, not again. What is this idiot doing at the leg curl machine? Jeez, I guess I gotta go over and help him. Yo, bro, my name’s Chet, let me help you here…”

There’s this guy sitting in the back office signing the checks:

“This is great! I sure do love January! How do I keep this momentum?”

Remember, whoever you are, in whatever situation, your perspective is valid yet personal. When you look around, rarely will anybody else see it the same way. 

I published my first blog article on May 5, 2016. It sucked. 

Over the next several years, I published about a hundred more. They all suck, with maybe a few exceptions. 

I found that Resistance’s biggest weapon in my personal fight to publish was the complete lack of constraints around what I was trying to accomplish — too many variables. 

What was I trying to say?
How often should I publish?
Who was I trying to say it to?
What was my goal?
What was the skill I was trying to learn and use?

And a million other questions and variables.

A few months ago, I committed to publishing articles daily for a year. Those 365 will more than triple my output from the previous five years. To do so, I knew I couldn’t approach it the same way. I needed to cut out some of the variables and add some constraints.

The constraints I added were to keep each article to less than 250 words, publish at 8:44 am each day, and focus the content on helping people see other perspectives through transformative storytelling.

So many times, we get caught up in blaming constraints for why we can’t or don’t — if only I could do whatever I wanted. When, in fact, maybe those constraints are the very reason we can and do.

Where do you need to add some constraints?

Resolutions. Love them or hate them? I personally hate them, but here’s a good one for me. Maybe it’ll help you.

I have a yes/no problem.

Specifically, I’m not saying one of them enough, or to the right thing, or at the right time. 

How do I know which?

There’s science behind why we need to say yes to more things. The science of saying yes is about finding the right opportunities through experimentation. 

Yes is about possibilities and breadth.

Saying no is an art because the issue’s core is usually entangled in a web of emotions. Sometimes we say no out of fear. Fear of the unknown, rejection, failure. Fear that you won’t or can’t finish.

Other times we can’t say no because of fear. Fear of letting someone down, disappointing ourselves, or having to admit a weakness. We all want to be someone who can be counted upon.

The art is in separating your emotions of the moment from the journey you are on.

No is about focus and depth.

Yup, this is all me. But I have a solution that I’ve tried before and will commit to for the new year. In these situations, I will ask myself,

 “Which is harder for me (in this situation)?”

My comfort zone is a stone-cold sage regarding what I should be doing. The answer that threatens to pull me out of my comfort zone is likely to be the better choice.

Let’s jump out of our comfort zones.

I won’t be punished if I publish an article that cuts against the narrative.
I won’t get canceled if I say something offensive.
I won’t experience any public backlash if I take a side and defend it.

So I can do all of those things. However, that’s not the real benefit. 

The real benefit is that without these worries, I can continue to focus on My World. 

Oh, right. Anyone can do that. 

If you identify as a Christian, Easter is supposed to be the Super Bowl of holidays.

But it’s not. At least not for most. Christmas is the Super Bowl.

Christmas is the holiday when we can unabashedly intersect all of the Christian right-isms^††  — right-thinking, right-feeling, right-living, right-guilting, right-judging — with all of the advantages of current western culture, such as materialism, overindulging, narcissism, and status. We just throw it all into the bowl with the butter and sugar, hit it with the whisk and a little heat, and 13 minutes later, we got tree-shaped justification cookies, plenty sweet enough to take the bitter edge off. 

For me personally, and I think for many mid-life Christians, Christmas is complex. It’s definitely my favorite time of the year. I still get excited. Every year. 

Yet, it drags along with it some very visceral stressors. The stressors of making those cookies plus the stressors of personal history. Existential experiences of living in this world. Memories that somehow hit harder during this season. I’ve even found myself thinking, “maybe I’m not such a fan of Christmas anymore.”

But I am. Even in moments of doubt, it’s never truly faded. 

Because if we’re looking for it, Christmas gives us a gift. And this gift is available for all. 

Underneath the complexity, the stress, and the hypocrisy is hope. Hope for unity. Hope for happiness. Hope for love. Hope for brighter days. Hope for salvation. 

†† Not to be confused with politics

If you’ve trained for an iron man distance triathlon, you know how to be miserable.
If you’ve written a book, you know how to be miserable.
If you’ve bootstrapped your own business, you know how to be miserable.

Embracing the misery is not the same as seeking it out, but you know how to get through it.

One foot in front of the other. One word after the next. One dollar more.

The other part of being miserable is recognizing that the next step, the next word, or the next dollar spent might not move you forward in a straight line. Adding to the misery, you may not ultimately be successful.

You might not finish the race.
Maybe nobody buys your book.
Your business might fail.

However, even though this particular race, book, or business might not work, you know it’s part of the path you must traverse. You can’t go around. You must go through.

Therefore, you have no choice but to get good at being miserable.

We’re often fooled into thinking that our competition is the other person, other team, or other philosophy.

We’re wrong. That’s The World hocking its wares.

The competition is always the one staring back at you in the mirror. Once you and I realize we’re not competing, we’re unstoppable.

It’s one thing to study business. It’s another to run your own.
It’s one thing to study war. It’s another to have served.
It’s one thing to study marathon training. It’s another to have run one.

Academic study is critical to move the genre and collective forward. Academia generally sits above and behind, and from this vantage point, one can remove emotional complexities, see the whole picture, and create new solutions.

Experience is, yes, anecdotal, but the only way to know how you feel doing it. What decisions will you make? How will you react? Where is your comfort zone?

Don’t confuse yourself by thinking that just because you studied something, you know how it feels to do it.  

Once Rupert Murdoch established his “news” and media empire in the US, he uncovered a new business model. 

Once technology delivered a broadcast studio into every citizen’s pocket, it doomed the objectivity model. 

The intersection of these two events inevitably birthed the narrative (formerly called “the party line”) model that we currently enjoy. The media can no longer serve the two masters of objectivity and profit, so they’ve had to choose. That choice was easy because Murdoch showed them the path.

But the problem isn’t the narrative. Not really. The problem is we shove our heads into the echo chamber and start nodding along.

Turn off the damn news.

Posting with #ISupportUkraine or #maga is a virtue signal.
Abandoning Twitter for Mastodon or Truth Social is a virtue signal.
Wearing a mask while running outside is a virtue signal.
Investing only in companies that have high ESG scores is a virtue signal.
Bringing your own hemp twine bags to the grocery store is a virtue signal.
Asking the clerk if the water comes in a glass bottle rather than a plastic bottle is a virtue signal.
Driving around in a giant pickup truck with an American flag flying from the bed is a virtue signal.
Buying a Tesla is a virtue signal. And paradoxically, now, so is getting rid of your Tesla.

Virtue signaling is about communicating personal moral values and the moral values of our tribe. It’s one way of gaining or maintaining status.

But there’s usually something more to it than just signaling moral superiority. As humans, we like to take action. We like to do something. We like to do the right thing. These signals are ways of doing something.

But just because you feel strongly and take the virtue-signaling action doesn’t mean that others are doing nothing, believe the wrong things, or are just plain dumb. 

They’re just doing different things to make the world a better place. 

Building a home on the Outer Banks of North Carolina is very rewarding. But it’s also risky.
Building a home in the desert of Nevada is very rewarding. But it’s also risky.
Building a home in a mountain valley in Colorado is very rewarding. But it’s also risky.

It’s easy to forget about the risk as technology, status, and social norms progress. But that doesn’t mean there is no risk.

Sometimes when we feel victimized, before we drain our outrage budget, we oughta think about rerunning the risk/reward spreadsheet.

We sometimes confuse trust with agreement. I know I’m guilty.

We erroneously think that because we agree with someone or some tribe, we can trust them. This also leads to the flip side: when we don’t agree with someone, we believe we can’t trust them.

We see it all over social media. Can we trust experts? Can we trust the politicians? Can we trust the media? But we’re really just asking if we agree with them

I once had two engineers on my team who disliked each other immensely. I spent many hours listening to each moan about how bad the other was and how “I can’t trust him.” Here’s the thing: each was a good engineer with a high degree of integrity. They just saw the world differently.

I found a solution that appealed to each’s integrity and allowed them to build trust, if not in each other, at least in their work. We created a contract (actually a requirements specification). Each could concentrate on building his piece to conform to the contract, and as long as they trusted that the other’s work conformed (which he could prove through objective testing), we had success. We discussed disagreements in terms of the requirements, not each other’s work. Their commitment to their personal integrity kept us moving forward.

Fundamentally, trust is about integrity, not agreement. The real solution to rebuilding trust in our experts, politicians, and media is to focus on each’s commitment to their integrity.

He said. She said.

By now, you’ve probably heard of the Twitter Files, a set of reports shared by (The250 inspirations) Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi based on inside information given to them directly by Elon.  

These reports prove what we sort of knew already: 1) Twitter did censor certain accounts based on internal human opinons and external pressure, and 2) Twitter’s algorithm does/did provide the ability to artificially suppress the reach of specific accounts. 

This is the latest in the discussion around “The Algorithms” used by the platforms. The public launch of this discussion was the movie “The Social Dilemma,” but mental health professionals have been rightly keen on it for a while now.

Are the algorithms causing harm?
Do the algorithms favor some over others?
Are they brainwashing us?
Are they stealing your children?
Are they illegal?
Are they evil?

I have a proposed solution.

Let’s open source all algorithms used by all public and some private social media platforms. 

Why?

1. If everyone can see it, everyone can understand it.
2. If everyone can understand it, everyone can decide if they want to be a user or let their kids on as users.
3. If everyone can understand it, everyone can police it.
4. If everyone can understand it, everyone can contribute to the discussion. 
5. The community around each platform can decide how it should work.

It’s not foolproof, but nothing is. Like with all real-world solutions, we’re aiming for elegance.

We like what we like. We get stuck. We confuse inertia with discipline.

If nothing changes, nothing changes. Evolution requires the randomization of some inputs.

Here’s a great idea that’s easy (something I’ve done a few times recently):

• Choose a new or different restaurant.
• Sit at the bar.
• Open the menu and put your finger on something random.

The beauty of this kind of randomization is that it gets us out of our comfort zone and exposes us to a different perspective. Even if you have a bad experience, it’s still a different experience.

And what if you have a great experience?!

The path to empathy and understanding requires new perspectives. New perspectives require different inputs. Randomization can provide different inputs.

I recently passed 100 days in a row of posting to this blog.

What I’ve learned isn’t earth-shattering, life-changing, or revolutionary. The lesson is rather ordinary, actually. But it’s backed up by some heavyweights like Steven Pressfield and James Clear. 

I do think it’s worth sharing:

If I commit mentally (I mean honestly and truly commit), my actions follow. 

I’ve committed not just to 100 days but 365 days. I’m not entertaining the thought of changing it. I’m not allowing any doubts to surface. I’m not worried about holidays, or sick days, or days I’m uninspired. I don’t care if I’m so devoid of ideas by 365 days that I’ve resorted to posting the grocery list. I’m posting every day. 

I’m showing up, and I’m expecting the muse to show up with me. 

There are some other subtle lessons as well. For example, I am always on the lookout since I need a new topic each day. The fear of having nothing to say started the engine, but now it’s a perpetual motion machine. Pay attention and think about the point of view.

And if you’re wondering, no, it’s not always easy. These little posts of 250 words or less take me somewhere between 10 minutes and three hours. I have to make time in my schedule. That’s not always easy or comfortable. I sometimes have to steal from Peter to pay Paul. 

Next stop, 365. 

You’re a hypocrite. Don’t worry, so am I. We all are. 

If you’re a human, you’re a hypocrite. 

“Yes, I’m not what I appear to be. I’m a sinner. I play roles. I have dark parts. I hold ideological paradoxes. I have a plank in my eye.”

I often wonder what our online communities would look like if, rather than spending so much effort policing hypocrisies, we spent that effort looking in the mirror, understanding another’s perspective, and finding common ground.

More empathy. Less town crier. 

Most people don’t care if you vote. They only care if you vote for their team.
Most people don’t care about free speech. They only care when their team is censored or when you say something they don’t like.
Most people don’t care about freedom. They only care if they feel less free.
Most people don’t care about your morality. They only care about enforcing their own morality.
Most people don’t care about illegal immigrants. They only care about what the issue of illegal immigrants represents.
Most people don’t care about criminals. They only care about what their team says about the criminal.
Most people don’t care about your bodily autonomy. They only care about their own body.
Most people don’t care about what you say. They only care about what they are trying to say.
Most people don’t care about you. They only care about what you think of them.

Whenever we’re looking for common ground, we must always remember what the other actually cares about.

We’re easily distracted by shiny objects.

Those shiny objects gain leverage if we put labels on them — safety, anti-vax, ableism, privilege, transphobia, etc.

But if we could look past our distractions for just a minute.

What happens if all public health policies start with a better food supply and more exercise?
What happens if all public education policies start with education?
What happens if all public community policies start with family?
What happens if all public law enforcement and prosecuting policies start with protecting victims?

The problem with shiny objects is that they distract us from real solutions.

I’m damn glad we didn’t have social media when I was 25.

I thought stupid things, said stupid things, and generally acted stupid. If I had a broadcast studio in my pocket then, as we do now, I’m sure I would have…well, let’s just leave it at “posted some things I now regret.”

And the internet never forgets.

What was wrong with me at 25? Nothing, really. I was a different person then, and we lived in a culturally different time. 

That’s what happens. We evolve, as does the culture, social norms, and zeitgeist. Our journey exposes us to new experiences, people, and ways of life. New technologies open previously unknown paths, and more data solidifies the picture. The zeitgeist shapeshifts like a cumulous cloud across a summer sky. 

Our thinking and feeling adjust accordingly.

Yet, we’re all too happy in our zeal to kick, cancel, or otherwise shame our rival to pull up an old post and publish with taglines such as, “This didn’t age well.”

When I see this, I can’t help but wonder about what hasn’t aged well in my own thinking.

I’m a good driver, but you wouldn’t agree. 

I know this because my family has complained that I’m a bad driver for years. I disagree, of course, because, well, I’m a good driver. 

My driving record agrees with me. Over 35 years of driving in all weather conditions and with hellish commutes, I have exactly one minor fender bender and a dead deer on my record.

“I’m the guy you want at the wheel. I’ll get you there safely and quickly.”

At the same time, I make passengers uncomfortable, fearful, and sometimes physically ill. Because I’m not a good driver. 

What we have here is a difference in our definitions of good based on our shared yet separate experiences. We both experience the same events, yet our perspectives on those events are vastly different.

Good to me (the driver) means that I’m good at the physical operation of the vehicle in all conditions and all situations. Like you would consider Mario Andretti a good driver. 

Good to you (the passenger) means how my driving makes you feel. How smooth is the ride? Are we getting too close? Do we stop late and accelerate aggressively?

Once we understand each other’s definition, two things can happen: 1) we can communicate from common ground, and 2) we can develop empathy through each other’s perspectives.

Since I’ve become aware, I’m much more attentive to how my passengers feel. I’ve changed my behavior as a driver.

Now, where else is this happening?

I recently melted down at a Chipotle. 

The reason? Expectations.

This got me thinking about expectations in all aspects of my life.

Twenty-five years ago, on that same stretch of route 81, I wouldn’t have found any place to eat or get gas. Now I come unglued if my culinary desires aren’t met or the gas station isn’t on the right side of the highway. 

Twenty years ago, I was overjoyed if an internet search found anything remotely close. Now I’m pissed if the search engine can’t reach into my brain and figure out what I really wanted from my disjointed and misspelled typing. 

Fifteen years ago, I was happy to send a cryptic text message on a flip phone with a 3×4 alphanumeric keypad. Now I’m annoyed if my iPhone can’t properly predict the tense of my next word.

Ten years ago, I was content using my mirrors to back up. Now I curse the universe if my vehicle has a poorly lit, non-HD camera that doesn’t show me the “stop here” graphics.

Five years ago, I understood that shipping was a line item in addition to the product cost. Now I’m switching to a new store if shipping isn’t “included.”

One year ago, I didn’t give much thought to turning on the lights with my hand. Now I’m confused when I can’t yell at Alexa to do it for me.

Beware of your expectations. They can screw with your humanity. 

We didn’t always distrust. 

We used to trust many of the institutions that mattered. Occasionally we’d be disappointed. Maybe our trust was a little misplaced, but by and large, most of the institutions were generally trustworthy. 

Except companies (for-profit or non-profit). Their thin veils have always poorly hidden true motives. But we’ve always known that.

What’s happened with the others?

Politicians. A politician’s purpose is to keep their party in power — to win. Always true, but never before was the denial of due process in question. 

Elite universities. What thinking person could trust statements such as “biological sex isn’t real” and “awarding poor grades is violence.”

Experts. Unfortunately, the broadcast studio in every scientist and doctor’s pocket incentivizes them to pick sides and weaponize their status. 

Media. This one hurts the most because, historically, the media was an effective equalizer among the power bases — the great revealer of what’s under the rug. But alas, the media can no longer serve the two masters of public good and profit. They’ve had to choose sides. 

So who can we trust?

The constitution. The stubborn and lethargic bureaucracy has proven its ability to thwart the individual or team that means it harm. 

AI? Maybe, but it’s too soon. 

Your circle. Look them in the eye. Touch their hand. Mean what you say. Listen to what they say. Lead with empathy. See them as the broken, beautiful, complex, nuanced human that they are. 

Steven Pressfield. The War of Art. Read it. Then read the rest of his series on Resistance. 

We’re all stuck. We’re all distracted. And we’re all 100% complicit in our own inertia.

And yet…

Resistance. The World and its tribes have aligned with Resistance to grease the skids and lay the soft pillow of inertia before you. 

The tribes define the labels. They use the labels to trick you into thinking it’s us (good) versus them (evil). Resistance amplifies.

The only path to true winning starts with the mirror and ends with a private insurrection. 

“As artists and professionals [and humans] it is our obligation to enact our own internal revolution, a private insurrection in our own skulls. In the uprising we free ourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture. We overthrow the programming of advertising, movies, video games, magazines, TV, and MTV by which we have been hypnotized from the cradle. We unplug ourselves from the grid by recognizing that we will never cure our restlessness by contributing our disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshit, Inc, but only by doing our work.”

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

The next time you look across the table or the Twitterverse at your (supposed) rival, remember that you have also contributed your fair share of disposable income to Bullshit, Inc. 

You’ve struggled. They’ve struggled. You’re actually on the same team. 

Now let’s align and defeat the true enemy. 

Apple’s tagline, coined in 1997 by its (supposed) rebel leader Steve Jobs, is “Think Different.”

Like all marketing taglines, it invokes an emotional response that helps you identify your tribe. And like all great taglines, it’s abstract enough that we can fit it into our personal worldview.

“I want to be different. I think of myself as different. These products are the flags that show the world that I’m different. I’m buying.”

Recently, Apple has made or at least threatened a couple of moves that seem hypocritical to the “Think Different” slogan. They’ve limited the use of AirDrop in China and threatened to drop Twitter from its platform. Although they’ve not released a formal statement as to the reasons, one can infer the following:

• They have limited AirDrop in China due to pressure/alignment with the Chinese government
• They have threatened to drop Twitter due to pressure/alignment with the political left

I often wonder how Steve Jobs would handle the current cultural climate. He loved to pit himself and his company against the establishment, but like many silicon valley moguls, he seemed a bit confused — a businessman with a Cali progressive twist. 

Both of these moves seem to go along with establishment thinking rather than thinking different. But is it hypocrisy?

Whenever we raise an eyebrow at a tribe that appears to be acting hypocritical, we must remember that their true ideology is gaining and maintaining power.

The rest is just a tagline. 

I’m an engineer. That’s both a vocation and a personality trait.

In college, engineering students are taught that engineering problems have a correct answer — a perfect solution, you might say. On a test, they usually do. But in real life, there are no perfect solutions.

Designing real-life solutions means compromise. We start with requirements, and then we negotiate amongst those requirements.

“Which of these are basic must-haves?”
“Which are the product differentiators?”
“Which are the nice-to-haves if possible?”
“Which can we push out to version 2.0 or 3.0?”

Almost by definition, all solutions will be imperfect. But we can build a great solution if even an imperfect one. To do so, we often strive for elegance.

Engineering elegance can manifest itself in a single line of code, a subroutine, or the interface between internet services. It can be found in the operation of a control circuit, a switching mechanism, or the load-bearing beam in a skyscraper. Elegance also shows up in the line of the fender, the sheen of the exposed pipe, or the lever’s feel in your hand.

Elegance is subjective, but you know it when you see it. Artists speak of it. So do mathematicians and physicists. Elegance usually marries function with aesthetics and has an economy to it.

Finding imperfect but elegant solutions through compromise and negotiation has taught me a great deal about people problems.

Useful solutions will, by definition, be imperfect, but that doesn’t mean we can’t strive for elegance.

If you’re starving and before you sit a plate of carrots and a bowl of razor blades, your choice is instinctual. 

What if, however, your choice was between peanut butter and vegemite? In this case, your choice depends on where and with whom you grew up.

Sometimes, basic human needs drive our choices. Other times they’re driven by desires. Desires are not instinctual, and our central nervous system isn’t going to weigh in on the matter. Therefore, we look outside of ourselves for a model to help us choose what’s worthy of our desire — mimetic desires. 

Our models could be another person, or it could be a tribe.

Mimetic desires lead to benign phenomena such as Christmas toy shortages, the rise and fall of Fireball whiskey, and every fashion trend since the beginning of time. 

But they’re also at the heart of many trends we may consider inherent within ourselves. 

Why does one choose to include pronouns in their profile?
Why does one choose to “buy American?”
Why does one resonate with the protestors in a clash with the police?
Why does one resonate with the police in that same clash?

If we’re not careful, we conflate mimetic desires with labels such as wokeist, nationalist, racist, or fascist. That’s our natural inclination to look at issues as a toggle switch, good vs. evil. 

But the path to a better world recognizes mimetic desires, understands the appeal of models, and respects (if not agrees with) another’s choices. 

Scarcity drives the cost and the status of many things.

For some things, this works. 

For example, take the Mona Lisa.  

Scarcity works here because who cares how much someone is willing to pay for it? The status it proffers on its owner is meaningless outside of a very small circle. Also, would it matter if a private collector, rather than a public art museum, owned and hid it from us? 

However, take an elite institution such as Harvard University.

If this is one of the best colleges on earth, shouldn’t they try to instruct more students, not less? Shouldn’t it be one of the most affordable rather than one of the least (EFC == 0 families aside)?

The problem with scarcity and status, like many things, is a matter of who benefits versus who suffers. If we want to move forward as a culture and a species, let’s stop using scarcity when it matters most.

Think about a moment, whether at work or home, when the chaos was invigorating. The chaos gave you energy, sharpened your senses, and made you happy.

You may have even said to yourself, “This is what its all about. I need more of this chaos in my life.”

Now think about a moment when the calm was invigorating. The calm recharged your batteries, allowed you to think, and made you happy.

You may have even said to yourself, “This is what its all about. I need more of this calm in my life.”

Sometimes I think we get so caught up wishing we had more that we miss the moment. We miss the opportunity before us.

What we really need is more presence and more gratitude in the moment.

I was probably a little unfair with my previous take on SBF and effective altruism. 

I said, “Effective altruists believe that making and then using gobs of money to influence the world is a noble goal as long as you’re very, very smart. “

OK, that’s the kind of hyperbolic leap I often rail against on The250. To be fair, effective altruism is a bit more nuanced. Specifically, it’s about using data rather than emotions to guide the charitable practice (i.e., the smart approach).

But that still misses the point. Altruism, charity, and giving is all about emotions. It’s 100% emotions. 

Effective altruism does exist, but it’s not a function of the smart people who think about it correctly. It doesn’t flow from data because that would require the assumption that an objectively correct vision for the world exists. 

Effective altruism flows from the giver. It’s about intention and the emotional investment of the giver. It’s about one person or group giving what they can out of love to help another person or group. 

It’s about the people who feel about it correctly.

Even if you don’t know anything about crypto, you’ve probably heard of Sam Bankman-Fried and the meltdown of his crypto exchange FTX.

You have plenty of opportunities to spend your outrage budget on what happened, crypto, greed, politics, political donations, mainstream media, and capitalism. 

But so far, I think we’re missing the real opportunity.

SBF (clearly, we’re all on an acronym-name basis with him, aren’t we?) has stated his purpose in getting wealthy as “effective altruism.” Effective altruists believe that making and then using gobs of money to influence the world is a noble goal as long as you’re very, very smart. 

This is utter bullshit.  

It’s one of the most pretentious, condescending, and narcissistic philosophies I could imagine. 

“I’m rich. Therefore, I’m smart. Therefore, I know best. Stand aside and watch me make this world a better place — the way I think it should be.”

Altruism, at its core, isn’t about outcomes or amounts. It’s also not about some objectively correct vision of the world. 

The real opportunity here is to shine a light on true effective altruism. 

Altruism is about the giver. It’s about you, your humanity, and how much you care about your fellow humans.

Have you seen the Progressive “what really happened?” replay commercials? Brilliant 30-second storytelling, and equally good at unveiling our lack of factual recall.

How many times would you have loved to throw the challenge flag in the middle of an argument and revisit the replay to prove how it actually happened (or, rather, your version of how it happened)? 

Certainly, the replay will match the story in your head, right?

Ah, but what would the replay show? What were the facts of the story? Who did what? What was the sequence? 

Many studies have concluded that we’re generally terrible at remembering factual details of past events. However, our brains are excellent at remembering how that event made us feel. Sometimes we’ll even distort the details to preserve or enhance the remembered emotions.

Hence, the intriguing carrot of the challenge flag and replay. Let’s set the record straight (and prove you wrong).

Revisionist history happens every day in all parts of our lives. We do it. Leadership does it. Tribes do it. Sometimes intentional (and malicious), but most often not. 

I often wonder how much more unity and progress we could generate if, rather than focusing on past facts, we led with the understanding that whatever those facts were, they generated the feelings that now exist.

You see, setting the record straight isn’t always about who’s right and who’s wrong, but why we feel the way we do. 

Kanye West is just the latest in a long line.

Before him came Kenneth Halliwell, Paul Gauguin, and Picasso. How about Louis CK, Dave Chappelle, and Bill Cosby? And depending upon your political lean, you might even raise an eyebrow at Kid Rock, Bruce Springsteen, Aaron Lewis, or Neil Young.

What if we expand the definition of “art” a bit?

What about Colin Kaepernick, Mike Vick, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, or Muhamed Ali?

What if we expand it a little further?

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, or Robert E Lee?

We could keep going and expanding the definition of art until we land right on your front doorstep.

Yes, you. And me.

Can we separate you and me from what it is we do? That’s a bit messy, isn’t it? Because we have some of us in all of our work. Of course, we do.

Take me, for instance. I work in the tech industry. I create biometric sensor software. One could plausibly say I’m part of the evil, anti-freedom, Big Brother empire. But am I?

If we canceled the work of every person who’s sinned, we’d be left with zero work, except that from a single human. 

The only way forward is to ask ourselves, “Is consuming, participating, or utilizing the same as condoning?”

Only you can decide for yourself. Don’t let the tribe do it for you. 

You have 86400 seconds each day.

Today. Tomorrow. The day after that.

You are free to decide how you’ll spend your emotions during those seconds. No tribe can tell you how to spend your emotions.

But they sure will try.

You are a free and sentient human being. Act like it.

Why does someone become a barista?

Maybe they love coffee and the atmosphere of the cafe.
Maybe they love people, especially coffee people.
Maybe they’re an artist.
Maybe it’s simply a job that they could get.

A good barista makes all the difference. Not just in the coffee itself but the whole experience.

We’re fortunate to live in a world that allows most to choose a path. This variety (dare I say diversity?) brings a richness to our lives that we can easily take for granted. We often assume that everyone should be like us, want the same things as us, or see the world the same as us.

Besides coffee, what other services and experiences in your life are enhanced by the physical proximity and personal touch of another human?

The barista has chosen this path. Let’s remember that it’s hard to do that work remotely.

I learned something today. I love days like that.

I always thought the day after Thanksgiving was called “Black Friday” because it was the day the retail world moved into the black — i.e., into profit. 

Wrong. Sort of.

The true history is much darker and more complex and has little to do with retailers’ profits. But, like many things in our collective and personal histories, revisionist history has taken over.

Yet another reminder that truth and reality are not always the same. 

Today in the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving. 

If I could point to one single thing, thought, or practice that has made the biggest impact on me personally, it would be intentional gratitude.

We all live somewhere on the spectrum of blessings, and our position changes day-to-day or even moment-to-moment. 

Your spectrum is relative to you only. It’s not objective, relative to your neighbor, nor relative to some rich and famous person. It’s all about you.

The World wishes to keep you to the left. It benefits from your fear, anger, and victimhood because those are the fuel that fires its engines. 

But moving yourself to the right on this spectrum is one of the keys to your personal happiness and success. And it’s simple (if not always easy). You move yourself to the right by engaging in regular intentional gratitude. Focusing on, thinking about, and feeling the blessings you have in your life life. 

The beauty of intentional gratitude is that it moves you towards your perfect life without having anything change externally. Nothing changes, yet everything changes. 

You want to make your community, nation, or this world a better place? Start with yourself and being grateful. That gratitude will flow outward and upward. 

Today’s the perfect day to start. 

When I was a kid, the grownups pined for the days of the Route 66 travel experience. The slower speeds with interesting sights. The small towns. The people you met along the way.

Heck, Disney made an entire movie about it. (One of my favorites, by the way). 

Gone are those days. Since President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, we have 46876 miles of interstates. High-speed, efficient, utilitarian rivers of concrete. Even nostalgia can’t compete with convenience.

But the interstates get a bad rap. Nostalgia aside, driving long distances, even at high speed on artless interstates, can still be one of the most human experiences of our time. 

That long drive (we’re talking 8, 10, 16 hours) necessarily traverses myriad lifestyles and perspectives in a way that the Route 66 approach never could. At least not in the same amount of time. Three hours at 75 mph can radically shift the geography, geology, and sociology of your experience. 

Even a quick stop for fuel at a large and polished gas station/made-to-order sandwich shop/luxury restroom exposes you to the other. Three hours later, that same franchise has a different feel, if not a different look.

Sure, maybe it’s subtle. Maybe you really have to pay attention. Maybe you have to look around the corner and in areas easily missed.  

Maybe I’m making it all up.

But isn’t that the foundation of perspective? How do I see it?

Today we stopped for lunch at a Chipotle in central Virginia. It was a disaster.

I knew it would be as we drove in because it was a brand-new store. I envisioned long lines, underprepared staff, and sparse or wonky ingredients.

The drive from eastern Pennsylvania to western North Carolina takes about 10 hours. That’s a long day, but we’ve done it many times. It has a rhythm, and it’s no big deal as long as we stick to that rhythm.

But not today. Today we were derailed by a Chipotle. I was right on all accounts, by the way. Not only did it take too long, but they didn’t have the vegetables or pico de gallo!

Oh, the horror!

I was so frustrated that I was simultaneously staring daggers into the staff and mansplaining to my wife about their obvious lack of ability. If only they would just listen to me!! (You’ve done this also, haven’t you?)

What the hell is wrong with me (and you, by extension)?

Expectations, of course.

Expectations of service.
Expectations of convenience.
Expectations of getting what I want (like a toddler).

Chipotle only has itself to blame. They fell prey to their own achievement. They’ve built such a ubiquitous and outstanding fast-casual eating system that we instantly experience discomfort when it’s out of whack.

So what was the problem again? Right, there wasn’t one. Unless you count the one in my own head.

You can eat nothing but Twinkies, but should you?
You can smoke two packs a day, but should you?
You can run ten miles a day, but should you?

It’s also…

You can vote for what benefits you most, but should you?
You can speak your mind, but should you?
You can donate to their cause, but should you?

It’s also…

You can use bots for sales calls, but should you?
You can advertise on a billboard, but should you?
You can impose a new fee on your customers, but should you?

It’s also…

You can buy out every last toilet paper roll from the store, but should you?
You can install an eight-foot fence around your entire property, but should you?
You can buy an EV, but should you?

Every day in our personal and professional lives, we face choices between what’s legal, available, or within our power and what’s right. The choice is difficult because we recognize the “right” choice is always subjective. 

When we’re on our game, we choose by using tools such as critical thinking, experiments, beliefs, and personal experience. 

But the easy path is a powerful force. The easy path is always what’s legal, available, or within our power. The easy path is usually defensible as well. 

Don’t get sucked in. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. 

You want to be on the hook. We need you on the hook.

Only those on the hook make a difference, make a change, and make an impact. 

And when a group of people on the hook come together, the sky is the limit. A group of people on the hook can create a life-saving C02 filter, a website platform for everyone, and the Bill of Rights.

Many people shun the hook.  

Let’s face it. It’s easy to pass on the hook. The World is full of people looking to avoid it or give it to someone else. They’re worried about the downside. The World sells downside.

It can go bad when you’re on the hook, and it might be your fault. Even if it isn’t your fault, you may take the fall. 

That’s the downside — this might not work, and you might suffer.  

That’s the ontology of the hook.

But what’s the alternative?

Someone needs to be on the hook, whether it’s your country, your church, your company, your over-40 hockey team, your kids, or the guy looking back at you in the mirror.  

Next time the hook comes around, grab it and get on it.

My wife and I have a little inside joke we use when one of us relates a story about someone unknown to the other, and that person’s age may be relevant.

It goes like this:

“If she hears the word “bizarre,” does she think strange or church bake sale?”

Because, of course, bizarre and bazaar sound the same when spoken. If you think church bake sale, you immediately give yourself away as “older.” 

The bizarre/bazaar homophone is an overt flag that helps us understand the person, their perspective, and the context of the conversation. 

If we pay attention, these little overt perspective flags fill our culture — tribe affiliation, bumper stickers, masks, hairstyle, clothing, car, yard signs, social media posts, music, etc.

We explicitly, if not always purposefully, use each of these flags to identify and communicate something about ourselves and our perspective. 

But what about the hidden flags? What parts of our perspective do you and I try to keep hidden or maybe only show in specific company? 

It may be harder to discern another’s hidden perspective flags, but it’s worth the effort. Because if you and I have these hidden parts, so does everyone.

The person standing at the front of the room has the power.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. This model provides plenty of efficiencies for the collective in the room — information dissemination, entertainment, teaching, legal judgment, etc.

But the only reason that person has the power is the people sitting in the rows agreed to relinquish it. If you wanted to, you could instantly arrest that power.

It’s just a decision to disagree.

Simple pleasures is a cliche. A nostalgic throwback reserved for the get-off-my-lawn generation. 

What kid wants to play with sticks and leaves if they have an iPad? Physically going to the store? How quaint. Why would we play a board game when we have access to MOMGs?

Every once in a while, if you’re lucky enough to be present and paying attention, a simple pleasure will strike deep within your soul and burn itself into the zeitgeist of your being.

And it makes you a better version of yourself. 

It’s easier to google it, but is it better?
It’s easier to order Door Dash, but is it better?
It’s easier to vote straight-ticket, but is it better?
It’s easier to stick with your current job, but is it better?

Often it is both. That’s a win. With the thousands of choices we make every day, we must outsource to easier in most cases. Our energy budget requires it.

Sometimes, however, the path that takes more time, effort, or emotional risk pays off in spades. The stories from your personal journey that you remember and shape who you are today rarely include the easier path.

Sometimes harder is better. The key is to spend your limited energy budget on those times.

The planet just crossed 8 billion.

I was born in 1969, so I’ve been alive for all of the billion milestones since we crossed 4 billion in 1974. In my time here, our population has doubled.

I can’t help but think about the wide range of differing views on childbearing we encounter today. Some believe that procreation is our fundamental human purpose and the ultimate gift. Others believe that having kids today is irresponsible, and how dare we. Some don’t give it much thought at all. Still, others would sacrifice anything to participate. 

With 8 billion people come 8 billion opinions. Diversity is a gift. Creative tension is inevitable. Discourse is helpful. 

To filter and make sense of those 8 billion opinions, we find our tribe and use labels. However, let’s not waste the gift of 8 billion humans by allowing the tribes to set the agenda and define the labels. 

Wherever you find yourself today, thank a fellow human. Because without the two that came before you, there would be no you.

Our youngest son recently registered his summer landscaping business as a Limited Liability Corporation. The process is simple and, dare I say, convenient — a couple of clicks, electronically pay a fee of $125 with your credit card, done. 

It took us about 20 minutes on Sunday at 7:30 am.

Then we tried to register an EIN number. Stymied. One can only submit the internet EIN application on a weekday during normal business hours.

The travesty! How inconvenient!

Isn’t the internet 24x7x365?

Life today is more convenient than it was ten years ago. Life ten years ago was more convenient than life 50 years ago. And so on.

Many of the largest companies are built around convenience.  
Whole industries exist to provide convenience. 
Some of the biggest technological advances are fundamentally about convenience.

But…

Convenience can skew perspective.
Convenience can foster entitlement.
Convenience can serve as a proxy for choice. 
Convenience can disconnect us from each other.
Convenience can disconnect us from our basic human-ness.

Convenience makes life existentially better, but let’s not forget the price.

Skilled plumbers don’t consider handy homeowners with a workshop full of tools a threat.
Skilled baristas don’t consider home espresso machines a threat.
Skilled software developers don’t consider offshoring a threat.
Skilled surgeons don’t consider machine-learning robots a threat.
Skilled artists don’t consider Fiverr a threat. 
Skilled teachers don’t consider Udemy a threat.

Technology, cheaper labor, and democratized platforms do and will continue to affect job market dynamics. 

There is, however, a path to bulletproof yourself. That path travels through “skilled.”

So what does skilled mean?

It means “good at what you do,” yes, but it also means adaptable, unique, proactive, responsible, caring, curious, current, and willing.

Are you willing to jump down out of the stands and get into the ring with the bull?

You control your level of skill. 

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

Matthew 5:7

When you have the upper hand, you have a choice. You can show mercy or not.

If you choose not to, you may be “right,” and no one may blame you. The law may be on your side. The smart people may be on your side. The tribe may be on your side.

Choosing mercy brings risk. It exposes you to emotional danger. It might come back to bite you. It might not work.

But when have you been shown mercy? How did it make you feel? How did it work out for you?

Isn’t that a tradeoff worth making?

I received a compelling advertisement for a new internet service provider, which almost worked. But alas, it failed in step 2 because the friction was too much to overcome. 

I don’t need a new ISP, nor was I actively looking for one. But the advertisement offered more at a much better price. Eyebrow raised.

Step 1 check — advertisement compelling enough to overcome the friction of entertaining a change.

So I called the number provided. Step 2 engaged.

“I’m not interested in the $9/month equipment rental fee. I will provide my own. Can you confirm for me what I need?”

“Oh, sir, we don’t recommend that approach.”

“Is it possible?”

“Yes. You will need to do your own research.”

“OK. Now I want to confirm the details of the offer. My ad says 500 Mbps at an introductory price of $39.99 per month.”

“Hmmm…I’m showing that the cheapest offer to your address is 100 Mbps for $54.99 per month.”

“Can you tell me what is the price of 500 Mbps?”

“I show that as $44.99 per month.”

“OK, thanks for your time. We’re done here.”

Unfortunately, they never got a chance to delight (or annoy) me in step 3 — installation. I was primed and ready to change, but the friction became too much to overcome.  

If you’re trying to compel change, whether a service, habit, or belief, make sure all steps of your process focus on overcoming friction. 

I suspect some people are exhausted.

The World provides almost infinite channels to source and vent your outrage. You can consume and generate outrage from the moment you open your eyes till the moment you close them again. 

Like your checking account, your outrage budget is finite and limited. Unlike your checking account, you have no overdraft protection. 

You have principles, things you care deeply about, and people you love. Spending your limited outrage budget defending these is a righteous investment. You’ll never overdraft that budget if you’re the one deciding how to spend it. 

The tribes, however, require your outrage. Your outrage is the energy that allows them to gain power, grow, and keep power — and that’s all they care about. The tribe doesn’t care about your principles, the things you care deeply about, or the people you love. They care about their own power. 

They use emotionally charged terminology such as anti-democratic and anti-free speech to ignite your outrage. Once you’ve lost control of your own outrage budget, overdrafting is all but assured. 

Just make sure that you know who is setting the agenda for your outrage. Is it you, or is it a tribe?

A popular mantra in the personal development world is “Fail Forward.”

Basically, it means to experiment your way to success. With a proper mindset, one can use failure as a tool, like any other tool, and learning how to use it will help you be successful. 

“Ok, I was wrong here. I’ll analyze that to find out why and what I’ll do differently next time.”

Being wrong is also valuable for scientists and engineers. Start with a hypothesis or a design and start experimenting. Modify accordingly through the process — the scientific method in practice. 

“Ah, I see. I was wrong here. Here’s what I’ll change and try again.”

Being wrong is a gift as long as the person a) admits it and b) is willing to change accordingly. 

Can we apply this same theory of being wrong at the institutional, community, and political levels and enjoy the same benefits?

What if, rather than entrenching in either side’s ideological outrage, we admit where we were wrong, admit what we still don’t know, and modify accordingly? 

Doing so will take less outrage, more empathy, and the courage to expose oneself to emotional danger (willing to admit it and willing to change accordingly).

Let’s not waste the gift of being wrong. 

You will piss someone off…

If you put yourself on the hook. 
If you speak up.
If you make a decision.
If you create something.
If you try something that might not work.

It’s not a question of whether you will piss someone off. Someone will always be pissed off. 

The question is who?

One aspect of freedom is that we can choose who it’s for — our voice, our creation, our intention. Sometimes that’s a hard, fuzzy, or implicit decision. 

But you can easily eliminate one entire group: the spectators. It’s never for the spectators. It’s only ever for those in the ring with the bull, like you. 

When you’re struggling with having upset someone, first decide if they’re a spectator or down in the ring with you. 

I’m normally reasonably proud of where I live.

Not right now. Because right now, I live in a clown state.

Here’s what I get: “What is the deal with Oz and Fetterman? And that Mastriano…Is this the best we can do?” And those words are usually accompanied by appropriately astonished or exasperated body language.

Those of us who live here have the same comments and discussions. Each conversation ended with a slight head shake and baffled look.

Both sides, by the way. Reasonable, thinking, caring people from both sides.

How does this happen?

We allow the teams to set the narrative.
The narrative is always good versus evil.
We vote for the team rather than the person.

Where’s the ringmaster? Send in the clowns.

In eastern Pennsylvania, we’re currently in my favorite season.

For about two weeks each year, my lunchtime outdoor workouts are awash in the multitude of autumn colors. The surrounding hills are dominated by yellow but with just enough orange and red to stand out spectacularly. The air is crisp, but the sun is warm.

It’s coming, though.

Soon the hills will be a dreary brown, the air cold and heavy, and the sun will have lost its warming touch.

Winter is coming.

Mercifully, in a few months, the brown gives way to green, the air lightens, and the sun once again warms the skin. The dreary winter is over, and spring has begun.

One of the best things about eastern Pennsylvania is we can count on all four seasons. Although the timing and intensity may vary slightly from year to year, the arc of each is generally the same. Whichever is your favorite, you’ll get enough of it. Whichever is your least favorite, you’ll get enough of that, also.

These seasons are a metaphor for the seasons in our lives. Maybe they’re not as regular, or one outlasts another, but we’re constantly moving through one to another. However, unlike the earth’s seasons, our personal seasons are internal, intimate, and hidden. One cannot look at another and know their season.

The next time the person across the table makes you angry, confused, or hurt, start by trying to understand their season. Do the same when you look in the mirror.

Christian with MAGA.
Muslim with terrorist.
Democrat with socialist.
Republican with fascist.
Rich with selfish.
Poor with entitled.
Rural with dumb.
City with weak.

We like to label, generalize, and categorize. It helps us make sense of our world. 

It also helps us find our people. Since our people are smart, good, and right, those others must be dumb, bad, and wrong. 

But then The World slides in and conflates the labels. 

A mile from our house is a stoplight at the corner of two country roads. It works strictly on a time-based cycle, 24×7. No controlling sensors.

During the day, it’s no big deal because the intersection sees enough traffic that the cycle doesn’t feel off.  

However, it’s maddening late at night. 

Last night we came home late (for us). As we approached, the green turned yellow and then red. For no reason! Ours was the only car around for miles.

What would you do?

Here’s what I did and what I always do at this intersection late at night: First, I cursed to let the universe know what I thought of this travesty. Then, I stopped, looked both ways, and blew through the light. 

Maybe your parents, like mine, instilled the sense of doing the right thing, even when nobody is watching. We’ve worked to instill this in our kids as well. It’s biblical. 

But what is the right thing?

One way to look at it is that the law says you gotta stop and wait. So do it. Black and white. 

Another way is to look at the intention. The purpose of this law is to regulate the flow of traffic safely. If no traffic exists to regulate, no traffic regulator is necessary.

Now think through this again, but replace “stoplight laws” with any other law. The letter of the law is important, but so is intention. 

Another mega-inspiration behind The250 is Bari Weiss’s Common Sense newsletter and her companion podcast Honestly. Want some plain-ole clear thinking and honest questions about what’s happening in the world today? That’s your place. 

By far, the most entertaining output from Common Sense is each Friday’s TGIF, written by Bari’s wife, Nellie Bowles. 

As I’ve stated before, the purpose of The250 is to encourage empathy through opening new perspectives. I don’t do much overt call-to-action because the whole point is that most of our lives are complex and nuanced.

Except “Turn off the news!!” I am unabashed with that one.

In a recent edition, Nellie published real-world data to fuel the fire of my campaign slogan, “Turn off the news!!”

Here’re some graphs that show the emotional trends of news headlines from 2000 until now. Note the full spectrum of news sources as part of the data.

As I suspected.

I will point out one issue, however: the Y-Axis scales on each chart are not the same (as I’ve pointed out with the red boxes). This is the kind of misinformation trickery that sides use to magnify and hyperbolize their point. It has happened here, but the overall results are not skewed.

Do note that the downward trend of “joy” and “neutral” would not appear as drastic as shown if the scales were identical.  

Regardless, turn off the news. 

You know it’s coming, and you can’t stop it.

Of course, you’re not looking forward to it, but it’s more than an abstract discomfort because you’ve been here before. You’ve already walked this road. You’ve been to this destination. You know how this ends.

And it sucks. Deeply and truly.

On these days, how do you show up in the world?

Do you push it behind a facade or wear your heart on your sleeve? Are you able to function normally? Do you appear largely unaffected but in moments of weakness, the emotions escape (and the regrets pile up)? Do you play the victim, or do you victimize?

Luckily, we don’t experience the existential threat of impending doom every day. The doom moments come and go like seasons.

When you look across the table, aisle, or office, it’s worth considering what season your fellow humans might be experiencing.

Consensus is the best approach for many decisions.

How will we govern ourselves?
What are our rules of engagement?
How do we want to spend our resources?
What is the wording we should use in our statement of faith?

Consensus is malleable, adaptable, and follows directly from the group’s constituents — we agree to this at this point in time (even if we don’t all like it). The makeup of the group matters. The moment in time matters.

But consensus does not equate to truth.

Truth is immutable. Hard to come by, hard to understand, hard to hear (sometimes). Truth is not subject to any constituents. One hundred percent of a group may agree to a “truth,” and they all might be wrong.

The truth can easily make us uncomfortable. Therefore, we lay our heads on the soft pillow of consensus. Unfortunately, that pillow isn’t always so soft.

If you arrest an immigrant drug dealer, our consensus is you’re a racist.
If you’ve had an abortion, our consensus is you’re going to hell.
If you do not market the narrative, our consensus is you’re knowingly promoting disinformation.

These statements may be true, but what makes them true is not consensus.

Groups are constantly conflating truth and consensus through black-and-white assertions. Doing so gives them power and helps their members feel smart, right, and comfortable.

But you’re smarter than that.